Spies, UFO hunters, and supernatural creatures – they are all here to set the mood.
Anime often breaks narrative patterns, combining different techniques, genres, and moods into a single picture. Sometimes it is difficult to understand where the joke ends and the drama begins.
In the case of comedy anime, humor is a shell that hides the characters' experiences and a means of escaping from problems.
1. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, 2020
Masaaki Yuasa has become known for his unexpected artistic choices and creative fearlessness. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! is a work in which Yuasa reflects on his own professional experience and the difficulties faced by every aspiring artist.
It is a funny and inspiring comedy about high school girls who decide to start their own animation club. Eccentric dreamer Midori dreams of becoming a manga artist and animator. Her love for anime is shared by her classmates: Sayaka and Tsubame. The former wants to become a producer, the latter a director. The new friends get together and organize a film club.
2. Delicious in Dungeon, 2024-...
Knight Laios, his sorceress sister Falin, elf Marcille and halfling Chilchuck have failed in a battle with a dragon in the dungeon. Falin ended up in the beast's stomach after she managed to teleport her friends to the surface. Laios vows to save his sister, but there is no money left for food and weapons.
The brave heroes return to the dungeon and decide to feed on the monsters that inhabit its various levels. But if fighting the local fauna is easy, cooking it is very difficult. But they meet the dwarf Senshi along the way – an experienced dungeon dweller who can make an excellent stew out of even the most hideous monster.
3. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, 2006
Haruhi Suzumiya is a Fox Mulder from an alternate universe. She is obsessed with aliens and paranormal phenomena. She starts an SOS Club at school to search for evidence of the existence of the supernatural.
Haruhi puts together a team, but thinks only of herself, so she does not notice that all sorts of strange things are constantly happening around the club.
The anime is based on Nagaru Tanigawa's 2003 light novel, which quickly grew into a franchise that includes a manga series, anime, and even a video game. The success of Tanigawa's concept lies in its fresh take on the school setting, fused with mysticism.
4. Mob Psycho 100, 2016-2022
Schoolboy Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed Mob, has powerful psychic abilities that could allow him to take over the world. But Shigeo is afraid of himself, so he carefully keeps his emotions under control.
And for a teenager, controlling his emotions is an almost impossible task, even more difficult than fighting monsters and demons. Mob is helped by a pop star from the world of psychics – Arataka Reigen.
Mob Psycho 100 is a clever satire created by One, the author of the popular and equally hilarious One-Punch Man. The manga artist loves to give an ordinary guy superpowers and see how they affect his everyday life, his character and his relationship with the world.
5. Spy x Family, 2022-...
There is a Cold War between the two states. Westalis' agent, Twilight, is assigned to infiltrate Donovan Desmond, the leader of the ruling party in Ostania. But Desmond is terribly paranoid. He never leaves his house and only attends meetings at his son's school.
Twilight has to infiltrate the school undercover so he decides to create a fictitious family. He takes a girl, Anya, from an orphanage, marries a woman, Yor, and gets a dog. Little does the spy know that the dog can predict the future, Anya can read minds, and Yor is a talented killer.
This anime could have been a nervous spy drama, a fantasy or a political thriller, but director Kazuhiro Furuhashi did not want to be serious – he ridicules the clichés of the genre.