Better Than It Sounds / Anime and Manga A to C

Japanese cartoons are weird, man! Though I may be on to something with that blue hair.

— Strong Bad, Strong Bad Email #57, "Japanese Cartoon"

The Japanese know a thing or two about making odd-sounding ideas work. After all, they make real odd ideas work all the time.

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Please sort new titles alphabetically into the appropriate sub-pages to avoid duplicate entries.

• 07-Ghost: An amnesiac royal gets mixed up with dead bishie bishops after bad dreams make him flee a military academy and his best friend turns into a developmentally delayed mascot character.
• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: A hopeless romantic is forced to start a ridiculously large polycule.
  • Or: Constantly growing Dysfunction Junction in polycule form.
• 20th Century Boys: For some people, there is no life after middle school. Apocalypse ensues.
  • Or: Guy with psychic powers becomes really obsessed with middle-school friend's fanfiction.
• 3×3 Eyes: Immortal dies repeatedly in increasingly bloody, hilarious ways.
• +Anima (manga): A bat-girl, crow-boy, feminine fish-boy, and a 17-year-old bear-person with an eye-patch travel through two fictional countries. Food is eaten, people are mauled, and friends are made.
  • Alternative: Some people are part-animal, and others aren't, and many of the ones who aren't part-animal want to either kill or become ones who are, and most of the ones who are part-animal don't want to be.
• Afro Samurai: Afro sportin' samurai and wise-crackin' motormouth hunt for the "No. 1 Headband" in Schizo Tech Black Feudal Japan so the former can become unquestionable biggest badass in the world.
  • Afro Samurai:Resurrection: Most hated samurai in Black Japan loses headband to old foe and must fight him with the second-best headband for sake of zombie father.
• Afterschool Charisma: Clone High meets Cyteen in Japan.
• After School Nightmare: Several teenagers must try to solve their crippling psychological problems by repeatedly taking naps.
• Agent Aika: After the flood, panties.
• Aggretsuko: The Office starring Hello Kitty as a red panda working a shitty office job to make ends meet while unleashing her pent-up anger issues by singing Death Metal songs.
• Ah! My Goddess: Good-natured college kid wishes that he could find a girl, finds God instead.
• Ai Kora: A teenage pervert moves in with a twenty-something drunk, a thrifty, hot-headed redhead, a bespectacled closet fangirl, and a sarcastic singing Ninja, who proceed to teach him (the hard way) that women are more than the sum of their parts.
• Ai Yori Aoshi: College boy moves in with his fiancee. Their neighbors are weird.
• AIR: Gluttonous hobo and cursed loner fall in love. GOAL-ness ensues.
  • A ramen-loving drifter falls in love with the village idiot and gets turned into a crow.
• Air Gear: Rollerblading is Serious Business, to the point where it defies physics. Half the rollerbladers seen are various shades of crazy.
• Akagi: A fourteen-year-old who looks like an adult plays games with gangsters on his days off. He wins. They're scarred for life.
• Akahori Gedou Hour Lovege: Two female pedophiles commit atrocities on a regular basis in the name of "Justice."
• Akikan!: The government tries to decide what material to make its drink cans out of.
• Akame ga Kill!: Idealistic young man gets robbed. He ends up slaughtering the city folk who take him in and decides to overthrow the government.
• AKIRA (film)
  • A teenage biker becomes a powerful psychic. This is followed by multiple explosions.
  • Two boys are separated by the government and spend the rest of the movie searching for each other and crying out the other's name until one gets cancer and is killed by canned Jesus.
  • Two teenagers bikers learn the true meaning of friendship and then one of them turns into a blob and blows up Tokyo.
• AKIRA (manga): An angry teenager takes advantage of a little boy, who eventually expresses his displeasure.
• Akumetsu: Masked vigilante rains punishment down on corrupt government officials and business executives by repeatedly exploding his own head.
• Amagami: Gamebook in a Dating Sim: The Anime.
• The Ambition of Oda Nobuna: A perverted nerd is sent back to medieval Japan where he meets and flirts with female Oda Nobunaga.
• The Ancient Magus' Bride: A weird looking guy buys a really expensive pet with an expiration date.
  • A gentleman with a heavy goth metal aesthetic looks to the slave market to find his future wife. The audience finds this adorable.
• Angel Beats!: A high-school student wakes up, joins an armed revolution against God, and goes to school. In that order.
  • In the first episode, he dies 102 times. Then he shoots a defenseless girl so his friends can steal food.
  • Haruhi hates the afterlife and dragoons people at her school into doing something about it.
• Angel Blade: Tentacle Rape, Monster Rape, futa rape, all done to a teenage girl compelled to fight monsters in the nude by a necklace her father made and gave to her.
• Angelic Layer: An abandoned girl has given up hope of meeting her mother and passes the time by playing with dolls.
• Animal X (manga): Boy-who-can-turn-into-a-T.-rex meets boy-who-can-get-pregnant, ancient conspiracies and corrupt scientists ensue. Much, much more like The Left Hand of Darkness than your average hentai mpreg fic.
• Animal Yokocho: A frequently neglected five-year-old girl has fourth wall-breaking adventures with her neighbors from another dimension.
• Ano Hana: A lazy truant high school boy is unpopular because he's harassed by a ditzy ghost. Angst falls, everyone cries.
  • A boy sees a girl. Neither of them has a life.
• Another: Ordinary High-School Student meets girl. People die.
• Apollo's Song: A delinquent mental patient sees god, then goes through a series of bad relationships.
• Aquarian Age the Movie: A ten year old boy convinces four Magical Girls to kill him. They fail.
• Arakawa Under the Bridge: Insane homeless woman rescues drowning man, decides that henceforth, he will be her lover.
  • Or: Wealthy man becomes a hobo because delinquents stole his pants.
• Area 88: A bishonen, a cutter, a Vietnam vet, and their co-workers blow things up and angst about it afterwards. An ambiguously Jewish old guy buys them ramen noodles and weapons of mass destruction.
  • Or, Japanese airline pilot is forced to kill people for (1) cold hard cash, or (2) to prevent a woman-child losing all interest in him and marrying his enemy. In either case, warplanes appear onscreen and the main conflict is between (1) a boy and his conscience and (2) his obsession with a distant woman-child and someone else's war. Boy and conscience loses badly to said war and obsession with said long distance non-relationship. The show ends before we see the unhealthy marriage that results.
  • Or, The Count of Monte Cristo with fighter jets.
• ARIA: Sexist hiring practices mean that a girl's only chance to do what she loves is to enter the tourist industry on Mars.
  • Alternatively: Gondolas on Mars. Scenery Porn ensues.
• Armitage III: Two cops investigate the death of a Country singer. On Mars.
• Arpeggio of Blue Steel: The crew of a sentient submarine fight sentient WWII warships and a crazed battleship with the Power of Friendship.
• Arrietty (Studio Ghibli): A small-scale burglar and his family consider moving to a less dangerous neighborhood after catching their daughter giving some sugar to the boy upstairs.
• Assassination Classroom: A group of loser student has one year to kill their teacher who is hell bent on destroying the world while helping them in their studies.
• Astro Boy: Scientist makes his dead son the best robot in the world.
• Asura Cryin': A boy receives a suitcase that contains a Humongous Mecha that is powered by his Cute Ghost Girl.
• Attack on Titan: A bunch of Spider-Man wannabes try to fight giants with swords but fail horribly and repeatedly.
  • Or: Huge nudist cannibals terrorize humanity; angsty Red Shirts fend them off with flimsy swords and unreliable grapple-jetpacks.
  • Or: Stylistic Humongous Mecha series fighting Kaiju zombies, but without the Humongous Mecha.
  • Or: Giant, naked, solar-powered humanish things wander the earth binging and purging all the snacks they come across. The snacks are repeatedly unsuccessful at fighting back.
  • Or: Angry boy bites himself repeatedly because he doesn't know what his father put in the basement.
  • Or: Everybody dies horribly to giant cannibals in the first 5 episodes. Then the plot really kicks off.
  • Or: A country's people, having grown sick of repeated incidents of people from a neighboring country coming in to their land, build a gigantic wall to keep them from coming back. The people from this neighboring country, however, are so dedicated to entering that much of the resources from the country that built the wall are focused on a military force to keep them out, to mixed success. The reason why they want to keep these neighbors out is because they are responsible for major disruptions in the country's culture and workforce, albeit with a heavy dose of politics.
  • Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Become God.
• Aura Battler Dunbine: A young man was sent to a fantasy world with giant robots who uses life energy as power source. Made by the man himself.
• Azumanga Daioh: No real plot, just Japanese schoolgirls hanging out.
  • Or: Rich 10 year old genius and her friends go through their average lives.
• B Gata H Kei: Virgin tries to get laid. She's not very good at it.
• B't X: A guy takes a break from protecting Athena to fly around in a desert on a mechanical pony. Lots of people disapprove.
• Baccano!: A number of people aboard a train find they have conflicting interests. An old man looks for friends he shared a drink with a long time ago.
  • Alternately: A genius little girl and a man try to solve a mystery about a train.
    • Or in joke form: A gang, a cult, and the Chicago Mafia walk onto a train one day...
• Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts: The lowest tier class in high-school battles other classes using summoned beings whose power is determined by test grades in order to get better supplies.
  • Alternately: Kids use the powers of studying to overcome bullies.
• Bakemonogatari: Japanese teenagers and their homeless friend fight monsters TALK. A LOT.
  • Or: Teenage girl falls in love with an enigmatic vampire after he saves her life.
• Bakuman。: An artist and his girlfriend avoid talking to each other.
  • Or, a manga about two kids drawing manga.
• Bakuten Shoot Beyblade/Metal Fight Beyblade: An evil organization attempts to take over the world using spinning tops. It's Serious Business.
• Bamboo Blade: Kendo instructor decides to settle a year-old bet by fielding an all-girl squad.
• Barakamon: An uptight calligrapher with poor impulse control gets sent to a remote island where little children and quirky islanders help him LIGHTEN UP and develop his own style.
• Bartender: He tends a bar.
  • Alternately: Alcohol solves everything.
• Basilisk: Romeo and Juliet... with ninja!
• Basquash!: God created basketball.
• Batman: Gotham Night: Anime adaptation of a comic hero, made 60 years after the hero's debut.
• Battle Angel Alita: A Cute Bruiser participates in bounty hunting and blood sports in order to find a meaning to her life, fight a Mad Scientist and go to space.
  • ''Battle Angel Alita: Last Order: Sadly, she dies, but she lives and has to go more bounty hunting, and blood sporting to kill the mad scientist and go to space.
  • Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicles: She finally go to space and it's not all that cracked up to be.
• Battle Athletes: Girls train and compete for extreme Olympics, in Space.
• Beastars: A High School drama with furries. 'Nuff said.
• Beauty Pop: Teenage hairstylists compete with one another.
• BECK: A shy guy joins a band.
• Beelzebub: A juvenile delinquent becomes the unwilling father of an infant demon prince and teaches him how to be a real man. Hilarity Ensues.
• Ben-To: Students having all out wars for half-priced lunchboxes.
• Berserk: A big guy with an unfortunate tattoo tries to get therapy for the girlfriend who hates him after his pretty-haired ex-best friend sells out the world for a makeover and a spiffy new Batman outfit.
  • One man becomes the universes chew toy from the moment he is born. He gets his ass kicked by demons and monsters for a living.
• Best Student Council: A girl whose best friend is a puppet dabbles in school politics.
• Betrayal Knows My Name: A previously-female teenage boy and his mostly-male harem fight pretty demons. Everyone likes to touch each other a lot.
• The Big O: What if Bruce Wayne had a giant robot? Has surprisingly little to do with orgasms.
  • Or: A bunch of amnesiacs, one of whom thinks he's Batman, run around destroying a city with giant robots. Eventually revealed to be inconsequential.
  • Or: A man who looks like Bruce Wayne, who's actually a tomato, uses a Humongous Mecha named after an orgasm to fight other giant robots who aren't as suggestively named.
• Big Windup!: Sexually ambiguous High School boys play baseball.
• Billy Bat: 4th dimensional cosmic beings that manifest trough pop art play with the destiny of humanity, nobody is really sure which is good and which is evil and humanity usually gets the short end of the stick.
• Binbou Shimai Monogatari: Two underage sisters live together in a run-down apartment and have to get by on their own. They love each other a lot.
• Birdy the Mighty: A policewoman with Bizarre Alien Biology from space meets Ordinary High-School Student and does Fusion Dance with him. They fight crime.
• Black Butler: A young aristocrat with PTSD and his Battle Butler fight crime in Victorian England.
  • Black Butler Book of Circus: Body dysmorphic disorder drives a man to the mass murder of children.
• Black Cat: A Technical Pacifist tries to stay out of a war between two groups of Well Intentioned Extremists. The Anime adds a subplot where he talks of the less sympathetic Extremist group's leader entirely in death threats for half the series.
  • Alternatively: He's a former assassin with Improbable Aiming Skills. He's a former cop that can see into the future. She's a defused Tyke Bomb that can shape-shift. They fight crime.
  • Or: A young man with a sea-urchin on his head, his prepubescent rival, and his briefcase wielding best friend go to confront said young man's wannabe lover, and his army of tea-drinking mutants.
• Black Clover: A loud, hot-blooded orphan outcast wishes to rule his nation. His rival is The Ace. This sounds familiar.
• Black God: In a world where people die upon meeting their lookalikes, an angsty high school student helps a super-powered girl punch the hell out of bad guys.
• Black Jack: A Tall, Dark, and Snarky man and his Frankensteinian creation charge astronomical sums of money to cut people open.
• Black Lagoon: A salary-man quits his job to run errands for and with unstable foreigners who frequently try to kill him. He still dresses like a salary-man, though.
  • Alternatively: A beleaguered wage-slave decides his boss is a prick after he is written off as a lost cause and decides to find new employment in the local job market. He still ends up hating his job even though he is good at it and does like his coworkers.
• Black★Rock Shooter: Two girls befriend each other in freshman year but drift apart. Meanwhile, their alternate universe counterparts try to kill each other. Les Yay references ensue.
  • For the TV series: Schoolgirl angst spawns a parallel dimension of nonstop violence. The therapist approves.
• Blade of the Immortal: A swordsman with internal parasites gets hired by a plucky orphan to kill "bad people."
• Blame!!: An untalkative, millennia-old, amnesiac robot meanders around a mostly abandoned space station looking for genes.
• Blast of Tempest: A Shakespeare fanatic gets Stuffed into the Fridge, so her boyfriend and her "brother" search for the killer. The primary suspects are a tree and a skeleton.
• Bleach: Dead people fight other dead people but almost never to the death.
  • Or: Wannabe fashion designer (and possible Chessmaster and troper) shows off. Title has little to do with plot.
  • Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion: Secondary Pretty Boy character angsts for 90 minutes.
  • Bleach: Hell Verse: Teen and his dead friends go to Hell to find a sister. Leads to massive trolling.
• Blood+: A teenage girl teams up with a cellist and a giant-revolver-wielding David Bowie to fight vampires.
  • Or: A teenage girl has to keep her sister from getting pregnant.
  • Or: A teenage pop idol does horrible things at her manager's insistence.
  • Or: Two vampires carry out a campaign of genocide.
• Blood Blockade Battlefront: A guy with no self-defense skills joins a secret society and has near death experiences every day. His co-workers are a guy with bad dental hygiene, a guy who constantly sleeps around, a lady who says she's a werewolf but isn't, a fish man, a guy with another guy who is his blood, a mom, a jinx and an old man. The ending theme of the first season dwarfs the popularity of the actual show.
• Blood-C: A teenage girl protects people from Eldritch Abominations. People die.
• Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan: A high school student must change his ways and his destiny, or else be murdered horribly. He still gets murdered horribly, however.
• Blue Comet SPT Layzner: A Five-Token Band of teenagers goes on a field trip to learn about technology, astronomy and politics.
• Blue Drop: An alien battleship captain pretends to be a lesbian and seduces a sociopath home-ed while rehearsing a School Play with her.
• Blue Exorcist: A young man finds out he's been adopted, and decides that once he's done with high school he will track down his real father. And kill him.
  • Or: Satan's son decides to kill his dad by going to high school.
• Blue Seed: A girl prone to exposing her underwear, a snarky half-plant guy, and a bunch of gun-wielding True Companions try to save humanity from Japanese mythology.
• Blue Submarine No. 6: A well intentioned extremist tries to teach the world a lesson in tolerance by drowning its entire population.
  • Alternatively: The Island of Doctor Moreau with fish-people.
• BNA: Brand New Animal: Tanuki girl travels to a city of animal-people to find a way to become human again. She ends up getting far more than she bargained for.
  • Alternatively, a Darker and Edgier take on Animal Crossing: City Folk.
• Boarding School Juliet: Rich people whine about their love lives. There's also a war going on, but that's not important.
• Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo: A tall man with an afro and magnificent nose hairs uses insanity to fight personifications of premature baldness.
  • Chewbacca Defense: The Series.
• Bocchi the Rock!: A girl wants to become a famous rockstar despite having social anxiety so severe she has a panic attack at the mere thought of talking to other people.
• Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.: Girl sucks at video games, so she mini-maxes on Vitality. She somehow breaks the game right in half.
• Bokurano: Fifteen messed-up children play a fun game with Humongous Mecha. Neon Genesis Evangelion is happy and optimistic by comparison.
  • Or: Kids at summer camp decide to play a game. The adults think they should stop.
• Boukun Tyrano San: A male T-Rex dies and is reincarnated 60 million years later as a high school girl; he's not happy at all.
• Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki: Competitive Super Smash Bros. player gets lessons from one of his rivals on how to interact with his high-school peers like a normal person.
• Brain Powerd: Giant organic monster makes organic robots that fight other organic robots so it can absorb all organic energy on Earth. An organic submarine fights this. There are lots and lots of organic parental issues.
  • Or Aura Battler Dunbine minus the alternate fantasy world and a polar opposite ending.
• Bremen: An omnilingual clone of Jesus teams up with a guitarist with a mohawk, a car enthusiast bassist, and a transgender dominatrix drummer to form a band. They beat the living shit out of those who get in their way.
  • Or: Amnesiac guy tries to find his girlfriend. Instead, he gets a rockband.
• Bubblegum Crisis: An Eccentric Millionaire, a biker, a Plucky Girl, and a Playful Hacker fight robots to 80s music.
• Bungo Stray Dogs People named after great writers fighting each other using superpowers named after the writers' books.
  • Or, a down-on-his-luck weretiger prevents a suicide attempt, resulting in him joining a detective agency and getting caught up in a gang war.
• Bunny Drop: A man adopts his aunt.
• Burn Up! Excess: Five pairs of breasts (and one guy) fight crime as a secret mercenary unit of the police.
• Burst Angel: Four female bounty hunters (and a guy who cooks for them) defend the defenseless in a Crapsack World brought on by the abolition of gun control.
• Buso Renkin: Two boys go on life support and try to kill each other.
• Candy☆Boy: A pair of fraternal twin sisters really like each other. Stuff happens.
• [C] – Control: Ordinary college student plays financial card games. It's more awesome than it sounds.
  • Or: Stock Market: The Anime. Definitely much better than it sounds.
• Cap Revolution Bottleman: Shooting bottle caps at bottles is such Serious Business that an entire tournament is based around them. In a world where everyone is named after a famous drink, a boy who's name may as well be Coca-Cola wants to become the champion of the tournament.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: A cute little girl navigates a world of very confusing and complex love relationships, while collecting cards in her spare time.
  • Or: A cute little girl plays a high-stakes game of fifty-two pickup.
  • Cardcaptors (Nelvana): The same cute Little Girl tries her hand at being a Shōnen protagonist instead.
• Carole & Tuesday: Two Martians, one rich and one poor, form a traveling music troupe.
• Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran: Two women travel around, often fighting bad guys. Alcohol ensues.
• Case Closed: Kid Detective solves murders after barely escaping his own with a Fountain of Youth.
  • Alternatively: Shrunken detective hides by living with his unsuspecting girlfriend and her deadbeat father. Awkwardness ensues.
  • Alternatively: Kid Detective spends most of his time solving random cases than trying to fix the situation he's in.
• Casshern Sins: A Bishōnen android walks the earth... what's left of it.
• Castle in the Sky: Boy Meets Girl... more specifically, a girl on the run from pirates and a government agent who convinces the military to help him steal a necklace.
• The Cat Returns: A girl rescues a cat and is rewarded by nearly being forced to marry him. She's eventually rescued by a magic lawn ornament, a talking crow, and a fat guy.
• Cells at Work!: The everyday lives of cells in a human bloodstream include alien invasions and a potential office romance.
• A Centaur's Life: In an alternate universe populated by mythical creatures, an ordinary girl goes to high school and does everyday things.
• A Certain Magical Index:
  • In a world where magic and esper powers are the norm, an Unlucky Everydude who may or may not be the protagonist of a gal-game goes through life by punching anomalies back to normal and bemoaning his misfortune.
  • A man runs around punching wizards in the face. It works.
  • A Certain Scientific Railgun: A girl with a magnetic personality abuses street thugs, her roommate, and vending machines.
    • Alternatively: Schoolgirl tries to solve her problems by throwing money at them.
• Chainsaw Man: A horny, destitute teenage boy fuses with his pet dog so he can eat good food and touch boobs.
  • Alternatively: Stock Shōnen Hero realized that there is more to being a hero than being a horny idiot with a bloodlust.
• Change 123: A girl with three fathers struggles with mental illness and finds two possible boyfriends.
  • Alternatively: Boy finds and befriends girl with four personalities. Boy falls for the only one that isn't a martial artist. Other personalities are fine with this. Teen genius tries to fuse girl's personalities with her Superpowered Evil Side. The Law of Conservation of Detail is upheld obsessively.
• Chatting at the Amber Teahouse: A schoolgirl gets a job at a teahouse to be close to the shop owner. W.A.F.F. and Squee ensue.
• Chintsubu a.k.a. Chinko no Tsubuyaki: A Yaoi manga whose title translates to "The Mutterings of the Penises." And this is meant to be taken literally.
• Chio's School Road: Cute nerdy gamer girl goes to school. Stuff happens.
• Chi's Sweet Home: A kitten finds a home. That's it.
• Chivalry of a Failed Knight: A boy at a super power high school proves hard work can stand up against real talent. A princess with real talent falls in love with him. So does his sister.
• Chobits: Boy falls in love with a girl whose artificial body and overprotective sister ensure that they can never have sex.
  • Or: Perverted shut-in falls in love with his computer.
• Chocolate Underground: A totalitarian regime takes the Atkins diet too far.
• Chocotto Sister: Santa gives a boy a little sister for Christmas. She really loves him in return.
• Chrono Crusade: A monster uses a watch to suck away a girl's soul. He may love her. Together, they fight demons.
• CLAMP School Detectives: An Absurdly Powerful Student Council solves mysteries in its spare time.
  • Who wears short shorts? They wear short shorts.
• CLANNAD: A delinquent meets the Delicate and Sickly daughter of Kamina and Belldandy, and they (re)start a club with his best friend and some other girls.
  • Or: A pair of high school students meet a ghost who hands out carvings of echinoderms; they decide to help.
  • Or: A Cloud Cuckoolander has an an unhealthy love for starfish. Some other stuff happens.
  • Season 2: Nothing goes right for the delinquent. Ever. Once his life is thoroughly obliterated, a junk robot in a different world makes everything better.
• Claymore: A surly woman with a giant sword wanders around a laboratory seeking revenge on a little girl.
• Clockwork Planet: A socially-inept boy with super hearing adopts a trash-talking Robot Girl as his servant. They become terrorists with a Child Prodigy and her Cyborg bodyguard to stop an Ancient Conspiracy and save the world that is literally a giant clock.
• Code:Breaker: A teenage boy's job is taking out the trash. A girl repeatedly hugs him in order to make him stop.
• Code Geass: Convoluted Love Dodecahedron develops between British teenagers attending high school in Japan; the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
  • Or: Terrorist takes over the world with mind control. Pizza is involved.
  • Or: Self-Made Orphan learns about the power of sacrifice.
  • Or: High school student starts World War III to learn who killed his mother. When he learns that she isn't dead, he kills her himself.
  • Or: British teenage prodigy throws a gigantic temper tantrum because he hates his family. The whole world gets dragged into it.
  • Or: Bored, disaffected young noble is handed absolute power over others, abuses it for great justice.
  • Or: Chess hustler kills his parents by hypnotizing God.
  • Or: An ordinary (but brilliant) boy gains a special power with one specific use and lots of caveats. He uses this power to realize his dream of changing the world for the better... by destroying the old one. He does this with a cryptic-sounding secret identity and incredible planning, while assisted by the ancient entity that gave him his powers. Meanwhile, he must masquerade as an ordinary high school student while avoiding being found out and captured by his own father, who helps lead the force against him. Others with similar powers to him eventually spring up; he manages to recruit some to his side, while others become his enemies. He also must deal with his rival, who is his hated enemy while in disguise but in their civilian personas they're good friends. Did that synopsis describe Code Geass, or Death Note?
  • Or: Three peppy teenage girls become friends with each other. One of them has an older brother who helps them achieve their goal: Take Over the World. Except Australia.
• Coffin Princess Chaika: Retired soldier meets a girl with a huge rifle who can't use complete sentences. He helps her murder a unicorn, and they embark on a quest to gather her father's magical severed limbs.
• Corpse Princess: A teenager unintentionally stalks a dead girl who fights other dead people that turn into monsters.
• Corrector Yui: In the not-so distant future, a computer-illiterate Magical Girl saves the world by surfing the internet. However, she isn't exactly magical, and her Mentor Mascot is just a software program.
• Count Cain: A boy and his butler solve murders and sometimes commit them. Sometimes there are zombies and often there is incest.
• Cowboy Bebop: Bounty hunters in space barely make enough money to eat properly. The soundtrack is popular.
  • Or: Bounty hunters fight Chinese mafia, but not in space.
  • The story of a former Chinese mafia soldier, an ex-cop, an amnesiac con-artist, a child prodigy hacker, and a hyper-intelligent dog. Together they fight crime/ perpetual poverty / each other to a kickin' jazz beat.
  • Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door: A justifiably disgruntled "dead" veteran tries to wipe out humanity by showing them butterflies.
• Cromartie High School: Idiots go to high school with a robot, a gorilla, and a rock singer look-alike.
• Cross Ange: Sunrise's mecha Nanoha X Fate fanfic series.
• Cross Game: Little girl dies in the first episode. Her boyfriend goes on to court her younger sister. Oh, and there's baseball.
• Crows: High school guys spend their time fighting for the hell of it and then wondering why they can't get girlfriends.
  • Worst: A new generation of high school guys spend their time fighting for the hell of it and then wondering why they can't get girlfriends.
• Cube×Cursed×Curious: A cursed cube tries to become a human.
• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners: Boy meets girl, boy fell in love with girl, boy joins girl's crew of outlaws fighting against mega corporations so they can have enough money to go on a literal honeymoon. Final Boss of the game it's based upon gave two good reasons to replay it.
• Cyborg 009: Nine strangers leave their current employer.
  • Alternative: A large mufti-national arms dealer creates perfect killers, but the killers still have hearts and rebel.
  • Alternative: People are kidnapped and experimented on. One scientist part of the project rebels and starts a resistance.
• Cyborg Kuro-chan: A cat one day woke up and found himself turned into a cyborg by a mad scientist. Hilarity ensues.
  • All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku: A cat one day woke up and found herself turned into a cyborg by a mad scientist. Hilarity ensues.

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