After disobeying their boss and messing up a job, three yakuza men are given a choice – commit suicide or go to Thailand and have a sex change to become female idols.
They make the choice to go to Thailand, and after grueling idol training, make their debut. Unfortunately for them, they are a hit!
The old addage is true. You can overlook ugly animation if the jokes hit. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Back Street Girls, head on down below.
Anime Like Back Street Girls
For Fans of Idol/Music Comedy
Sekko Boys
Miki Ishimoto has just started work at the Holbein Entertainment Company, and on her first day, she is put in charge of a new idol group.
However, when she meets them, she discovers that her new group, the Rockies, is a boy band comprised of four Greco-Roman sculpture busts.
As St. George, Mars, Hermes, and Medici burst onto the scene, will they be stone-cold success or is their path to top stardom off to a rocky start?
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Sekko Boys
- Both series are about abnormal “male” idols
- Both series feature comedic skit-based storytelling where there is no linear plot outside of the jokes.
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Sekko Boys
- Sekko Boys is about Greco-Roman statue busts, not yakuza who had a sex change.
- Sekko Boys follows the manager of the idol group as the main character.
- Sekko Boys is the less irreverent comedy where the jokes are less lewd and more just absurd.
Zombieland Saga
For Sakura Minamoto, she started her day off normally, right up until she skipped outside and got hit by a speeding truck.
She died, of course, but 10 years later, she wakes up as… a zombie.
However, her story is just beginning as a man wants her and several other undead girls from throughout Japan’s history to become a regional idol group to save Saga from becoming an obscure prefecture.
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Zombieland Saga
- Both series follow newly founded idol groups
- The idol groups in Zombieland Saga and Back Street Girls are both non-traditional (zombies, sex-changed yakuza)
- Both series are very obviously comedy anime
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Zombieland Saga
- Zombieland Saga is about zombie idols instead of sex-changed yakuza idols
- Zombieland Saga has actual musical performances
- There is an emotionally touching story somewhere deep down in Zombieland Saga, so it isn’t all just irreverent comedy like Back Street Girls.
Ya Boy Kongming
As a general in China’s Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang Kongming had endured countless battles that shaped him into an excellent strategist. However, on his deathbed, his only wish is to be reborn in a more peaceful world.
This results in him being reborn as his younger self in modern day Shibuya, Tokyo.
After being dragged around by partiers, Kongming becomes taken with the songs of a struggling singer who ends up sheltering him. He decides to use his tactical genius to make her into a top star!
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Ya Boy Kongming
- Both series follow men with authoritative personalities representing musical talent
- You watch the musical talent be set up in a number of situations and performances for their career
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Ya Boy Kongming
- Ya Boy Kongming has more of a music focus
- Ya Boy Kongming has a linear plot that it is exploring
- Ya Boy Kongming has plenty of comedy, but is not primarily a comedy story like Back Street Girls is. It is wholesome in how inspiring it can be.
Detroit Metal City
The popular indie band Detroit Metal City is known for captivating audiences with its dark death metal. The lead singer in particular, Johannes Krauser II, is infamous for being like a demon straight out of hell.
However, unbeknownst to their many worshipers, Krauser’s normal self is the soft-spoken average college student Souichi.
Switching between them leads this young man on a number of misadventures.
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Detroit Metal City
- Both series are dark comedies
- Comedy occasionally comes from cute persona juxtaposed with a gruff persona.
- The exterior of a character is often different from their internal personality.
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Detroit Metal City
- Detroit Metal City is about a sweet college student with a screeching death metal alter ego
- Detroit Metal City is as much a music anime as it is a comedy. Back Street Girls has very little music focus.
- Detroit Metal City is about a death metal band and not idols.
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For Fans of Making The Best of a Weird Situation
Prison School
The Hachimitsu Private Academy has always been a prestigious all-girls school that is prized for its high quality education and rigid discipline. However, they are now accepting boys as well as girls.
With a mere five boys in the schools, these boys think they are the luckiest men in the world. That is, until they get caught peeping and have their personal freedoms taken away in the brutal prison below the school.
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Prison School
- Both series feature men having to do strange things (have a sex change, be imprisoned and tortured by women)
- Both are comedies that enjoy sexual comedy frequently
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Prison School
- Prison School is unambiguously an ecchi comedy with more explicit content.
- Prison School follows a group of teen boys held captive for bad behavior in school then being tortured in some way that always ends up kinky. This is different from the yakuza-themed sex change idol comedy in Back Street Girls.
Cromartie High School
Takashi Kamiyama is your typical mild-mannered high school student. However, instead of living a boring normal life, he enrolls at infamous Cromartie High School, a school known for breeding thugs.
It is this decision that sees the end of his normal high school days.
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Cromartie High School
- Both are comedy anime that follow eccentric criminal organizations (Yakuza, high school delinquents)
- Both series enjoy absurd jokes and an eccentric large cast
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Cromartie High School
- Cromartie High School follows high school delinquents, so not adults like Back Street Girls.
- Cromartie High School is more comedy through absurdity and weird situations while Back Street Girls enjoys more dirty joke-style comedy.
Grand Blue
Iori Kitahara is excited to travel to the seaside town of Izu for his first year of college. He moves into his uncle’s scuba shop, Grand Blue, but things don’t go according to plan.
Inside the shop is a bunch of naked and drunk upperclassman who get him drunk. After his cousin walks in, his college life starts to derail, but his work getting it back on track doesn’t go quite as planned either.
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Grand Blue
- Both series are irreverent comedies that love a good dirty joke.
- Compact cast of adult characters are all eccentric in their personalities
- Both series are comedy anime with a specific theme (college diving club, yakuza sex change idols)
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Grand Blue
- Grand Blue does have a few moments where it does take itself seriously and be about diving.
- Grand Blue isn’t about criminals like Back Street Girls, just drunk college boys.
Asobi Asobase
One day, Olivia – blonde-haired, foreign-looking transfer student – lies to air-headed Hanako about her English skills. Despite her looks, she has actually lived in Japan almost all her life and can’t speak English very well, but succeeded in tricking Hanako.
This bit of mischief sparked a series of small games in the classroom between them, annoying the nearby deadpan Kasumi who hates games after being teased mercilessly by her older sister for always losing.
However, the mischief eventually draws all three of them into the Pastime Club, a club Hanako created just to goof off.
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Asobi Asobase
- Degenerate comedy anime where the characters are comically sexual or just terrible people to each other.
- Both series follow a trio of three girls with vastly different personalities
- Both series parody different genres by turning them into intense, irreverent comedy (idols, cute girls doing cute things genre)
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Asobi Asobase
- Asobi Asobase is about middle school girls, so its sexual comedy doesn’t go as far as Back Street Girls goes.
- Back Street Girls has minimal overall plot, Asobi Asobase has less.
For Fans of Comedic Yakuza
The Way of the House Husband
The Immortal Tatsu is an legendary yakuza name, but after taking down a rival gang single-handedly, he disappears.
Now, he has reappeared as an apron-wearing, laundry-doing, bento-lunch-making househusband for his office-working wife.
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and The Way of the House Husband
- Both series follow yakuza main character doing not yakuza things (being a house husband, being an idol)
- Both anime are strongly yakuza-themed comedies
- Both series highlight a larger neighborhood of comedic characters
Differences Between Back Street Girls and The Way of the House Husband
- Back Street Girls like dirty jokes and dark jokes, Way of the House Husband keeps things pretty tame.
- The Way of The House Husband is actually pretty wholesome in its relationship and character dynamics.
Akiba Maid War
Wahira has always admired the cute girls who work in maid cafes, and as such, she has decided to move to Akihabara to become a maid!
While she gets a job at the Ton Tokoton maid cafe, she discovers that after one normal day with her more mature and also newly employed co-worker Ranko Mannen that things are not what they seem.
She and Ranko are sent to run an errand to a rival maid cafe, and it ends up as a complete blood bath as they get caught up in the violent maid wars of Akihabara.
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Akiba Maid War
- Both series follow yakuza clan dynamics where the characters are doing non-traditional things (being maids in a maid cafe, being idols)
- Serious yakuza moments are undercut by jokes or the absurdity of the situation
- “Yakuza, but girly” type of comedy
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Akiba Maid War
- Akiba Maid War follows maid cafes that act like yakuza clans. They are not actual yakuza clans like they are in Back Street Girls.
- Akiba Maid War actually has a linear, dramatic story going on alongside the comedy.
Hinamatsuri
One night, an object falls through space and time into the living room of dignified yakuza member Nitta. The object turns out to be a strange girl with psychic powers, but Nitta is reluctant to both take her in and to accept her offer to make use of those powers.
Respecting his decision to not use her as a tool, this girl, named Hina, decides to help him anyway as they begin their life together.
Similarities Between Back Street Girls and Hinamatsuri
- Both series are comedy anime about yakuza thugs doing not yakuza things (being idols, taking care of a child)
- Serious moments are swiftly undercut by jokes in these primarily comedy anime series
- Excellent irreverent jokes and extreme facial expressions
Differences Between Back Street Girls and Hinamatsuri
- Hinamatsuri is about a psychic girl being taken in by a yakuza thug. They often spoof on how “wholesome, but not really” their found family relationship is.
- Hinamatsuri does have some moments where it is legitimately a little serious or emotionally touching.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Back Street Girls? Let fans know in the comments section below.
