21 Best Anime About Games You Will Enjoy

Anime about games means those anime series which are related to some kind of game or take place inside a gaming world, where characters must survive no matter what.

And some anime are simply about gambling games and playing shogi, karuta and some other Japanese games.

There are many anime about games but today we are going to create a list based on our picks of best anime about games of all time that you will enjoy watching.

Lets dive in to the list of 21 best anime about games that you should be watching.

21. High Score Girl

High Score Girl

The year is 1991 and 6th grader Yaguchi Haruo only has video games to live for. He’s not popular in school and he’s neither handsome, funny, nice nor even friendly. The only thing he has going for him is that he is good at video games.

One day at the local arcade, he plays Oono Akira, a fellow classmate but who’s popular, smart, pretty and a rich girl that absolutely destroys him at Street Fighter II. Not only does he lose to her 30 times in a row, he can’t beat her at any game.

Haruo can’t seem to shake Akira off as she follows him from arcade to arcade everyday after school and beats him every time. As weird as it sounds, the odd couple begins a strange bond and friendship.

  • Episodes: 19 / Two Seasons
  • Studios: J.C.Staff
  • Genres: Game, Comedy, Romance, School, Seinen, Anime About Games

20. Chihayafuru

Chihayafuru

All her life, Chihaya’s dream was to see her model sister become Japan’s best… That is, until a quiet, unassuming transfer student named Arata tells her otherwise. A dream, he explains to her, is something she needs to work at herself.

Arata plays a competitive version of a traditional Japanese card game–known as Hyakunin Isshu–in a way Chihaya has never seen before.

After taking Arata’s place in a game, Chihaya discovers she has a passion for it. Now Chihaya wants to become number one in the world, the Queen of Karuta.

  • Episodes: 50 / Two Seasons
  • Studios: Madhouse
  • Genres: Drama, Game, Josei, School, Slice of Life, Sports, Anime About Games

19. New Game!

New Game!

The main character Suzukaze Aoba graduates from high school and joins a game company.

The person who made the game that Aoba loved as a grade-schooler just happens to be Aoba’s senior at the company.

The story follows girls who work and aspire at the Eagle jump company.

  • Episdoes: 24 / Two Seasons
  • Studios: Doga Kobo
  • Genres: Game, Slice of Life, Comedy, Anime About Games

18. D-Frag

D-Frag

Kazama Kenji likes to believe he is something of a delinquent. Moreover, others seem to like to agree that he is. Of course, Kenji’s gang finds their way to a group of four not-so-normal girls—Chitose, Sakura, Minami and Roka—and all at once.

Whatever reputation he may have is nothing compared to the outrageous behavior of the girls. Shanghaied into joining their club, what will happen to his everyday life from that point on?

  • Episodes: 12
  • Studios: Brain’s Base
  • Genres: Game, Comedy, School, Seinen, Anime About Games

17. Yu☆Gi☆Oh!

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!

Yugioh Series Zero is another version of Duel monsters. 4Kids considered this series of Yugioh to be “too violent” and was never released outside of japan or dubbed in English.

This series starts off earlier in the Manga than that of Duel Monsters, giving us more of a background into where Yugi found his millennial puzzle and a few other things before it gets to the card game that Yugioh is famous for.

  • Episodes: 778 / 6 Seasons
  • Studios: Gallop, Toei Animation, 4kids entertainement
  • Genres: Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Game, Shounen, Anime About Games

16. Summer Wars

Summer Wars

Koiso Kenji, a eleventh-grade math genius who works in the summer as a part-time computer technician for the Virtual World of Oz, is invited by Shinohara Natsuki, the most popular girl at his high school to her expansive family’s home for a summer job.

In the middle of their trip, a hacker infiltrates the network and takes control of Oz, plunging humanity into absolute chaos.

  • Episodes: Movie
  • Studios: Madhouse
  • Genres: Sci-Fi, Comedy, Anime About Games

15. Hack//Sign

Hack//Sign

Taking place 2 years after the “Pluto’s Kiss” crisis. “The World” once again returns. This time being the only PC game in existence.

Tsubasa a boy who started playing only a few weeks before, finds himself taken to a mysterious zone, where he meets Aura, Morganna, and a mysterious player that has the appearance of a cat.

Soon after realizing that he can’t logout, he is forced to stay in “The World”, but unlike other characters he can still feel pain, he still has his emotions. He slowly separates himself from those who try to help him, the only ones that can help him.

His friends Bear and Black Rose, constantly try to comfort him in his struggle, but he always pushes them away. He only wants to search for the answer to why he can’t logout, and to the real question of who he really is.

  • Episodes: 26
  • Studios: Bee Train
  • Genres: Game, Sci-Fi, Adventure, Mystery, Magic, Fantasy, Anime About Games

14. 3-gatsu no Lion

3-gatsu no Lion

Rei Kiriyama is a 17-year-old boy who recently started living alone, financed by his salary as a professional Shogi player.

Despite his independence, however, he’s yet to mature emotionally, and his problems continue to haunt him in his daily life.

His relationship with his adoptive family is strained, and he has difficulties interacting with his fellow high school students.

Meanwhile, his professional career has entered a slump. Burdened with the heavy expectations placed on him as the fifth to become pro in middle school, his wins and losses are fluctuating as his record and progression into the ranks begin to stagnate.

Acquainted with Rei are the three Kawamoto sisters: Akari, Hinata, and Momo.

Unlike Rei, they live happily in their modest home, which they warmly welcome Rei into as if he were one of their own.

Despite his reservations about becoming too close to the family, he frequently visits, interacting with them and receiving the kind of care and affection he never quite had while under his foster home.

This is the story of Rei’s triumphs and failures, relationships new and old, and his growth as a person.

  • Episodes: 44 / Two Seasons
  • Studios: Shaft
  • Genres: Drama, Game, Seinen, Slice of Life, Anime About Games

13. Net-juu no Susume

Net-juu no Susume

Moriko Morioka is a 30-year-old single NEET woman. After dropping out from reality, she has taken off in search for a fulfilling life and ended up in a net game or “netoge.”

In the netoge world, she began her new life as a refreshing and handsome character named Hayashi.

While starting out as a beginner, a pretty character named Lily reached out to help her.

Meanwhile, in the real world, awaits a shocking encounter with a good-looking elite company employee, a mysterious blue-eyed blonde.

  • Episodes: 10
  • Studios: Signal.MD
  • Genres: Game, Comedy, Romance, Anime About Games

12. Hai to Gensou no Grimgar

Hai to Gensou no Grimgar

In order to survive, Haruhiro forms a party with the others, learns fighting skills, and as a soldier in the reserve force, takes his first steps into the world of Grimgar.

What awaits him there, he doesn’t know… This is the story of an adventure born from the ashes.

  • Episodes: 12
  • Studios: A-1 Pictures
  • Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Anime About Games

11. Accel World

Accel World

One autumn day in 2046, Haruyuki has an encounter with Kuroyukihime, the prettiest girl in his school. For the middle school boy who is often bullied, the meeting changes his life.

Through a mysterious piece of software from her, Haruyuki learns of the existence of the virtual Accel World. In that moment, the lowest of the “school caste” becomes “Burst Linker”, a knight defending a princess.

  • Episodes: 24
  • Studios: Sunrise
  • Genres: Action, Game, Sci-Fi, Romance, School, Anime About Games

10. Kakegurui

Kakegurui

Hyakkaou Private Academy. An institution for the privileged with a very peculiar curriculum. You see, when you’re the sons and daughters of the wealthiest of the wealthy, it’s not athletic prowess or book smarts that keep you ahead.

It’s reading your opponent, the art of the deal. What better way to hone those skills than with a rigorous curriculum of gambling? At Hyakkaou Private Academy, the winners live like kings, and the losers are put through the wringer.

But when Yumeko Jabami enrolls, she’s gonna teach these kids what a high roller really looks like!

  • Episodes: 24 / Two Seasons
  • Studios: MAPPA
  • Genres: Drama, Game, Mystery, Psychological, School, Shounen, Anime About Games

9. Death Parade

Death Parade

“Welcome to Queen Dekim.” What greets two unsuspecting guests is a strange bar, Queen Dekim, and the white-haired bartender, Dekim.

“From here you two shall begin a battle where your lives hang in the balance,” he says to introduce the Death Game.

Before long the guests’ true natures become apparent. As a matter of course, at the game’s end Dekim is revealed to be the “arbiter.” Dekim’s judgement on the two guests is…

  • Episodes: 12
  • Studios: Madhouse
  • Genres: Game, Mystery, Psychological, Drama, Thriller, Anime About Games

8. Kaiji

Kaiji

Several months after the events of the first season, Kaiji, with his appendages reattached and his debt now run up to 9.5 million yen, is still desperately seeking the elusive big score that will cancel all of his markers.

Unbeknownst to him, Hyodo’s company, the Teiai Corporation, is actively searching for Kaiji, and have sent Kaiji’s old “friend” Endoh, who entered him in the high stakes games in the past, to find him.

The two meet when Kaiji chances to walk in front of Endoh’s car at a stop light, and thinking that he has found the answer to his prayers, Kaiji gets in the car with him.

While Kaiji and Endoh are “happy” to see one another, and both want to see Kaiji’s debt repaid, their means to that goal couldn’t be more different.

Instead of leading Kaiji to the big score, Endoh delivers him drugged and docile to the Teiai Corporation’s secret underground labor camp where Kaiji will have an opportunity to repay his debt… with 15 years of hard labor.

  • Episodes: 52 / Two Seasons
  • Studios: Madhouse
  • Genres: Game, Psychological, Thriller, Seinen, Anime About Games

7. Btooom

Btooom

The story centers around Ry?ta Sakamoto, a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) young man and a top-ranked player in the online combat game Btoom!

One day, he wakes up on a tropical island without remembering how he got there. He sees a figure in the distance and asks for help.

However, the figure responds by throwing something at Ry?ta — a “BIM” bomb. In that moment, Ry?ta comes to realize two things: one, his own life is in danger, and two, he is now in the world of Btoom!

  • Episodes: 12
  • Studios: Madhouse
  • Genres: Action, Sci-Fi, Psychological, Seinen, Anime About Games

6. Log Horizon

Log Horizon

Elder Tales is an online fantasy RPG that has become popular worldwide. But when its twelfth expansion package, “Cultivate the Noosphere,” is installed, thirty thousand players in Japan are trapped inside.

Among them is grad student Shiroe, who isn’t very good at interacting with others. But to survive in a world full of monsters, he forms a guild called “Log Horizon” with an eclectic group of other players.

  • Episodes: 50 / Two Seasons
  • Studios: Studio Deen
  • Genres: Action, Game, Adventure, Magic, Fantasy, Anime About Games

5. Persona The Animation

Persona The Animation

The stage is Ayanagi City, a city near the Japan Sea. It is a futuristic city that was built to carry out the recovery from the calamity caused by the “Apathy Syndrome” ten years previous.

High school student Shin Kanzato with his little brother Jun, meet with their elder brother Ry?, who is the chief of the Ayanagi City Police, again after ten years.

At that time, a series of strange incidents happen in Ayanagi City such as the crew of a submarine that suddenly disappears while in their submarine, or a spiritless symptom which disturbs the world after ten years, or the case of the inside out corpse where a student took on a cruel appearance.

Ry? tracks down the organization behind the string of incidents, and having become involved in the incidents, Shin awakens the “Persona”. 

  • Episodes: 89 / Four Seasons
  • Studios: A-1 Pictures, AIC A.S.T.A.
  • Genres: Sci-Fi, Adventure, Mystery, Super Power, Supernatural, School, Anime About Games

4. Sword Art Online

Sword art Online

The only way to escape is to ‘clear’ the game. Death in game means actual ‘death’ —- The ten thousand who have logged onto the as of yet mysterious game ‘Sword Art Online’ using their Nerve Gear have been forced into this perilous death game and are trapped inside.

Protagonist Kirito, one of the many gamers, has greeted this ‘truth’. He plays as a solo player in the giant castle that is the stage for this game —- ‘Aincrad’.

To meet the conditions of clearing the game and leaving this twisted virtual world, he must get through all 100 floors. Will Kirito have what it takes to clear the game, or will he die trying?

  • Episdoes: 97 / Five Seasons
  • Studios: A-1 Pictures, 3Hz
  • Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Game, Romance, Anime About Games

3. The King’s Avatar

The King’s Avatar

The King’s Avatar tells a story of Ye Xiu, who is a professional player in the online MMORPG game called ‘Glory.

Ye Xiu’s friends, colleague, and teammates make him give up on his career of one of the most successful competitive player of Glory.

Ye Xiu now has neither his team, nor the sponsor, nor his life’s goal.

  • Episodes: 12
  • Studios: G.CMay Animation & Film
  • Genres: Action, Game, Anime About Games

2. Overlord

Overlord

The story begins with Yggdrasil, a popular online game which is quietly shut down one day; however, the protagonist Momonga decides to not log out.

Momonga is then transformed into the image of a skeleton as “the most powerful wizard.”

The world continues to change, with non-player characters (NPCs) begining to feel emotion.

Having no parents, friends, or place in society, this ordinary young man Momonga then strives to take over the new world the game has become.

  • Episodes: 39 / Three Seasons
  • Studios: Madhouse
  • Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Game, Magic, Supernatural, Anime About Games

1. No Game No Life

No Game No Life anime about games

The story of No Game, No Life centers around Sora and Shiro, a brother and sister whose reputations as brilliant NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) hikikomori (shut-in) gamers have spawned urban legends all over the Internet.

These two gamers even consider the real world as just another “crappy game.”

One day, they are summoned by a boy named “God” to an alternate world. There, God has prohibited war and declared this to be a world where “everything is decided by games” – even national borders.

Humanity has been driven back into one remaining city by the other races. Will Sora and Shiro, the good-for-nothing brother and sister, become the “Saviors of Humanity” on this alternate world? “Well, let’s start playing.”


0 people found this article entertaining!

Did you enjoy this article?




About the Author

Anukul Saini

Anime and gaming enthusiast with a passion for sharing my knowledge and insights. I've watched over 1000 anime and spent countless hours playing video games.

Leave a Reply