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.
Revengers seems to want to be samurai anime built on intrigue and violence, but it often seems to be having most fun when it is focusing on the violence part. And that’s fine, but it doesn’t make for anything especially memorable in the long term. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Revengers, head on down below.
For Fans of Samurai
House of Five Leaves
Masanosuke Akitsu is a skilled swordsman, but his meek personality sees him continuously masterless and wandering as a ronin.
Released by yet another master, he is approached by Yaichi, a carefree man who hires him as a bodyguard on a whim. Taking this job entangles Masa in a gang known as the Five Leaves that pits him against his own principles.
In their core concept, both Revenger and House of Five Leaves follows a ronin who is skilled in swordplay and recruited by a gang who engages in criminal activities. Both main characters struggle with their principles as a samurai when mixed with the somewhat dubious jobs the gangs they join takes on.
However, House of Five Leaves is often more ponderous and melancholy. It is more of a slower paced anime with a similar concept when compared to the frequently action-heavy Revenger.
Samurai Champloo
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.
While Revenger and Samurai Champloo are both about ronin and other fighters that are kind of adrift, but bound together by a mission, these anime are also bound by the inclusion of Christianity.
Both Revenger and Samurai Champloo have Christianity in Feudal Japan weaved delicately into their plots and it plays a pretty interesting role.
Both Samurai Champloo and Revengers also have a love of frequent action and characters that snark with each other.
Bucchigire! Bakumatsu Bad Boys
After the rise of a group called the Masked Demons delivering powerful evil swords that corrupted weak individuals, the Shinsengumi stood up to fight them. However, all but one were slain in the battle.
To keep the peace in Kyoto and continue the fight against this organization, seven powerful criminals slated for execution were chosen as replacements for the slain Shinsengumi members.
For Ichibanboshi, one of the seven chosen, he is hesitant to agree due to his hatred of samurai after they killed his family. However, his parents’ death and the Masked Demons may be more connected than he thought.
Both Revengers and Bucchigire are samurai anime for people that just want to watch cool fights and don’t necessarily care for depth of plot. Both have reasonably intriguing plots, but both also like to put them off for interesting, flashy battles.
Furthermore, both Revengers and Bucchigire follow a group of criminals that are bound together, but don’t necessarily get along. Bucchigire, while it looks more light-hearted because of its art style, feature more shounen-style over-the-top action, but still takes itself very seriously.
Shigurui
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.
Both Revengers and Shigurui tell darker samurai tales that have a bloody focus on revenge. However, Shigurui is about the grudge match between two maimed samurai and how they got to that point rather than various bloody tales like Revenger.
Both series enjoy their violence, though Shigurui is a much darker and more graphic tale.
For Fans of Vengeance
Moriarty The Patriot
William Moriarty is the second son of the noble Moriarty family. During the day, he is a mathematics professor, but at night he uses his keen mind in order to work as a consultant for individuals with a particular need for his intellect.
He has dedicated himself to revenge against nobility in order to crumble the crushing social hierarchy that oppresses much of England.
What Revenger is to Feudal Japan, Moriarty the Patriot is to Victorian England. Despite the different historical settings, Revenger and Moriarty the Patriot remain extremely similar in their plot.
Both series follow a group of people who essentially carry out the revenge that others desire with murder.
Revenger employs pure brute force while Moriarty the Patriot is more focused on cunning since he has a detective on his heels. Furthermore, the group in Revenger will take any job, but Moriarty the Patriot has their group limited to only killing nobility.
Hell Girl
It is said that those who hold a powerful grudge can access a particular website at midnight. By entering a name here, that person can be ferried straight to hell.
This is the tale of Ai Enma, the Hell Girl that carries out those orders.
Essentially, both Revengers and Hell Girl have the same type of storytelling. They both feature main characters or groups that carry out the vengeance of others.
However, while Revenger also explores the characters carrying out that revenge, the main character in Hell Girl is just a device used to let the stories unfold for the audience. Ai Enma isn’t the focus of the show, the stories of revenge are.
The major difference between Revenger and Hell Girl is that Revenger has a fair dose of action while Hell Girl has very little.
Joran: The Princess of Snow and Blood
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.
While Revenger is many tales of Revenge, Joran is focused on just one. In fact, her tale would be perfectly at home as one of the tales of revenge that Revenger explores.
That said, while Revenger can be ridiculous with some of its action, Joran is more into subtly unraveling intrigue and action based around more supernatural powers. They are both great historically-inspired shows about revenge and Joran is particularly beautiful in its style.
Blade of the Immortal
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.
While immediately similar in their historical Japanese setting, both Blade of the Immortal and Revenger are also both revenge stories. Revenger carries out the revenge of others while Blade of the Immortal has a samurai protecting and helping a girl on her quest for vengeance.
Both series focus on the revenge tales, but also have a sort of conflicted main character that is also sorting through his own issues as things go on.
If you enjoyed Revenger because a good chunk of it was just fights, Blade of the Immortal is also of a similarly violent vein.
For Fans of Assassin Groups
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’s cast of main characters are framed as revolutionaries rather than assassins, like the group in Revengers, mostly they go to a place and someone dies there.
Both Akame ga Kill and Revengers likes to make sure things never get boring by being particularly action-heavy and having the characters use sometimes unique weapons in their encounters. However, while the action in Akame ga Kill often feels more like a shounen battler, it keeps things decidedly more mature by having frequent death of both heroes and villains.
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 Revengers because it was about a group of shady criminals, Black Lagoon is certainly that. Unlike Revengers, Black Lagoon follows general mercenaries, but most of their job is indeed killing people.
While Black Lagoon and Revengers differ in setting, perhaps its biggest similarity is the sort of internal conflict that the main characters are having since they went from an honorable life to the life of a criminal.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Revengers? Let fans know in the comments section below.
