In the Kingdom of Fourland, the royal family possessed a powerful deck of 52 cards. Each card has the ability to grant its wielder a special power, but after an attempted theft, the cards were scattered throughout the kingdom.
In order to get them back without a panic, the Kingdom developed a secret group of players armed with cards called High Card to retrieve these missing items of power.
Secretly ran out of the Pinochle luxury car maker’s sales office, High Card, including its newest member, Finn, are consistently thrust into a frenzy of super powered battles.
High Card is one of those special unicorn anime series that is actually hard to write recommendations for since it is just unique enough to make nothing else quite like it. That is definitely not a bad thing. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like High Card, head on down below.
Anime Like High Card
For Fans of Agencies with Super Powers
Blood Blockade Battlefront
Vampires, fishmen, supersonic monkeys – They are all normal residents living alongside humans in Hellsalem’s Lot, formerly known as New York City.
When a gate between Earth and the Beyond popped up there three years ago, old NYC became dominated by monsters, and now Libra, a secret organization, is tasked with keeping it in order.
After hobbyist photographer Leonardo Watch obtains the All-Seeing Eyes of the Gods, he finds himself recruited into Libra.
While High Card has more classic cool characters with slick style, at the end of the day, they are a crew of dysfunctional oddballs in one way or another. Blood Blockade Battlefront also follows a group of oddballs with powers, but there is never any mistaking them for normal like in High Card.
Both High Card and Blood Blockade Battlefront follow the super-powered members of a government-sponsored agency that operate in a city. However, while the High Card members are trying to collect the cards, Blood Blockade Battlefront is more about keeping the peace when other super-powered individuals run a little wild.
Bungou Stray Dogs
The orphanage that Atsushi Nakajima has been living at has been recently plagued by a tiger that only he can see. Blaming him for the incident, they kick him out.
Now homeless, he wanders the streets until he meets the eccentric Osamu Dazai and saves him from drowning.
As it turns out, Dazai is a supernatural detective and agrees to help him solve the mystery.
Both High Card and Bungou Stray Dogs are innately similar in that they feature small secret agencies where all the members have a special power specific to them. However, what these series also have in common is that the characters also feel stylish too.
If you enjoyed the high energy, fluidly animated fights in High Card, Bungou Stray Dogs also offers that. They also both know how to balance serious plots with levity without sacrificing one or the other as well.
Hamatora
In this world, a small number of people have manifested the power to create small miracles. In Yokohama, two miracle users create a detective agency and use their powers to help people.
However, one day they realize that the jobs they are receiving have a series of strange connections to a serial killer that their police friend is searching for.
Hamatora, like High Card, also tells the story of people with powers who form a small group that deals with others who have powers. However, Hamatora goes the more standard route of having that agency deal with problems in the city compared to High Card’s specific mission.
Because both High Card and Hamatora both start off being very vague with the plot, what you get in Hamatora is a series similar to High Card with frequent battles and character banter, but all the characters are designed in a more “anime-esque” way.
For Fans of Confident and Cool Characters
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.
Were you attracted to the slick suits and never-ending confident attitudes present throughout High Card? The Great Pretender has that same style.
In fact, many characters in High Card feel like they are one successful criminal heist away from being in the collection of conmen that The Great Pretender follows.
These series are both about collecting objects, just in different ways. Some of the intricate plans that they use to try and get artifacts in High Card are turned into fully finessed arcs in The Great Pretender.
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.
As soon as Leo Pinochle introduced his card where he just throws money at any problem, everyone thought of the Millionaire Detective – a series about a detective that throws money at any problem.
However, High Card and Millionaire Detective have more in common than just rich Batman-esque characters. They also have the same sort of jazzy, quick action feel to them. Neither show lets the series become too boring with too much exposition, and keeps the action over-the-top yet slick.
Baccano
In the early 1930s, the transcontinental train, Flying Pussyfoot, starts a legendary journey across the country that will leave behind a trail of blood.
During this same period, the ambitious scientist Szilarf and his unwilling assistant Ennis investigate missing bottles of immortality elixir in New York. This can be traced back to 1711 where the alchemists creating this elixir learn the real price of being immortal.
Among these mysterious events, a Mafia war heats up.
Follow this intricate tale of alchemy, immortality, and survival as it weaves together many seemingly unrelated events.
Both High Card and Baccano meld more Western-style characters and settings with a distinctly anime superpowers. In both, you fall in love with the characters first and unravel the plot second since it takes a bit of time to do that.
While High Card’s plot isn’t always the most intricate and cerebral thing, Baccano’s plot is like several strands of threads that, over the course of the series, get woven together.
If you want something jazzy with moments of levity and world-building interspersed with some very energetic action pieces, Baccano is a great anime to follow up High Card with.
Appare-Ranman
After drifting in the sea between Japan and America, socially awkward genius Appare and cowardly yet wise samurai Kosame hit land.
Without any money, they decide to enter the Trans-American Wild Race so they can go back to Japan.
With their steam-powered car, they must overcome bandits, challenges, and just plain weirdos in order to get from Los Angeles to New York.
While Appare-Ranman has a “historical”-inspired setting, there isn’t much true to history in it. What Appare-Ranman and High Card have most in common is the melding of diverse, but still very cool characters together. In both anime series, the characters have style and are just plain old fun to watch.
That said, High Card and Appare-Ranman have different plots. High Card is about gathering and, most often, fighting over cards while Appare-Ranman is about a no-rules race across the country for cash.
For Fans of Serving a Nation in Secret
Joker Game
With World War II looming, foreign information has become a valuable asset. In Japan, they established the D Agency.
Under Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki, eight agents have been trained to infiltrate every facet of foreign society with their biggest weapon being the ability to manipulate people.
The most obvious thing that High Card and Joker Game have in common is the playing card motif. However, unlike High Card and its big super-powered individuals, Joker Game is distinctly more subdued and realistic.
Both series follow the members of an organization that are performing a service for their nation. However, as Joker Game follows spies, the action is more sparse since much of their job is gathering information rather than locale-destroying battle.
ACCA-13
After a revolt, Dowa and the 13 state kingdoms were reunited and the ACCA system, a civilian organization that monitors activities in every kingdom out of a central hub, was established. One hundred years later, ACCA and its inspections have helped keep the peace.
However, with the current king of Dowa aging and ill, rumblings of a coup have started to pop up as his foolish son reaches for the throne.
Jean Otus, a young inspector with ACCA, is charged with visiting the different kingdoms to unravel the plots that are being put into motion.
While the organization in High Card is performing a service for their kingdom in an unofficial capacity, ACCA-13 follows the members of an official organization that inspects, monitors, and keeps the peace between that various nation-states of an empire.
While High Card often turns to battle rather than intrigue, ACCA-13 is actually the exact opposite. However, like High Card, it features a nation that is more western in style and has a cast of racially diverse, interesting characters.
ACCA-13 is definitely for those that enjoyed the characters in High Card rather than the action, because it has virtually no action.
Do you have more anime recommendations like High Card? Let fans know in the comments section below.
Hi RMA,
I like your tone and expressions.
I just wanted to reach out and appreciate your baby (the site) and the work that you put in it.
Thankyou for sharing the recommendations and their in-depth (and frank) details as well
Kudos!
Regards,
Umar S
HMOXUTDG
P.S. Apologies this comment might not be specific to the above content.
And yup after sending this in… i did end up finding the contact page. So,,, My bad.