Mayoiga revolves around 30 individuals who decided to join the tour toward the lost village named Nanakimura. Each of them with their own reasons, they dreamed a life far away from the noisy downtown and daily struggles. Yet, Nanakimura is hard to be found, and when they manage to reach it, it is uninhabited, but with lingering traces of life. What happened to those who lived in the lost village? And what will happen to the newly-arrived villagers?

Even though Mayoiga lacks bloody, and gore scenes, its atmosphere can really strike fear into the viewers. Basically, each of the 30 people who decided to leave their previous lives behind, in order to start a new one, are forced to face what they decided to avoid instead – their problems, their fears, their inner demons – with a very twisted method. A very great survival show, all the more if you like to speculate while watching.

Another revolves around a high school boy named Kouichi Sakakibara, who moves from Tokyo to Yomiyama to live with his grandparents. Because of health problem, Kouichi misses the first three weeks of school, and in the hospital he meets Misaki, a strange girl with an eye patch. When he starts attending lessons, Kouichi soon realizes that Misaki is one of his classmates. The strange thing, though, is that nobody seems to be able to see her, and whenever he asks the other classmates about Misaki, no one seems to know her. Not knowing exactly what's going on, Kouichi decides to get closer to Misaki, hoping to discover the truth.

Another is a horror anime keeping the viewers glued to the screen, as Kouichi's investigations become the viewers investigations. This show has a rapid pace, and it's impossible to not perceive the anguish all the characters feel, while they fear to be the next target of a strange curse leading to tragic deaths. In Another, the feeling of despair and helplessness is tangible, and it's what makes the viewers grow fond of every character.

Yoshino Takigawa and Mahiro Fuwa are best friends. Mahiro has a little foster sister, Aika, and she dates Yoshino, keeping it a secret from Mahiro. One day, Mahiro goes back home to find Aika in a pool of blood. Shocked, he swears he will find the one who killed her, and act consequently. One month goes by, and when a strange girl is about to shoot Yoshino, Mahiro reappears and saves him at the very nick of time. Eventually, he explains what he intends to do, and what is about to happen in that world on the verge of chaos; Yoshino decides to join him.

In Zetsuen no Tempest we have two sides fighting for what they believe it's right. Two parties struggle, and it's very hard to discern the right from the wrong. Consequently, our protagonists are torn: in a world on the verge of chaos, Mahiro and Yoshino try to change the outcome while looking for answers about Aika's death. This is a non-conventional show, that went a bit unnoticed, in which aside from the action, it's the dialogue that keep the viewers glued to the screen. Forget gore, and horror; Zetsuen no Tempest will give you new ways to enjoy a survival anime!

This story takes place in Japan 1000 years from here, and revolves around five children: Saki, Satoru, Shun, Maria and Mamoru. They grow up in a quiet village that is like a utopia, full of vegetation, clear water, and breathtaking views. The utopia they live in though, comes crashing down, unveiling a sad truth. In fact, the five kids discover about the sudden outbreak of the psychokinesis that can make people become violent and destructive, and a real danger for other people's lives. Not only that, they will eventually discover what brought mankind to that point. Trying to save their friends from a world on the verge of the downfall, these five kids begin their journey!

As a survival anime, Shinsekai Yori can come across as a bit slow-paced in the beginning. When you get to the heart of the story, though, the events will keep you on the edge of your seats. Five kids discover a shocking truth, and one after the other they get affected by the discovery. Desperately trying to change the outcome of an impossible situation, an escalation of events will unveil an even worse background. Join the journey of these five kids, and beware: you'll remain as open-mouthed as the characters!

The class 3-E has a new way of saying “good morning” to the teacher. In fact, each student does it by trying to kill him in every possible way imaginable. Class 3-E's teacher is Koro-sensei, and he is really out of the ordinary: he is an octopus, responsible for the destruction of the moon. Besides, what he tries to instruct to his students in is the way to kill him, within one year. If they don't accomplish it, he promises he will destroy the Earth.

Ansatsu Kyoushitsu, with its comedy part, may not look as a good fit for a survival anime. We think otherwise, though. Because putting aside the gags, we have a group of middle school students threatened by their teacher who will destroy the Earth if they should fail. Together, they have to adapt to the new situation, and learn how to kill Koro-sensei – which seems an impossible task. So, if you want a more lighthearted show, which can make you stick to the screen just like any other survival anime, Ansatsu Kyoushitsu is your cup of tea!

After a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility in Japan, all what remains is the word “VON”, written in red. The police are trying to find the culprits, but it seems an impossible task to track down who is behind the attack. Six months after the event, two teenage boys calling themselves Sphinx upload a video on the internet, challenging the police: they promise to destroy Tokyo, sew chaos, and mayhem. While in the beginning it all looks like some kind of sick joke, Sphinx aren't joking at all. This is how the terror begins, and the epilogue will be devastating!

Zankyou no Terror is a different kind of survival anime. In fact, the two protagonists don't have to fight against monster, nor they have to struggle to survive in a difficult environment. Sphinx are just two teenagers, one on the polar opposite to the other, seeking revenge for what's been done to them. So, basically, the situation here is reverted, as the ones sowing chaos, the “bad ones” are the protagonists. But it's teenagers we're talking about, and Zankyou no Terror teaches an important lesson: what goes around comes around. So, we're sorry to inform you that you should prepare tissues, as the chances that you'll shed tears in the end are very high.

Yukiteru's life suddenly changes the day he meets the Lord of Time and Space – Deus Ex Machina – changing Yukiteru's phone into a future diary. Right after, he learns how there are other people who possess a future diary and all of them will have to join a game where the winner will take Deus Ex Machina's place. But the game is one bloody contest: the twelve contestants will have to try to kill each other. Yukiteru will have a companion that will do her best to protect and save Yukiteru in the name of love – Yuno Gasai – who is a contestant as well. But does Yuno actually have noble intentions, or dies she hide a secret, instead?

Mirai Nikki is very popular among the survival anime out there. With its main concept very similar to the famous Battle Royale, and a protagonist who is a weakling unable to stand on his own feet, Mirai Nikki is absolutely intriguing. Expect bloody scenes, murders, epic fights among the contestants, and beware of the most charming yandere girl you'll ever meet: Yuno Gasai.

Makoto Naegi won a lottery as the “Ultimate Lucky Student”, gaining the chance to attend Hope's Peak Academy. This high school only accepts elite students who receive a title describing their own talents and skills after being enrolled. Makoto Naegi, though, is just an ordinary boy who won that title by chance, so he is overly happy to have the chance for a bright future. The moment he steps into the Academy, he faints and, waking up, he realizes that he is trapped into the school, with no way out. Monokuma – the school president in the form of a little bear – makes an announcement to the 15 students: they will be able to graduate only if they manage to kill one of their classmates, without being discovered!

Well, if the idea of being trapped in a school, with a scary teddy bear as the school president, and the premises that graduation means killing someone without being discovered wasn't enough, there's another treat. Being discovered after killing someone means automatic death for the culprit. Feel for yourself the despair, and the fear Makoto Naegi and the other students will go through! As a survival anime, Danganronpa wields a strong plot and a lot of mysteries that will stick you to the screen from beginning to end.

Shingeki no Kyoujin revolves around titans trying to eat human beings out of mere pleasure, and the remnants of humanity trying to fight them, or at least, trying to make sense of the situation. Our protagonist is Eren Yeager who, after his mother was devoured by a titan, decided to enlist into the Survey Corps – an elite military unit – in order to fight against the titans outside the walls, trying to get some sort of revenge.

Shingeki no Kyoujin is the most unpredictable survival anime of this list; in fact, while watching it, you cannot predict who's going to die, how, or when, and many deaths will be totally unfair, merciless, and heartbreaking. Once you understand you cannot grow fond of any character, you'll begin to feel the same anxiety the characters feel, and in many occasions, you'll be left open-mouthed. Shingeki no Kyoujin is a must-watch among the survival anime!

Let's end this ranking with Gantz, that revolves around Kei Kurono, who is your typical Japanese high school boy bored with life and cynical to no end. One day, coming back from school, due to some very cruel circumstances, he dies with his childhood friend – Masaru Katou – by being run over by a train, while they were trying to save a homeless person fallen on the rail. After dying, though, Kei and Katou wake up in a room with no way out, and only a black ball that shouts orders. Together with other dead people, Kei begins a deadly game, fighting against aliens with the possibility to have his life back as a reward.

Gantz is cruel, grotesque, and gory, but it is more than the mere splattering of blood, more than death, and violence. It is a mirror reflecting the ugliness of the society, and depicting the faults and unsightliness of the human nature in the cruelest way. In short, this survival show is not for the weak of heart; it wields a claustrophobic feeling that there won't be light at the end of the tunnel. Pick it up only if you are ready to face all this!

Yes, Devil Survivor 2 The Animation is based off of a video game, but that doesn’t change its compelling story and execution. When a group called the Septentriones begins to invade Japan, some heroes decide to step up and defend their country. They sign a deal with the devil, turning them into the Thirteen Devil Messengers. The group sets out to drive back the Septentriones, who appear once a day. However, there is a catch – the Septentriones must be defeated before seven days are up.

This anime is a classic example of the type of fight-to-survive anime that usually make up this list. However, it is placed on the lower end because it includes many cliché plot points. And being a videogame adaptation, it has very little depth beyond what is included in the game. Yet, this does not diminish this adaptation too much – the fight sequences are still exciting, and the basic theme of the video game continues on strongly throughout the animation. It is a shorter anime, and a good introduction to what you can expect from the video game. The despair of being caught in a hopeless fight still comes across well, and the survival aspect is particularly enticing when you pair it with the original gameplay aspect.

Shiki, an adaptation of a horror novel, is the story of how two young men must try to solve the mystery behind a sudden epidemic turning the small town of Sotoba into a nest of vampires. After the abrupt demise of young Megumi Shimizu, antisocial Natsuno Yuuki must overcome his own pain in order to help in the greater danger occurring in Sotoba. Meanwhile, Toshio Ozaki, a young doctor, starts to doubt the disease that killed Megumi is as simple as it seems. While this anime may seem like a simple story of vampires vs. humanity, the lines begin to blur between good and evil – what is the meaning of a monster?

Shiki is one of the better survival anime out there. It shows a deeper side to the genre, giving the viewer more questions to ponder than just, “Will the characters make it out alive?” And while it does have some of the qualities needed for survival anime, its air of mystery and psychological thinking outweighs some of the hopeless feelings one might get from a different anime in the genre. But if you are a fan of vampires or mystery, Shiki is a must-watch!

While Owari no Seraph is a relatively new anime, it still packs quite an emotional punch! When an unknown virus suddenly starts killing off everyone above the age of 13, vampires seize their chance to enslave humanity. Yuuchirou and Mikaela Hyakuya are among the survivors taken to the vampires’ encampment, along with the other children from their orphanage. When the makeshift family tries to escape, Yuuchirou alone makes it out alive. Hell-bent on avenging his loss, Yuuchirou joins in humanity’s fight and enrolls in the Japanese Imperial Demon Army. Yuuchirou starts to make friends and earns his own demon weapon, but everything is not as it seems. What will Yuuchirou and his friends discover as they defend their freedom?

The second anime about vampires on our list, Owari no Seraph is more than just an epic shounen. Each episode takes you deeper into the mystery of the virus’ spread until you find yourself asking who the real monsters are (similar to Shiki). The difference in Owari no Seraph is the powerless emotions the characters experience. Not only do Yuuchirou and his friends have to deal with an unusual virus, but they must also struggle against the vampires, the demons contained in their weapons, and the angelic race out to destroy humanity. With so much the group has to face off against, it’s a wonder they are able to survive at all!

A twisted magical girl anime, Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku tells the story of Koyuki Himekawa, a girl who plays a social role-playing game called the Magical Girl Raising Project. When Koyuki is selected by the admins to become a real-life magical girl, she is thrilled to transform into her in-game character, Snow White. The admins eventually decide to cut down on the number of magical girls they’ve selected, and the girls are told that those with the least amount of rewards will lose their powers. But when something mysterious happens to the first loser, Koyuki and her friends begin to discover that this game they’re playing is more serious and deadly than they’d ever imagined. Is being a magical girl even worth it?

The Magical Girl Raising Project quickly transforms into a sort of death game for the participants. Sure, this anime has all the makings of a good magical girl anime – but it also includes much of the despair and helplessness in a good survival anime as well! One flaw of this anime is that it contains a lot of characters, and not a lot of episodes. The impact of each character’s loss is diminished because there are so many at first. However, the later episodes really start to pick up as fewer girls are available to play this “death game.”

We know what you’re thinking – another magical girl anime makes the list for top survival anime? Just hear us out on this one. Yuuna Yuuki wants badly to be a hero, so much so that she spends each day after school helping other people out! She and her best friend Mimori Tougou, along with Fuu and Itsuki Inubozaki, make up the Hero Club. One day, the club members discover that an app on their phones is calling them to actually become heroes and defend their world from monstrosities known as Vertexes. To battle the Vertexes, they must become magical girls! But will the Hero Club be able to keep fighting when they discover the truth behind their powers?

This anime grows on you over time. From the beginning, it seems like a simple series focused on some magical girls who also have school activities, but it quickly gets much darker than that. Yuuna and her friends must struggle through their battles with the Vertexes as they slowly lose pieces of themselves, and this adds a level of despair to their situation. As you watch, the girls lose all hope – they feel they cannot change their situation in any way, and that they truly have no choice but to continue. Viewers grow to care about each character in turn, wanting them to survive through the horror they must go through. Basically, we can’t say much more without giving away the whole series – just go watch it for yourself!

This anime follows a group of girls who are all part of the same club at Megurigaoka Private School, called the School Living Club. Carefree Yuki Takeya is the most enthusiastic of the club members, who include club president Yuuri Wakasa, athlete Kurumi Ebisuzawa, the serious Miki Naoki, supervisor Megumi Sakura and the club dog Taroumaru. The club spends their days in the school doing anything to ignore the reality of the world around them. The truth? The members of the School Living Club have barricaded themselves inside the school to protect themselves from the outside world. The other girls struggle to not only survive the danger, but also to keep up false appearances for Yuki, who is living in her own carefree world.

Gakkougurashi! is one of the most surprising anime, where almost every episode shows its audience a surface level plot, all while disguising the real situation underneath. While the characters continue to hide the truth from Yuki, they also hide the truth from the viewer. Survival for these girls means the ability to continue their pretense – protecting themselves both physically and mentally. They are feeling so powerless in their situation that they must pretend to be a part of something else to get by. The drama of their situation is thrilling, and the characters really come to grow on you by the end of the series.

The undead are rising, in horrific forms known as Kabane. Zombie-like in nature, the only way to destroy these Kabane is to strike them through their steel-covered hearts. A servicer for the trains which connect human civilizations, Ikoma is eager to fight these monsters, as he has been perfecting a weapon to better end the Kabane for years. However, his chance will come sooner than he expects, when the safe fortress that is his home falls under attack!

While the series takes a similar approach to many other zombie-apocalypse tropes, it has its own flair in the steampunk elements strewn throughout. On the other hand, the more cliché elements still have a strong effect on its despairing feeling. The Kabane are familiar as horrific monsters in many of their qualities, and their steel-caged hearts represent an added challenge for humanity to overcome. If there is any way that Ikoma and his comrades can win the war against the Kabane, it is impossible to see, as more and more problems continue to plague their travels.

Class 3-3 at Yomiyama North Middle School has been shrouded in mystery since 1972, when a popular student named Misaki died during the school term. Flash forward 26 years later – transfer student Kouichi Sakakibara joins class 3-3 and is concerned by the dreary atmosphere hovering over his classmates. But no one will tell him anything! To make matters worse, there seems to be a girl in the class that only he acknowledges. Mei Misaki wears an eyepatch and doesn’t say much, but Kouichi is determined to learn the truth about her, and about the unfortunate curse on class 3-3.

Another is a perfect example of the typical horror anime, and is very well done, keeping the audience in suspense throughout the episodes. Kouichi’s determination in discovering the truth is the same response viewers have as they watch the series. Not only that, but Another is also a great survival anime. No one is safe from the curse on class 3-3! It’s almost best not to get attached to characters, as many of them will not make it through the school year. And as the students are fighting off a supernatural curse, it heightens the feeling of danger and helplessness – an intangible curse is not easy to fight.

Shingeki no Kyojin is all about survival, as mankind is forced to live behind walls to avoid facing the giant Titans, large humanoids whose whole purpose seems to be eating people. But when a Colossal Titan breaks a hole in the wall, chaos ensues! Young Eren Yeager is forced to flee as he watches his mother being eaten by a Titan. From that moment on, Eren vows to kill every last Titan. Together with his friends Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert, Eren joins the military and enlists in the Survey Corps, where he can put his anger to good use on the front lines against the Titans.

As this series progresses, the desperation of the characters becomes more and more apparent. Eren and his squad-mates appear to be optimistic about their chances when they first join the Survey Corps, but as they lose more people and discover unnerving things about themselves and the world around them, they start to lose hope. Although this anime was already included in the previous list for top survival anime, we felt it should be included again. Shingeki no Kyojin is really one of the best anime out there, particularly in the survival genre. And with the recent release of the second season, people all around the world are being reminded of how interesting this show really is!

Mirai Onozawa, a middle school student who is unhappy with her life, brings her younger brother Yuuki to Odaiba during summer vacation. Yuuki is fascinated with robots and wants to go visit the robot exhibit there, so Mirai reluctantly takes him. But when a massive earthquake rocks the city, the two kids are trapped in Odaiba, uncertain about how or when they will be able to get home. Luckily, they meet Mari Kusakabe, a kind woman who decides to help Mirai and Yuuki. Together, they will try to find a way home as the disaster continues to paralyze the vast city.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is not your typical survival anime. The characters don’t have to fight any monstrous beings or compete against one another to survive a challenge. This series has much more reality to it, and that makes it frightening. Mirai and Yuuki are both quite young, and they struggle to make it back home through the devastated Tokyo landscape. The story is both heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once – a masterfully done anime. That is why we ranked Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 at the number one spot on our list! It connects deeply with its audience, because they recognize that this survival situation is one that could be very real, and very scary, at any time.