Capsule Pitch Description: Series catering to the "koala-mania" sweeping Japan in 1984 when Tama Zoo in western Tokyo acquired its first koala, and the Australian government sent six koalas to Japan as a goodwill gesture.
Implementation:Noozles was a fantasy-oriented series with a human protagonist which took a turn for the dramatic halfway through; Adventures of the Little Koala was a light-hearted Slice of Life series with a purely anthropomorphic animal cast.
Capsule Pitch Description: The most popular series in Weekly Shonen Jump during the magazine's peak.
Implementation: Both series started as manga serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump. When Dragon Ball was at its all-time high in popularity, but Slam Dunk was the only series capable of competing with Dragon Ball both critically and commercially. The end of both series was followed by a quick decline of Shonen Jump's sales.
Capsule Pitch Description: An orange-wearing optimistic character is having adventures with his rival who wears blue and constantly switching sides, and a woman that he loves who has quite a temper.
Implementation: As with the previous duel, both series started as manga serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump. Dragon Ball started in 1984 and ran until 1996, and it is stated by several authors (including Masashi Kishimoto) that it served as a major inspiration for their own works (and given that Dragon Ballcodified several modern Shonen tropes, it shows). Meanwhile, Naruto started in 1999 and finished in 2014. Being Shonen Jump properties, they featured in several crossover games regularly, giving place to dream matches.
Capsule Pitch Description: Both shows are more or less Dungeons and Dragons type adventures staring a hot-headed hero with flame magic. And is reckless with it. And they both like to eat. A lot.
Implementation: While the two settings are similar, Fairy Tail has a more Shōnen action genre feel to it than Slayers does.
Capsule Pitch Description:Magical Girl series where the heroine secretly comes from another world.
Implementation: In Minky Momo, Momo comes from a land in the sea, while Usagi is the future queen of Crystal Tokyo. Also, both shows had manga adaptations in Kodansha's preschool magazines and an element where the main heroine can transform into another career with the help of a pink object (a wand for Minky Momo and a pen in Sailor Moon).
Implementation:Armitage III was a four episode OVA that released a few months before the feature length movie Ghost in the Shell. However Ghost in the Shell was based off a manga from 1989.
Implementation:Jeanne is a Grimmification of the cute, fluffy Saint Tail premise, with the title character as a jaded Broken Bird whose Mission from God isn't actually as holy as she thinks it is.
Capsule Pitch Description: Shonen series with Ninja
Implementation:Flame of Recca has its titular character, a Ninja fanboy, born with flame powers due to being born a Hokage ninja. Naruto has its titular character with a Series Goal of becoming Hokage, with a Nine-Tailed fox sealed within him when he was born. As stated, both series use the word Hokage, The main difference is that the former is a clan name, while the latter is a rank.
Capsule Pitch Description:Ordinary High-School Student stumbles into a portal that leads to the past and happens to be the reincarnation of the previous ruler.
Capsule Pitch Description: One young man with odd powers gathers True Companions and makes his mark on the world
Implementation: Like the previous duel between Dragon Ball and Naruto, both are manga series from Weekly Shonen Jump. In theory, they're fairly different given their different settings, but in practice both revolve around cool abilities and fights, with a villain that starts as Plucky Comic Relief before revealing his true nature and sparking a global war. It's Shōnen, there's only so much that changes from the formula. Also, the dueling pair gives us a meta pirates vs. ninja, which might have been started from the competing fandoms. Curiosly, as both series star regularly in Shonen Jump crossover games, this pirates vs. ninja is a popular choice of match.
Implementation: Both were serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump and were among the most popular Shonen series during the new millennium, as well as being prime examples of Shonen Long-Runners.
Implementation: The former is about pirates, the latter mages. Luffy aims to be the Pirate King, while Natsu wants to look for his missing dragon-parent Igneel. One Piece also ran in publication in 1997, while Fairy Tail ran 9 years later. Plus, despite being from different authors, both series have VERY similar art styles complete with picturesque characters all over the place. They both have quirky characters, scantily clad women, and similar types of humor.
Capsule Pitch Description: A Determinator with a demon inside him seeks to rule the place that abused him and makes friends and enemies along the way. The difference between the two: one deals with ninjas while the other keeps the focus on "angels" and "demons".
Implementation: Well, the authors are twin brothers...
Capsule Pitch Description: Anime show about kids/teens engaging in Card Games with the fate of the world at stake.
Implementation:Yu-Gi-Oh is based on a manga that used to focus on a variety of games, with its card game being inspired by Magic: The Gathering. While Duel Masters is based on a manga that used to focus on Magic: The Gathering, but it ended up getting its own game instead.
Capsule Pitch Description: Shonen series that feature their main characters having a Disappeared Dad and a Series Goal.
Implementation:Naruto's story centers around its titular character being an outcast who works hard to gain the respect of his peers in the ninja village, while Negima is about a 10-year-old magician who forms an army of mages among the students he teaches.
Implementation:Ikki Tousen is based on a manga series, is a High School AU, has more fanservice, and focuses on fighting. Koihime Musou is based on a Visual Novel, takes place in the Three Kingdoms period and focuses on Adventure Towns. Ikki Tousen's third season aired alongside Koihime's first, and was repeated again for their fourth and third seasons, respectively.
Implementation:Sketchbook was first, and has more and artistic girls that explore the perspective of art more clear, especially in its anime; Hidamari Sketch goes more deeply into the relationships between them, while going more Dramedy towards the end of its anime.
Capsule Pitch Description:High School romance between a human and a vampire.
Implementation:Rosario + Vampire is (initially) a light-hearted comedy compared to the more dramatic Vampire Knight, but both manga have their share of funny moments and tense ones.
Implementation:Sweet Blue Flowers takes a rather serious approach, which deep insights into the minds of the characters, interspersed with some comedy. Sasameki Koto is more of a Slice of Life comedy, although it has its share of serious moments as well.
Capsule Pitch Description:Magical Girl shows that reboot with every new season. Both have cute, snarky mascots. Each still gets new seasons exported to weirdly specific European countries (Italy for PC, Portugal for JP) despite being considered failures in the rest of the continent.
Implementation:Pretty Cure favors the humans, while Jewelpet focuses on the mascots. The shows air on different channels, on the same day, within an hour of each other. Also, both series have had installments themedaround princesses.
Implementation:Aquarion sways more to the Super Robot size and contains lots of fanservice and innuendo in contrast to Eureka which is mostly Real Robot and less in need of censorship. Both series aired around the same time and so did theirsequels, and both debuted in Super Robot Wars Z.
Capsule Pitch Description: Music-driven series, with some emphasis on group dynamics and Power of Friendship.
Implementation: Most obviously, the two series are aimed at different demographics (The Idolmaster appeals to both boys and girls, while Uta no Prince-sama is more focused toward girls). Uta no Prince-sama also has quite a bit of yaoi subtext compared to the yuri in iM@S.
Capsule Pitch Description: Two anime about a Vampire Hunter.
Implementation: Both premiered during the same season and are based on established franchises — Blood-C is based on Blood: The Last Vampire and Marvel Anime: Blade is an adaptation of the Marvel Comics series Blade.
Capsule Pitch Description: Anime show starring a megalomaniacal Teen Genius who is randomly selected by an Enigmatic Empowering Entity (who then sticks with him for the duration of the series, out of sight because of his Secret Identity) to receive a single, specific godly super power, which he decides to use to fulfill his extant dream of remaking the world for the better. His actions mean he may or may not be a villain. Features strong Black-and-Gray Morality.
Capsule Pitch Description: Scantily clad young females operate fantastic flying machinery to fight creatures that copy the appearance of other things.
Implementation:Strike Witches leans more toward the Mecha Musume concept whereas Sky Girls has a more classical Humongous Mecha theme. Both series feature character designs by Humikane Shimada and contain quite a bit of fanservice, although Strike Witches really ups the ante by giving none of the girls any pants. Both OVAs were created at roughly the same time, though Sky Girls was turned into a TV anime first.
Implementation: It can't be a coincidence that these two shows launched within mere weeks of each other. They're very similar shows in many ways. They're also both very similar to RahXephon, a series that was, itself, based on the original Raideen.
Implementation: They aired on the same season, Spring 2007, and both have a suprising large amount of common elements, even drills. However, Gurren Lagann keeps basically one-upping itself while Jeeg is a more standard Monster of the Week show, but it's the sequel of an anime from The '70s, hence being the "original".
Capsule Pitch Description: Both shows feature an Ensemble Cast with many characters created by the same author, Ryohgo Narita and even takes place in the same universe. Both shows also feature gangs, organized crime and lots of action with some supernatural entities thrown into the mix.
Implementation:Baccano mostly takes place in America during The Great Depression and is told in a non-linear storyline. Not to mention it is more graphicin terms of violence than Durarara. The latter, on the other hand, takes place in present day Ikebukuro, Japan and has a more straightforward and linear storytelling than Baccano.
Capsule Pitch Description: A boy joins a school where girls are trained to become weapons of mass destruction and seeks to live up for the legacy of his legendary older sister while earning his own Unwanted Harem.
Implementation:Infinite Stratos has a much lighter tone and focuses more on the harem aspects of the story while Freezing is packed with nudity and gore. Both anime series aired their first and second seasons together. Freezing has the author's personal fetishes as fan service. It also has given the main character a larger harem he doesn't deserve.
Capsule Pitch Description: Superpowered teenaged boys join up with The Organization and partner with muggle girls and save humanity from equally superpowered enemies.
Implementation: This appears to blatant copying, with Out Code being the shonen-er version of Code:Breaker. The main difference seems to be the aims of their enemies: CB's Big Bad wants superpower supremacy while OC's Mad Scientist wants to begin a huge Bizarre Baby Boom. Also, the lead of CB has fire powers while OC's lead is electric.
Capsule Pitch Description:Shōnen sports series focusing mainly on the development of a high school sports team, notably a duo between the short protagonist and the tall dueteragonist, who work better together than individually.
Implementation: Both series were serialized in Shonen Jump, and both series’ anime adaptation’s were made by Production I.G. However, Haikyuu focuses on volleyball, while Kuroko’s Basketball focuses on basketball. Also, Haikyuu focuses on a declining volleyball team, while Kuroko’s Basketball focuses on a basketball team that had the misfortune to compete with many generational talents.
Capsule Pitch Description:Shōnen fantasy series heavily inspired by classics of literature.
Implementation:Blast draws its "Spirit Inspiration" from the works of William Shakespeare while a good part of Magi's main cast is named and modeled after "V.I.P.'s" from the Arabian Nights. Both manga had their debut around the same time, and their anime adaptations first aired on the same week and channel.
Capsule Pitch Description: These two gunkata drama/thriller series debuted the same year. Phantom is about a young amnesiac man caught at the wrong place at the wrong time and forced into a crime syndicate. Canaan features a girl targeted by a crime organization and relies on the title character for protection.
Implementation: Both series based on visual novels.
Capsule Pitch Description: Anime show featuring a group of individuals who recieved cellphones with special properties, forced to take part in a twisted elimination game.
Implementation:Future Diary started earlier as a manga, but was adapted into anime years later.
Capsule Pitch Description: A snarky male highschooler (with Idiot Hair) tries to deal with one girl possessed by a supernatural entity in each arc. Some instances can result into the main character into having some sort of Unwanted Harem throughout the story. Both anime also have the same character designer, Akio Watanabe.
Implementation:Bakemonogatari is a show that is somewhat hardto explain. It's got vampires, superstitions and lots and lots of wordplay. The World God Only Knows on the other hand, has a dating simOtaku who is forced to date girls in order to remove the evil spirits within them thanks to a contract with a demon. The latter is also more lighthearted than the former.
Capsule Pitch Description: A snarky male highschooler tries to deal with girls possessed by supernatural entities in each arc of the story. He is often accompanied with a girl who is almost as snarky as he is. Also, lots of quips for both series.
Implementation:Bakemonogatari has vampires and other supernatural enteties. Bunny Girl Senpai, on the other hand does not deal with those things and is more mundane than Monogatari, but there are still several supernatural phenomena thrown into.
Capsule Pitch Description: Manga that focus on worlds where superheroes are commonplace and work under a system. Following two heroes who try to rise in the ranks.
Implementation:One Punch Man is a webcomic redone in a more professional style on the online site Tonari no Young Jump. It is more comedy oriented and a bit of a Genre Deconstruction as the hero, Saitama, is so massively overpowered, he barely finds any joy in superheroing. Even when he does, he barely if ever gets any respect for it save from a small handful of heroes. My Hero Academia started its run about 5 years later in Shonen Jump. Storywise it is the opposite, as the hero, Midoriya, starts out having no powers but is granted them from his idol. However, he is still quite panicky to use them effectively, and has yet to earn much respect from other so-called heroes with superior abilities. In both cases, however, their hearts are in the right place and they tend to fight for what's right rather than fame and glory.
Capsule Pitch Description: Nine aspiring idols aiming to reach stardom while saving the day in the process (or vice versa).
Implementation:Love Live! is part of a large multimedia project and the anime series started at the same time of the second season of AKB, which is fueled by the tie-ins with its real-life counterpart.
Capsule Pitch Description: Manga adaptations that explore the Zombie Apocalypse with cute girls. Not to mention the only two in the genre within the medium.
Implementation:Highschool of the Dead takes a more fanservice based road to show off busty action girls aimed towards the shonen demographic. With some sight psychological tones nearing the later parts of the series. School-Live! is a horror/Slice of Life show with deeply rooted psychological horror themes.
Capsule Pitch Description: Both are gaming-oriented Seinen series revolving around protagonists engrossed in the world of Fighting Games and the Fighting Game Community during the Video Arcade Renaissance of the early-mid 1990s.
Implementation:High Score Girl establishes itself as a Slice of Life romantic dramedy about children growing into adulthood during the 90s, heavily employing the arcade gaming boom and the 3rd, 4th and 5th generation game console histories as a backdrop for the story. Umehara Fighting Gamers on the other hand is a Darker and Edgierbiographical series that focuses on the early lives of several Real Life Japanese professional gamers as they struggle to reach the top of the competitive fighting game scene.
Capsule Pitch Description:Idol anime involving a bunch of girls struggling to chase their dreams and achieve success.
Implementation: Both are multimedia franchises involving games, anime series and live performances with the voice actors having their own successful spin-offs.
Implementation:Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a deconstruction of magical girl warrior shows, playing with common traits of magical girls like love, heroism, and friendship. A lot of the show's popularity comes from its shock value, with a deliberately cutesy appearance used to mask the Cosmic Horror Story it really is, and it is considered to be the Breakthrough Hit of Gen Urobuchi. Kill la Kill, on the other hand, is a reconstruction, making fun of other magical girl traits like magical girl outfits and powers. A lot of this show's popularity comes from thereputation of its creators, which added to its initial hype, and it is considered to be the Breakthrough Hit of Studio TRIGGER.
Capsule Pitch Description: Magical girl shows with dark Plot Twist, Power at a Price, and obvious false premise.
Implementation: Both title characters happen to be Nice Girls at heart who happen to be the most idealistic and caring leads in their respective series. Their respective writers, Gen Urobuchi and Takahiro (the creator of Akame ga Kill!) are also known for their dark imagery and themes in their writing, and both anime are centered around hope. However, Madoka incorporates more psychological horror, dark imagery, and philosophical themes (like many of Gen Urobuchi's works) while Yuki Yuna incorporates more Slice of Life elements, is more light-hearted, and more character oriented. The characters in Madoka are brutally killed off while the characters in Yuki Yuna are kept alive. Both series involve some degree of suffering, where Madoka have the characters suffer through death, the characters in Yuki Yuna suffers by being kept alive and destroying their own bodies every time they use their Mankai. The major Plot Twist in Madoka comes near the beginning of the series while a similar Plot Twist in Yuki Yuna comes near the second half of the series akin to Growing the Beard. Both series have their degree of a happy ending, although Madokas case is more of a Bittersweet Ending.
Capsule Pitch Description: A young, outcast princess seeks the help of a brilliant but lazy strategic genius teenage boy to correct the course of their weakening empire.
Implementation:Alderamin leans more towards an ensemble core cast with the princess and boy disliking one another personally, while Altina focuses primarily on the duo who are friendly with plenty of Ship Tease. Alderamin has a developed magical system, where Altina is a magic-less Schizo TechConstructed World resembling Europe from approximately 1600 to 1850 depending on the country. Alderamin is also decidedly darker and more mature despite that both series address similar issues with their respective empires.
Capsule Pitch Description: The journey of a young VR gamer who joins a high stakes MMORPG/fighting game where he makes lots of friends and earns his own Unwanted Harem despite having already picked up a girlfriend.
Implementation: Both come from light novels by the same author and share a setting, though Accel World is set a few decades further into the future (Sword Art Online started being written years earlier as a webnovel, but both went together to the bookstore and Accel World made it to the TV one season earlier). There is even a special story featuring both protagonists fighting each other.
Capsule Pitch Description: Both anime involve populations of psychics and the dangers they pose to society and how said society deals with it (with prejudice).
Implementation: While the premise is more or less the same, the main difference is society and the different directions each anime takes in involving its societies, with From the New World giving deeper focus on the sociological aspects and impact, set in the distant future after a small flashback to the past, and The Unlimited Hyoubu Kyousuke being more action-oriented, set in the current day due to somewhat less devastation having been wrought upon the world by psychics. The starkest difference is that the discriminators and the discriminated are reversed.
Capsule Pitch Description: Pick a bunch of teenagers with loose screws, give them cutting edge robots and send them to kick some bad guy's ass IN SPACE!
Implementation:Majestic Prince is based on a manga while Valvrave is an original story. Both air on the same day, but different timeslots and channels.
Capsule Pitch Description: Both are based on ongoing light novels about a large group of MMORPG gamers being trapped inside the game.
Implementation: In Sword Art Online the gamers are unable to log out or remove their VR helmets, but the Evil Programmer promises to free them if anyone can reach his tower and defeat him. In Log Horizon the gamers are transported to a physical version of the game inhabited by real people instead of NPCs, with no obvious clues as to how they got there or how to get back. Sword Art Online focuses mostly on action scenes and Japanese Spirit, while Log Horizon focuses on political intrigue and attempts to recreate modern technology. Log Horizon is more lighthearted than Sword Art Online.
Capsule Pitch Description: Both shows involve a "special" class of high school students who are given a target to assassinate by a certain time period. Also, they feature a blue-haired protagonist who is level-headed and competent at what they do.
Implementation:Assassination Classroom shows a comedy sci-fi setting that involves students of E-Class trying to assassinate their octopus-like teacher before their graduation, while Akuma no Riddle features a serious, realistic setting about twelve students of Class Black trying to kill a girl named Haru Ichinose with one of them have defected to protect her.
Capsule Pitch Description: Early 2010s Art-Style Dissonance manga that center on young orphan children exploring a strange world unlike anything they have seen before that feature futuristic elements and adventurous explanation while dealing with horrific implications. Both received anime adaptations in back-to-back anime seasons in the second half 2017.
Implementation:Made in Abyss goes for a more dark and horrifying way of telling its story with some high Body Horror, while Girls' Last Tour aims for a more melancholic yet uplifting tone despite its writing.
Implementation: Both are grimdark action series with the main character being voiced by Yūki Kaji and both have reasonable Character Development and Tear Jerker moments. Attack on Titan puts more emphasis on straight-up action and takes place more in the medieval/Renaissance time period. Black Bullet takes place 20 Minutes into the Future with sci-fi elements, puts more emphasis on philosophical and political themes, and is more inspired by Gen Urobuchi and nitro+ works. Attack on Titan does not have lolis while Black Bullet does.note In fact, the cursed children from Black Bullet are a race of lolis..
Implementation:Kill la Kill is an original anime series made by the same team responsible for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Akame ga Kill! is based on a manga. The female protagonists are anti-heroes for different reasons: Ryuko has a more selfish goal of revenge against the person who killed her father, while Akame is a cold-hearted assassin who resorts to murder to topple the Empire and rebuild society. Akame ga Kill! is considered to be Darker and Edgier than Kill la Kill because the former has a higher death count while most characters in Kill la Kill either are knocked out or receive Clothing Damage at worst. Kill la Kill incoporates more quirkiness (such as the theme involving clothes) and comedy, while Akame ga Kill! incorporates more Tear Jerker and drama.
Implementation:Free! has swimming as the main focus while Haikyuu!! has volleyball as the main emphasis. Free! is an anime original work with a light novel predecessor. Haikyuu!! is based of a manga series. Free! is mostly geared towards a female audience and put more emphasis on male Fanservice while Haikyuu!!, despite also having a huge female fanbase, is more geared towards the traditional Shounen demographic fanbase and follows the traditional sports anime themes (i.e. The Power of Friendship and Team Spirit).
Capsule Pitch Description:Fighting Series that have anime adaptations on the 2014 summer block, both of which have gore filled fights. Male leads are naive and brought into the story after a close encounter that nearly kills them. They also have a cold, female lead played by Sora Amamiya.
Implementation:Akame ga Kill! is about a young village boy who is separated from his friends and joins an assassin group after the girl who was taking care of him turns out to be a serial killer. Tokyo Ghoul is about a young boy who is attacked by a ghoul; a human eating monster that pretends to be a human.
Capsule Pitch Description: They are both Anime FirstMecha Shows that debuted in the summer of 2014.
Implementation:Argevollen takes place in a Constructed World where a young soldier stumbles upon the titular Super Prototype and uses it to help his country fend off an enemy invasion. Aldnoah meanwhile is an Alternate History where alien technology was found on the Moon and Mars in 1972. An Earth-established Martian colony then declared independence from Earth and eventually launched an invasion of the Blue Planet in 2014.
Capsule Pitch Description: Anime adaptations of arcade games from Konami by OLM Digital airing from Spring 2014.
Implementation: Both air back to back on the same time slot as 15 minute episodes. Dragon Collection features dragons while Oreca Battle features monsters.
Capsule Pitch Description:Merchandise-Driven collectable card game anime adaptions.
Implementation:Arc-V is a sequel to the long standing Yu-Gi-Oh! series aiming at children. Wixoss is JC Staff's adaption of Takara Tomy's card game aiming at male adults. Both deconstruct a number of elements from previous entries of the genre.
Capsule Pitch Description: Out-of-the-blue, a dorky protagonist Ordinary High-School Student contracts a dehumanizing affliction, but clings to his human part successfully enough to allow for dramatic story of Body Horror, coping, surviving and exploring the unknown. Both are seinen series as well.
Implementation:Parasyte is a manga series that takes place in the 1980s (although the anime adaptation modernized the series to incorporate modern day technology like smartphones and the internet). Parasyte have the monsters as aliens taking control of humans, while Tokyo Ghoul have ghouls. Tokyo Ghoul put more emphasis on its action scenes while Parasyte puts more emphasis on Character Development.
Capsule Pitch Description:Anime FirstMecha Shows featuring Mars, a princess, and an emotionally stunted main character that deconstruct a lot of Real Robot Genre tropes. Both shows take place in the wake of a disastrous war in the past and are a more realistic take on real robots and super robots. Both shows also heavily pitched the fact that they had some serious star power in the form of their writers: Gen Urobuchi for Aldnoah.Zero*At least for the show's basic background and the first 3 episodes and MariOkada for Iron Blooded Orphans.
Implementation:Aldnoah features a Martian invasion of Earth led by imperialistic Martian colonists who want to plunder Earth's natural resources. Iron Blooded Orphans is about a Martian PMC group made up of Child Soldiers trying to escort the leader of a colonial independence group to Earth to negotiate for greater colonial autonomy with a corrupt military organization standing in the way. Aldnoah.Zero flips the premise of the Real Robot Genre by putting the hero in a basic training unit and showing how good planning and tactics can defeat advanced technology. Iron Blooded Orphans gives the hero advanced technology but limited resources with little formal training.
Capsule Pitch Description: Anime based on manga series that is focused on Food Porn.
Implementation:Gourmet Girls Graffiti runs in a Manga Time Kirara magazine that is a Slice of Life series that is geared towards an adult male audience while Food Wars is a comedy series that run in a Shonen Jump magazine that is geared towards a younger audience. Gourmet Girls Graffiti is about a young middle school girl living by herself while Food Wars is about a young highschool boy from a family restaurant aspire to be the best chef in the world by entering a very competitive culinary school. Gourmet Girl Graffiti have characters eat the food in a very erotic way and more focused on common traditional Japanese foods; while Food Wars, even though it's not an action series, takes the concept of cooking and takes it to a ridiculous extreme and focuses on different variety of foods and cooking styles.
Capsule Pitch Description: Shows based on Sanrio franchises which started airing in April 2015. Both involve transformations into different species.
Implementation:Jewelpet Magical Change is aimed at children and is about the titular pets turning into humans; Show By Rock is aimed at adults and about humans who turn into humanoid animals.
Capsule Pitch Description: Anime series by J.C. Staff that aired in the summer of 2015 which focus on a group of characters struggling in an oppressive environment and involve heavy amounts of Ecchi.
Implementation:Shimoneta takes place in a world where R-rated jokes don't exist and is a flatout lighthearted comedy. Prison School is flatout Black Comedy anime series where most of the female characters are portrayed as sadists while the male characters are portrayed as either stupid, perverted, or incompetent.
Capsule Pitch Description: Anime with very dark take on the school setting that are geared towards a seinen audience.
Implementation:School-Live! is a horror/Slice of LifeSchoolgirl Series with the anime written by Kaihou Norimitsu (who works for nitro+ and a contemporary of the well-known Gen Urobuchi) heavy Mood Dissonance because it takes play in a post-apocalyptic Zombie Apocalypse setting. Prison School is an ecchi Black Comedy series written by Akira Hiramoto where five boys are placed in sadistic punishment in a highly oppressive all-girls high school setting after peeping into the girls' locker room.
Capsule Pitch Description: Light novel adaptations in a high school setting that focuses on competitive combat with Magitek as a sport with a lot of Fanservice.
Implementation: Both series aired within the same season airing on the same time slot on the same day. Complete with a long-haired princess with fire powers who starts off as a Tsundere to the protagonist. However, The Asterisk War focuses on a sci-fi setting with advanced technology while Chivalry of a Failed Knight puts more emphasis on magic in combat. Asterisk War is also less comedic, focusing more on its social science fiction.
Capsule Pitch Description: A savvy, somewhat geeky, tracksuit-studded shut-in ends up having to Reincarnate in Another World, only to have a more unconventional fantasy adventure than most.
Implementation: Originally starting out as reincarnation fantasy stories on Shosetsuka ni Naro, they were since cleaned up and published as legitimate light novels. Their respective anime adaptations premiered in the Winter 2016 season. Storywise, they're complete opposites: whereas KonoSuba was a farce focusing on a party of self-centered Jerks with Hearts of Gold, Re:Zero was a character-driven drama that often broke the characters as often as they were helped. The authors of both are also good friends in real life.
Capsule Pitch Description: Series involving Idol Singers, which aired on the same season, is a sequel, and is backed up by a recording company.
Implementation:Macross Delta started airing a cour earlier than Love Live! Sunshine!! They aired in the same time slot at the same channel as well. However, Macross mainly focuses on two members of it's Idol Singer group and two pilots of fighters that support them, while Love Live! focuses on all of the 9 members and how they became the part of the group.
Capsule Pitch Description: A meta-Great Yokai War featuring two Darker and Edgier entries of popular Yokai-themed franchises.
Implementation: As stated, both are Darker and Edgier installments of Yokai-themed franchises. Kitaro premiered in order to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the first anime airing, and has a lot of social comment on Japan-related real-life topics and thus keeps itself relevant to the present day. Meanwhile, Shadowside is a sequel set after a 30-year timeskip featuing the children of the previous series' protagonist as the main characters, as well as scarier Yokai, and is now plot-driven unlike the previous series. Note that both franchises come fresh from a crossover in the Shadowside movie, which launched the Shadowside project. Following this, Kitaro characters appeared in a Yo-kai Watch: Wibble Wobble collaboration event, and later in Yo-kai Watch 4 in a sidequest.
Capsule Pitch Description: A more down to earth, character driven sport series starring more unconventional sports for a Sports Story (running and kyudo respectively).
Implementation: Both are literature adaptations, who are also made by studios with major female audience franchises (Production I.G, Kyoto Animation). These adaptations also ran concurrently in the Winter 2019 season, but Run with the Wind is a two-cour while Tsurune is 13 episodes.
Capsule Pitch Description: Post-Apocalyptic All-CGI Cartoon about humanoids with odd circumstances as to how they were created, with a curious Muggle joining the main cast.
Implementation: Both series are done by relatively unknown studios, and Yaoyorozu worked on both series (1 season in Kemono Friends' case). While both have battles with strange, somewhat alien adversaries, Kemono Friends also has a prominent slice of life and Edutainment factor while Kemurikusa goes more into Sci-fi elements. The second season of the former ran at the same time as the latter.
Capsule Pitch Description: Unconventional stories in the Magical Girl Warrior genre that have Aoi Yūki as the lead actress for both series, and aimed at adults.
Implementation: The latter was originally seen as a ripoff of the former due to an early bloody and dark tone in its first airing, though slowly it became its own entity, more Hot-Blooded and optimistic in vein to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Studio TRIGGER works, while the former remains a darker and more deconstructive take of the idea through and through.
Capsule Pitch Description: Both series revolve around a family of spies.
Implementation:Spy x Family is more comedic and slice of life, while Yozakura has more action feeling like Reborn! (2004). Both are Shueisha properties, though while Spy x Family is run in the Jump+ app, Yozakura is published in Weekly Shonen Jump, though both run in the Mangaplus app overseas.
Capsule Pitch Description: Both are Shonen Jump manga that focus on an eccentric detective, their unusual methods to solve crimes, haunted by a past case they could never solve, and accompanied by the Straight Man sidekick.
Implementation: Both manga premiered within a few months of each other in Shonen Jump magazines (one in Jump+ and another in Weekly).
