11 Horror Comedy Anime That Turn Terror Into A Joke

While Pikotaro can take a pineapple and a pen, smash them together, and make a pineapple pen, some things don’t smush that easily. Two of those things are the genres of horror and comedy.

Horror comedy anime is so particularly rare because for something to be scary, it usually can’t be funny. Horror is all about atmosphere, in essence. If someone cracked a fart in a tense moment of horror, it would be objectively funny, but it wouldn’t be scary anymore.

Certainly, there are a few dark comedy anime out there, but those aren’t always horror anime. For a series to be a horror comedy anime, it needs to have a setting that, if you took out the jokes, would actually be a scary situation. It is a delicate balance.

In truth, there aren’t too many horror anime out there, which makes horror comedy anime even more rare. However, if the interesting balance of laughs and screams is what you are looking for, give these horror comedy anime recommendations a try.

Best Horror Comedy Anime

Dorohedoro

Dorohedoro is the perfect amalgamation of horror and comedy. It can go from comic relief to pure gore in literal seconds thanks in no small part to its crapsack world where people are casually tormented by magic users.

Furthermore, horrific things like opening one’s chest to sign a contract with another right on the heart is treated as completely normal and not gruesome and shocking.

Dorohedoro is a series that is carried by amazing characters, and even the serious antagonist of the series is comedic in his own ways.

Danganronpa

Danganronpa is a special beast. It is a murder mystery initially about kids locked in a school to play a killing game. In order to escape, they need to kill a classmate and get away with it.

While that situation seems pretty dire, the characters are all so comically over-the-top in their personalities that it is hard to take them seriously. Furthermore, the punishment games that the murderers are put through when caught are, well, black comedy at its finest.

Danganronpa actually takes it plot seriously, but its unique characters are designed to bring levity to the situation so the whole plot doesn’t become overbearingly grim. The series has its core themes steeped in both despair and hope, after all.

Sankarea

While a romance between a human and a girl that kills herself and becomes a zombie doesn’t have to be macabre, Sankarea thankfully doesn’t neuter the horror completely out of the situation.

The titular Sanka Rea often teeters between cute girlfriend and creepy girlfriend that might eat her man. However, while they left some of the horror in this zombie rom-com, it is still a romantic comedy. That means as many cute shenanigans as there there creepy ones.

Junji Ito Collection

Junji Ito is a manga author that is widely considered to be a master of horror. This is why many call the Junji Ito Collection and its “sequel” Junji Ito Maniac terrible adaptations of his work because they are often comical, and sometimes, in a “so bad its funny” sort of way.

While both adaptations actually do have legitimate problems with their presentation of “some” stories, Junji Ito’s work often has an element of comedy to it. A little levity can often make the terror hit much harder after it has disarmed the audience. So the silliness in some of these tales is right in the Junji Ito wheelhouse.

Yamishibai

In a similar vein to the Junji Ito Collection, Yamishibai isn’t necessarily trying to be funny in some cases, it just ends up that way.

This series is a short-form anime where the episodes are only about 5 minutes long. Each episode tells a different short horror story. Some are legitimately chilling, some are kind of funny, and only a handful are actually both.

Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan

There are a lot of violent tsunderes in anime, and it is always played for laughs. Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan, too, is violent tsundere-based laughs, but also so horribly gruesome.

Of course, Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan’s plot about an angel that tortures a man so that he won’t fulfill his future fate of creating a technology that keeps women at the age of 12 forever is not quite a horror plot. However, the fact that he is frequently beaten to death in a graphic way and revived kind of is.

Ghost Stories

In order for Ghost Stories to be both horror and comedy, you must watch the dubbed version. As they didn’t have a proper translation, the team that dubbed it just sort of said “fuck it” and did a comedy dub.

The actual ghost stories are kept intact for the most part, and they can be quite creepy sometimes. However, the dub adds a beloved dose of levity in the form of jokes that definitely couldn’t be made today due to political correctness.

Gegege no Kintarou

Japan has a rich history of mystical folktales featuring tons of ghosts, demons, creatures, and other things created to explain various events. Gegege no Kintarou has a familiar plot about a mediator that solves problems between humans and yokai, even though humans no longer believe in yokai.

Unlike the many other anime with this exact same plot, Gegege no Kintarou doesn’t always make these spirits cute and innocent. It doesn’t forget the darker portion of Japanese folklore, which makes some tales actually kind of chilling.

Zombieland Saga

While Zombieland Saga is a little light on the horror, it mixes a variety of genres pretty masterfully.

Zombieland Saga is about girls from throughout Japanese history that were brought back to life as zombies to form an idol group that will bring popularity to the province of Saga.

So this is an idol anime where the stars need to put on pounds of make up to look human, have their limbs occasionally fall off, and occasionally sing death metal. It is definitely more comedy, but it is one of the few horror comedy anime that acknowledges itself as both horror and comedy.

Mieruko-chan

Anime has a lot of ways to deal with ghosts. Exorcise them. Slay them. Fall in love with them. However, Mieruko-chan follows a girl who employs an altogether more relatable strategy – just ignore them and hope they go away.

That’s the plot of Mieruko-chan. She can see ghosts, she finds them terrifying, and she ignores them so they will leave her alone.

The comedy in the series comes from all the things the ghosts do around her and the awkward places they show up. It is also very amusing to see the lengths that the main character will go to pretend she can’t see.

Zom 100 – Bucket List of the Dead

These days, it is not uncommon to hope for an apocalypse so you don’t have to go to work or school so you can do something actually fun. That’s the plot of Zom 100.

This series follows an overworked salaryman who is one day overjoyed to learn that a full-on zombie apocalypse has started. He uses his new freedom to do a whole bucket list of things he always wanted to do now that he has the time.

The series takes place in a situation that is typically portrayed as scary, and just kind of has the main character not acknowledge it. The world is dangerous, but he just wants to have some fun before he dies, knowing fully that an early death is coming anyway.

Do you have more anime that combine the two diametrically opposed genres of comedy and horror? Let fans know your good horror comedy anime recommendations in the comments section below.