Five Animes to Check Out If You’re a D&D Fan
Does your D&D group have the audacity to not meet every single day? Instead, get your D&D fix with one of these bingeable anime series.
Anime was my intro to nerd culture. Everything from conventions and cosplay to comic books and tabletop gaming stemmed from the stylized subtitled cartoons. I probably wouldn’t have started to find writing so enjoyable if it wasn’t for fanfiction based on, you guessed it, anime. The industry is huge, though, and there are a ton of different shows that run the gamut of genres. Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming to figure out what you’ll enjoy or where to start. Well, if you enjoy a good session of Dungeons and Dragons and aren’t sure what anime to marathon next, I have a few recommendations for you.
Record of Lodoss War
Lodoss War is one of the most RPG-feeling anime out there, and that’s by design. The setting was originally created for an RPG and the structure and conventions were purposefully laid out to remind of us RPG adventures. Even the main party reads like characters who you’d want to see in your party. But maybe not characters you would see in your party because while Lodoss War is the ideal, most of us playing a little harder, loose, and goofy with our D&D adventures.
Magic Knight Rayearth
Fuu (the green one) was my first cosplay ever.
A little on the older side, but one of my favorites. Rayearth is a pretty standard magical girl show about three Jr. High students suddenly transported to a magical world in need of saving. As they gain experience their armor, spells, and weapons all level up with them in a way that feels like updating a D&D character sheet and their story arcs are very reminiscent of a D&D campaign at its most classic. The art and animation on this one are a little 1994, but if that’s a deal breaker the manga is only 6 books long, has two story arcs, and has some of my favorite art in the genre. Plus, it’s a series that CLAMP actually completed.
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
Satoru is an average 37-year-old office worker who gets transported to a strange world (a common trope, I know) and changed into a slime with the ability to absorb almost anything and mimic their appearance and abilities. There’s a dragon, a quest, goblins, and dwarves, and the main character is the roundish anime equivalent of an intelligent gelatinous cube! This show feels like it should be absolute nonsense, but its popularity is definitely deserved.
Kemono Michi Rise Up
You know that feeling when you write an entire game and there’s that one character in the party who only wants to befriend all of the animals? That’s Genzou in Kenomo Michi Rise Up. A pro wrestler who’s transported to a magic world by a princess and asked to save the world, he decides to run away and instead make it his mission to collect and befriend beasts far and wide. Will he eventually get back on track with the princess’s mission? Will he one day find his way home? Who knows!
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
You were expecting a show with a describable plot! But it was me, DIO!
This one may not look like D&D in the classic sense, but hear me out. JoJo’s feels like when the DM spends a lot of time and effort writing a dramatic period-piece campaign where the heroes will fight a vampire and face betrayal from practically-a-family-member… And then the players make a collection of the most bonkers heroes imaginable while demanding homebrew powers. The characters are all min-maxed, every name is a reference to something, and the main character’s problem-solving is so wild that sometimes it feels like when the DM sets up a fight and the players all do their own thing with it and blow the DM’s plans out of the water. This show may not be your cup of tea, but definitely check out an episode or two. Any episode. It doesn’t matter. They’re all absurd.
Have you seen any of the series on my list? All of them? What is your favorite anime with that D&D vibe? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
