9 Canadian Anime That Can Be Called Masterpieces, Ranked

While not the most famous Western country when it comes to producing anime, Canada has produced a number of spectacular ones. Especially during the 2000s, the nation was on a roll, both with its independent works, and its French co-productions. Of course, that’s not to say that Canada wasn’t also making amazing anime in the 1990s, or that they haven’t been doing so in modern times.

Even if fans can’t always agree on what qualifies as anime, series like Invincible and Totally Spies! show exactly what Canada is capable of making. Canadian anime span a wide range of genres, from comedies, to action series, to sci-fi and superhero works. What many of these series lack in animation, they make up for with fantastic writing and lots of heart, and when they do offer great animation, it’s an absolute treat.

Totally Spies! Was One of the Best Animated Series For Girls in the 2000s

While Totally Spies! initially began as a French production, it became a Canadian co-production at the start of Season 3. This means that, even ignoring its sub-part sixth season and reboot, Canada was still directly involved in the creation of three outstanding seasons and a movie, all following the iconic and lovable trio of Sam, Alex, and Clover. An almost exclusively episodic anime, Totally Spies! follows its lead trio of Beverly Hills teens as they balance their somewhat normal high school lives with their jobs as spies.

Totally Spies! is an unabashedly girly and feminine anime, and that works 100% to its advantage. The vibes of the series are immaculate, Clover, Sam, and Alex are always a joy to spend time with, and there’s a nice balance between spy action and over-the-top comedy. At the same time, Totally Spies! is also an undeniably weird series, with countless episodes getting far more bizarre than one would ever imagine, but this too adds to its memorability.

Three Delivery Stars Anime English Dub Veteran Johnny Yong Bosch

Three Delivery is a largely forgotten anime, but certainly one that showed a great deal of potential during its short run. Created by Larry Schwarz, who also drew inspiration from Japanese animation with Kappa Mikey and Speed Racer: The Next Generation, the series follows Sue, Sid, and Tobey, three teenagers who work in a Chinese restaurant, while also training as martial artists to defend the world from an evil sorcerer. The series gets a lot of mileage out of this premise, with lots of creativity being put into the plots of each episode, and the dynamic between its core trio remaining consistently entertaining.

Three Delivery has a wholly distinct art style and surprisingly fluid animation, enabling higher-quality fights than one might expect. The series also benefits from a talented cast of voice actors, including anime English dubbing mainstays Stephanie Sheh and Johnny Yong Bosch. Had Three Delivery gotten a second season, and attempted to tell a more serialized story following the dramatic reveals in Season 1’s finale, it would be a lot more fondly remembered.

Storm Hawks Was One of Cartoon Network’s Best Action Series

Storm Hawks may look dated at first glance, but appearances can be deceiving. Underneath its clunky and slightly ugly 3D art style is a compelling action anime with a memorable cast of characters, and some exceptional fights. Unlike most Canadian anime, Storm Hawks is semi-serialized, with various elements carrying over from episode to episode, allowing for more engaging drama.

Storm Hawks follows its titular band of rogues as they use high-tech weaponry left behind by fallen heroes to save their war-torn world from the evil forces that seek to conquer it. Every member of the Storm Hawks gets an appropriate amount of time to shine, and as much attention is paid to their villainous enemies and the fascinating world of Atmos as is paid to them. With two seasons, 52 episodes, a perfect balance of drama, comedy, and action, and strong themes of legacy, Storm Hawks is an amazing choice for anyone looking for a new action anime to watch.

Metajets is a classic Saturday morning cartoon, and it has all the best and worst qualities of one. The series follows the eponymous Metajets, a group of professional racers who secretly operate as ace pilots fighting to defend the world. Its formulaic, cheesy, and the fights can quickly get repetitive, but it’s still a lot of fun, and it carries with it a great sense of nostalgia, even for those who’ve never seen it before.

Metajets has an instantly appealing aesthetic, quality animation, and a lovable cast of core characters. The drama between leading men Johnny and Trey is the highlight of every episode it’s featured in, Maggie is likewise always a delight when she gets focus, and Zak is a more than welcome presence, in spite of his lack of relevance to the plot. There’s more that absolutely could have been done with Metajets, but there’s nothing wrong with an anime being an all-around enjoyable Saturday morning cartoon.

Pucca is One of the Funniest Anime From Any Country

Pucca is proof of how far a simple premise can be taken. The entire anime is based around Pucca, a noodle delivery girl who never talks, and her endless, relentless pursuit of Garu, the stoic ninja that she’s hopelessly in love with. There are plenty of other amusing characters in Pucca, and every episode does have its own plot, but it ultimately all comes back to Garu’s desperate attempts to avoid being kissed.

Every episode of Pucca is bite-sized, lasting only 7 minutes each. This actually works to the anime’s advantage, as it keeps a brisk pace, while packing as much absurd humor and energy into its brief runtime as possible. Because of its format, Pucca is not an anime designed for being binged, although it certainly will keep new viewers busy, as it has nearly 200 episodes.

Dragon Booster is the Most Underrated Canadian Anime

If made today with modern animation, Dragon Booster would undoubtedly be a fan-favorite. It has a great concept, deep lore, likable enough characters, a brooding bad boy antagonist, and countless awesome dragon designs. Even with the rough art and animation that it does have going to work in spite of, Dragon Booster is still a fantastic watch, and highly underrated.

Dragon Booster is set in a world where dragons, dragon-riding, and dragon-racing are all completely normal, and a part of a larger futuristic setting. The anime’s hero, Artha, is a normal boy who’s chosen by the legendary Gold Dragon to be a hero and prevent a second war between humans and dragons from arising. Dragon Booster takes a bit to get going, but once it figures out exactly what it wants to be, and how to best execute its action scenes, it never loses this momentum.

Martin Mystery is the Sister Anime of Totally Spies!

For anyone who’s a fan of both Scooby-Doo and anime, Martin Mystery is a must-watch. Very much the spiritual successor to Totally Spies!, Martin Mystery follows its idiotic and hot-headed but surprisingly capable eponymous hero as he, along with his step-sister and an unfrozen caveman, work to solve supernatural mysteries. The series gleefully embraces both sci-fi and fantasy, spewing creativity at every turn, while also showing off tight writing and a solid sense of humor.

The degree to which Martin Mystery balances all its genres is praise-worthy, and there isn’t a bad installment in its 66-episode run. Apart from multipart specials, the series is also entirely episodic, meaning it can be casually watched in any order. Martin Mystery won’t change anyone’s life, but it will absolutely entertain anyone it sounds remotely interesting to.

Cybersix is the Best Canadian Anime of the 1990s

Canadian anime weren’t a major thing in the 1990s, but that didn’t stop Cybersix from being one of the best animated superhero series of all time. While it may have only run for 13 episodes, the anime made a major impact on fans, and won multiple awards, largely because of how mature it was for its time, even without the darker elements of the comic it’s based on. Cybersix tells the story of its eponymous heroine as she fights to defend her city from dangerous scientific creations, while hiding her identity by living her civilian life as a male teacher.

Just from looking at it, Cybersix is notable for its striking art style, and its dark, moody atmosphere. Cybersix herself is one of the most badass heroines of the ’90s, her panther sidekick only adding to the aura she naturally possesses. The animation of the series is absolutely fantastic, and the levels of weirdness and creativity the stories lean into are more than welcome.

Invincible is the Most Popular Canadian Anime of All Time

Canadian anime aren’t as prevalent now as they once were, but Invincible makes up for this by being one of the biggest animated series in the world. Based on one of the most successful indie comic books of all time, Invincible tells the dark, bloody, and subversive story of Mark Grayson, the son of the world’s greatest superhero, who excitedly becomes a hero himself after developing his powers, only for the experience to be nothing like he thought it would be. Over three heavily serialized seasons, Invincible has evolved a great deal beyond its initial premise, and it’s made fans invested in the lives of dozens of characters, spread across a vast universe.

Invincible fully embraces the soap-opera-style drama of comic books in a way most superhero series don’t, largely due to it being a semi-faithful adaptation of the comic book series of the same name. Its lore is rich, characters like Eve, Omni-Man, Robot, and Allen are brilliantly written, and the fights are some of the best animated clashes to be found outside Japanese animation. With Season 4 taking the bold step of telling a story not found in the Invincible comics, and thus stepping away from the main story, it’s apparent that Invincible is as successful as it deserves to be, and that new seasons will be released for years to come.