Konoha Akisato is an illustrator that loves drawing cute anime girls and bishoujo games. While she works in the video game industry making bishoujo games as an assistant illustrator, her dream is to become famous for her bishoujo heroine designs.
Unfortunately, with her employer focused on cheap budget-bin bishoujo games, there is no way that is going to happen.
One day, after recieving some legendary bishoujo games at a mysterious shop, she opens the package and finds herself transported back to 1992 – right when the golden age of bishoujo games was about to begin.
Joining a company called Alcoholsoft, Konoha finally has the fresh start she needed to bring her a anime girl illustrations to life.
A cute waifu who likes making cute waifus? This series writes a little love letter to the design process and history of bishoujo games. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like 16bit Sensation: Another Layer, head on down below.
Anime Like 16bit Sensation: Another Layer
For Fans of Redo at Life
Remake Our Life
As an adult, Kyouya Hashiba left his office job to pursue a career in the video game industry. Although he tried every role, nothing has worked out. Even with the bright potential of a popular game he got a job on after giving up, the division closes down abruptly.
Now moving back in with his parents, he wishes he had gone to the arts university he had gotten into instead of the safer business university he chose so that perhaps he could have trained with the similarly-aged Platinum Generation of hit game-makers.
Upon falling asleep one night, he wakes up as a high school graduate again getting ready to make his choice on which university to attend.
Of all the other anime recommendations, there is no series more similar to 16bit Sensation than Remake Our Life.
Not only are both 16bit Sensation and Remake Our Life about working adults sent back in time, but they are both about being sent back in time to make video games in a “golden era” for making games.
However, 16bit specifically follows an illustrator who goes back in time to work in the games industry while Remake Our Life follows a guy more adrift in what role he wants to be, but goes back in time to go to college with people who will become legendary game developers.
The biggest difference is that 16bit Sensation is really focused on bishoujo game passion while Remake Our Life starts to become more and more about romantic drama as it goes on.
ReLife
Arata Kaizaki is an unemployed 27-year-old that has thus far been living with the financial support of his parents and part-time jobs. After leaving his first job after only three months, he has not been able to find proper work.
However, after a night of drinking with his friends, he meets a mysterious man that offers a drunk Arata a pill that will turn him 17 again so that he can redo a year of his youth, all expenses paid.
Will Arata find what he needs to live a happy life after one year in high school again?
ReLife is a bit difference from 16bit Sensation in that the main character isn’t actually doing any time travel. Instead, he is a shut-in that enrolls in a rehabilitation program which allows him to de-age slightly to a high school boy and redo a year of year of high school as social rehabilitation.
Both series are about adults who regret their present lot in their adult life, but are given another chance to reform that. However, ReLife is more about social rehabilitation while 16bit is about career rehabilitation.
Iroduku – The World in Colors
In this world, there is only a small amount of magic left. Hitomi is a descendant of an old witch family who lost her emotions and ability to see color at a young age.
Feeling bad for her granddaughter, the great witch Kohaku sends her into the past where interactions with her young self and Kohaku’s friends will hopefully foster some growth in her granddaughter.
Both 16bit Sensation and Iroduku are about women sent back in time to experience something that they are missing out on in their present life. However, while 16bit Sensation invites you to not ask too many questions about how she actually time traveled, Iroduku explains it simply by using magic in a world where magic is dying out.
Unlike 16bit Sensation where Konoha gets to learn the evolution of bishoujo games, Iroduku is a more emotionally-focused tale about her grandmother giving the main character a chance to make meaningful friendships.
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For Fans of Making Games
Saekano – How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend
Tomoya Aki is your typical otaku who takes on part-time jobs to fund his anime and light novel obsession. However, one day when he was out riding his bike, he catches the beret of a girl and is so captivated by the scene before him that he sets out to create the ultimate dating sim.
While he struggles to do so, he eventually recruits three of the school’s most popular girls, who also happen to be good at drawing, writing, and music as well as are otakus themselves. After some debate, each agrees to help make his vision come to life.
In this new doujin circle, he also happens across the girl that inspired him, but she was not what he expected and certainly doesn’t stand up to his 2D expectations.
Both 16bit Sensation and Saekano are about passionate nerds who want to make a bishoujo game. While Konoha is an established illustrator enthralled with cute anime girls, Tomoya is a high school-aged otaku who was captivated by a real life girl and inspired to make a bishoujo game about her.
While both series have plots fully dedicated to game creation, Saekano is distinctly different as it has harem romance themes throughout. Ultimately, Saekano is mostly about him trying to create a game with a bunch of girls that secretly like him as he has building feelings for the girl that inspired the game.
New Game
Ever since she was little, Aoba Suzukaze has been in love with one game series in particular. So it should be no surprise when she graduates high school that she goes and works for the company that makes it.
This is about her adventures in game making and the oddballs that work within.
16bit Sensation and New Game are both about making video games on a professional level. However, 16bit Sensation features an established illustrator while New Game is about a passionate young newbie getting her first job.
Both series are about game creation and little else. However, New Game is distinctly more of a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things anime where the “thing” they are doing cutely is creating games.
Magic of Stella
Upon entering high school, Tamaki Honda joins the SNS Club that is known for making doujin games. Joined by the programmer, writer, and composer, the four get to work making their next game.
Both 16bit Sensation and Magic of Stella follow illustrators who are making games. However, 16bit Sensation is doing that on a professional level while Magic of Stella is focused on making fan games in high school.
As 16bit Sensation is about an adult woman working in a professional industry, it is focused on the work driving the plot. Magic of Stella is very distinctly a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things anime where they are just having fun working on fan games in a low stress, passionate high school club environment.
Girls Beyond The Wasteland
Buntarou Hojo is a high school student with a talent for writing, but no direction in life. When his classmate Sayuki Kuroda notices his talent, she pressures him into her girl game development group.
Will this foray into game development be just about games or will it teach him about life as well?
While both 16bit Sensation and Girls Beyond The Wasteland are about making bishoujo games, they differ in a few key ways.
Unlike 16bit Sensation that is about an adult woman illustrating characters for bishoujo games in a professional industry, Girls Beyond the Wasteland is about a male main character getting tricked into being a writer for a bishoujo game made by high school girls.
Both series are about very passionate girls and less passionate male peers making bishoujo games. They also have plots that are pretty specifically focused on making those games rather than anything else.
For Fans of Passionate Otaku
Shirobako
The five members of the Kaminoyama High School animation club all make a pledge to make their project for the school cultural festival a huge success, then afterwards move to Tokyo and work in the industry.
Fast forward two years in the future and two members have made their dream a reality, but making anime is no easy task.
Both 16bit Sensation and Shirobako are about women working in an otaku industry that they love. While 16bit Sensation is about making bishoujo games, Shirobako is about making anime.
These series sort of nod at the difficulties that creators face, but also sugar-coat them more than a little bit with the main character’s passion for the work. They are interesting watches for people who like the topics and like to see how games/anime get made, however.
The World God Only Knows
Keima Katsuragi is known as the “God of Conquest,” a man that can conquer any girl’s heart, at least in his dating sim games.
However, when Keima arrogantly accepts an offer to prove his dating sim supremacy, he finds himself at the mercy of a demon that forces him to woo over real life girls.
When you have played enough dating sims/bishoujo games, wooing the girls becomes an easily calculated science. You know the archetypes and the common tropes so that you can easily pick the best dialogue. The World God Only Knows is about putting dating sim knowledge to work on real girls.
Both 16bit Sensation and The World God Only Knows feature a main character passionate about games getting entangled in something supernatural. While 16bit Sensation allows her to go back in time and experience the history of bishoujo games, The World God Only Knows is about playing a dating sim for real.
While those plots are pretty different, both series feature passionate main characters that love going into detail about why the waifus act or look the way they do. Everything, down to the littlest ribbon on her dress, is deliberate when it comes to character design for games, after all.
Comic Party
In his final year of high school, Kazuki had no specific passion or plans for the future. The only thing he is even remotely good at is drawing. However, when his otaku friend Taishi drags him to Comiket, he feels a sudden burst of inspiration to make his very own doujinshi.
Not wanting her childhood friend to become a giant otaku, Mizuki plots against Taishi to make sure that otakuism doesn’t make Kazuki into an outcast.
There are many anime about passionate otaku hobbies, but what makes Comic Party in particular so similar to 16bit Sensation is the shared passion by the main characters for a well-designed waifu and the finer details of their industry.
Enjoy the passionate tirades about various nerdy topics. However, that said, Comic Party is about making doujinshi (fan comics), which is a bit different from making bishoujo games.
Also, of course, it is one of the bishoujo games referenced in 16bit Sensation. It just happens to be more relatable than something like Kanon, which also has an anime too.
Do you have more anime recommendations like 16bit Sensation: Another Layer? Let fans know in the comments section below.
