Best Japanese suspense series

Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects—and he’s bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But will Light succeed in his noble goal, or will the Death Note turn him into the very thing he fights against?

At the turn of the century, the Angels returned to Earth, seeking to wipe out humanity in an apocalyptic fury. Devastated, mankind's last remnants moved underground to wait for the day when the Angels would come back to finish the job. Fifteen years later, that day has come... but this time, humanity is ready to fight back with terrifying bio-mechanical weapons known as the Evangelions. Watch as Shinji, Rei, Asuka and the rest of the mysterious shadow agency Nerv battle to save earth from total annihilation.

Satoru Fujinuma is a struggling manga artist who has the ability to turn back time and prevent deaths. When his mother is killed he turns back time to solve the mystery, but ends up back in elementary school, just before the disappearance of his classmate Kayo.

Ken Kaneki, a bookworm college student, meets Rize, a girl his own age with whom he shares many interests.

Surrounded by a forest and a gated entrance, the Grace Field House is inhabited by orphans happily living together as one big family, looked after by their "Mama," Isabella. Although they are required to take tests daily, the children are free to spend their time as they see fit, usually playing outside, as long as they do not venture too far from the orphanage — a rule they are expected to follow no matter what. However, all good times must come to an end, as every few months, a child is adopted and sent to live with their new family... never to be heard from again. However, the three oldest siblings have their suspicions about what is actually happening at the orphanage, and they are about to discover the cruel fate that awaits the children living at Grace Field, including the twisted nature of their beloved Mama.

There is a place after death that’s neither heaven nor hell. A bar that serves you one chance to win. You cannot leave until the game is over, and when it is, your life may be too.

In the year 2113, people are given brain scans to determine how likely they are to commit a crime. Those who fail are apprehended, or even killed.

Reality quickly unravels when antisocial Yukiteru is called into a death match against 11 other mentally scarred individuals. Each player has a prophetic device tuned to their personality, giving them control over their future—and the fate of their foes.

Kenzou Tenma, a Japanese brain surgeon in Germany, finds his life in utter turmoil after getting involved with a psychopath that was once a former patient.

In an alternate version of the present, Tokyo has been decimated by a shocking terrorist attack, and the only hint to the identity of the culprit is a bizarre video uploaded to the internet. The police, baffled by this cryptic clue, are powerless to stop the paranoia spreading across the population. While the world searches for a criminal mastermind to blame for this tragedy, two mysterious children - children who shouldn't even exist - masterfully carry out their heinous plan. Cursed to walk through this world with the names Nine and Twelve, the two combine to form "Sphinx," a clandestine entity determine to wake the people from their slumber - and pull the trigger on this world.

In a world where beasts of all kinds coexist, a gentle wolf awakens to his own predatory urges as his school deals with a murder within its midst.

Hyakkaou Private Academy. An institution for the privileged with a very peculiar curriculum. You see, when you're the sons and daughters of the wealthiest of the wealthy, it's not athletic prowess or book smarts that keep you ahead. It's reading your opponent, the art of the deal. What better way to hone those skills than with a rigorous curriculum of gambling? At Hyakkaou Private Academy, the winners live like kings, and the losers are put through the wringer. But when Yumeko Jabami enrolls, she's gonna teach these kids what a high roller really looks like!

Lain—driven by the abrupt suicide of a classmate—logs on to the Wired and promptly loses herself in a twisted mass of hallucinations, memories, and interconnected-psyches.

In a futuristic world almost barren of life, mankind is confined to mechanized domed cities where A.I.’s control all aspects of life. In this world, humans are no longer born, they are manufactured in a production line; and alongside them live androids known as autoreivs. Within one of these domed sanctuaries named Romdeau lives Re-l Mayer, one of a few citizens who aren’t entirely prevented from thinking. Her grandfather's prominent position and the affection of the scientist Daedalus have left her more free will than is normally allowed, but Re-l has started to question the sanctity of the city and the citizens' perfect way of life. With mysterious beings known as proxies causing havoc and a man named Vincent causing great influence on her life, Re-l must travel outside of the city to find the answers she seeks and discover the mystery behind "the awakening".

When the world's seven most advanced robots and their human allies are murdered one by one, Inspector Gesicht soon discovers that he's also in danger.

When Kiyotaka enters an elite government-sponsored high school, he finds out just how merit-based this education system is.

An overworked 24-year-old finally decides to live a little and create a bucket list, when a zombie outbreak hits the country.

Musashino, Tokyo. An elementary schooler repeatedly attacks people in the streets. Known only to the public as "Lil Slugger", none of the victims can recall the young boy's face and only three distinct details are left in their memories: golden inline skates, a baseball cap, and the weapon: a bent golden baseball bat. Detectives Ikari and Maniwa set out to track down the perpetrator and put an end to his crimes.

A teenaged gang leader in New York City faces his abuser and rival gangs alongside a photojournalist from Japan as they investigate a deadly new drug.

Shinpei Ajiro travels home to attend the funeral of a childhood friend, and finds the remote island plagued by a sinister, supernatural force.

Sato's life – or what's left of it – is a paranoid mess of conspiracy theories and social anxieties. He's terrified of the outside world; his apartment is overflowing with the remnants of cheap take-out food; and his retinas have been permanently scarred by a steady diet of internet porn. But maybe it's not all his fault. After all, the nefarious N.H.K. is out there, and they’re determined to turn society's fringe-dwellers into a brainwashed lot of jobless, hopeless, futureless recluses. Enter Misaki – a mysterious girl-next-door type who is Sato's last chance to beat-down his inner demons and venture out into the light of day. She's ready to help him overcome his crippling phobias, but Sato would rather cower in his existential foxhole and pretend to work on the demo for his virtual sex game. He’s afraid to face the world. She's strangely desperate to fix a total stranger. Maybe together they can be normal.

Aliens replace middle-aged Inuyashiki's body with a combat robot. He uses it to fight high schooler Shishigami, who's using the same power selfishly.

While working as a taxi driver on the hectic streets of Tokyo, a reticent walrus gets pulled into a mystery involving a missing teenage girl.

If you are chosen by the bizarre black sphere known as the Gantz, you are already dead—yet you might be able to reclaim your mortality. First, the Gantz demands that you undertake brutal missions of madness, killing aliens hidden among the population. It is your only chance and you have no choice. You must play this disturbing game. And if you die again—and you likely will—it’s permanent.

During Prohibition, the law is powerless and the mob rules Lawless, a town that thrives on the black market sale of illicitly brewed liquor. Avilio returns to town after a time away, following a lead on the murder of his family.

Born into a world 1000 years in our future, Saki and her friends live in utopia. Not only is their idyllic community overflowing with resources, but technology is obsolete, thanks to a magical power that grants the ability to materialize anything. However, when Saki discovers a lost artifact, the facade is shattered! Faced with a startling truth about their town, Saki and her companions face dangers they never knew existed, and their choices may change the fate of everyone.

Genius investigator Keith Flick rejoins the royal police force just as serial killer "B" emerges. Mysterious youth Koku may be an ally, or a target.

Being just a normal student without a special talent, Makoto Naegi wins a lottery to attend the prestigious Hope's Peak Academy where only the top prodigies attend. However, instead of this being the beginning of a wonderful high school life, it's a ticket to despair, because the only way to graduate from Hope's Peak Academy is to kill one of your fellow students or be one of their victims.

High-school girl Yuri suddenly finds herself on the rooftop of a high-rise building. She's trapped in a bizarre world surrounded by skyscrapers, where a masked man cracked open a man's head with an axe before her eyes. Finding a way to survive this bizarre world, find her beloved brother, and escape becomes her top priority, but she is beset by danger not just from the mysterious Masks, which possess both inhuman strength and cruelty, but other survivors turned cruel or desparate by the insanity of the high-rise world.

Ai, a young girl with shut-in tendencies, who tries not to interact with others. She keeps one of her eyes hidden behind her hair. One day, she happens to stop by a deserted arcade, where she meets "Aka." Spinning the gacha at their urging, she acquires a "Wonder Egg," and from that moment, her fate begins to change...

In the near future, Vivy, a diva-type A.I., went up on stage each day with hopes of putting her heart into her song. One day, the A.I. Matsumoto, who claims to have arrived from 100 years in the future, appears before Vivy with an important request...

Sotobamura is a small village with around 1300 residents; so small the village isn't even connected to a single highway. An isolated village in which old customs, such as the burial of the dead, are still practiced. One day, the bodies of three people are found dead. Although Ozaki Toshio, the village's lone doctor, feels uncertain, he treats the deaths as a normal occurrence. However, in the days following, the villagers start to die one after the other.

When a college dropout stops for a late night bite at a mysterious ramen stand, he crosses paths with a self-proclaimed deity of matrimony. This bizarre meeting sends the young man hurtling through a horrifying flashback to his not-so-glorious college days when the influence of a cruel new friend turned him from a hopeless romantic into a mischievous “black cupid.”

Most girls waking up without any memory and meeting a serial killer would panic, but not Rachel. In fact, far from being her biggest problem, killer Zack might just prove a convenient resource when it comes to finding a way out of the building in which they're both trapped!

After his class' school trip fund is stolen, Yuichi and his best friends are abducted to play a debt repayment game; there is more than money on the line, as their bonds are tested with dark secrets and a lingering question of who is behind it all.

The Kusaribe family is a family of sorcerers under the protection of the ‘Tree of Origins.’ Their princess, Hakaze Kusaribe, was the greatest sorceress of their family. But Samon Kusaribe, a member of their family seeking to resurrect the ‘Tree of World's End,’ a tree that opposes the ‘Tree of Origins’ and controls the power of destruction, stuffs her into a barrel, and banishes her to a deserted island.

Sakaido is a genius detective who can track down any criminal. But when his daughter is murdered, revenge lands him on the other side of the law. Now in prison, he helps the police solve mysteries using a system that invades a person’s identity. Little by little, a trail of blood forms, and it all leads back to his daughter’s murderer.

Kaiji Itou is a good-for-nothing loiterer who spends his days drinking beer and stealing hubcaps—that is, until he ends up being tricked by his former co-worker. Unable to suddenly repay his friend's huge debt all by himself, Kaiji is offered a shady deal to participate in an illegal underground gamble on a cruise ship. This turns out to be nothing more than the beginning of his new life of hell—thrown headlong into a life-threatening roller coaster of mind games, cheating, and deceit.

In 2052, a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist develops a drug called Hapna — a cure-all that has the unexpected side-effect of causing death three years later. In response to this threat, a special force of agents—nicknamed "Lazarus"— is assembled to take on the malevolent Skinner.

About ten years after the Second World War, a group of juvenile offenders are sent to the Shounan Special Reform School, a kind of juvenile detention center, to deal with the atrocities and injustices they experienced in the war.

Yuki Takeya, Kurumi Ebisuzawa, Yuri Wakasa, and Miki Naoki decide to stay over at school. Along with the school adviser Megumi Sakura, they suddenly find themselves to be the final survivors of a zombie attack, and continue to live and survive at the school.

The Medicine Seller is a deadly and mysterious master of the occult who travels across feudal Japan in search of malevolent spirits called mononoke to slay. When he locates one of these spirits, he cannot simply kill it; he must first learn its Form, its Truth, and its Reason in order to wield the mighty Exorcism Sword and fight against it. He must begin his strange exorcisms with intense psychological analysis and careful investigative work—an extremely dangerous step, as he must first confront and learn about the mononoke before he even has the means to defeat it.

Mihama Academy—on the surface, a closed learning environment established to nurture students who find themselves at odds with the world around them; in actuality, an orchard-cum-prison built to preserve fruit that has fallen too far from its tree. Yet with the arrival of the institute's first male student, the nearly preposterously opaque Kazami Yuuji, the students at Mihama begin to fall out of step with their predetermined rhythms. Will Yuuji prove to be the element the girls around him needed to take hold of their lives once more, or will the weight of their pasts prove too steep a wall to overcome?

As his classmates celebrate their middle school graduation, troubled Mirai is mired in darkness. But his battle is just beginning when he receives some salvation from above in the form of an angel. Now Mirai is pitted against 12 other chosen humans in a battle in which the winner becomes the next god of the world. Mirai has an angel in his corner, but he may need to become a devil to survive.

It is the year 20XX. Earth was assaulted by monsters that would come to be known as "the Enemy of Humanity." In order to deal with this threat, special schools composed of teenagers with extraordinary abilities were formed. These people, who came to be known as "the Talented," had abilities that could defy the rules of reality. Among these people with supernatural powers was an outlier, an individual who was sent to one of these schools despite having no innate special abilities whatsoever. This is the story of our protagonist, who attempts to defeat the Enemies of Humanity through the use of intelligence and manipulation alone.

Mafia is rife in America where assassinations are a regular occurrence on the streets. Inferno, a mysterious company, is behind most of these dealings through the use of their near-invincible human weapon, "Phantom." One day, a Japanese tourist accidentally witnesses Phantom's latest murder. Desperate to escape, the tourist hides in a secluded building. However, Phantom, revealed to be a young woman named Ein, and the leader of Inferno "Scythe Master" captures the tourist and brainwashes him. Given the name "Zwei," this once peaceful tourist is now a puppet of Inferno with no memories. Drawn into a world of lies, deceit, and violence, Zwei must fight to survive, hopefully to one day regain his memories and escape from this world where he is constantly on the brink of death.

Eleven high school classmates awaken, restrained to a large dining room. While fearing for their lives, they question a motive to this bizarre act.

Kimimaro works two jobs to make ends meet. He could go from pauper to prince in a parallel world called the Financial District—if he’ll invest his future as collateral in a dangerous game. Winning gets you more wealth, but losing could erase you from existence. When the destructive forces at play compel Kimimaro to confront the most powerful player, can he save the real world from total collapse?

A supernatural system allows people to take revenge by having other people sent to Hell via the services of a mysterious entity and her assistants who implement this system. Revenge, injustice, hatred, and the nature of human emotions are common themes throughout the series.

After her mother took the blame for a tragic fire 13 years ago, Anzu plots revenge by working as a housekeeper under a pseudonym for her icy stepmother.

Light Yagami is an ordinary university student. One day, he receives a "Death Note", which changes his life. The Death Note awakens his warped sense of justice and genius. He becomes murderer Kira and punishes criminals. L is a well known private detective. L appears in front of Light Yagami. L defines Kira as evil and decides to catch Kira. Then N, who has a beautiful appearance but dangerous existence, appears.

Satou Matsuzaka, a girl who has never loved anyone before, falls in love with a girl named Shio Koube. The two girls are drawn to each other, and begin a happy life together. Satou won't let anyone endanger their new life, and would do anything for love, even if it means threatening, confining, or killing someone.

As customary per year, the entire family is gathering on the island for a conference that discusses the current financial situations of each respective person. Because of the family head's poor health, this year involves the topic of the head of the family's inheritance and how it will be distributed. However, the family is unaware that the distribution of his wealth is the least of Ushiromiya Kinzo's concerns for this year's family conference. After being told that his end was approaching by his longtime friend and physician, Kinzo is desperate to meet his life's true love one last time: the Golden Witch, Beatrice. Having immersed himself in black magic for many of the later years in his life, Kinzo instigates a ceremony to revive his beloved upon his family's arrival on Rokkenjima.

A social game called The Magical Girl Raising Project allows one in tens of thousands of people to be a "magical girl" — possessing extraordinary physical capabilities and looks, as well as special magical powers that set them apart from the rest of the human race. But one day, in a district containing 16 magical girls, the administration announces that it must halve the number of magical girls to solve the problem of magical energy. At first, the 16 magical girls race to collect more "magical candy" than their competitors, but the rules quickly become twisted, and it quickly becomes a murderous battle for survival among them.

University student Sugishita Nozomi, Naruse Shinji, Ando Nozomi and Nishizaki Masato end up coming upon the scene of the murder of the Noguchi couple, because of a plan they had devised. Nishizaki is arrested at the scene and is given a 10-year prison term because of his voluntary confession. 10 years later, Takano Shigeru, a former police officer who has misgivings about the verdict of this case, starts to pursue the truth. He is convinced that it all began as a result of an incident caused by Nozomi and Naruse on an island in the Seto Inland Sea in the summer 15 years. “They committed a crime at that time. It was for the sake of each N.”

The game began suddenly. It was "Tasuketsu," a brutal survival game in which the majority is eliminated. In order to fight back against the immensely powerful emperor masterminding the game, young men and women create their own futures using the mysterious special ability known as "Special Right."

A Japanese tabloid reporter tired of working simply as a celebrity scandals writer accepts a new challenge when he is assigned to make contact with a former Yakuza informant.

After her ex-cop father is murdered on Christmas Eve, Komugi finds a letter hinting at a dark conspiracy and teams up with a lawyer to uncover the truth.

Tobio Masubuchi and his friends are ordinary high school students. Due to an incident, their peaceful days are about to change. Tobio’s friends are beaten by students from another high school in their neighborhood. Tobio and his friends scheme to get back the students from the other school. The day they are to carry out their plan, they see the other high school engulfed in flames. Tobio and his friends become suspects.

Six months ago, life went dark for the underworld negotiator Kida when his lifelong friend and fellow former outcast Makoto became embroiled in a deadly plot. Makoto had risen to become the head of a powerful trading firm, but the events that unfolded on Christmas Eve put an end to all that. Since then, Kida has continued to drift through life without a single bright spark to light up his life. Nobody cares if he lives or dies except his underworld boss, who values Kida’s inimitable skills.

A detective spies on a mysterious yakuza leader, forging a fake romance to uncover secrets. As their connection deepens, a hidden truth shakes their fate.

When an estranged friend resurfaces after 12 years, a prosecutor starts connecting disjointed events to unveil the truth behind her father's tragic death.

The hardened veteran detective Rena and bright-eyed rookie Sato take on a menial investigation. The job goes well until a thug named Dobu steals their evidence. Disheartened, they take a job looking into the life of a taxi driver named Odokawa in hopes of redeeming themselves. They wind up in the middle of a missing girl case, with gangsters, aspiring students, and surprises around every corner.

Yuri goes to a female novelist and tells her that she and two of her friends committed three murders. Yuri asks the novelist to write a story about them.

21-year-old Shinomiya Yuki has no friends and spends his days alone working part-time jobs. One day, when he returns home as usual after a night shift, a male stranger who has been stabbed in the abdomen with a knife is sitting in his room. The man wakes up at the hospital that he has been taken to and identifies himself as Shinomiya Yuki to detectives. Then he points to Yuki and states that he stabbed him. Yuki flees the hospital right away and becomes a fugitive in an instant. At that moment, a mysterious woman called Zoka appears right before Yuki and asks him to help her take revenge on her father’s killer. He decides to collaborate with her. Zoka is a “leech” who goes from one house to another while its occupants are away. The two of them eventually encounter Kara, a legendary leech who lives like an empty shell solely for the purpose of revenge.

Keiichi Kaburagi is arrested as a suspect in a murder case and sentenced to death. He escaped from prison during the transfer, but while fleeing, he rescues the people he meets in his hiding place from the predicament. And when the rescued people realize that Kaburagi is a wanted death-row prisoner, they begin to wonder, "Is he really a murderer?"