As the last surviving member of her clan of spirit warriors, Mirai Kuriyama must use her special power of fighting using her blood in order to subdue Youmu, creatures that are the manifestation of negative human emotions. One day at school she happens across Akihito, a rare half-breed Youmu in human form. Immediately trying to kill him, she finds out he is an immortal being and the two strike up an impromptu friendship.
Beyond the Boundary taught us all that glasses girls can indeed be cute, and further confirmed the fact that KyoAni does some of the best animation. While the story is a little disappointing in the end, it was certainly a fun and eye candy-heavy ride to get there. If you need more anime recommendations like Beyond the Boundary, then look no further.’
Anime Like Beyond the Boundary
For Fans of Demons and Demon Slayers
Noragami
There will be times where you may happen across an odd phone number written in red. If you call it, you will get in touch with a young man who introduces himself as the Yato God. This Yato God is a minor deity and the self-proclaimed God of Delivery. He dreams of having millions of worshippers, but there isn’t a single shrine dedicated to his name. He spends his time doing odd jobs for spare yen until the day his weapons partner deserts him. Just as things are looking down, he happens across a young school girl that saves him from a car accident by taking the hit for him. She survives, but her soul becomes loose. Together they set out to find a way to tighten her soul back up.
Both of these shows mix the otherwise mundane elements of slice of life shows into the supernatural genre to create something that fans of either genre can really enjoy. You have those serene comedy moments and you have those intense battles. However, Beyond the Boundary, while lighthearted at times, maintains a much darker stance throughout.
Blue Exorcist
Humans and demons have always been separated by two different worlds, humans in Assiah and demons in Gehenna. The only way to travel between the worlds is by possession, which is how Satan, the ruler of Gehenna, wages his war. Blue Exorcist follows Rin Okumura, a somewhat troubled teen and son of Satan. However, while his father wants him to help conquer the human world, Rin decides to become an exorcist to fight him instead.
Unfortunately, Blue Exorcist doesn’t have a cute glasses girl as one of the main characters, but it has much of everything else. It features a half-demon character that falls into being an exorcist all while set in a high school setting. However, Blue Exorcist stays firmly in the shounen genre, meaning it is heavy on the battles, while Beyond the Boundary has a more mature and dramatic tone.
Myriad Colors Phantom World
Supernatural entities like ghosts and demons were thought to be all superstition. That is, until a brain virus spread throughout society that changed everyone’s perception. Now it is revealed that mythical beings have always been there and the next generation born after this brain virus is developing special abilities used to fight these entities. Follow Haruhiko and Mai, two young people born with such abilities, as they use them their unique powers to try and keep the peace.
Beyond the Boundary and its beautiful KyoAni animation makes you wish it was a whole lot longer than just twelve episodes. Well, Phantom provides thirteen more beautifully animated KyoAni episodes with a similar sort of storyline. Both shows are about people fighting supernatural entities and doing it with beautiful looking powers. Though, if we are being honest, the characters aren’t quite as interesting in Phantom, but if you are in it for the battle, you won’t be disappointed.
For Fans of Fluid Animation
Love, Chunibyou, and Other Delusions
Everyone has that stage in their life where they think themselves special, different from mere humans. This phenomenon is called Chunibyou Syndrome and most common in pre-pubescent children. In middle school, Yuuta Togashi thought himself the Dark Flame Master. He has since grown out of it upon entering high school and looks back at those cringe-worthy times with displeasure. Unfortunately, after a chance meeting with Rikka Takanashi, a girl believing to have a God in her eye, she attaches herself to him and brings that Chunibyou past back out.
As another KyoAni show, you notice a few similarities that innately inhabit their shows besides just the nice animation. However, the biggest one here is in the female leads. They have somewhat similar personalities and a big part of their character is just being heart-wrenchingly cute. While Chunibyou doesn’t have any serious battles, those trips into their delusions of grandeur are certainly fun enough.
Bakemonogatari
After surviving a vampire attack, high school student Koyomi Araragi finds he has several supernatural side effects that remained after being cured including the ability to rapidly heal. While trying to live a normal life after the event, he ends up catching a classmate, Hitagi Senjougahara, as she fell down some stairs. As he catches her, he discovers that she is near weightless after being inflicted with a curse. After enlisting the help of the easy-going wandering Shinto priest that helped him with his vampirism, Araragi finds himself embroiled in not just Senjogahara’s issue but several different supernatural events afflicting those in his town.
In both shows, the male leads are inexplicably immortal, and both series set it up as somewhat of a mystery. However, while they solve that mystery fairly quickly in Beyond the Boundary, it remains a major theme in Bakemonogatari. Regardless, both shows are about the supernatural going-on’s in what seems like an ordinary town at first.
Kokoro Connect
At Yamaboshi Academy, there is a club called the Student Cultural Society, a club of five students who don’t fit into any other clubs. Everything is normal and boring until one day the club members start switching bodies. Forced to be closer than ever before, emotional scars and hidden secrets are prepared to come out.
Both shows have a distinctly similar animation style, despite being done by different studios. However, while they both have similar sort of characters and they feature worlds that have tinges of supernatural to it, Beyond the Boundary quickly goes…Beyond…The Boundary. >_> What I mean is, the mundane world is shown to have a lot more going on supernatural-wise whereas Kokoro Connect keeps it very low-key throughout the series. There’s not really much fighting, just body switching drama.
For Fans of Supernatural Romance
Inu X Boku SS
Ririchiyo Shirakiin is the sheltered daughter of a rich family, but she has been dependent on them her entire life. However, while she seeks to change that, she has a sharp tongue that needs minding. When she moves into a high security apartment complex to start her new life of independence, she discovers that the residents are not only strange, but everyone in the apartment – including herself – are half-human and half-yokai. Furthermore, as a condition of being able to move out, she now has to live with her new bodyguard, Soushi – a handsome and oddly submissive secret service agent.
If you were more interested in the character drama and interaction in Beyond the Boundary, but don’t necessarily need the battles, then this is a series to definitely check out. It is a series about half demons that are, like Akihito, very much trying to live a normal life. Of course, things end up not quite so normal.
Kotoura-san
Haruka Kotoura is a school girl that can read people’s minds. Unfortunately, it has caused her nothing but trouble, eventually causing her parent’s divorce. After she moves to a new school, she tries to avoid her classmates, but a classmate of hers finds her power not scary, but intriguing.
There is some light drama in Beyond the Boundary about wanting to be normal, but not being able to. That is very much what Kotoura-san is about. Unfortunately, Beyond the Boundary doesn’t so much address the “accepting yourself as you are” thing, instead choosing to follow the “don’t destroy the world” themes.
Angel Beats
One evening Otonashi wakes up in a strange place and a strange girl with a gun tells him he is dead. Trying to recruit him to her organization that rebels against God, Otonashi decides to talk to her enemy, a mysterious girl named Angel. After she kills him for being too literal, he finds himself siding with the SSS Battlefront and the oddballs within.
Stepping away from the demons that dominate the rest of this list, Angel Beats focuses on angels and those in the afterlife. Although, there is really just the one angel. While Beyond the Boundary had just a touch of human emotion at times, Angel Beats is a big old cryfest. What it lacks in action, it makes up for in its frequent switch between being sad and hilarious.
If you have more anime recommendations like Beyond the Boundary, then lay them on us in the comments section below.
