I could go through and do different ones all at once, but I want to spend more time talking about why a game works for that theme. And some of are going to be more specific than just a category, like anime, but I’ll get to those in the future.

Board Games That Feel Like Anime

So this is an interesting category to talk about. There are a number of games based off of Anime or Manga, and a lot of them are Japanime Games. The issue with that is Japanime games tend to be pretty hit or miss for me. And they are the ones who put out Sword Art Online: Sword of Fellows. But the point of this list isn’t that the game needs to be based on an anime, it needs to have the theme. So I went looking for other games that maybe feel more like an anime.

Middara: Unintentional Malum

First one that I thought of and this one was easy. Middara gives you that Anime art style and theme for sure in the game. This is a big dungeon crawl game where you are a person who was taken from Earth and through a connected portal brought to a new world. This world has magic, weapons, and you’re being trained to go out and adventure. It’s a dungeon crawl game with definitely an Anime flare to it. Very straight forward with how Middara connects.

Clank Legacy

Clank Legacy is a bit more of a stretch. But one thing about anime is they often are a bit goofy. And Clank Legacy is going to be that, as it is based off of Acquisitions Incorporated D&D Campaign. This is very goofy and a lot of fun to watch. And the situations they get into, while definitely fantasy based, tend to lean into that absurd that you see in Anime.

Super Fantasy Brawl

This is an Anime fighting game. Your team of characters transport in from another time and face off against each other. There are humanoids, animals, and basically all sorts of cool and epic creatures. Then the game itself is a tactical battle where you try and knock out your opponent and complete objectives. This will give you the feel of moments like in Dragonball Z where there is the tournament or My Hero Academia.

Forgotten Waters

Forgotten Waters is a goofy pirate game with voice acting for the story. If you want an epic high seas adventure, this is going to be it. And I think that gives it some of that Anime sort of feel to it, the whole epic pirate adventure but with humor added in as well. Plus, it uses I believe some of the crossroads system from Dead of Winter, so adds in some good choice.

Say Bye to the Villains

Say Bye to the Villains is a Japanese themed game. You play as different Samurai or Ninja who know of villains they will be facing. You have ten days to prepare to face off against the villains, researching their tactics, preparing your skills, and helping others. This is a really hard cooperative card game, in fact, I still want my first win. But it gives you the Japanese theme, and the villains and Samurai or Ninja are larger than life, so definitely an Anime vibe.

King of Tokyo

I doubt this one is too much of a shock for the list. King of Tokyo is all about giant monsters and mechs fighting. While some of it feels more like Godzilla and King Kong than anime, the whole cartoon look and giant things fighting, easy choice for me to add to the list. The game it also really accessible for new gamers, so one that’d be easy to get to the table with Anime fans.

Village Attacks

Sometimes you just want an Anime about an edge-lord, and Village Attacks is going to give you a bit of that in a board game. You all play as the bad guys, the monsters who terrorize the village. And now, you want a peaceful evening, but the village is there with pitchforks and torches ready to destroy the heart of your castle. A dark themed game but plays fairly absurd.

Under Falling Skies

Under Falling Skies is a solo board game where a player defends against waves of aliens attacking. The small ships come down all the time the mothership is making it closer and closer to landfall. Can you research a way to stop the mothership and scramble the jets to blow the smaller ships out of the sky. The game is a ton of fun, but the whole aliens or something crazy coming to earth, that happens in a lot of Anime, or at least a number I’ve watched. So this gives me some of the anime vibe as well as Space Invaders and Independence Day.

Spire’s End

Spire’s End is pretty new to my collection but one that I think has an Anime feel to it. The whole premise, a spire popping up out of the ground is weird. Then you add in Mushroom Men, keys that are alive, and trying to rescue townsfolk who have been taken away into the tower. That seems like an Anime plot. And while the game is dark it is a lot of fun to play, and a good solo game.

Sleeping Gods

Finally, Sleeping Gods. It and Spire’s End you can watch game play of on Malts and Meeples. But this game is a bit crazy. Sleeping Gods plays as an Isekai. You are the crew of the Manticore going from Hong Kong to New York. One day, as a storm clears, you find yourself in an unfamiliar land and are told you need to wake up the Sleeping Gods who once were active. Then you go off and explore and adventure. Definitely an Anime feeling plot for the game.

Final Thoughts

I’d have loved to put some games that are based off of actual Anime on the list. Cowboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie is one that I own and should play. I’ve played Sword Art Online: Sword of Fellows, and honestly, I just want better games based off of Anime. Give me a dungeon crawler set in Aincrad, let me play as a random character trying to clear that world and death game.

If I were to pick others, besides Sword Art Online. I think a good pick-up and deliver epic game for Cowboy Bebop would be fun. Demon Slayer as a one versus all fighting game could be cool. My Hero Academia and Dragonball Z with their tournaments would both make nice one versus one games. I mean, My Hero Academia Dice Throne, I’d be all over that.

What anime would you like to see a good board game of, and what type of game would it be?

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What is Anime?

Let’s start out by talking about what anime is. Anime is a Japanese style of animation that is extremely popular over there. Think kind of how classic Disney has a certain style, so you can tell when something is a classic Disney film. When you see something that is anime, it generally has a somewhat unique style.

I think the best way to talk about anime is to give examples. The best known anime is probably Pokemon or Dragonball Z. These have specific looks to them and a lot of it is setting up for fighting and then fighting. Now, you might think that anime then equates to a kids cartoon. That isn’t really the case, though. There are a lot of anime that delay with much more mature themes. A lot of them fall more into the adult animated or at least teen category. Think something that’d be on Adult Swim, they do have an anime block, but often less goofy.

So, what are some hallmarks of anime. The first is over the top plots. Chasing down magical dragonballs to then get a wish, that’s pretty normal for anime. You might have mechs fighting giant kaiju or an anime about the worlds best cooking school and the craziness that happens there. But it can be over the top in a much more serious way. Stiens;Gate is an anime about time travel that doesn’t pull it’s punches.

What Do I Look For In An Anime?

This is a bit more like my campaign game one. I look at a lot of factors but I’ll care less about certain factors if others are good. I will spoil my first one is going to be plot. If the plot is amazing, I can put up with a lot of other things.

1. Plot
2. Amount of Filler
3. Quality of Dub
4. Amount of Fan Service
5. Animation Style

Plot

Like I said, plot is always going to be the first thing that I look at. Why, because there are a lot of anime with similar plots. I don’t mind at all if an anime has a goofy plot, but I want it to be interesting. Some of my favorite anime, the likes of Stiens;Gate and Cowboy Bebop are quite serious. Others, like Food Wars and Assassination Classroom are not nearly as serious.

Amount of Filler

So this is a term that I’ll define quickly. Filler is basically anime episodes that are used to pad out the length of anime either because they have caught up to the manga it is based off of, or to get more episodes into a season. Basically, episodes that don’t have anything to do with the main plot and are added in there to fill out the out the amount of content. Clearly, I don’t want a ton of those.

There are some anime, Bleach being an example, where around half the episodes in the whole series are filler. Oddly enough that’s better than the anime where 20% are filler. Why, because when half are filler it’s easier to skip those large chunks. When it’s less you might have every third episode is filler and that’s hard to skip them when you don’t know if it’s filler or not.

Quality of Dub

Now, this one some anime fans will say is sacrilege. Anime should be watched in Japanese with subtitles according to them. And some anime are definitely better that way. In fact, ones with poor quality dubs into English or another language, do watch with subtitles. But I sometimes want it on to only half watch. If I half watch with subtitles I miss most of what happens in the anime. So having a quality dub in terms of the voice acting is very important.

Amount of Fan Service

Another term to define, what is fan service. This is basically when a movie has some nudity to make it edgier, that’s the best American comparison I can think of. Basically nudity, or scantily clad characters, for the sake of the audience not for the sake of the story. And while American shows and movies might slip in a little bit, anime can put in a lot.

Now, this doesn’t rule out an anime for me, Food Wars has a lot of this in it. It kind of makes sense for the plot of the show. But there are other anime, A Wise Mans Grandchild for example, where it is just added in for no reason. And in particular it starts to show up a lot in the middle of that show and just doesn’t make any sense. So it depends on the anime for sure, but generally too much fan service and I’m less interested in the anime.

Animation Style

Finally, we have animation style. Now, this one is very subjective. There are some styles that I think are pretty fun, there are others that don’t work well for me. Some are more cartoony while others try and draw their anime more realistically or with more detail. But the animation style can make a difference, it if it doesn’t look as smooth in terms of movement then I’ll be less interested. And generally older animation can be harder to get through in animes.

Are All Criteria Equally Important

I think you can already tell how I’ve written, the answer is no. Now, plot is always going to be important. If the plot isn’t engaging I’m not going to stay interested. Blue Exorcist is a great example of this, the plot started out interesting and then it just dragged on and on. Eventually I wasn’t interested anymore so I stopped watching it because there was just too much left before the payoff.

Other than that, I can work through most things, fan service might be the next one where if it’s just too much, then that might get me to stop watching an anime. For the fan service, at least, you can checkout IMDb and see the parental ratings on a lot of them to get an idea of the level. Granted, I’ve watched some with severe amounts of fan service, I’m looking at you Food Wars, and it was still worth watching.

Let’s Do An Example

In fact, let’s do an example using Food Wars as to why I picked out that anime to watch. And how well it does on every scale in terms of being an anime that I would have picked. Some of why I picked it, I will say, is because it was recommended to me.

The Plot

So, the plot on this one is really weird. That generally interests me because there are some anime about food, but about food and a culinary school where they battle each other by cooking, that is different. A unique plot or an isekai plot will generally interest me, I’ll write about isekai later and what that is in the future.

Amount of Filler

I hadn’t heard that Food Wars had much filler. I won’t always look it up ahead of time. If I haven’t heard it has a lot of filler then I will assume that it hasn’t had a lot of filler. Watching it, I will say, not much filler in the show. For some other anime, like Bleach again as the example, if I’ve heard there is a lot of filler I’ll look up to see how much actual filler there is.

Quality of Dub

For the quality of the dub, I always test out the anime. If the voice work isn’t good I’ll stop watching it. It’s hard to know about the quality of the dub. Most of the time newer anime the dub is going to be pretty good. But some of the older dubs are going to be rough. And, I won’t lie, with something like Food Wars, I wouldn’t have watched it if it hadn’t been dubbed.

Amount of Fan Service

Now, this is there I’m fairly different from what I said, this anime has a ton of fan service. Is it needed for the plot, most certainly not. Does it enhance the plot, kind of. I think they could have gotten across how wonderful the food was without the fan service. But I will say, it matches the tone of the anime, this is not a serious anime. And while it is way over the top, especially in the first episode where it is almost done for the shock factor, it blends in better in the subsequent episodes.

Animation Style

This is an animation style that I like. I think I’d say it is what most modern anime’s look like in terms of animation. The design is nice and clean and it just works well. There’s nothing wrong about it, there’s nothing that makes it stand out. And while I’m watching an animated show, I want the plot to be the lead on it, so this work out well for me.

Will This Work For You?

Yes, I think that this will work for you. However, you can see a lot of them are subjective, what level of dub you’re willing to listen to. If you’ll like an animation style or if you’re willing to get around filler. And maybe you don’t like isekai or fantasy as much as I do, then you can find the sci-fi or slice of life plots instead. There’s probably an anime out there for everyone, just know that compared to some of the others topics I’ve done thus far, there is a ton of anime to sift through an with the varying taste, it can be a lot of work.

What is your favorite anime?

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