10 Best Anime ONLY On Netflix

Netflix's release model for anime may suck balls, but the anime are more than worth the wait.

Devilman Crybaby
Netflix

The initial appeal of Netflix when it first launched almost a decade ago was that it really did have EVERYTHING you could want. If it was still in print here in the US, you could rent a physical copy or watch it on the streaming platform. Of course that isn't the case nowadays, but Netflix is still the only place where you can find some great shows. Including some fantastic anime.

Streaming has basically changed everything about television, but anime has been hit most noticeably by it. Everything down to the way seasons are constructed and watched have changed so dramatically that any attempts to cling to the old way of ordering and producing shows (see Black Clover among others) are met with immediate and vehement denial.

Netflix has changed the way we watch anime, so the anime it features on its site as exclusives had better be pretty damn good. Fortunately, that is definitely the case more often than not. Sure, there are some REAL stinkers in there, but there are more than enough anime in Netflix's library of exclusives that prove to be classics in the making.

10. Kakegurui

Devilman Crybaby
Netflix

If the last several years have taught us anything, it's that the one thing people will pay through the nose for is the chance to see rich, entitled assholes getting their comeuppance in humiliating displays. I mean that's basically the only reason to keep watching Food Wars after you grow desensitized to the fan service.

But no anime on the market right now is better at portraying the upper class as haughty nitwits who are fun to bring down a peg than Kakegurui. Kakegurui is, primarily, a gambling anime, centering around a girl who loves to play seemingly rigged games of chance against her rich classmates, due to her love of the thrill such games provide. Though if you ask any Kakegurui fan what they love about the show, the gambling itself will likely be an afterthought. The way it handles its games pales in comparison to much better gambling shows like the thriller masterpiece Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor, but what makes the show so entertaining despite that is the character interactions and of course, that pure thrill of seeing entitled brats being put in their place.

It's not the most complex formula for a hit anime out there, but god damn does it feel good to watch.

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John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?