Kazuki and Rei are roommates that also work as professional mercenaries while they each flee from their grim memories through the dangerous work.
However, while carrying out an assassination on Christmas Eve, their paths cross with four-year-old Miri who traveled to Tokyo by herself, told by her mother who abandoned her to go find her father. Unfortunately for everyone involved, her father was their mark whom they successfully took out.
Now saddled with a small child, this pair of grown men struggle to adjust to being new parents while also balancing it with their dangerous job.
Buddy Daddies may look great and be absolutely stuffed full of likable characters, but let us never forget what it did better than all other anime of its kind – remind us how annoying small children can be when with them all the time. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Buddy Daddies, head on down below.
Anime Like Buddy Daddies
For Fans of Criminals With Kids
Spy X Family
There is no order too big for master spy Twilight.
He uses his numerous skills as a spy to keep the peace between his country and aggressive neighbors, but his recent mission demands he investigate a reclusive politician that only attends school events for his child.
Dictating that he must now have a child and wife of his own to pull off the mission, Twilight manages to recruit a small orphan girl and an office lady to play the roles.
However, what he doesn’t know is that his new daughter is an esper capable of reading minds and his new wife is actually an assassin using him as a cover to maintain a guise of normalcy.
It is believed that Buddy Daddies was made to capture some of the run-off love that people have for Spy X Family, but that is definitely not a bad thing since both ares are quite good and quite similar.
Both Buddy Daddies and Spy X Family follow single men with dangerous jobs that suddenly become parents to an orphan girl they found.
However, the difference is in the details. Spy X Family has that father being a spy who has built a family as a cover for his operation. Alongside it having that twist, it has another twist in the form of his fake wife being an assassin and his new daughter being able to read minds.
While Buddy Daddies takes a more realistic approach to the scenario, Spy X Family can only best be described as “more wacky” due to its twists. It may be more wacky, but both shows are still quite wholesome.
The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting
Tooru Kirishima is known as the Demon of the Sakuragi crime family due to his overly violent tendencies. Because of his skill and loyalty, he has been selected by the boss of the family for an important job – the job of babysitting the boss’ daughter.
Both Buddy Daddies and The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting are cute childcare anime with a similar sort of twist. That twist being that the young children are being taken care of by criminals.
However, while Miri is a realistic handful, The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting keeps Yaeka more that standard well behaved and quiet child.
While both children have some abandonment issues, they are distinctly different forms. Furthermore, Miri doesn’t seem to be old enough to process it like Yaeka can.
While both series balance cute kid moments with bouts of action, Buddy Daddies is a lot more high energy about it. The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting is often most focused on wholesome moments or soothing Yaeka’s emotional damage.
Hinamatsuri
One night, an object falls through space and time into the living room of dignified yakuza member Nitta. The object turns out to be a strange girl with psychic powers, but Nitta is reluctant to both take her in and to accept her offer to make use of those powers.
Respecting his decision to not use her as a tool, this girl, named Hina, decides to help him anyway as they begin their life together.
Like Buddy Daddies, Hinamatsuri is also about a single criminal who suddenly lives with and takes care of a small child.
While they both have that set up in common, Buddy Daddies and Hinamatsuri differ in tone. Hinamatsuri is an anime that can have a few wholesome moments, but it is a comedy above all else. That definitely isn’t a bad thing though, since it is actually a great comedy.
Michiko and Hatchin
For the fourth time, hardened criminal Michiko breaks out of a South American prison in order to search for a man from her past.
This search leads her to the young Hana, a girl trapped under the thumb of her abusive foster family and daughter of the man Michiko is looking for.
Breaking her out to lure out her father, the unlikely pair set off on their search, only to be embroiled in everything from betrayal to gang warfare.
Like Buddy Daddies, Michiko and Hatchin follows the antics of a criminal and the child of their target that they ended up with. However, while Buddy Daddies is about them adjusting to being new parents, Michiko and Hatchin is often less wholesome. Michiko essentially kidnapped Hatchin to use her to find her father, whom Hatchin also wants to find.
So while Buddy Daddies stays in one spot, Michiko and Hatchin has the pair traveling and often getting mixed up in a number of dangerous criminal situations. Both series have moments of action that help to keep them interesting for fans that don’t just want all family life fluff.
For Fans of Odd Couple Partnerships
The Great Pretender
After life turned him down the path of crime, Makoto Edamura cockily thinks himself the best swindler in Japan. However, after trying to swindle a tourist only for the tourist to swap it back, he finds the police on his trail.
Making his escape, he runs into this tourist again, a move that would take him all the way across the sea to Los Angeles. There, he learns that this tourist was in fact a man called Laurent Thierry, a successful confidence man, who wants to recruit him onto his team.
Like Buddy Daddies follows two criminal partners who seem like they wouldn’t get along, so too does The Great Pretender. However, instead of the cold and cheerful combination that is Rei and Kazuki, The Great Pretender puts together a suave conman and one that is a riddled with anxiety.
If you enjoyed the high energy and fluid action of Buddy Daddies, but wouldn’t miss the family element of it, The Great Pretender is an absolute must.
Gangsta
Nicholas Brown and Worick Arcangelo work as handymen, mercenaries that will do anything for the right price.
Working for the mob and police alike, they delve into the underbelly of the city, a place that was once haven for Twilights, people who were augmented by a special drug.
Like Kazuki and Rei, Worick and Nicholas are different in personality, but equally damaged. One is dark haired and quiet, the other is blonde-haired and charming. They even have similar professions as people who handle jobs in the underworld.
However, whereas Rei and Kazuki get a dose of wholesomeness and normalcy through a small child, Gangsta plays more into the action of their jobs and lives. Essentially, Gangsta would be Buddy Daddies if you removed Miri from it.
The Millionaire Detective – Balance – Unlimited
Daisuke Kanbe is a man of extraordinary wealth and has been assigned to the Modern Crime Prevention HQ as a detective. He gets himself partnered with the stalwart defender of justice, Haru Katou.
They are polar opposites, with Haru frequently upset that Daisuke throws money at everything. However, they need to find a way to solve mysteries together.
While Rei and Kazuki are occasionally a little light on cash, that kind of never happens in The Millionaire Detective. Aside from these anime have main characters on different sides of the law, what they have in common is a character dynamic. One is serious and a little ridiculous sometimes, the other is more a normal sort of down-to-earth person.
These are both anime series to watch for those that like the odd couple dynamic between characters, but they both also have their unique extra twists – like raising a child or throwing money at any problem – that make for a fun watch.
Lycoris Recoil
In order to cut down on crime and terrorism, an organization called Direct Attack was formed. They take orphaned girls and turn them into agents that protect the country in the Lycoris program.
Takina is one gifted agent, but after a hostage situation leads to insubordination, she is transferred out of the main unit to a lower key branch of Lycoris ran out of a cafe.
Despite being paired with a famed, but more easy-going Lycoris prodigy Chisato while there, Takina is determined to get back into DA, but her new partner is determined to prove that there is more to life than just taking lives.
What is the relationship between Rei and Kazuki if not a gender-swapped Chisato and Takina?
In both Lycoris Recoil and Buddy Daddies, the main duo has one serious black-haired one and one cheerful blonde-haired one. Furthermore, they both serve as a form of “problem solver” in their city. However, while Buddy Daddies has them as more assassins/mercenaries, Lycoris Recoil has the duo working for a government-sanctioned organization of secret peace-keeping agents.
Both anime series are extremely good at balancing moments of action with fun to watch moments of cuteness.
For Fans of Found Family
Kotaro Lives Alone
Unsuccessful manga artist Shin Karino has his daily routine interrupted one day with the introduction to his new neighbor – a four-year-old boy who moved in next door, lives by himself, and talks like a samurai.
While this boy is more put together than most of his neighbors, living alone has its difficulties at any age.
Both anime follow pre-school-aged children who were somewhat abandoned out in the world that end up bonding with people that are not their blood relatives. In Buddy Daddies, they find Miri and take her in while in Kotaro Lives Alone, he bonds with his new neighbors.
While Kotaro Lives Alone seems pretty light-hearted and cute with its art style, it can actually punch pretty hard emotionally as it goes on. It also gives a pretty decent answer as to how and why a pre-school-aged boy lives alone.
Deaimon
It has been ten years since Nagomu Irino left home to pursue his dream of music. While his dream is failing, he receives a letter hearing saying father has been hospitalized, so he returns home to help run his family’s traditional Kyoto sweets shop.
Once there, he finds his father is fine, but they have picked up an abandoned 10-year-old girl named Itsuka Yukihira, and his father has chosen her as successor.
It isn’t long before Nagomu bonds with Itsuka, viewing himself as a father-like figure to her.
Both Buddy Daddies and Deaimon are about children that were abandoned by their parents and taken in by people who begin to act like parents. Furthermore, Nagomu in Deaimon and Kazuki in Buddy Daddies are a similar sort of lovable goofball, though Nagomu has less anxiety.
Deaimon is a little less brutal in that the girl is a bit older and her father abandoned her with a nice older couple instead of just sending her packing like Miri’s mother did.
While Buddy Daddies is more exciting with its bouts of action, both series maintain a nice light tone as goofy guys learn to act like father figures.
Usagi Drop
Daikichi Kawachi is a 30-year-old bachelor that works long hours at a respectable job. However, upon hearing the news of his grandfather’s death, he returns home for the funeral only to find out that his grandfather had an illegitimate daughter named Rin.
Shy and unapproachable, this young child is shunned by the other members of the family.
In his anger that no one will take her in, Daikichi steps up himself and begins his days anew as a single father with no prior childcare experience.
Perhaps because Miri was so young, they can get away with not giving her the abandonment issues that you find in other found family anime involving young children. However, if you do want an anime that explores the emotional issues of abandoned, unwanted children and the happiness they find with a new family, Usagi Drop is a solid option.
Like Buddy Daddies, a young girl is abandoned and taken in by a single man who doesn’t know anything about raising children. Both explore the adjustment period of that in a wholesome way, although Usagi Drop doesn’t have anything else but that wholesomeness driving the plot.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Buddy Daddies? Let fans know in the comments section below.
