10 Best Anime to Watch for Gamers [IGN]
Whether they be surprisingly great adaptations of a video game, about the experience of being a gamer/game creator, or make playing a game central to their plot; these are the best anime about video games that you can watch today.
Remake Our Life!
![Credit: Feel, Inc.](https://i0.wp.com/assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2024/05/20/remake-our-life-14342-1-1716222376857.jpg?w=800&ssl=1)
Remake our Life! opens with 28-year-old Kyouya Hashiba completely burnt out on his life and career. The game development studio he worked for went bankrupt and the liferaft of a project he scrambled to join was canceled shortly after he came aboard. This leaves Kyouya with little choice but to move back in with his parents and question all of his major life decisions. Magically, he wakes up ten years in the past just as he’s about to enter college, and vows to make a better future for himself.
Layoffs, studio closures, and general career instability are fixtures of the gaming industry in 2024, and it’s cathartic to see Remake Our Life! address the realities of working in this industry from the get go. What follows this first episode is a cozy exploration of young, passionate people learning first hand about the highs and lows of working in creative fields like game development. If you work in any industry in the digital media bubble and feel the dread that’s related to that bubble deflating over the past half a year, this anime is a heartwarming reminder of why we got into this line of work and how the highs more than make up for the lows.
Remake Our Life! is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
![Credit: Netflix, Trigger, Inc.](https://i0.wp.com/assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2022/06/07/untitled-1-1654597014758.jpg?w=800&ssl=1)
Is an anime that’s functionally a commercial for a video game that was so broken at launch that it was delisted from storefronts arguably the least punk thing ever? Yes, but even the haters have to admit that studio Trigger’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a lavishly produced spectacle that serves as a solid entryway to the broader anime landscape. It’s also a fantastic example of the looser approach to adaptation that makes so many anime based on video games feel like a delightful expansion of those universes.
Taking place in Night City, the principal location of both Cyberpunk: 2077 and the Cyberpunk tabletop game, this anime follows David Martinez, a young man who becomes an augmented mercenary, or edgerunner, after a drive-by shooting kills his mother. What follows is a gripping story about people trying to have any semblance of comfort or security under late stage capitalism, and that system beating them back down at every possible opportunity. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a great anime if you’re in the mood for a cool looking, feel-bad time.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is streaming on Netflix.
Pokémon
Castlevania
![Credit: Frederator Studios, Netflix](https://i0.wp.com/assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2021/05/05/csv4-401-master-v01-01-03-18-10-still014-1620250560786.png?w=800&ssl=1)
Though developed by Frederator Studios and Powerhouse Animation Studios, two US based production companies, the Castlevania show is simply too sick to not count as an honorary anime! Loosely following the events of the games, the Castlevania anime follows Trevor Belmont, and later his descendent, as he and his vampire hunting contemporaries battle Dracula and his demonic horde.
Castlevania excels at nailing the tone and ambience of the games it’s based on better than any of the other video game adaptations on this list. While the exploration elements of the Castlevania games would prove foundational in developing game design — hence the metroidvania genre — people were coming to Castlevania games for the vibes! The Castlevania anime perfectly captures the gothic action that the games invoke and the absolute thrill of charging in against an untold number of monstrosities in a battle against a legendary fiend.
Castlevania is streaming on Netflix.
All the Persona Anime
Sword Art Online
Welcome to the N.H.K.
![Credit: Gonzo K.K.](https://i0.wp.com/assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2024/05/20/0wxl-mqrqj4wo-9yd-1716222819998.jpg?w=800&ssl=1)
In many ways the polar opposite of Remake Our Life!, Welcome to the N.H.K. is an anime about how passions around media, and possibly creating media like video games, are sometimes the only things that keep people going. This anime follows Tatsuhiro Sato, a hikikomori — a social recluse who refuses to or is unable to engage with society or even leave their home or bedroom — who’s turned to conspiracy theories to explain his unhappiness and niche, often problematic, media to dull his depression. To try to better himself, Sato helps his more socially attuned neighbor develop an eroge game and is forced by a good samaritan to go outside for more than just food. This anime spends most of its runtime, though, exploring Sato’s deeply misanthropic mentalities.
Welcome to the N.H.K. is a weird anime that’s as critical of its main character and subject matter as it is through in its exploration of the real-life beliefs and ideologies that its protagonist embodies. To offer a point of comparison, if you liked the tone and politics of the No More Heroes games, Welcome to the N.H.K. is more than worth checking out.
Welcome to the N.H.K. is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Dragon Quest: Adventures of Dai
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999
Log Horizon
![Credit: Satelight](https://i0.wp.com/assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2024/05/20/log-horizon-1716223152371.jpg?w=800&ssl=1)
If Sword Art Online is the anime that popularized the “trapped in a game” sub-genre, then Log Horizon is the anime that perfected that kind of storytelling. For as strong an opening as SAO has, it doesn’t really ground itself in the mechanics and unique tensions that any seasoned MMO player knows all too well. After all, MMO players know that there’s plenty of story material to be mined from the gameplay and social dimensions of this kind of game; like the process of researching a dungeon, planning a raid, and then convincing guild or party members to go along to with the plan and stick to their assigned roles.
Log Horizon faithfully brings these situations and processes to life. It also helps that Log Horizon’s protagonist, Shiroe, plays as a dedicated support class and is less of a vehicle for audience projection than Kirito is in SAO. Log Horizon understands the unique drama and experiences that video games can provide, and is easily one of the best anime about video games.
Log Horizon is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Lucas de Ruyter is a freelance writer for IGN.