Who doesn’t love a revolution? Well, probably the normal people just trying to live their lives during one, that’s for sure. However, fighting for something you believe in enough to die for is admirable, and when enough people like that gets together, it is a powder keg waiting for a spark.
For as much as anime loves its corrupt and downright evil governments, anime detailing an actual rebellion or action against that government is surprisingly rare. However, if you are looking for anime recommendations about characters that are overthrowing – or even just making moves against – an unfair ruling party, then give these anime series a try.
Anime About Overthrowing the Government
Akame ga Kill
While there are a few anime series about rebelling against a government, profoundly little of those actually display the rebellion all the way through to the end. Sometimes a rebellion plot gives way to something more important, sometimes the story never gets fully told in anime form. Regardless, seeing the actual conclusion of a rebellion is not something you see often in anime. However, Akame ga Kill offers you the full freedom fighter experience.
It follows a boy that had originally came to the city to join the knights of the empire. However, he gets turned away and ends up being recruited by a resistance group instead. Bonding with them and agreeing with their ideals, he progressively becomes more invested in their fight.
However, without a doubt the most charming thing about Akame ga Kill is that its display of overthrowing the government is not a bloodless one. Prepare yourself to watch all your favorite characters die miserably as they fight for their comrades and their idea of the future.
Guilty Crown
After a catastrophic event, Japan was ravaged by the outbreak of the Apocalypse Virus, a virus that slowly turns people into crystal until they crumble. As the nation turned to chaos, a United Nations-sanctioned organization known at the GHQ stepped in and took over control. However, their power remained in place for over decade with Japan unable to wrest back control of their nation, and many turning to resistance groups in order to fight back.
The plot of Guilty Crown can actually be summed up as being about a guy at the wrong place at the right time to accidentally gain a special power that makes him crucial to a revolutionary group’s rebellion against occupying forces. It also plays out like that, with the main character often seeming to be just pulled along for the ride unwillingly – until a crucial turning point in the series, anyway.
Code Geass
Although it starts off about a banished prince enjoying peaceful school days in Britannian Empire-occupied Japan, Code Geass doesn’t have the extended title of “Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion” because he enjoys those halcyon days forever.
Instead, this mostly powerless prince gains a unique ability after a clandestine run-in with a mysterious women. He gains the power of absolute obedience, which means anyone he looks in the eye has to obey whatever he says.
With his regal breeding, large chip on his shoulder, and a truly kingly power at his disposal, it allows this young prince to wage rebellion from almost nothing as he essentially takes over leadership of a rebel group. However, toppling an empire that spans nearly half the world is a momentous task, and every herculean task comes with some heart-breaking casualties.
Terror in Resonance
Terror in Resonance follows two mysterious teen boys – and the normal bullied high school girl that winds up caught up in the middle – who are carrying out nonlethal bombings around Japan.
In truth, Terror in Resonance isn’t about “overthrowing the government” in the strictest sense. Instead, these attacks are more to get the attention of the public and draw attention to the mysterious experimentation that they had to endure as children in a secret government experiment.
They don’t want to take over anything, they just want people to know they existed and what happened to many kids like them that didn’t survive and escape.
The Heroic Legend of Arslan
While not the first prince to lose his birthright on this list, The Heroic Legend of Arslan is the first prince to lose it to a coup carried out against his royal parents – all while he was on his first battle in the field, no less.
On the eve of his first battle, a coup by other generals in his nation is carried out against Arslan’s father. This results in his father fleeing and Arslan’s forces being slaughtered brutally. While the prince is now fleeing for his life, eventually he finds his feet and must negotiate ways to build a force to take back his kingdom.
However, a royal with no allies and no army is really not much of a royal at all, and The Heroic Legend of Arslan doesn’t let you forget it. As Arslan is both a novice warrior and a novice politician, the road to overthrowing the new coup-installed power is not an easy one.
Sabikui Bisco
Sabikui Bisco tells an age-old story. You know, the one where humanity is being slowly infected with an airborne rusting disease that is being wrongfully blamed on mushrooms. As is the normal human response, mushrooms have been villainized and destroyed, but a group known as the mushroom keepers believe that a legendary fungi is the only hope for a cure. Its a total common, age-old story, right?
As such, Sabiukui Bisco quickly became described as “that one show about mushroom terrorism,” as the main character travels desolate Japan looking for this legendary mushroom and using his fungi-sprouting arrows as both weapons against the government trying to shut him down and panacea for the suffering landscape.
While not immediately about overthrowing the government, it eventually becomes quite clear that the government knows the true cause of the rusting disease and is keeping it around for increased subjugation and other nefarious means.
Shimoneta: A Boring World Where The Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist
From mushroom terrorism to mushroom tip terrorism, Shimoneta is about a world where, as the title helpfully says, dirty jokes don’t exist after a series of prudes in the government outright outlawed them.
And, of course, you just know that Shimoneta is just stuffed full of dirty jokes. Sometimes to an impressive degree where there is a dirty joke, if not verbally, then visually in every scene.
Impressive amount of clever degeneracy aside, the plot of Shimoneta is about the son of a dirty joke-advocating terrorist getting pulled into dirty joke terrorism by a girl and learning that it is fun to be a bit of a perverted degenerate sometimes.
While not the most serious anime about rebelling against a tyrannous government, Shimoneta is a series that makes it look like the most fun.
Attack on Titan
While Attack on Titan will be initially and famously known as an anime series about giant naked humanoids that eat humans and spray their organs about with wild abandon, it is a series that evolves over time.
It certainly starts off with a main character hell-bent on killing all titans and given the power to make that happen when he discovers he can become a titan himself. However, while it starts that way – middle, middle, middle – it becomes about an intricate plot to overthrown the government as a response to one of the may sudden twists that happen in this phenomenon of an anime series.
The transformation from brutal display of death and gore to brutal display of human cruelty and political intrigue is perhaps the biggest treat of Attack on Titan.
Eureka Seven
Eureka Seven hides its story of rebellion beneath a more cozy blanket of a coming-of-age adventure where the main character runs off and joins an outlaw group while trying to escape his boring life and the weight of his father’s reputation.
This group, Gekkostate, travels around performing what is essentially space surfing exhibition shows and distributing a magazine to foster a good image of the group. However, it is made up of mostly ex-military that are often just trying to atone for their past crimes.
While Eureka Seven does start as a coming-of-age adventure, it transforms into a world of taut military politics as Gekkostate, for their past and present crimes, comes under direct attention from the government where it is either destroy or be destroyed.
Do you have more good anime recommendations about anime that tells stories about freedom fighters overthrowing the government? Let fans know in the comments section below.
