Anime Like Meiji Gekken – 1874

Once a samurai until the warrior caste was disbanded, Shizuma Origasa began working as a rickshaw puller after the samurai rebellion in his home province of Aizu was put down. While dedicated to his work, he had another purpose of heading to the capital – to find his fiancee Sumie who went missing during the rebellion.

However, while working, Origasa is pulled into an plot against the government. While framed for an incident at first, he helps the police foil an assassination whereupon they recruit him into the police force.

Simultaneously, the Moriya yakuza clan welcomes in a talented mysterious swordsman named Kyoushirou Shuragami. With the Moriya clan the driving force in a plot to overthrow the government, Shuragami positions himself strategically to further his own plans.

These two stories slowly begin to intertwine as multiple plans are put into motion.

After being tricked into killing his future father-in-law, samurai Raizou Kurima is riddled with guilt.

He swears vengeance on the lord that tricked him, and his path crosses with a merchant named Yuuen Usui who runs an underground group known as the Revengers. This group is actually a series of assassins who carry out the revenge of those who offer up a bitten gold coin.

As Raizou abandons his samurai principles to work with the Revengers, he becomes further entwined in their affairs.

The Taira Clan, also known as the Heike, have developed authority in Japan. When a young girl disrespects a representative of the clan, her father pays the price with his life.

Later, this girl, now adopting the name Biwa after the instrument her father played, approaches Taira no Shigemori, the eldest son of the Taira Clan leader.

To him, she reveals the power of her eye to see the future and portends the downfall of his clan. He reveals to her the power in his eye to see the wandering ghosts of the dead and, after learning of how her father died, offers to take her in in hopes that she can help him steer his clan away from disaster.

With the Meiji Era continuing on well into 1931, the Tokugawa Shogunate is still in power.

With a newly discovered special resource known as “Dragon Vein,” Japan has propelled itself forward under the Tokugawa, but there are many who are unhappy, like the rebel group known as Kuchinawa.

By day, Sawa Yukimura runs a bookshop, but at night she seeks vengeance against a man that killed her family and tribe – the leader of the Kuchinawa, a man named Janome.

Manji is a swordsman who was cursed with eternal life. Growing upset with all the death he has created, he tries to get his mortality back by killing 100 evil men for every good person he had struck down.

On this journey, he meets a girl named Rin who seeks her own vengeance against a sword school that killed her family.

Together they journey, both trying to find their peace and prevent being consumed by revenge.

At the beginning of the Edo Era, a time of peace has descended over the land. The Lord Tokugawa Tadanaga, however, has decided to hold a fighting tournament with real steel instead of wooden swords.

Within this tournament, the one-armed Gennosuke and blind Seigen are set to face off.

As they were both disciples of Iwamoto Kogan, the greatest swordsman in all of Japan, both are determined to prove they are his rightful successor.

During more violent times, there was the tale of a legendary manslayer, the Battousai. However, this assassin suddenly disappeared at the beginning of the Meiji Era, but his legend is still well-known.

Ten years later, unbeknownst to the people, the Battousai has abandoned his blood-stained ways and began living as a wanderer known as Kenshin, a goofball and pacifist that has vowed to never kill again.

After saving a sword dojo ran by a woman from an imposter posing as the Battousai, this wanderer stops his travel to temporarily stay.

Fuu is a young girl working as a waitress at a small tea house. Things are peaceful until one day she spills tea on a customer and is harassed by samurai.

Calling for help, a thuggish young rogue by the name of Mugen steps in only to pick a fight with another tightly wound samurai named Jin. In their fight, they end up destroying the shop and getting arrested.

After saving the two fighters from their execution, Fuu hires them as bodyguards to help her find a samurai that smells of sunflowers.

After surviving the brutal Russo-Japanese war, Sugimoto gained the nickname “the immortal”. However, he now seeks the promise of gold to the north in Hokkaido in order to provide for the blind wife and infant son of his comrade who died in the war.

Yet, during his hunt, he hears the tale of a hidden stash of gold belonging to criminals with a map made out of human skin. Dismissing it as a tale at first, he soon finds that the man who told him the story has those very same map-like tattoos.

Now on a race with a native Ainu girl whose father was murdered for the gold, they try to make it to the stash before the criminals.

Former yakuza member Yotarou is fresh out of prison and looking to keep his nose clean. In order to stay out of trouble, he aspires to the stage of Rakugo, a traditional Japanese form of comedic storytelling.

Inspired by a man he saw perform while incarcerated, he seeks out the man to mentor him, forcing the unwilling, but distinguished Yakumo Yuurakutei to take on his first apprentice.