Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowel grew up on the streets together and both turned to crime in order to get by. However, when their activities are noticed by the eyes of the expansive Millennion mafia syndicate, the pair find themselves brought under their wings and rising through the ranks.
Things go well until one fateful day that changes it all.
Years later, Brandon Heat is brought back from the dead to fight Millennion and its new leader, Harry MacDowel.
There are a few truly gripping tales of betrayal and revenge in anime, and Gungrave has the honor of sitting among them. In fact, it is that element that really elevated this from shoddy video game anime adaptation to truly good anime in its own right. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Gungrave, head on down below.
Anime Like Gungrave
For Fans of Crime Underworlds
91 Days
Set during Prohibition, a man named Avilio returns to Lawless, a town famed for brewing illegal liquor, after the murder of his family by the mafia. A mysterious letter prompted him to return and infiltrate the Vanetti family to get his revenge.
This anime tells the story of the 91 days leading to the tragic end between Avilio and Nero Vanetti, the Don’s son.
Anime doesn’t do Western-style mafia stories that often. However, what Gungrave gave you a taste of with its back story for Brandon and Harry, 91 Days gives you the full meal.
Both series tell the tale of Mafia families that go horribly awry. You get invested in the characters as they go about their organized crime and grow together as brothers, then you watch the various ways they are ripped apart.
However, Gungrave also had to focus on the more sci-fi part of its story. 91 Days focuses solely on the Mafia story it is telling, making it an even more gripping tale of brotherhood and betrayal.
Black Lagoon
Average business man Rokurou Okajima found his life turned upside down when he was captured and held hostage by a mercenary group in Thailand called Black Lagoon.
After learning how disposable his life was to his company, he decides to quit the salaryman life and join the very group of mercenaries that held him hostage.
While he finds himself unexpectedly good at their various work, his ideals about the world vastly clash with those of his companions.
If you enjoyed Gungrave because the large majority of it was about a gritty criminal world, Black Lagoon is more of that, but without the building betrayal and sci-fi elements.
That is not to say Gungrave is more about the characters, however. The character relationships and differing ideologies are a big part of what also makes Black Lagoon great. However, Black Lagoon is more like the early days of Harry and Brandon’s story where it was focused on the gang doing various criminal jobs. Black Lagoon is about a group of mercenaries, and it focuses on them doing whatever they get paid to do.
Banana Fish
During the Iraq War, a soldier named Griff goes insane and starts killing his own platoon. After being subdued, all he kept speaking was the words “banana fish”.
Years later, Griff is taken care of by his brother Ash, a boy who ran away from home and was taken in by mob boss Papa Dino who abused him.
Now, Ash seeks to unravel the mystery of this banana fish, a phrase that keeps mysteriously popping up in his life.
Gungrave sets itself up by front-loading intrigue. It starts in the future, and makes you curious to see how things got to that point. While Banana Fish doesn’t do as good of a job front-loading intrigue, it does present an intriguing drama that takes place in a gritty criminal underworld.
Both series are about young men brought up in the criminal underworld, but while Brandon sort of just goes with the flow of things, Ash is more dedicated to looking for answers to the mystery set up by the plot.
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.
If Harry and Brandon had never been taken in by Millennion, they would probably be living much like Worrick and Nicholas.
Both series take place in gritty, difficult cities that are rife with crime. They follow duos that get through it together. However, whereas Gungrave moves onto bigger intrigues and sci-fi, Gangsta follows an unraveling plot in the city surrounding certain augmented individuals.
Both series are great if you like those tough, thuggish sort of criminal characters who are actually nice guys.
Texhnolyze
As an orphan that made his name as a street fighter, Ichise finds his way of life crushed when an angry promoter takes an arm and a leg.
Before he dies, he is rescued by a scientist that uses him as a test subject. With new limbs at his disposal and a new mysterious girl that can tell the future at his side, he realizes the city is on the brink of destruction, and only he can save it.
While Gungrave is only sci-fi for half of the story, Texknolyze instead tells a gritty criminal story in a shitty sci-fi world where crime is rampant and most people live pretty poorly.
However, while Gungrave features a more dramatic clash of ideologies and tells a vengeance-fueled story, Texhnolyze has the main character a little less personally motivated and the series is overall prone to nihilism and other melancholy philosophical themes.
Phantom – Requiem for the Phantom
America is rife with assassinations, with a mysterious company called Inferno behind many of them.
One day, a Japanese tourist witnesses one of these killings, and is chased down. They are captured and brainwashed into a puppet with no memories that now works as an assassin with Inferno’s human weapon, Phantom.
Both series follow hitmen/assassins in the criminal underworld that are stuck in a duo fated for tragedy.
The most similar thing between Gungrave and Requiem for the Phantom outside of the criminal underworld setting is the dynamic between the main duo. You have one guy that does the dirty work, and this dirty work elevates the other person’s position in the underworld.
If you enjoy Mafia-inspired crime dramas, although Requiem for the Phantom is often more melancholy, it is a must.
For Fans of Betrayal and Revenge
Berserk
Gutts has been a mercenary for as long as he can remember, caring for nothing but moving to the next battle.
One fateful battle puts him at odds with the rapidly rising mercenary group, the Band of the Hawk. Their charismatic, idealistic leader Griffith soon makes him join by force, but the bond he forms with the Band of the Hawk may very well mean the end of the world.
Both Gungrave and Berserk share a similar style of storytelling. They give you a glimpse of a dark present time period, then spend a goodly chunk of the series in the past showing you how things got that way.
Aside from the storytelling, both Gungrave and Berserk also share the same tale of brotherhood being built and horribly betrayed, leading the main character on a quest for vengeance.
The big difference between Berserk and Gungrave is the setting. Gungrave is more of a modern setting and a sci-fi future whereas Berserk is a medieval setting that morphs more into a still-medieval dark fantasy.
Cowboy Bebop
In the distant future, humanity has, for the most part, abandoned Earth and colonized several different planets in the solar system.
In order to keep peace in the galaxy, the Inter Solar System police was established, but they often rely on the aid of bounty hunters, referred to as “cowboys,” to bring criminals on the run to justice.
This is the story of Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, a pair of cowboys that end up with a rag-tag crew of other misfits as they travel the galaxy trying to keep food on the table and their own dark pasts at bay.
While Gungrave is split between seeking revenge and flashing back to what lead to the betrayal, Cowboy Bebop, at first, doesn’t really have any sort of linear overall plot. In the beginning, it is more like early Gungrave where it is a group of misfits doing whatever jobs to survive.
This makes Cowboy Bebop more episodic in its story, but as it goes on, it starts to follow character plot lines, one of the major one’s being about the betrayal that the main character, once a member of a criminal organization, suffered at the hands of his peer.
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
In the year 5053, French aristocrats Viscount Albert de Morcerf and Baron Franz d’Epinay attend Carnivale on the moon. While Franz wants to have fun, Albert is looking for something more fulfilling.
However, after catching the eye of the Count of Monte Cristo at the opera, he finds more than he bargains for. Albert introduce the reclusive Count into French society, but the Count has vengeance on his mind as he seeks to ruin those who wronged him.
Both Gungrave and Gankutsuou are stories fully about betrayal and revenge. Furthermore, they both show you broken characters and slowly feed you why it is they are seeking such vengeance.
However, they go about it in different ways. Gungrave is all about revenge served at the end of a blazing gun while Gankutsuou is more about intrigue and plot-based downfalls. So less action, but similar satisfaction.
For Fans of Sci-Fi Gunslingers
Trigun
Vash the Stampede is a heinous criminal with a huge bounty on his head after destroying an entire city. Known as the “Human Typhoon,” he brings destruction wherever he goes.
However, when two insurance agents finally meet him, they find out that Vash is not quite the villain that the bounty paints him as. Instead, they find a silly buffoon who tries his best to avoid killing while looking for his brother, despite trouble constantly finding him.
If you enjoyed Beyond the Grave’s collection of big-ass, cool-looking guns, then you will find some familiar sights in Trigun. However, while Gungrave has more of a Mafia-themed setting, Trigun is distinctly Hollywood Western in its setting.
Alongside a similar passion for gunplay and action, Trigun and Gungrave are stories of betrayal. However, unlike Brandon, Vash isn’t looking for vengeance. Trigun is definitely more positively idealistic compared to Gungrave.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Scraping by a living in the rough technologically augmented society of Night City, David’s mother managed to send him to a prestigious school in hopes he could become a Corpo and climb the ladder of the business world.
However, after his mother dies suddenly in a car accident and due to lack of appropriate care, David embraces a cybernetic implant for power and that decision intersects him with a crew of Edgerunners, a group of mercenaries filled with cybernetic implants that do any job and every job to make a living.
Both Gungrave and Cyberpunk Edgerunners take place in futuristic worlds where technology has advanced, but most people are barely surviving. As such, because crime is rampant, you follow criminal main characters.
Both series follow main characters that do whatever they can at first, and ultimately end up heavily modified. However, while Gungrave does this via a time skip. Cyberpunk Edgerunners lets you watch as the main character slides into the dark enticing world of cybernetic augmentation, trading his humanity for power.
Heat Guy J
In the city of Judoh, the Bureau of Urban Safety created the Special Services Division to keep the ever-busy crime syndicates suppressed.
Consisting of Daisuke Aurora and an android named J, they both give crime in their city little room to breathe.
Both Gungrave and Heat Guy J are most similar for their gritty, crime-filled sci-fi worlds where you take what you can at the end of a very large gun.
Both series also follow modified main characters with limited emotions who often let their partners do most of the talking.
While Heat Guy J also has an element of betrayal, it isn’t necessarily driving the plot like it is in Gungrave.
Hellsing Ultimate
In this world, there are monsters that lurk in the darkness. Ones waiting to devour everything you are and hold dear.
To stem the tide of this darkness is the Hellsing Organization.
Commanded by Integra Hellsing, the organization’s powerful military force dedicate their lives to fighting monsters. However, their most powerful weapon is the vampire, Alucard, who turned against his own kind in service to Hellsing.
Now with his new vampire assistant Seres at his side, he must battle not only monsters, but anyone that stands in Hellsing’s way.
If you liked the array of big, cool guns and other weapons in Gungrave, but don’t necessarily need a similar sort of crime/sci-fi plot, then Hellsing is a must.
While Hellsing is distinctly more supernatural-themed, it, like Gungrave, also has some intrigue building among the moments of action that draws you in. While Hellsing also has an element of betrayal, it isn’t as big of a focus as Gungrave.
You watch Hellsing because you want more big guns cleaving through flesh with a spray of hot lead, but Hellsing definitely has more viciousness and the main character has a more cocky personality when compared to Gungrave.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Gungrave? Let fans know in the comments section below.
