It was just a normal day for avid gamer Akira Shiroyanagi who, while playing a game on his phone, was suddenly dragged onto a battlefield by a being named Mion. He and the other participants are told that they have been erased from society in order to participate in an experiment. They are each granted a special ability and told to use this power in order to win a series of games.
Survival games are usually for specific sorts of people. However, this series puts more of an emphasis on cleverness than visceral murder. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Battle Game in 5 Seconds, then head on down below.
Anime Like Battle Game in 5 Seconds
For Fans of Play or Die
Darwin’s Game
After receiving an invitation, Kaname starts playing a mysterious new mobile game called Darwin’s Game. Unfortunately, when his opponent attacks him in real life, he must fight to survive. After narrowly winning his first fight, he discovers a hidden world of players that kill in order to win points.
Both series are survival games that are actually centered around playing games more so than just telling them to kill each other. Both follow gamers whose love of gaming put them there. They end up gathering allies and using their minds to survive.
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.
Both series focus on gamers playing games for real and actually being inexplicably good at it. Since Battle Game features more intelligence-focused strategies, it is less inexplicable than a shut-in being amazingly physically fit. Btooom also does tend to lean more towards ecchi moments.
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 focus on players that are locked in an area and told they need to play a game by a mysterious entity if they ever want to get out of there. However, Danganronpa is more your standard killing game, but the mystery-solving portion of it does depend on the wits of the other students.
For Fans of Clever Characters
No Game No Life
In the real world, siblings Shiro and Sora are NEET shut-ins. However, in the virtual world, they are a legendary gaming duo. One day, after a strange email, they find their reality taken away as they are transported to the realm of Tet, God of Games. Here, Shiro and Sora must play games to defeat the sixteen races of this world as well as Tet in order to become the new gods.
While No Game No Life is an isekai series, it, like Battle Game, focuses much more on characters using their brains than anything else. No Game No Life is more the clever series since there is no special powers or action, but each is about using what you have to win.
The Ones 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.
Both Battle Game and The Ones Within focus on players being detained and told to play a game. Each player has a special ability or specialty that they need to use to their advantage in clever games. However, The Ones Within is not particularly violent.
Classroom of the Elite
Koudo Ikusei High School seems like a paradise with state-of-the-art facilities and where almost 100 percent of students go to university or find employment. However, while the students appear to have a good amount of freedom, only superior students get favorable treatments. After being careless on his entrance exams for a particular reason, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka finds himself dumped in D-Class with the other inferior students.
Make no mistake, Classroom of the Elite is a survival game without the murder. In the hyper competitive school, the students need to use everything at their disposal if they want to succeed. Both series feature highly calculating individuals that can manipulate any situation to their advantage.
For Fans of Granted Powers
Gleipnir
One morning, Shuichi Kagaya woke up as a monster. Complete with brute strength, a strong sense of smell, and big fluffy paws, he struggles to hold onto his humanity. Soon he meets a sadistic girl named Claire Aoki by saving her life. She holds his secret over her head and forces him to help her look for her sister that has also turned into a monster.
Both series feature main characters that are given a special ability by a mysterious entity. They then use that ability to fight others with different abilities. However, they are not trapped in Gleipnir and Gleipnir is also weirdly sexual with many things.
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.
Future Diary is a traditional type survival game where they just have to kill each other. However, like Battle Game, the characters are given a special ability via their phones by an unknown entity. Future Game isn’t especially clever, though. Mostly it is just a yandere knifing her way through the competition for the inept object of her affections.
Magical Girl Raising Project
There’s a rumor going around about a new game called the Magical Girl Raising Project. The rumor states that one in thousands who play it have a chance to become a magical girl, and the rumors turn out to be true. This chance allows them to have supreme beauty, strength, and other abilities so that they can help humanity. However, when 16 magical girls end up in one district, the administration announces that only half may remain. At first it is a race to get the most magical candy, but as time goes on, the game twists into something much darker.
While Battle Game isn’t quite as “magical girl” with it, they do receive powers special powers that seem well within the realm of magical girls. They just don’t get the costumes. Magical Girl Raising Project is cute magical girls forced to play a killing game. It’s not especially clever, but fun to watch in its own way.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Battle Game in 5 Seconds? Let fans know in the comments section below.
