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.
Although it is prone to some eye-rolling levels of edginess, The Kingdoms of Ruin creates an interesting world and certainly is no slouch on the gore. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like The Kingdoms of Ruin, head on down below.
Anime Like The Kingdoms of Ruin
For Fans of Taking Down an Empire
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.
Akame ga Kill and The Kingdoms of Ruin tell a similar story, but in slightly different ways. While Adonis would be perfectly content killing all humanity – which starts with taking down the empire – Akame ga Kill is solely about taking down the oppressive empire for humanity’s sake.
Both series feature characters that were wronged by the empire and decide to take it down. The Kingdoms of Ruin is framed as a revenge story for the main character while Akame ga Kill is more akin to a revolution story. However, what these two series have most in common is the gore. Akame ga Kill and The Kingdoms of Ruin are both action anime featuring characters with unique abilities that viciously slaughter each other in graphic ways.
Code Geass
The Holy Empire of Britannia has established itself as the dominant military nation, starting after their conquest of Japan, now named Area 11. Under Britannia’s tyranny, a number of resistance groups rose up to fight for their freedom.
Enter Lelouch Lamperouge, the exiled prince of Britannia who has been sent to live in Japan. One day, after finding himself caught in the crossfire in a battle between Britannia and insurgents, Lelouch is able to escape with his life after meeting C.C., a mysterious girl who grants him the power of absolute obedience.
Both The Kingdoms of Ruin and Code Geass are stories of one man’s rebellion based on revenge. An evil emperor did something to them, and now they want to tear that empire down. Of course, Code Geass isn’t about killing all humanity, but neither Adonis or Lelouch care much for most human lives that get caught in the crossfire if it means victory.
While they share a similar overall plot, Code Geass is notably different in that it is a war-focused mecha series. It emphasizes strategy and tactics in its action rather than overwhelming force like Adonis’ magic offers. While also a violent action series in its own right, Code Geass doesn’t have as much outright gore as The Kingdoms of Ruin.
For Fans of Revenge
Redo of Healer
As a boy, Keyaru awakened the power of a Hero. His specialty was healing. However, by using these powers, he experienced the trauma of the injured person as well. It eventually drove him insane, but he was forced to use his powers anyway.
After enduring torture and abuse by his fellow heroes for years, Keyaru formed a plan to get his vengeance. He was able to turn back time and restart his life with all his previous memories.
Thus his vengeance began.
Both The Kingdoms of Ruin and Redo of Healer are revenge anime where one main character feels so wronged, he aims to slaughter the people responsible for it. However, while Adonis is angry with humanity, Redo of Healer features the main character with a specific list of people he wants to torture and humiliate.
While both are revenge stories, there is a key difference between The Kingdoms of Ruin and Redo of Healer. Both enjoy graphic gore, but Redo of Healer uses it more frequently and more extremely. Furthermore, outside of the booba for shock value in the first episode, The Kingdoms of Ruin doesn’t feature much nudity. By comparison, Redo of Healer often uses graphic sexual assault as well as lewd sex acts for base pleasure.
Ragna Crimson
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.
Both The Kingdoms of Ruin and Ragna Crimson feature once-nice and innocent main characters that had to endure the vicious death of someone they loved due to their own weakness/helplessness. It was this event that would trigger their single-minded desire for revenge. In The Kingdoms of Ruin, he seeks to kill all humans while Ragna Crimson is focused on killing all dragons.
Throughout The Kingdoms of Ruin, you watch the main character slowly soften his stance on killing all humanity. That is not the case in Ragna Crimson. You watch him try to kill every dragon, even ones that seem quite nice. Both series can also be quite brutal with their action, but due to its less detailed art style, Ragna Crimson isn’t as gruesome about it.
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.
Like The Kingdoms of Ruin set up its revenge story with a shock value first episode, so too does Goblin Slayer showcase just how vicious goblins can be with a first episode full of shock value. However, outside of frequent gory battles, neither anime is particularly shocking otherwise.
Both Goblin Slayer and The Kingdoms of Ruin are revenge stories for the focused main character. However, his single-minded revenge is often softened by his more compassionate and caring female companion.
Arifureta – From Commonplace to World’s Strongest
Otaku Hajime Nagumo and several of his classmates are summoned to a fantasy world and tasked with saving mankind. However, while his classmates are gifted with great abilities, Hajime only has transmutation skills that have no real offensive use.
He is soon betrayed by a classmate and sent into an abyss filled with monsters. Resolving to not die to the darkness, he struggles to survive and teams up with an imprisoned vampire to return to the world above.
Unlike The Kingdoms of Ruin where Adonis watched Chloe be brutally executed, Arifureta is about a weak boy who was betrayed by a friend and nearly killed due to it. Regardless, both events transformed these main characters into cold and almost uncaring men whose edge is so sharp it threatens to cut you through the screen.
Although Arifureta is an isekai, it is also a revenge story. The main character struggles to grow strong and get his revenge for the betrayal. Similar to Adonis, he is cold and uncaring, but still also helps good people who deserve it while stomping all over terrible ones.
For Fans of Humans and Magical Beings
Elfen Lied
Lucy is a special breed of human known as a Diclonius, sporting a pair of small horns and telekinetic powers. All her life she has been held captive in a government facility. However, after staging a bloody break out one night, she is hit in the head and sent tumbling over a cliff.
Washing up on shore with amnesia, she is taken in by some college students who are about to be pulled into the bloody world of government conspiracy.
While Elfen Lied has an element of revenge behind its main character’s actions, it isn’t actually the full driving force behind the central plot like it is in The Kingdoms of Ruin.
Adonis seeks revenge for what humanity did to his mentor. Similarly, Lucy in Elfen Lied kills for revenge due to the brutal torture she had to endure in her captivity due to the persecution of her species. Both Adonis and Lucy often bloodily kill innocent people because they are humans, and by proxy, deserve it.
Aside from that, both Elfen Lied and The Kingdoms of Ruin are also about sub-species that are separate from humanity suffering at the hands of humans. Elfen Lied just takes place in a modern day setting.
Dorohedoro
Hole is a disorderly district where death and mutilation are common. The residents of Hole are the dregs of society and the test subjects of the magic users that live separate from it. As such, these residents are constantly tested on or just murdered by these mages.
In Hole is Kaiman, a man with a head cursed to be that of a lizard, but with an immunity to magic. He spends his time set on hunting down these magic users in one small bit of justice for the people that live in Hole.
Dorohedoro provides a reverse situation to The Kingdoms of Ruin. The mages are the one’s who oppress and violently murder humanity as the please. As such, the main character is a mage hunter.
Both Dorohedoro and The Kingdoms of Ruin take place in worlds where both magic from mages and technology exist. They both also feature main characters who, for different reasons, are hunting down members of the other species as the plot. However, while The Kingdoms of Ruin is all about revenge, Dorohedoro is about the main character trying to discover who cursed him as well as other character plots.
Wandering Witch – The Journey of Elaina
Ever since she was a child, Elaina has been enamored by the stories in her favorite book. It tells the tale of Nike, a famous witch who enjoyed many great adventures around the world.
After becoming a fully-fledged witch herself, she departs, becoming entangled in a number of stories of those she meets around the world.
Both The Kingdoms of Ruin and Wandering Witch feature worlds where humanity and witches live side-by-side. While witches are more rare, they are revered and respected by humans in Wandering Witch. In a way, Wandering Witch feels almost like a pre-witch hunt Kingdoms of Ruin world.
While Wandering Witch is an episodic journey about a witch traveling the world, it isn’t always as light-hearted as it looks. Like The Kingdoms of Ruin more often is, Wandering Witch is occasionally very dark with some of the stories it explores. That said, it isn’t quite the vicious gore-filled action anime that The Kingdoms of Ruin is.
Do you have more anime recommendations like The Kingdoms of Ruin? Let fans know in the comments section below.
