15 Underrated Psychological Thriller Anime, Ranked By Fans

Fans of Sherlock Holmes and its various adaptations should watch this one - or maybe they shouldn't, because the main character is Holmes' greatest nemesis, William James Moriarty. 

In 19th Century England, life is dominated by a rigid class hierarchy. Those who are born into nobility are practically guaranteed a good life, while those born into poverty must scramble for their livelihoods and have little hope of changing their circumstances. Moriarty, the second son of a noble family, acts like he accepts this situation. But he's secretly trying to bring down this unjust society - even if he has to do it by force.

Yuuichi Katagiri and his four best friends, Yutori Kokorogi, Shiho Sawaragi, Makoto Shibe, and Tenji Mikasa, are a tight-knit group who can trust each other with anything - or so they think. When the funds for a class trip go missing, Shiho and Makoto, who were supposed to collect the money, are blamed. 

Soon afterwards, the five teens are knocked unconscious and taken to a white room. There, they meet Manabu-kun, a cheerfully creepy mascot who tells them that they'll be playing a game in order to clear a twenty million yen debt that one person in their group has accrued. To do that, they'll have to face a variety of intense psychological challenges that reveal long-buried secrets and test the power of their friendships. 

If you liked how Psycho-Pass used technology to invade people's psyches and make critical judgements about them, then you shouldn't miss ID: INVADED.

The Mizuhanome System takes its users somewhere they could never experience otherwise - the inside of someone else's mind. By using "cognition particles" floating around the scene of a crime, investigators can replicate the interior life of the culprit, making it easier to find out who it was. But not just anyone can do this - you have to have taken a life to make it work. Disgraced police officer Akihito Narihisago has done just that. Despite no longer working for the police, he takes it upon himself to investigate a series of murders. These murders are more complex than they seem, and may be hiding a brutal truth. 

Looking for another anime set during the American prohibition era but can only watch Baccano! so many times? Try 91 Days. After Angelo Lagusa loses his entire family at the hands of the Vanetti mafia family, he leaves home and adopts a new identity - Avilio Bruno. Seven years later, a mysterious letter prompts him to return home. There, he encounters Nero, the son of the Vanetti don, and quickly befriends him. 

But he hasn't gotten over what happened - he's trying to get closer to the Vanettis so that he can get his revenge on the people who ended his family.

Hell Girl combines the possibilities of the emerging technology of the turn of the century with the underworld. If you enter a person's name into a special website, the titular “Hell Girl” Enma Ai will drag their soul into Hell. But there's a price to pay for the service - at the end of your life, your soul will also be taken to Hell. 

The series is mostly episodic, following different people who use the service. But over time, viewers get to learn more about Enma Ai's past, and the underworld itself.

Though it's a beloved anime amongst millennials who watched Adult Swim in their teens and early 20s, Paranoia Agent isn't nearly as popular as it ought to be with the anime community as a whole.

Musashino City is being attacked by Shounen Bat (Lil' Slugger in the dub), a young boy on roller skates who assaults unsuspecting victims with a baseball bat. But nobody can figure out the identity of the assailant - or his motive. Some people think that Tsukiko Sagi, the character designer who was his first victim, is suspected of orchestrating the whole thing.

But what is really going on? Detectives Keiichi Ikari and Mitsuhiro Maniwa are trying to figure it out, but as rumors swirl and victims pile up, the whole thing feels impossible to unravel.