Five classic anime remakes deserve to happen ASAP, and Sui Ishida’s Tokyo Ghoul should be first in line after Studio Pierrot’s adaptation left much of its psychological depth on the page.
The case for these classic anime remakes, laid out by Polygon, is not about sanding down beloved old shows for a new audience. It is about giving manga the time, visual care, and complete storytelling that earlier adaptations often never received. Some of these series still have unforgettable atmosphere; others stopped far too soon. All five have worlds worth revisiting.
1. Tokyo Ghoul Needs Its Horror and Humanity Restored
Tokyo Ghoul has always carried more weight than its premise suggests. Ken Kaneki’s transformation into a half-ghoul provides the immediate horror hook, but Ishida built the manga around systemic corruption, cyclical violence, trauma, and the shifting line between human and monster.
Studio Pierrot’s first season found an audience, but the adaptation lost momentum with Root A, while Tokyo Ghoul:re continued the rushed, uneven approach. The result was an anime that moved through major character turns without enough room for the emotional damage to land.
A remake should not merely replay Kaneki’s greatest hits with cleaner digital compositing. It needs to capture Ishida’s chaotic, expressive imagery and let the story’s literary references and competing ideologies breathe. The gore matters, but the real reason to return is the tragedy underneath it: nearly everyone thinks they are surviving a cruel system, and nearly everyone becomes part of that cruelty.
2. Soul Eater Deserves the Ending Its World Was Built For
Studio Bones gave Soul Eater an identity that still jumps off the screen. Its crooked gothic architecture, macabre comedy, jazz-heavy and hip-hop-infused music, and lovable weapon-meister ensemble made Death City feel like no other anime setting.
That is precisely why its anime-original ending stings. Atsushi Okubo’s manga continued into deeper lore and fuller character arcs, while the television series had to sprint toward a conclusion that did not give its cast or central conflicts the room they deserved.
The ideal remake would keep the original’s wild style instead of treating it like a problem to be corrected. This is not a call for a colder, more serious Soul Eater; the spooky charm is essential. The opportunity lies in pairing that visual personality with the manga’s complete narrative, so Maka, Soul, Black☆Star, Death the Kid, and the rest can reach an ending that feels earned rather than hurried.
There is a clear model for how this can work. A later adaptation does not need to erase an older favorite to become the most complete version of a story. It can preserve the original’s spark while finally following through on the material that made readers fall in love with it.
3. Claymore Has an Entire War Waiting Beyond Its Anime Ending
Norihiro Yagi’s Claymore drops viewers onto a medieval island haunted by Yoma, humanoid shape-shifters that prey on humans. The Organization answers that terror by creating human-Yoma hybrids: silver-eyed warriors known as Claymores, each ranked by skill, power, and leadership.
Madhouse’s 26-episode adaptation established the setting, its female-led cast, and the unnerving survival tension at the heart of the story. But it only covered the first 11 manga volumes before taking a non-canon route to the finish line.
That leaves the most tempting remake argument of the bunch: Claymore has substantial material beyond what the anime reached. The Northern Campaign and the story’s final confrontation promise the kind of tactical warfare, escalating monster designs, and high-stakes confrontations that animation can make genuinely frightening.
More importantly, a full adaptation could give Clare and the other Claymores the time to become more than stoic swordswomen facing another monster of the week. Their world asks whether engineered protectors can remain human when they must constantly draw on the same monstrous power they were made to destroy. That tension is the soul of Claymore.
4. Deadman Wonderland’s Prison Nightmare Needs a Complete Escape Plan
Deadman Wonderland begins with catastrophe on a brutal scale. A massive earthquake devastates Tokyo and sinks parts of the city, while teenager Ganta Igarashi survives with no memory of the disaster. Then a bloodstained figure murders his entire class, leaves Ganta alive, and sends him into a nightmare that turns his life upside down.
Manglobe’s anime follows Ganta after he is sentenced to Deadman Wonderland, a prison that also operates as a theme park. It is a nasty, effective setup: incarceration becomes public entertainment, and the people trapped inside must survive both the institution and each other.
The trouble is scale. The adaptation tells an incomplete version of this story in 12 rushed episodes. A remake could give Ganta’s fight to prove his innocence a proper arc while making space for the body horror, conspiracies, and emotional damage that bind the characters together.
It would also have a strong action language to work with. Certain inmates wield Branch of Sin, an ability that turns blood into weapons. That is not just a flashy battle mechanic; it makes every clash feel painfully personal. Blood is ammunition, identity, injury, and survival all at once.
5. Berserk Still Needs an Adaptation Brave Enough to Tell the Whole Story
Kentaro Miura’s Berserk remains the biggest, most daunting dream remake on this list. The 1997 anime is cherished for its atmosphere and its handling of the Golden Age, yet it skips major arcs and ends abruptly. The Berserk: The Golden Age Arc trilogy reaches some of that same material, but only as one piece of a much larger tale.
Then came the 2016 series, which Polygon criticizes for its animation, sound design, and character writing. Across every version, huge sections of Miura’s manga remain unadapted, and none has fully matched the intricate force of his hand-drawn art.
A new Berserk cannot succeed by chasing spectacle alone. Guts and Griffith demand patient, nuanced treatment, but the series earns its power through its wider cast as well: people who find flickers of loyalty, tenderness, terror, and resolve in a world that seems built to crush them.
That is the real standard for a remake. It must recreate the visceral bleakness of Miura’s world without mistaking misery for depth, and it must honor the manga’s detail without flattening it into a parade of grisly images. Get that balance right, and Berserk could stand as a modern anime landmark rather than another painful reminder of material left unfinished on screen.
A Remake Should Finish the Job, Not Overwrite the Memory
The strongest case for classic anime remakes is not nostalgia dressed up as a content strategy. These are stories where the source material offers richer character work, decisive later arcs, or a complete conclusion that the existing anime never reached. A new production should respect what fans remember—the mood of Soul Eater, the atmosphere of 1997’s Berserk, the immediate dread of Deadman Wonderland—while fixing the unfinished business.
That is a far more worthwhile goal than simply repainting familiar scenes. Animation remakes are at their best when they give a great story its missing chapters, its intended ending, and the visual language it always deserved.
Which of these five anime would you remake first: Tokyo Ghoul, Soul Eater, Claymore, Deadman Wonderland, or Berserk?
