2025's Top Anime Ranked by IMDb: The Unmissable Series of the Year

2025 did not take a day off. Between surprise breakouts and long-running franchises hitting their endgame, anime fans got spoiled. If you are wondering what actually landed with viewers, I pulled the year’s biggest series by current IMDb user scores. Yes, there are ties. Yes, I broke them. Here are the standouts as the year winds down.

1. Takopi's Original Sin (Studio Enishiya) - IMDb: 8.7/10

   Short, brutal, unforgettable. This six-episode adaptation of Taizan 5's manga dropped June 28, 2025, and proceeded to emotionally flatten everyone who pressed play. The setup sounds simple: a naive alien named Takopi tries to help Shizuka, a kid crushed by bullying from Marina and neglect at home, using his cheerful Happy Gadgets. The fixes backfire hard. We are talking escalating damage that spirals into tragedy, suicide attempts, and accidental death. It is a compact gut-punch that sticks with you long after the credits.

   Originally premiered: June 28, 2025 | Genres: Dystopian, Horror

2. To Be Hero X (BeDream/Aniplex) - IMDb: 8.6/10

   File under: 2025's biggest curveball. This Chinese-made donghua (animated series), backed by Aniplex, ran April 6 to September 13 and absolutely earned its spot in the conversation. The hook is sharp: heroes get power from public Trust Value, with a tournament to crown the top dog as 'X'. We follow different heroes, including idealist Lin Ling, as fame and metrics twist what heroism even means. It is action-first with a side of sharp commentary about chasing approval. Same score as our no. 3, but the sheer 2025 momentum puts it here for me.

   Originally premiered: April 6, 2025 | Genres: Superhero

3. The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 (Studio OLM/Toho Animation) - IMDb: 8.6/10

   Season 2 ran January through July 2025 and cemented this as one of the most satisfying slow-burn hits in anime right now. In a fictional, China-inspired imperial court, razor-sharp apothecary Maomao solves medical mysteries and stumbles into bigger conspiracies, drawing the eye of the very pretty and very complicated eunuch, Jinshi. Historical intrigue, character work, and puzzle-box plotting all firing at once.

   Originally premiered: October 22, 2023 | Genres: Drama, Mystery, Romance

4. Solo Leveling Season 2 (A-1 Pictures) - IMDb: 8.5/10

   One of Winter 2025's main events. The show paid off the wait with a showcase fight fans have had circled for years: Sung Jinwoo vs the Ant King, Beru. It delivers. Clean choreography, weighty power scaling, and that smug grin when Jinwoo flips the board. The season kept the hype alive while teeing up the next stretch of his Hunter journey.

   Originally premiered: January 7, 2024 | Genres: Action, Supernatural

5. My Hero Academia Final Season (Bones) - IMDb: 8.2/10

   The show's overall score sits lower than you would expect, but the finale itself? A monster 9.5/10 on IMDb. Which is kind of hilarious and also exactly right. Deku starts quirkless in a world where quirks are currency, inherits One For All from All Might, and fights alongside Class 1-A to drag society back from the brink. The final run lands the plane with heart and heat, even if the series-wide average does not scream 'best ever'.

   Originally premiered: April 3, 2016 | Genres: Superhero, Action, Adventure

6. Dr. Stone Season 4: Science Future (TMS Entertainment) - IMDb: 8.1/10

   The science show that could is nearly done. Two cours of the final season rolled out in 2025, with the last cour expected around April 2026 to wrap the whole saga. If you have been meaning to catch up, now is the sweet spot. Senku continues to brute-force civilization back into existence with applied physics, sass, and a frankly irresponsible amount of ingenuity.

   Originally premiered: July 5, 2019 | Genres: Sci-Fi, Adventure

Quick notes: these rankings follow IMDb user scores as they stand late in 2025, so a little drift over time is normal. And yes, all of the above are streaming on Crunchyroll.

What did we miss? Which one do you think is overrated? Drop your picks.