What raises the stakes more than risking lives? Death tournaments are a niche area of the anime world in which the protagonist is generally thrown into a world where they must kill or be killed to survive. The challenge of creating a great death tournament anime is the ability to keep each “round” interesting enough for the audience to follow.
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Limitations such as the setting (open world or limited to one specific area) and character alliances are what make such shows intriguing enough to keep pressing play. It is also what differentiates each survival story from one another.
10Juni Taisen: Zodiac War
What does someone’s signreallysay about them? In Juni Taisen, twelvefighterswith aspects of themselves directly related to the Chinese zodiac must face off in a tournament that takes place every twelve years. The goal of this tournament is to collect the jewels that each contestant has swallowed. Once all are collected, the winner will be granted a wish.
Although a little predictable, Juni Taisen displays a fantastical sense of creativity that keeps viewers interested even when they know the direction the show travels in. The show is fast-paced and flies through the characters it introduces.
9Magical Girl Raising Project
What if being granted magical powers came with deadly conditions? For girls like Koyuki Himekawa, being amagical girlcame in the form of a role-playing game. One day, she and others were offered the opportunity to becomerealmagical girls via the game. However, when a contest arises, threatening the stability of their newfound lives, Koyuki discovers there’s far more at stake than simply losing her powers.
While Magical Girl can sometimes be rather predictable (especially when it comes to character deaths), it still has the thrill that comes with survival stories. Those aspects include characters building relationships with one another only to tear them down or betray one another.
8Danganronpa: The Animation
When accepted to a prestigious private school, Makoto Naegi gains hope for his future graduation. However, Hope’s Peak Private Academy is far from a place designed for the future. Instead, he and his classmates discover that they must craftily plot and execute the murder of one of their peers without being caught.
The video game-to-anime track is never quite a perfect one, and that doesn’t exclude Danganronpa. The show makes sure to hit on as many of the key components of the plot as it can, though the mysteries themselves may feel a bit rushed for some. Despite this, the show is still just as thrilling and intriguing as it was initially intended to be.
7Deadman Wonderland
“Doing time” has a whole other meaning in the world of Deadman Wonderland. Here, Ganta Igarashi witnesses the massacre of his classmates, only to be bestowed with a power that costs him his freedom. Framed for the murders, he is sent to the part-prison, part-theme park Deadman Wonderland.
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In an attempt to survive while death keeps grabbing at his heels, Ganta is fortunate enough to meet and ally with Shiro, an albino girl who seems to know him from the past. While he and Shiro find ways to survive the conditions they’re in, Ganta continues to search for the “Red Man,” truly responsible for the deaths of his peers.
What happens when the tables turn, and the video game player issent into the video gamehe aced so easily? That’s exactly what happens to Ryouta Sakamoto, the best player in the video game Btoom!. Suddenly, he’s sent into the game as a player, but the only difference is that his competitors are also real people that he must kill. He forms an alliance with a girl named Himiko for this competition, and they both try to uncover the reality behind this game.
Btoom! is a great show for anyone looking for action. It’s a rather short anime that runs quickly through its 12 episodes. Bombs are used as the primary weapon throughout the game, and players must be strategic about how they use them. Its biggest critique appears to be the plot armor that certain characters carry with them.
5Fate/Stay Night
The secrets of magic in the Fate/Stay Night world are discovered by accident by the young Shirou. This propels him into a world in which his survival depends on the summoned fighter, Saber. Both of them work together to survive a magical war, forcing Shirou to make difficult calls that run the risk of making him a killer.
Brought to viewers by the studio behind shows like Konosuba and the early 2000s Fruit Basket, Fate/Stay Night has been brought to life from its foundation as a visual novel. It is a show based on magic and a bit of literary history that tests the limits of Shirou’s youth and wits.
4Darwin’s Game
Imagine opening a fighting game app that beckons the opponents to appear. Kaname Sudou’s best friend asks for his help with the mobile app Darwin’s Game. When he goes to play it, weird things start happening. Not only is Kaname knocked out by a green snake that slithered out of his phone, but he also discovers that Darwin’s Game becomes an invitation for others to hunt him down.
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Kaname is not only a compassionate protagonist, but he also adjusts to each challenge he faces. Playing the game allows characters to attain superhuman abilities. While some choose to use this to their advantage in defeating their enemies, Kaname instead uses this to play the system of the game.
3Shigurui: Death Frenzy
When a Shogun-era lord calls for a samurai tournament with real swords instead of wooden ones (“bokken”), things become deadly fast. Shiguri starts from the present and works its way back to the past, which leads up to Fujiki Gennosuke and Iraku Seigen’s face-off. Fujiki and Iraku’s history dates back to trials that brought them together and also forged their separate ways.
Serving as both an honor to early 1600s Japan and the seriousness of samurai culture, Shigurui is an intense build-up of a story. Behind every gory battle is an enriching backstory that leads viewers to where the show initially begins.
2Mirai Nikki
Cell phones do far more than send messages to and fro in this world. One day, Yukiteru Amano discovers that his phone is actively predicting the future of each day in the form of diary entries. A fellow classmate of his, Yuno Gasai, also gains this new feature. Together, they must compete against 10 others to take the place of a deity.
Mirai Nikki was and still remains an iconic survival (and, let’s be honest, yandere) anime when it was released in 2011. Viewers gathered bits and pieces of each contestant’s life and invested in many of them. After all, when the reward for winning a competition is becoming a literal god, who wouldn’t go that far?
1Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor
Life’s a bit of a gamble already, isn’t it? Well, it becomes even more so for Kaiji Itō when he discovers that he was tricked into being the guarantor for his co-worker’s debt. Manipulated even further by a loan shark, he soon finds himself thrown into seemingly endless gambling games where he and others must win in order to pay off their debt and survive.
Despite its unconventional animation style, Kaiji is an enthralling adventure that brings its audience through the highs and lows of survival. The world that characters must navigate is riddled with betrayal and ruthlessness, forcing one another to keep to their wits as best they can. Although it preceded it, this show is also the closest story to that of Squid Game.
