I've been wanting to revisit this for awhile, and with 2025 being the franchise's 20th anniversary (not to mention spooky season is right around the corner), now seemed like the opportune time.
For those unfamiliar, "Supernatural" follows the Winchester Brothers, Sam and Dean, who were trained since childhood to hunt and kill all manner of inhuman creatures by their father after the bizarre death of their mother. While it reached creator Eric Kripke's original five season plan, the series continued for another ten years before concluding with season fifteen in 2020. Its run had its ups and downs (with seasons eight and nine being my least favorite), but I believe it ended on a high note. There are some parts of the fanbase that disagree, but I believe they miss its deeper meaning.
During the series' run, we saw the release of an anime adaptation in 2011, though it seems to have been forgotten in the grand scheme of things. I haven't watched it in a long time, but I remember my initial feelings being "so-so". My rewatch garners the same results, but my years in reviewing now allows to better articulate what works and what doesn't.
The anime was produced by Japanese animation studio Madhouse, probably most well-known for "Death Note" and I'll note that it contributed two segments to the "Batman: Gotham Knight" anthology film in 2008. Between the horror of "Supernatural" and the overexaggerated nature of anime, it's a match that heightens the experience, from expressions, to creature designs, to the action and gore.
Character design wise, it appears that they only got the likeness rights to Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki (Dean and Sam's respective actors). Though I will say that Dean kind of looks like Tristan from "Yu-Gi-Oh" and Sam looks like Chad from "Bleach". Jared Padalecki provides Sam's voice for the entirety of the dub while Jensen Ackles only voices Dean for the two-part finale "All Hell Breaks Loose". Andrew Farrar voices Dean for the rest of the series before that and does a good job, though Jensen's inclusion is a double-edged sword. It's good he was able to be involved in the project (and it's clear he's a better voice actor than Jared), but it kind of makes you wish he was there from the beginning and downplays Farrar's contribution.
Other characters from the series appear but look much different from their live action counterparts. The characters' traits are still there, but I feel like some of the charm brought by actors like Jeffery Dean Morgan (John Winchester) and Jim Beaver (Bobby Singer) is missing. I will say though that Azazel's depiction is much creepier here. Meg Masters is also present, but her depiction is much younger, and one episode brings some very uncomfortable implications. I also give props that they elevate the character Missouri Moseley to a level she never got in the original series.
The series is made up of 22 half-hour episodes that covers the overarching plot of the first two seasons. They adapt episodes from those seasons to varying degrees of success. While some episodes are able to hit the main points of the original, the reduced runtime can hinder the story or lessen the impact of personal moments ("In My Time of Dying", "Heart", and "What Is And What Should Never Be" as examples). An adapted episode that really stood out for me was "Nightmare" as it gives the character of Max Miller an even more sympathetic backstory.
Some of the episodes are also original stories, although some of them feel inspired by other episodes from the live action series ("Ghost on the Highway" is similar to "Route 666" while "Savage Blood" is similar to "Bloodlust" for examples). It doesn't necessarily take anything away from those stories, but a keen-eyed "Supernatural" fan will likely pick up on that sort of thing. In addition to giving Lily and Jake focus episodes before their appearance in "All Hell Breaks Loose", the anime would have been remised to not dive into Japanese mythology for the episodes "The Spirit of Vegas" and "What Lives in the Lake".
The anime only lasted one season, and I think that's part of the reason it's been lost to time. It reminds me of what happened with the 2004 film adaptation of "A Series of Unfortunate Events". Despite it being a thirteen-book series and the film covering the first three, any plans to continue it with a similar formula never materialized and we wouldn't get a complete adaptation until the Netflix series came about. I definitely could have seen the Supernatural anime covering season three for its second season and seasons four and five for its third, at the very least reaching Kripke's original Lucifer endgame. There was lot of potential left untapped.
While it's hard not to make comparisons, it's best to go into "Supernatural: The Anime Series" as its own thing. And considering the main series did establish a multiverse, there's a good argument that the anime is part of the overall canon.
