Humans live in constant fear of dragon attack, the species that really rules the world with overwhelming power. To keep human populations safe, a number of hunters track and kill dragons as their job. Ragna was one such dragon hunter, though as weak as he is, he is often carried by the prodigal talent of his companion, Leonica.
One day, Ragna gains an influx of power that came from his fallen future self. He learns that after Leonica’s brutal death in the future, Ragna’s future self labored for years hunting dragons in revenge, losing comrade after comrade and building his strength ever higher.
While his new body struggles to hold all the power he gained, his future self tells him that the key to finally killing all dragons, including the Dragon God, lies in him finding Crimson, a Dragon Lord who also seeks to end their entire species.
This series does a nice job at being creatively brutal with its highly power-scaled characters, but I think most people come for the gender-fluid Crimson. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Ragna Crimson, head on down below.
Anime Like Ragna Crimson
For Fans of Single-Species Revenge Slaughter
Goblin Slayer
A young priestess fresh out of the temple is excited to start her life as an adventurer. On her first day, she joins an adventuring party to go slay some goblins.
However, like so many young adventure parties before them, they underestimate the goblins. It ends with two dead, one viciously raped, and the priestess saved from fate by a man whose only mission in life is to slay all the goblins.
How Ragna feels about dragons, Goblin Slayer feels about goblins.
Both series follow main characters that watched someone they loved get killed by a species that they now single-mindedly hunt. However, while Ragna Crimson has the main character receive magnificent power from his future self, Goblin Slayer only has his experience-honed skill to rely upon. You can’t call him overpowered, but he is still very good at killing goblins.
Goblin Slayer and Ragna Crimson are all fully centered around just hunting one species, moving from one fight to the next. While both series feature some impressive violence, Goblin Slayer is a bit more graphic about it.
Claymore
In Claymore, the world is overcome with demons called Yoma that constantly plague humanity. After Raki’s parents were killed by Yoma, he teams up with Claire, a Claymore, an order of powerful half-human, half-Yoma women that are shunned by society but fight to rid the world of Yoma.
Together, each learns more about the each other and work towards their own goals.
Like dragon hunting is a profession in Ragna Crimson, slaying yoma is also the profession of Claymores in Claymore.
While both series are about main characters that just hunt one single species, Claymore leans heavily into melancholy. Humanity suffers under yoma, and Claymores are isolated from humanity because of their yoma blood. They live miserable, short, and lonely lives despite saving many from brutal death.
While Claymore puts a lot more emphasis on how sad the lives of these hunters are, it tells a similar plot to Ragna Crimson – hunt and kill the things. However, Claymore does embrace some other intrigue as it goes on, not unlike Ragna Crimson with its occasional reveals.
Peach Boy Riverside
In a world where humans and demihuman creatures live at odds with each other, princess Saltorine “Sally” Aldike is on a journey to find a man named Mikoto Kibitsu who is bent on exterminating all ogres. On her travels, she takes up with a number of companions despite questionable lineage as ogres or demihumans.
Whereas Mikoto is traveling and using his immense power that manifests in physical prowess and a peach shape in his eyes to slay ogres, Sally, who possesses similar powers, hopes to unite the inhabitants of the world in a more peaceful existence.
While Peach Boy Riverside features a main character who desires to slaughter all oni in the world for the vicious slaughter they commit against humans, unlike Ragna Crimson, it features a split main character role. There is also a different main character who believes that humans and oni can live peacefully.
While Ragna Crimson is more focused on killing all dragons, Peach Boy Riverside is split between killing oni and exploring their more human side through its dual main characters. However, like Ragna is unforgiving when it comes to battle, Peach Boy Riverside gives even its nice character a bit of a psychotic side when she needs to fight.
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.
Like Ragna was once a dragon-hunting mercenary, Berserk, too, starts off about a group of mercenaries, but in a rather normal medieval world. Berserk, as it goes on, becomes increasingly more like Ragna Crimson after a point of singularity that sees demons overrun the world.
After this point, the main character of Berserk becomes a being like Ragna – a man motivated only by revenge and killing every member of the species that ruined his life.
The Kingdoms of Ruin
With the help of witches blessed upon humanity by the goddess, human civilization flourished for generations. However, as humanity adapted more independence from the magic of witches through innovations in science and technology, they began to violently persecute witches.
Leading the persecution and execution of witches is the ruthless Redia Empire. Adonis, a human boy, is forced to watch the brutal public execution of the kind witch who raised him and granted him access to use magic.
After years of isolation and imprisonment, Adonis is freed and begins his bloody vengeance on the empire.
Both Ragna Crimson and The Kingdoms of Ruin are about men who suffered through the traumatic death of a woman they cared about. After that, their lives became about destroying the entire species responsible. In Ragna Crimson, that species is dragons. In The Kingdoms of Ruin, that species is humans.
Both series feature wildly overpowered main characters on a quest of destruction and revenge. However, while The Kingdoms of Ruin is more about softening the unbridled rage the main character has towards humanity while also giving him some vengeance, Ragna Crimson is all about the dragon slaughter.
Akame ga Kill
Tatsumi is a naive boy from a rural village that makes the trip to the city in order to join the military and help his hometown.
However, after he is rejected, he ends up joining Night Raid, a group of assassins part of a revolutionary movement to overthrow the government.
From there, he must fight a brutal and increasingly bloody shadow war.
While Akame ga Kill is about a faction leading a rebellion against an oppressive empire, that rebellion is carried out in a similar way to Ragna and Crimson fighting dragons in Ragna Crimson.
Both series feature, not armies fighting each other, but two organizations of people with super-powered abilities. As such, most fights take place one-on-one and have wild power scaling. So if you enjoyed the variety of powers that every major dragon had, Akame ga Kill offers that on both sides.
Alongside how the action plots play out between the two sides, Ragna Crimson and Akame ga Kill also share a passion for graphic violence. However, Akame ga Kill often goes a lot more graphic with its frequent deaths.
For Fans of Humanity Imperiled By a Superior Species
Attack on Titan
Facing imminent extinction, humanity retreated behind a series of tall, thick walls to escape their most dangerous threat – massive human-like Titans with a taste for human flesh.
With an enemy that eats humanity for fun rather than food, they are constantly threatened. As such, it is the duty of every human to defend the species.
Enter Eren Yegaer who, after his village was destroyed by Titans breaching the outer wall, he and his adopted sister Mikasa join the Survey Corps. They are one of three factions of the military that scouts and combats Titans outside the walls.
After joining in the brutal war, Eren discovers a secret about himself that could unravel what the world thinks they know about Titans.
Both Ragna Crimson and Attack on Titan feature humanity frequently pushed back and slaughtered by a powerful species in their world. You then follow main characters who are hell-bent on destroying that species because of what they did to their friends and family.
That said, while Ragna Crimson is prone to the occasional twist, Attack on Titan is a series whose enjoyment is built on its plot twists. As such, it starts off simply and becomes increasingly more complex as it goes on. However, both series still do love to be brutal when it comes to their action.
Hell’s Paradise
Betrayed by his ninja clan and sentenced to death for the many lives he took while working for them, Gabimaru the Hollow accepts his fate. However, every attempt at execution has failed, leading them to call in Sagiri, a member of the Yamada Asaemon Clan of imperial executioners.
While Sagiri can carry out the task, she instead offers Gabimaru a chance to receive a full pardon for his crimes. He, along with other criminals sentenced to death, will be sent to the dangerous island of Shinsekyo to obtain the elixir of life for the shogun. However, with all previous expedition teams never being heard from again, this mysterious island is a death sentence in and of itself.
While humanity isn’t threatened by the creatures in Hell’s Paradise as they dwell on a secluded island, they do reign supreme there. Like most of the dragons, each one of these beings also possesses magnificent abilities that make them stronger than the humans that are fighting them.
What Ragna Crimson and Hell’s Paradise share is a passion for uniquely designed characters that fight each other in gruesome, creative battles. They also feature a nice range of morality among both the heroes and the villains.
Seraph of the End – Vampire’s Reign
After a mysterious virus killed every human over 13 years old, the vampires rose up with a promise to protect the survivors. The only thing they asked in return is donations of blood.
For Yuuichirou and Mikaela, they have grown tired of being livestock and pose a daring escape plan. It ultimately fails with only Yuuichirou left alive. However, after joining up with a mercenary company, he swears vengeance on the vampires, no matter the cost.
In Ragna Crimson as well as Seraph of the End, humanity is simply allowed to exist by a superior species that looms over the world. In Seraph of the End, human society crumbled and vampires rose up as rulers, keeping humanity as livestock. In Ragna Crimson, the dragons often just let humanity exist until their god deemed otherwise.
Both series follow main characters who lost loved ones due to these vicious monsters and thus dedicated their lives to fighting them. However, perhaps most similarly, is that both main characters also have allies that are the monsters that they are fighting. Both of which help the main characters and loathe their own species.
For Fans of Dragon Hunters
Drifting Dragons
Dragons rule the skies. While they are a threat to humanity, they are also a source of medicine, meat, and oil.
In order to procure these goods, outcasts called Drakers traverse the skies on giant airships. They have no home on land, but they live to hunt dragons as a dangerous and thankless profession.
As dragon populations and those who become Drakers dwindle, the airship Quin Zaza and her crew are one of the last teams to bring down these great beasts.
Both Ragna Crimson and Drifting Dragons take place in a world where humanity lives side-by-side with dragons. However, instead of dragons being a frequent menace to humanity like in Ragna Crimson, they are treated as less sentient beasts in Drifting Dragons. In fact, they are hunted, sometimes not because they are a threat, but because humanity has many uses for dragon parts.
Regardless, both series follow dragon hunters doing their job. Drifting Dragons isn’t so much of a fast-paced action anime like Ragna Crimson. Instead, it presents hunting dragons as more of a job, and one that requires specialized tools to do well.
Dances With Dragons
With dragons posing a threat to humanity, they are kept in check by Jushiki sorcerers. These individuals wield devastatingly powerful magic that can alter the laws of physics to create enormous explosions or poisonous gas, allowing them to fight against powerful enemies.
Gaius is a down-on-his-luck Jushiki sorcerer who ends up joining forces with Gigina as bounty hunters that pursue dragons on contract. However, one day they receive an odd request that sends them to the grand festival for their kingdom as bodyguards. Coincidentally, that is when the mysterious serial killings of Jushiki Sorcerers began.
Like Ragna Crimson, Dances With Dragons takes place in a world where humanity is threatened by dragons. However, the dragons don’t have human form and are more just beasts.
While both series do start off about hunting dragons, Dances With Dragons does switch to investigating sorcerer deaths and the intrigue around that as well as a mish-mash of other not well realized plots.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Ragna Crimson? Let fans know in the comments section below.
