10 Underrated 1990s Anime You Probably Haven't Seen

4. Monster Rancher

Revolutionary Girl Utena
TMS Entertainment

Barely making it on this list because it debuted in Japan April of 1999, and was brought to the west by Fox Kids shortly after, Monster Rancher was the anime tie-in of the Playstation game of the same name.

Remember Monster Rancher? The video game where you recruited different classes of monsters by having your PlayStation read other discs such as musical CDs, movie DVDs, or even other Playstation Games?

The anime was a little meta with the fact that Genki, the main character of the series, is the winner of a Monster Rancher Tournament in the real world and his reward is a special game disc that transports him into the actual Monster Rancher world.

Called Monster Farm in Japan, the series was (you guessed it) heavily edited when it came to the west. Instances of death and violence were lessened, or outright removed, and some of the more crude examples of humor was also taken out.

Interestingly enough some of the soundtrack was later re-used by the western dub of Dragonball Z during the Majin Buu saga, so even if you haven't seen Monster Rancher, you may very well have heard it.

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Author of Escort (Eternal Press, 2015), co-founder of Nic3Ntertainment, and developer behind The Sickle Upon Sekigahara (2020). Currently freelancing as a game developer and history consultant. Also tends to travel the eastern U.S. doing courses on History, Writing, and Japanese Poetry. You can find his portfolio at www.richardcshaffer.com.