Puparia

Looking to expand your horizons? This list will introduce you to a few anime with unconventional art styles that will surely take you on an unexpected journey.

From using 3D techniques, hand drawing, colourful or muted palettes, these anime will transport you into a world of their own through the use of those brilliant techniques and styles.
Those different characteristics will help broaden your opinion on how art can help enhance story telling by providing context clues crucial to the story, or strengthen a character's particular personality trait.
Pushing beyond the boundaries of what traditional anime should look like and what most are used to, these works are surely going to leave you with a lasting impression and possibly drive you towards more fantastically creative anime!

Featuring little to no dialogue and/or characters and the experience is carried by the music and/or visual atmosphere.

Part 1 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/311
Part 2 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/5128
Part 3 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/8036
Part 4 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/8173
Part 5 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/9135
Part 6 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/9240
Part 7 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/9448
Part 8 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/9461
Part 9 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/20874

short anime with less than the standard 12 episodes, including some movies under an hour long and a select few ONA projects

A list of anime that have aesthetic appeal or have particularly distinctive art styles...

Arranged by score

This is an early list that I made and quite frankly it's a mess, I decided to make a more comprehensive thematic series, check them out:

- An introduction to short animations
https://myanimelist.net/stacks/29151

- Short animations getting artsy
https://myanimelist.net/stacks/29178

- Short animations getting dark
https://myanimelist.net/stacks/29194

- Short animations getting scientific
https://myanimelist.net/stacks/29216

Anime with unique art-style/premise and or surreal/dreamlike sequences

Art house, in relation to cinema, is a genre of films that are intended to be serious artistic works rather than merely popular entertainment but the descriptor can also be applied to anime. Furthermore, avant-garde refers to innovative, experimental, radical or unorthodox concepts and techniques. This can of course also be used in reference to anime and manga.

As MAL currently sadly only allows a max of 50 entries on interests stacks this list mainly prioritises the stand out and most high quality examples of avant-garde and art house anime television shows, feature films, OVAs and short film compilations. For a more comprehensive list which features the numerous experimental short films on the site as well as manga, I direct you to my accompanying Art house, Avant-Garde and Experimental club of the same name.

List of obscure confusing plot-centered anime from the stone age that will automatically make you have a superior anime taste.

Was looking at some fan art one day and it came to my attention that fanart (and very good fanart) is an extremely good indicator of how important an anime is. So taking away the fanart factor from this list. Here is a list of very important anime.

This list is based on many objective factors.

Log:
30/05/2022
Removed:
- Hongse Jiangshan: Huangma Fenghuo; Jingzhong Baoguo - not very important.
- Haikyuu!! - whilst there are indeed hot boys, it has come to my attention that many anime are similar (with whole genres too). Even if this was hyped by normies.
Added:
- SAO, Fate/stay night, Ling Feng Zhe

When I first started watching anime, I thought anime was basically a kind of animation with a unique art style. But now I am seeing that most anime comes with a lot of tropes, and a lot of people see these tropes as part of anime. I am not a fan of these tropes, so I am making a list of anime that I like, and I feel have a relatively low amount of tropes, at least compared to most other anime. I still haven't watched a lot of anime, for example - Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. But I will add more anime as I watch them.

Link to part 2 -
https://myanimelist.net/stacks/22994

Anime with weird / surreal imagery. Picked purely on visuals, quality of these shows may vary (but most are good).

Original animes from youtube or found on the platform legally and for free.

Series with a beautiful art style.

weirdest stuffs

Do you want to watch anime so artsy that will either relate to the deepest part of your soul or completely confuse you?
Well here you go, and since they are so short you don't have to feel like you wasted your time.

This list includes arthouse anime that are around 15 minutes or less, so movie length (Angel's Egg) or OVA/episode length (Cat Soup) are not in here.

Some of this may be a bit challenging to find, some are up on youtube and for some you'll have to get creative, buying or streaming them is probably out of the question.

Includes regular anime series, movies, experimental shorts, and even music videos. Anything that can be considered unique in either its art style or method of animation. Probably not every entry in this list will be suited to one's taste, but as we all know, art is subjective.

Also, I've tried to limit the entries to one per style.

Works that aren't here on MAL:
- Our House, by Murata Caori

It only includes anime (series & movies) with an obvious difference from the real world in terms of the aspect of the world. Just having some dragons/monsters/etc is not enough as long as there isn't anything special about the landscape.

Sequels are not included (where there are more seasons and/or movies).

sequels are not included.