5 Animated Fantasy Gems You Forgot—And Need to Rewatch Now

Animated fantasy never really goes out of style. It can worldbuild like a prestige drama, but still hook kids with color and momentum. If you want a gold standard, it is still Avatar: The Last Airbender. And that universe is only getting busier: Avatar Studios has an animated feature, 'The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender,' queued up for Paramount+ in fall 2026 with Team Avatar returning as adults, plus a follow-up series, 'Avatar: Seven Havens,' already locked for the platform with a two-season order (13 episodes each). Meanwhile, newer hits like 'The Dragon Prince' and 'She-Ra and the Princesses of Power' keep proving the lane is wide open.

But for every franchise with a forever-fanbase, there are shows that either arrived a bit too early, got buried by broadcast schedules, or just never found their crowd. Some of them are ambitious, surprisingly grown-up, and very worth digging up. Here are five that deserve more oxygen.

1. The Legend of Prince Valiant (1991–1994, 65 episodes)

   Based on Hal Foster's long-running comic strip, this one aired on The Family Channel and followed Val (voiced by Robby Benson), a young noble from the besieged island kingdom of Thule, heading to Camelot to earn a spot at the Round Table. The tone is strikingly straight-faced for early-90s animation: messy medieval combat, court politics that actually matter, and storylines about duty, exile, and the cost of ideals that do not get wrapped up with a bow. King Arthur, Merlin, and Guinevere are treated as real characters, not just quest-givers, and Val is allowed to fail and learn across multi-episode arcs. For its era, that kind of serialized character growth was rare, and the show is better for it.

2. Highlander: The Animated Series (1994–1996, 40 episodes)

   This is the live-action franchise reimagined after a catastrophe: centuries after a meteorite wrecks civilization, young Immortal Quentin MacLeod (voiced by Miklos Perlus) searches for the wisdom of his elders to take down warlord Kortan (voiced by Lawrence Bayne). The clever twist: instead of the movies ' beheadings, the show swaps in a voluntary transfer of the Quickening, which sidesteps gore and lets the writers nerd out on history, sacrifice, and the weight of immortality. It is intentionally slow-burn and lore-heavy, which did not always play great in daytime slots, but if you like worldbuilding over monster-of-the-week, it is a fascinating swing that never quite stuck in the public memory like its live-action siblings.

3. Redwall (3 serialized seasons)

   Nobody told this Nelvana/Alphanim co-pro it had to sand down Brian Jacques' novels. Matthias (voiced by Tyrone Savage) is a peaceful mouse who ends up taking the sword to defend Redwall Abbey from the rat warlord Cluny the Scourge (voiced by Diego Matamoros). The adaptation keeps the scale and the stakes: permanent injuries happen, and the fear of siege, hunger, and attrition is constant. It also expects you to pay attention through shifting alliances and stories that leap generations. That made it a tough fit alongside late-90s episodic comedies, but as a legit epic in animated form, it does the job.

4. Mighty Max (1993–1994, 40 episodes)

   Yes, this started as a line of Bluebird Toys playsets built around a magic cap. No, the show is not a toy commercial in disguise. Max (voiced by Rob Paulsen) gets a portal-hopping baseball cap and teams up with ancient warrior Norman (voiced by Richard Moll) and scholar Virgil to fight Skullmaster (voiced by Tim Curry) across myths and legends worldwide. The shocker here is the tone: the series treats consequences like they matter. Supporting characters die and stay dead, and the dread actually builds across both seasons. It ran its 40 episodes and then almost disappeared from conversation, but it might be one of the most serious kids' fantasy shows of the decade.

5. Pirates of Dark Water (21 episodes, unfinished)

   Hanna-Barbera went big and weird here, setting the whole thing on Mer, an alien ocean world being slowly eaten by a toxic substance called Dark Water as the planet's sun fades. Prince Ren (voiced by George Newbern) hunts the Thirteen Treasures of Rule, the only things that can stop the spread. The worldbuilding is meticulous: rival political factions, trade routes, and creature ecosystems that feel lived-in, not just wallpaper. Then the money ran out. The show was canceled with eight of the thirteen treasures still missing, and the central quest unresolved. What exists is ambitious and textured; it just never got to stick the landing.

Plenty of animated fantasies have the spotlight right now, especially with Avatar's next wave hitting Paramount+ in 2026 and beyond, but the bench is deeper than people remember. Which underseen fantasy cartoon would you put back in the rotation?