9 Best Shonen Anime Of All Time According To ScreenRant Readers

Published Oct 16, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT

Since graduating from The Los Angeles Film School, Jason has worked as an editor for the local news, as well as a producer of several short films and podcasts. His extensive knowledge of film production and narrative storytelling has enabled him to travel the world, writing about the projects he is passionate about in the realms of film, anime, and gaming.
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Many of the world's most popular anime belong to the exciting shōnen category, and ScreenRant readers recently voted on which is the best of all time, and the results might surprise you. Shōnen anime has become a staple in pop culture thanks to its distribution to parts of the world that ate it up and inspired countless viewers in many ways. And it's helped create an entertainment format that's been wildly successful for decades.

Most manga and anime can be organized into four separate categories: shojo, seinen, josei, and shōnen. Each represents a specific audience demographic a story aims to attract, and each typically features characteristics that place a series in one of those categories. While many of the greatest stories find ways to combine genres to defy expectations, shōnen has grown so popular that even the most resistant anime watcher should be able to find at least one series that will bring them some joy.

Most shōnen stories involve action and adventure featuring a main character who is an outsider with a special type of skill that they develop over time to eventually become the best around. They often have an anime rival that evolves at a similar pace and an overbearing society or organization that fuels the story's conflict. Shonen is typically created for the young male demographic, but its stories often contain valuable life lessons and inspiration for all types of folk, and some do it better than others.

9 My Hero Academia

Poll Results: 1.0% Of Voters Think My Hero Academia Is The Best Shōnen Anime

The story of how Izuku Midoriya became the world's greatest hero took the world by storm with its incredible anime adaptation from Studio Bones. Kōhei Horikoshi's fascinating world filled with increasingly complex superpowered quirks helped fuel many of the series' flashiest and most nail-biting battles that explore what it really means to be a hero in an imperfect society. While the entire series had a hard time maintaining the momentum its first couple of seasons delivered, I can confidently say its final few seasons more than made up for the middle slouch.

8 Demon Slayer

Poll Results: 2.1% Of Voters Think Demon Slayer Is The Best Shōnen Anime

The direction and visual quality of Ufotable's Demon Slayer first season made such a great impression that it was shared online enough to break through nearly everyone's algorithm. Its quality improved along with the young Tanjiro's swordsmanship and superhuman abilities he gained while facing off against powerful demons, trying to save his sister from becoming one forever. While its release schedule has been wildly inconsistent, the decision to transform Demon Slayer's final season into three feature films was an incredibly lucrative one. It has also ensured that the series may go down as one of the best-looking animes ever made.

7 Jujutsu Kaisen

Poll Results: 2.3% Of Voters Think Jujutsu Kaisen Is The Best Shōnen Anime

Studio MAPPA's work has undoubtedly elevated Gege Akutami's great Jujutsu Kaisen manga into a brilliant anime series filled with stunning direction and animation from some of the best artists in the industry. It's so well regarded that it's been nominated for best anime series every year it's released. While the series is not devoid of humor, its writing, visuals, and characters each combine to tell a more dramatic and sometimes brutal story compared to many other shōnen anime on the list.

The plot focuses on a world where negative emotions can pool and manifest into deadly curse monsters and the sorcerer warriors who can harness that energy to develop a large range of supernatural abilities. Yuji Itadori accidentally becomes a vessel for the strongest curse in human history, but under the tutelage of the modern-day strongest sorcerer, Satoru Gojo, he's able to develop his own strength. Each season of the anime has raised the stakes in narrative tension, direction, and animation in ways that make each new installment more anticipated than the last.

6 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Poll Results: 3.7% Of Voters Think Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Is The Best Shōnen Anime

As one of the longest-running shōnen series, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is also one of the most varied in its supernatural abilities and narrative formats. Most of its major story arcs are split into very different parts that are not shy about changing protagonists, time periods, and (light spoilers) even dimensions. There are a few consistent elements in each of Hirohiko Araki's stories, some that connect to other parts more than others. But what the series lacks in consistency, it makes up for in style.

The story of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is not an easy one to summarize, but most of its parts follow a member of the Joestar family, who have unfortunately made enemies with everything ranging from vampires to reality-altering creations. Throughout the series, that family and their closest friends are forced to use their unique abilities and cunning to outsmart their enemies in battles and a story that more than deserves to be labeled bizarre in nearly every metric.

5 Yu Yu Hakusho

Poll Results: 3.7% Of Voters Think Yu Yu Hakusho Is The Best Shōnen Anime

While Dragon Ball Z was a juggernaut, one of the only anime to be able to rival its ratings and viewer numbers was Yu Yu Hakusho. Studio Pierrot adapted Yoshihiro Togashi's manga that centers on a punk teen named Yusuke who must help keep the world safe from deadly monsters and demons. Its charismatic characters, amazing English dub, and brutal battles that weren't afraid to get dirty helped make the anime a standout, especially its Dark Tournament arc, which is arguably one of anime's greatest tournaments.

4 Attack On Titan

Poll Results: 4.9% Of Voters Think Attack On Titan Is The Best Shōnen Anime

While the manga was originally published in a shōnen magazine, Attack on Titan's brutal gore, unrelenting world, and politically charged narrative arguably put it closer to the seinen demographic. Still, its anime series was produced by some of the world's most talented anime studios, who were able to adapt Hajime Isayama's series filled with mystery, action, and characters the story isn't afraid to kill off or flip everything on its head. It's not a series for the faint of heart or children, but I can't recommend it enough to everyone else.

3 One Piece

Poll Results: 14.5% Of Voters Think One Piece Is The Best Shōnen Anime

Both the One Piece manga and anime have been going strong for more than 25 years. While that is already an impressive feat, the series has managed to develop into one of fiction's most fascinating worlds, filled with intense character drama, larger-than-life superpowered battles, and a sense of narrative progression that's nearly unmatched in media. It begins with the goofy but endearing Luffy and eventually evolves into an examination of the definition of freedom in a world controlled by a corrupt government and so much more.

Throughout the years, the One Piece anime has gone through several evolutions. While some of its later arcs saw significant issues with pacing and uninspired animation, the show has undergone a significant upgrade in the last few years that has made the series trend consistently online. With the series being one of my personal favorites, I could talk about the series for hours, but in short, Eiichiro Oda's series is more than worth diving into.

2 Dragon Ball

Poll Results: 17.3% Of Voters Think Dragon Ball Is The Best Shōnen Anime

Dragon Ball and its few iconic anime series don't need much introduction because Goku and Vegeta are some of the most recognizable characters in the world. Akira Toriyama's story started with humor-focused adventures about a mysterious young boy with superhuman strength and progressed into a sci-fi epic complete with galactic emperors, world-ending androids, and eventually even universe-destroying gods.

Dragon Ball Z helped change a lot of the world's perception of animation with its intense action and animation styles. And Dragon Ball Super helped reignite an intense passion for the franchise, especially during its final episodes that filled streets with fans cheering on Goku and his friends while saving the universe. Goku has grown into a symbol that means a lot to people in many different cultures, and he'll likely continue to do so for generations to come.

1 Naruto

Poll Results: 50.5% Of Voters Think Naruto Is The Best Shōnen Anime

While the franchise has been focusing on the sequel series for years, that has done little to diminish the popularity and passion for the Naruto and Naruto Shippuden anime. ScreenRant readers seem to agree with me because Naruto has been voted as the #1 Best Shōnen Anime according to a poll by readers. It ticks all the right boxes shōnen fans have come to love: exciting transformations, creative battles, and a large cast of characters that each have dedicated fans.

Naruto starts off with a quirky protagonist in the form of a young boy who's been ostracized his whole life by the ninja village he lives in until he finds out it's because he's been harboring a terrifying demon fox spirit within him. The series follows Naruto as he learns to develop his abilities and forms bonds with others in pursuit of his dream of becoming the most respected ninja in his village. Intense rivalries, emotionally heavy themes, and many great twists helped Naruto deliver one of shōnen's best endings that helped make up for the series' many filler episodes.