There are many shows with brain-bending plots and intense battles of the mind are iconic within the world of anime.
Anime is the home to incredibly fierce battles like those in Dragon Ball, but it also features amazing battles of the mind and stories that examine deeper psychological concepts. These shows can hit hard emotionally and keep viewers on the edge of their seats as they try to figure out what will happen next.
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Psychological anime have the potential to either be amazingly constructed or messy disasters that are not fun for anyone to watch. Fortunately, some brilliant minds have carefully crafted some must-watch shows over the years.
With its second season airing as part of the Summer 2022 anime line-up, Classroom of the Elite is currently in public discourse. Based on a light novel, this psychological anime takes place in a high school that divides its students into four tiers and then conducts tests to see which class reigns supreme. On the surface, Kiyotaka Ayanokoji seems like a reasonably smart but modest person who prefers to not get involved with the school’s challenges, but that could not be further from the truth.
As the story progresses, Classroom of the Elite slowly reveals its protagonist to be a master manipulator, all the while still giving him flaws and blind spots. The anime’s secondary characters are also well-written.
2014’s Ping Pong the Animation took the sports anime genre in an unprecedented direction. Despite its name, this show is not about ping pong; rather, it dives into the psychological constructs that people create to help them survive in the world. Peco and Smile are polar opposites personality-wise, but they have been close friends for years. Smile idolizes Peco to a certain extent, viewing him as something of a hero.
Ping Pong the Animation explores the psyches of these characters, along with quite a few other people. This anime is complex, visually creative, and endlessly rewatchable.
A teenager with little direction in life suddenly finds himself teleported to a fantasy world. Before long, Subaru meets a wide assortment of women and gets involved in the political climate of this universe. Re:Zero has all the trappings of a stereotypical isekai anime, but it is anything but ordinary. Desperate to play the hero, Subaru pushes himself beyond his limits to unappreciated results and dire consequences, even if the protagonist has the ability to reset following a death.
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Re:Zero shows the toll Subaru’s actions have on his psyche, and it slowly does the same for characters such as Rem and Emilia.
Gambling anime such as Akagi and Kakegurui are very entertaining, but their stakes are so high that it rarely seems likely that their protagonists will suffer any significant losses. Kaiji is different. Saddled with somebody else’s debt and pushed to take part in a series of dangerous psychological games, Kaiji Itou is way out of his depth for the vast majority of the anime’s two seasons.
Kaiji is human; therefore, he is vulnerable. Every gamble can result in disaster for the protagonist, and there are no easy shortcuts to victory. The anime’s unpredictability makes the tension unbearable in most scenes.
Sticking a moment longer with gambling, One Outs provides a unique twist on the genre since it is also a sports anime. After striking out Saikyou Saitama Lycaons’ star hitter in a street game called One Outs, Toua Tokuchi is recruited as the team’s pitcher, even though he does not particularly care about going legit. However, Toua agrees to a peculiar contract with the Lycaons’ owner that sees the pitcher win or loss big depending on his performance.
Unlike Kaiji, One Outs keeps Toua’s thoughts and plans secret from the audience while things are still unfolding, opting instead to show events from the perspectives of the hitters. While sports anime typically emphasize skill and hard work, One Outs’ matches are psychological battles that involve Toua mentally tormenting and destroying his opponents.
Who doesn’t make friends with a talking motorcycle when they’re fifteen? Kino’s Journey starts with this odd premise but opens itself up into being an incredible show with how it shows off all the locations Kino travels to on this magical motorbike.
The show explores strange cultures and customs and gives the viewer a chance to compare them to their own. In this way, Kino’s Journey uses the outside world to explore its psychological content, making it unique compared to other anime in the genre.
Erased made a huge splash upon its release, and while the anime’s reputation has diminished slightly over the years, it is still a good mystery show that tackles weighty themes respectfully. When tragedy is about to strike, Satoru travels a few minutes back in time to try and change the course of history. After a particularly traumatic event involving the murder of a loved one, Satoru travels back more than a decade to when he is a child, giving him the opportunity to stop a chain of tragedies at their inception.
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Erased’s whodunit is gripping and should keep people guessing for a while. However, the anime is at its best when focusing on the characters’ lives away from the murder mystery, specifically Kayo’s awful home life.
Hikikomori is a word used in Japan to describe people who generally don’t go outside and avoid all social contact possible. This is the case for Tatsuhiro who believes in a conspiracy that the Nihon Hikikomori Kyokai (N.H.K) is what is causing him to live this style of life.
The show follows him slowly opening up to try and actually explore the world with lots of drama and a sprinkling of comedy along the way. It’s a fascinating experience watching someone break down a mental health condition and creates progress in their own life.
Sherlock Holmes is arguably the most famous fictional detective of all time, and the character has inspired his share of anime adaptations. Moriarty the Patriot shakes things up by switching the focus to William Moriarty, who is traditionally Sherlock’s arch-nemesis.
