Falling for him at first sight, the Sonoyamas are happy to bring home their new adoptive son, Hitori.
While they find their son to be the perfect child, he harbors a secret. Hitori is actually a set of identical twins named Migi and Dali that are pretending to be one boy.
Migi and Dali worked hard to charm the Sonoyamas into bringing them home to Origon Village, the village where they were born and the village where their mother died. Together, the boys keep up the charade in order to discover who murdered their mother in this village many years ago.
What seemed like a weird comedy at first got better and more intriguing with every episode. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Migi and Dali, head on down below.
Anime Like Migi and Dali
For Fans of Weird Murder Mysteries
Danganronpa
Hope’s Peak Academy is an elite high school where those accepted are given special titles that showcase their skills. This year, only fifteen were accepted, and one of them was the completely normal Makoto Naegi who got in on sheer luck.
The students are thrilled to be in such a prestigious school. That is, until they are trapped inside the school by principal and bear Monokuma who tasks them with killing one of their peers and not getting caught by the others in order to escape.
However, if they are caught and found guilty in a trial, they will be executed instead.
A large part of the charm in Migi and Dali is its eccentric characters who have the weirdest parts of their personalities accented despite their otherwise normal behavior. Danganronpa is also an series remembered for its eccentric characters, but it goes much bigger with both the personality quirks and their designs.
Both Migi and Dali as well as Danganronpa are about teens investigating murders. However, Danganronpa is essentially a survival game, and the situation is often a lot more dire. However, both series masterfully meld innate silliness with the sinister menace of the situation in a way that is both unique and enjoyable.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
In 1868, Dario Brando saves the life of English nobleman, George Joestar. When Dario dies, George hopes to repay the favor by taking in his son, Dio.
Unfortunately, Dio wants the Joestar household for his own and tries to take it with the help of an Aztec stone mask with supernatural powers.
This triggers a chain of events that will affect the Joestar house for generations to come.
In terms of plot, Migi and Dali is not so similar to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure as a whole. However, each arc, or “Part” in Jojo has its own plot going on following a new main character. As such, Migi and Dali would be closest in plot to Jojo Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable. Both Migi and Dali and Diamond is Unbreakable take place in a small town where the main character is trying to catch a murderer hiding among their neighbors.
Now, I would actually never recommend an anime just because a singular arc of one series is similar to the series in question, especially when the rest of it is unrelated. However, while the rest of the various plots in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure are wildly unrelated to Migi and Dali, Jojo shares something else overall with this series – eccentric characters.
While the characters in Migi and Dali often look normal, they all have eccentric quirks and personalities that they put on display with a straight face to a comical degree. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure does the same thing. In fact, it increasingly embraces that “bizarre eccentricity” of all its characters as it goes on.
All that said, it is worth noting that while Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is notorious for its eccentric characters, it is an action anime. Expect a lot more fighting than Migi and Dali, which has virtually none.
Persona 4
Yuu Narukami is the new kid to Inaba. At school he hears a rumor that if you look at a blank TV screen at midnight, you will see the face of your true love.
However, when Yuu watches it, he sees a woman getting killed. In an attempt to watch it again, Yuu finds himself able to enter the TV world, a place filled with shadows that can only be fought by personas, awakened manifestations of the user’s true self.
There is murder afoot in this small town, and someone living in it is responsible. However, while there is initially just one death in Migi and Dali that is being investigated, Persona 4 is about a series of deaths.
While both series enjoy various eccentricities with its characters, Migi and Dali goes a bit more eccentric with them to evoke comedy. Persona 4 sticks to more standard comedy and characters, but still presents itself as something slightly more strange than the usual anime murder mystery that is played completely seriously.
For Fans of Sinister If Not Silly
Shadows House
The Shadows are a family of nobles who live in their massive mansion. They are pitch black in appearance and emit soot that will linger on everything they touch. In order to effectively display their emotions, each Shadow is given a Living Doll to be their attendant and their face.
This is the tale of cheerful and curious Emilico, a newly created doll, who was given to her more soft-spoken young Shadow, Kate.
While it is promoted that Living Dolls be loyal and unconcerned about trivial matters, Emilico is constantly intrigued by the massive mansion and those that live within.
Even if Origon Village is supposedly in Japan, it sure is pretty European-inspired, which it shares with the heavily Victorian-inspired, but widely fictionally-set Shadows House.
That aside, what Shadows House and Migi and Dali most have in common is a sense of menace throughout the series. Even when the characters are having nice interactions and normal moments, the sense that something dark is going on still prevails. Particularly because both Shadows House and Migi and Dali enjoy punctuating nice moments with some sort of sinister event or information drop.
If you liked Migi and Dali because even though it had a rather light slice of life plot in the beginning, but still felt menacing, Shadows House captures that feeling as well. Furthermore, both series set up interesting intrigue as their plot based around the main characters discovering what is really going on in the community that surrounds them.
The Promised Neverland
Grace Fields House is a home for orphans. However, even though they have no blood families, they are all one big family. That is, until the age of twelve when they are adopted out.
The kids also know that they are not allowed outside the fenced yard, but one day, two children break that rule. They then discover that the children who are “adopted” are actually subjected to something much darker.
Both Migi and Dali and The Promised Neverland follow orphaned children who seem to have a happy life, but there is something very dark lurking under the surface. In Migi and Dali, that “something dark” is that one of their neighbors is a murderer. In The Promised Neverland, it is a little more upfront in letting the audience know that all these children are slated for slaughter.
What both series do pretty masterfully is creating characters with two faces. They make a character smile and seem quite friendly, but behind that smile the audience can fully see the potential for murder in their eyes. While every adult in The Promised Neverland is undeniably a threat, Migi and Dali makes every resident of Origon Village seem like a potential murderer until you learn otherwise, because that is how the main characters see them.
Like Migi and Dali is about discovering the identity of the murder, The Promised Neverland is also dedicated to its own intrigue – discovering why these people are raising kids to be killed.
Junji Ito Collection
Sit down and gather round. You’ve read the legendary horror manga from Junji Ito, now watch a collection of his short stories come to life before your very eyes.
The Junji Ito Collect and its sibling series, Junji Ito Maniac, are both anime that adapt the short horror stories of mangaka Junji Ito. As such, there is no one linear plot to the series. However, Junji Ito manga all usually have one thing in common – he likes fusing horror and comedy that comes eccentricities.
So while some moments in the Junji Ito Collection may be legitimately scary or at least gross with some body horror unlike Migi and Dali, you will notice that many of those same short stories also use eccentric characters that evoke a similar sort of comedy more like Migi and Dali.
For Fans of Skilled Stoics
Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto
Sophisticated, suave, and handsome, Sakamoto is perfect in every way.
Unfortunately, his sheer perfection provokes everyone from his peers to his teachers to try to trip him up, but they just can’t manage it. However, they just might learn something about themselves along the way.
Migi and Dali and Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto share an author, and that author liked creating a particular kind of character. Migi, Dali, and Sakamoto are all stone-faced and ultra-skilled. There isn’t anyone who can trip them up, and that is used heavily for comedy in both series.
While these series share a type of main character, they do differ in plot. Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto is a comedy series without much in the way of actual plot.
Aharen-san is Indecipherable
Excited to have a different and more social high school life, Raidou introduces himself to his seat neighbor on the first day.
At first, he thinks this small girl is just ignoring him. However, he discovers that she has a quiet voice and is bad at determining personal space.
From this meeting, an odd friendship blooms.
Migi and Dali is one part comedy about a set of stoic, skilled twins doing elaborate schemes to seem like one person and one part suspenseful murder mystery. In contrast, Aharen-san is indecipherable is one part comedy about two stoic classmates trying to connect with others and one part romance with relationship progression.
Both series are similar in that their comedy aspect is about stoics who act quite silly with the face and determination of a serious person. However, their actual plots are quite different. So if you didn’t so much need the suspense and sinister menace that Migi and Dali had in its plot, but did enjoy its comedy elements, Aharen-san is Indecipherable offers the same comedy experience, just in a softer package.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Migi and Dali? Let fans know in the comments section below.
