Anime has become a worldwide phenomenon, and its popularity isn’t limited to just Japan anymore. However, what is popular in Japan isn’t necessarily popular overseas, and vice versa, even though sometimes big series overlap, such as Naruto or One Piece. Japanese anime fans have revealed their top favorite anime of the year 2025 so far, and the results might shock fans.
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The most popular series isn’t an anime like Solo Leveling, but instead, Black Butler. The rest of the top 5 also include Uma Musume Cinderella Gray, Lycoris Recoil: Friends Are Thieves of Time, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and The Apothecary Diaries Season 2. Overseas fans won’t recognize all these anime, but many of these are worth a watch nonetheless, so fans can see just what all the hype is about in Japan.
Japan’s Top 5 Animes Have Been Revealed
- Black Butler, Uma Musume Cinderella Gray, and Lycoris Recoil: Friends Are Thieves of Time Are the Top 3
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 Take the Number 4 and 5 Spots
The difference between what’s popular in Japan and what’s popular globally is sometimes shocking. Big series in the West might be almost irrelevant in Japan. The 5 of the most popular anime, as cited by Filmarks, one of the biggest anime review services in Japan, prove just that. Japan’s most popular anime right now is Black Butler: The Green Witch Arc. Black Butler had an absolutely huge phase of popularity globally previously, but it has now been overshadowed by other anime. In Japan, things are different, however. It received 4.46 / 948 marks.
Uma Musume Cinderella Gray and Lycoris Recoil: Friends Are Thieves of Time are probably series many international fans have never even heard of, but they’re huge in Japan, having 4.38 / 1,024 marks and 4.33 / 1,755 marks respectively.
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Numbers 4 and 5 are the more well-known series, however. One of them is an anime adaptation of Spider-Man, with 4.32 / 1,472 marks, and the other being The Apothecary Diaries, a top anime globally with 4.27 / 6,623 marks. The Apothecary Diaries is technically the biggest anime by marks on this list, having over twice as many as the other series. This definitely speaks volumes about how big the anime is.
The Rest of the Top 10 Have Also Been Revealed
Fans Might Recognize Series like Fire Force or Re:Zero
The top 5 series are all exciting, and the votes have also revealed the rest of the top 10 of Japan’s best-rated anime series. Series like The Medalist, The Petty Man Series Season 2, and Apocalypse Hotel, are huge over in Japan right now, but this can’t be said about the global anime market. Meanwhile, fans might instead recognize anime like Fire Force and Re:Zero, which both made it to the top 10.
The Apothecary Diaries’ second season finished not too long ago, and the story has only been getting better. With the series having a third season announced, fans who are yet to catch up have the opportunity to watch the first two seasons, which have a total of 48 episodes. All these episodes can be accessed and streamed on Crunchyroll, the biggest anime platform.
The Apothecary Diaries
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget Display card main info widget end Display card media widget start Display card media widget end- Release Date
- October 22, 2023
- Studio
- OLM, TOHO animation STUDIO
- Creator
- Natsu Hyūga
- Streaming Service(s)
- Crunchyroll
