The spookiest month continues to get spookier and bloodier; we have mangled up some great Halloween anime to get you in the mood.

Halloween 2023 has been an absolute riot, with live-action films and Series rolling out. Such notable features included The Exorcist: Believer, Saw X, Goosebumps, and The Fall of the House of Usher. Even the Castlevania: Nocturne series can join the dark fantasy party. What can also join the spooky party is some great Halloween anime. So, we came up with a top five (newer) anime series you need to check out to get ready for Halloween.

1. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead

Starting off the Halloween Anime Series list, this series came out swinging with a simple premise and complex characters. Akira Tendo is a 24-year-old office worker who works for an exploitative company that encourages sleeping at work to get more work done, and he dreads it. However, everything changes one morning when he wakes up and realizes a zombie apocalypse broke out.

This also means that Akira does not have to go to work anymore! The series follows Akira and his bucket list of things to do before he gets zombified. It is a fun one that has some artistic colour choices, and zombie-killing is always fun to watch. You can catch this fun one on Crunchyroll or Netflix.

2. Jujutsu Kaisen

This one needs no introduction. Jujutsu Kaisen has paved its way for the last few years as a showstopper of a series for its supernatural world of jujutsu sorcery and for its almost adult-like concept of the Harry Potter and Wizarding World. The story follows high school student Yuji Itadori as he joins a secret organization of Jujutsu Sorcerers to eliminate a powerful Curse named Ryomen Sukuna, of whom Yuji becomes the host when he eats one of the Sukuna’s Cursed fingers.

The gritty art style, gory deaths and dark humour at times cement itself as a prominent anime series in the modern age. It also makes for a great series to watch for Halloween this year. Season 1 is fully up on Crunchyroll, and season 2 is still ongoing. So, you can get a good binge going.

3. Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre

Netflix took on a major project with this one to showcase the wonderful and twisted worlds of the mangaka, Junji Ito. This was the first time his work received a proper anime adaptation. The series adapts various stories from The Hanging Balloons, Sōichi, and Tomie. As someone who is now getting into the manga and only watched one or two episodes, these stories are very haunting. They definitely have some Edgar Allan Poe or Edogawa Ranpo vibes if you are into that kind of fiction.

Strangely enough, this series premiered on Netflix in January earlier this year. But hey, Wednesday came out in November 2022, and that still turned out to be a hit. Now would be an awesome time to jump on Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre for its mind-bending storytelling and peculiar horrific moments.

4. Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku

This one has an intricate plot, so let us dive into it first. Gabimaru the Hollow is a renowned assassin who gets captured and sentenced to be executed after an assassination mission. Executioner Yamada Asaemon Sagiri is the only one who believes that Gabimaru cannot die because he is fuelled by the love of his wife. So she offers him the chance to be pardoned of all crimes by the Shogunate if he finds the elixir of life in Shinsenkyo, a legendary realm recently discovered southwest of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Only one person has returned from Shinsenkyo, but he was never the same.

This expedition is different as the Shogunate sends one executioner and one death row convict with the same task as Gabimaru, a pardon for finding the elixir. The colourful artwork on the island of Shinsenkyo is stunning, and the gruesome murder spree is even more so. The characters are also complex because the roles of prisoners and lawmakers become blurred as both sides must decide on their tactics for survival.

5. Mieruko-chan

Rounding off this Halloween anime series list is a nice, kind of wholesome horror comedy show. Mieruko-chan is about high school student Miko Yotsuya, who has the unfortunate ability to see horrifying ghosts and spirits that haunt her and the people around her. Despite this, Miko does her best to ignore the existence of ghosts and tries to live out a normal high school life. And she tries really hard to ignore seeing supernatural spirits with the utmost denial from all the five stages of grief. You have to see it just for the comedic timing of ghost appearances, and she just brushes it off like a fly trying to eat your meal.

This is the perfect Halloween anime series to set the mood without too much gore or super scary spooks. Perfect for those who want to dip their feet in horror but not dip it in blood. It is sort of occult and supernatural meets slice-of-life drama.