Rachel awakens to find herself trapped in the basement of an abandoned building. After wandering around – lost, dizzy, and without her memories – she happens across a man in full bandages named Zack. While at first he tries to kill her, eventually they come to an agreement. Together, they try to find a way to escape from their bizarre circumstance. In return for his help, Rachel offers up her own life to him.
This isn’t some cerebral mystery series, and yet it is bloody horror that manages to draw you in with a curious circumstance and a creative cavalcade of serial killers. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Angels of Death, head on down below.
Anime Like Angels of Death
For Fans of Escape or Die
Deadman Wonderland
Ganta Igarashi is pumped up for his class trip to the prison amusement park where inmates fight for the public’s amusement. However, when all his classmates are viciously murdered by a mysterious man in red, Ganta gets blamed for the crime and thrown into the very amusement park he was so excited to visit.
While the prison in Deadman Wonderland is a bit roomier, both shows have a focus on a set of main characters trying to survive in an environment with killers and psychopaths around every corner. While enjoying that, the overall looming mystery of why they ended up in there is unraveled.
Btooom!
Unemployed and living with his mother, Ryouta Sakamoto’s only real achievement is being the top player in Japan of a video game called Btooom! However, one day he wakes up on an island with nothing but a small green crystal embedded in his hand. He soon finds out that someone wants him and others players to play Btooom! for real if they want to live.
While Angles of Death is a survival game like Btooom in a way, there is a little more mystery and intrigue to the situation. However, Btooom is much more straight-forward with what they want the characters to do in order to live. However, both series progress very much like how a game would and each new situation draws you in further.
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.
Both series are about a group of people trapped in a single building. The goal in Angels of Death is pretty basic while Danganronpa invites an element of strategy to be used when it comes to slaughter. They are also both notable shows due to the creative cast of characters.
Juuni Taisen – Zodiac War
In a world where warfare is constant – and great for business – there are twelve individuals that thrive on the battlefield. These individuals each bear traits that coincide to one animal from the Chinese Zodiac. Those who are born into the right zodiac families or chosen to be the successor to that line are all invited to a competition that takes place every twelve years. In this competition, they will fight to the death. The last one standing will have their any wish granted.
Do you just like creatively designed killers all trying to kill each other? Because that’s what both of these shows are. Angels of Death has a more intriguing overall plot, but both shows have lots of slaughter, lots of interesting looking characters, and ten tons of character back story.
For Fans Gore Horror
Corpse Party
On the night after the school’s cultural festival, eight students and their teacher gather to say goodbye to a friend that is moving to another school. While it was a fun time of telling scary stories, they decide to perform a ritual that will assure that they are together forever. However, what they don’t realize is that their school is built atop an elementary school where a series of gruesome murders took place many years before. After doing their spell, the groups finds themselves transported to another dimension where they are trapped inside the old elementary school building that is now home to only corpses and vengeful ghosts.
Both series put minimal effort into plot, but maximum effort into creatively graphic ways to murder. Corpse Party, however, also puts minimum effort into crafting creative characters, but you watch Corpse Party for the notorious gore and nothing else.
Higurashi – When They Cry
Keiichi Maebara just moved from Tokyo with his family to the small town of Hinamizawa in the summer 1983. As the town is so small, school children of all ages are lumped into one class. There he becomes fast friends with four girls where he spends his days after school idly playing games. However, as the town’s annual festival approaches, he learns about a series of murders, disappearances, and other mysteries that surround it. When he confronts his friends, he finds them mysteriously tight-lipped.
While both shows have gripping overall mysteries, the thing that probably hooked you with either was the interesting ways that they murder the characters. Higurashi can also be somewhat confusing with its form of story telling, but is explained and pays off if you stick with it.
Another
Ever since 1972, class 3-3 in Yomiyama North Middle School has had a strange tradition of pretending that one of their students did not exist. When Kouichi Sakakubara transfers into the class, he finds himself drawn to a girl that no one seems to notice. Not paying heed to the warnings of his classmates, all hell is about to break loose.
While both series actually do quite well to set up intriguing mysteries that keep you watching, what you really watch these series for is the abundance of graphic deaths. There are a lot of them.
Magical Girl Site
Aya Asagiri lives a miserable life. At school she is bullied. At home she is beaten. Her only bright light is a cat, but one day even that is taken away from her. However, while browsing the internet, she finds a person that takes pity on her and gives her the powers of a magical girl. So starts her vengeance.
This isn’t necessarily a dig at either series, but Angels of Death and Magical Girl Site are built on the foundation of pure edge. Every character was subjected to the most messed up things just for the sake for being able to explain why they themselves are now so messed up and allowing them to do terrible things to other people. They are edgy violent anime series for people that thrive on it.
For Fans of Climb The Tower
Tower of God
Bam spent his whole life trapped beneath a mysterious tower with his closest friend, Rachel. One day, Rachel disappears, claiming she is going to climb the tower. Bam manages to open the door to it as well and attempts to climb in order to be reunited with Rachel. However, what awaits him is a new ordeal on each level, and he is not the only one trying to climb.
Aside from also sharing female characters with the same name, both series are all about the climb. You, the audience, want to see what messed up thing waits on the next floor as much as the characters in the series and it makes things exciting and unexpected. While Tower of God isn’t quite as graphically vicious, it is still pretty brutal when it wants to be.
The One’s Within
Iride Akatsuki is an avid player of the game Nakanohito Genome. He has played it so much that he unlocked hidden content – the ability to play it in real life. Waking up to discover he has been kidnapped, he is put in a strange place with other players, each specializing in a type of game. Together, they are tasked to play a series of games.
Boiled down the bare bones, both series are level-based survival series. To get to the next level, you have to beat the current one. However, while Angels of Death is all about horror, The One’s Within is rather tame.
Made in Abyss
The Abyss is an enormous cave system and the only unexplored place in the world. No one knows how deep it goes, but generations of bold adventurers have descended into it. In the town at the edge of The Abyss, an orphan named Rico dreams of raiding, as her mother did before her. One day while exploring the murky depths, she meets a boy, who turns out to be a robot, kicking off the start of her epic adventure.
While Made in Abyss is about descending a chasm instead of climbing a building infested with serial killers, what these shows have most in common is the amount of fucked up they can get. If you thought Angels of Death was pretty messed up, Made in Abyss can easily top that with more than just gore, but terribly disturbing situations as well. Don’t be fooled by the cute art.
Tower of Druaga
Every few years when the sky-god Anu extends his protection, the monsters in the Tower of Druaga weaken and adventurers go forth for fame and fortune, trying to reach the top. Like many adventurers, Jil is young and ready to make the push towards the top. While inexperienced in the Tower, his combat skills have the promise for him to go the distance.
Angels of Death is essentially a dungeon crawler with a horror element. They move up each floor and face new challenges. Tower of Druaga is a more traditional dungeon crawler because it lacks the horror element in lieu of traditional fantasy.
Phi Brain
Kaito Daimon is an exceptionally average student, except for his demonic ability to solve puzzles. He is so good that when asked to take a special test of his ability, he suspects that the test is a different sort of test. Suddenly, he finds himself caught up in the lethal Philosopher’s Puzzle, a murderous maze of traps where one failed puzzle means a horrible death.
The similarities are obvious here, the characters are trapped in a closed space and must either use their wit or violence to survive. Needless to say, Phi Brain is more focused on being clever than brutal.
For Fans of Protecting a Girl You Might Actually Want to Kill
The Executioner and Her Way of Life
For years, the Lost Ones have come from the distant world of Japan to a fantasy land. Not even these Lost Ones know how or why they arrive there, but their immense powers only bring destruction. In order to secure the safety of their world, Executioners are charged with exterminating these Lost Ones. While on the job, Executioner Menou happens across Akari, a Lost One summoned by an ambitious king. However, she finds that the girl is immortal and cannot be killed. Traveling with Akari, Menou seeks a way to end her life.
While The Executioner and Her Way of Life is innately different in that it is a fantasy isekai show, it actually has a similar set up. Both series feature main duos that have an understanding that one party wants to kill the other and that other party also desires to be killed by them. It makes for an interesting dynamic.
Akuma no Riddle
Tokaku Azuma has just transferred to the elite Myoujou Academy. Alongside her other 11 classmates, she is tasked with trying to kill another sweet-natured classmate, Haru. The assassin that succeeds is granted their deepest desire, but each assassin only gets one shot. However, when Tokaku develops feelings for the mark, she finds herself taking a different course of action.
Both series are about people trapped in a building where the goal is to kill everyone to escape yourself. However, a team develops and stands against the other killers starts. However, Rachel and Zack have a clear understanding while Akuma no Riddle waivers back and forth for drama.
Future Diary
Yukiteru Amano likes to imagine himself as an observer. He spends his days keeping a diary on his cell phone, but not about himself, about everything that goes on around him. At home, he spends his time conversing with his two imaginary friends, Deus Ex Machina, the God of space and time, and Murmur, his assistant. However, one day he discovers his friends are not so imaginary when they imbue him with the power of a diary that tells the future and forces him into a bloody survival game with godhood on the line.
While not confined to any one building like in Angels of Death, both series are about a group of people actively trying to kill each other. In Future Diary, what can only be described as anime’s biggest wimp is protected by an overly affectionate psychopath that may or may not want to kill him later. While the relationship between Zack and Rachel is clear, Future Diary leaves you wondering if her blade turns on him and when.
If you have any more anime recommendations like Angels of Death, let fans know in the comments section below.
