After discovering a new energy source, Bayron City became a metropolis that works independent of other governments. However, the city is occasionally plagued by the mysterious appearance of large demons that are difficult to deal with. As such, private military organizations make bids to combat these monsters for the city. Shuu Ogata runs one such small organization that consists of him and his overly clingy demon partner, Kisara. While she is eager to take care of him despite being chronically poor from all the ways his bids go sideways, using her power comes at a heavy cost to himself.
It has been a spell since we’ve had an anime with an overly attached, almost yandere-like character. While the series seems an awful lot like waifu bait, it does posses some decent intrigue and magnificent looking fights. If you are looking for more anime like Engage Kiss, head on down below.
Anime Like Engage Kiss
For Fans of Powered By Kisses
Vermeil in Gold
While the young mage Alto excels at most other magics, he is on the verge of failing his first year at Royal Ortigia Magic Academy because he cannot summon a familiar. Giving his exam one last shot, he stumbles upon a grimoire that finally lets him summon a familiar. However, this bodacious, beautiful woman isn’t a spirit, she is a demon. She agrees to help him if she can recharge her power through passionate kisses.
While innately different in that one takes place in a school of magic, both series are similar in that the clingy female companion to the main character is empowered by kisses. However, there isn’t necessarily anything lost in Vermeil in Gold from doing that. Mostly the trade-off is that he is essentially slowly empowering a demon.
Sekirei
One day, completely useless college student Minato Sahashi collides with a beautiful girl named Musubi. She is a Sekirei, a powerful humanoid that descended to earth. She is fleeing from two of her own kind and suddenly kisses Minato to awaken her true power. Due to his special genes, Musubi asks Minato to stay by her side and fight in a survival game between the Sekirei. The winner gets to ascend to the higher sky, but the fate of the Earth might just hang in the balance as well.
If Engage Kiss and its small two woman harem is too small, Sekirei provides a much larger harem of battle beauties that all require a kiss from the main character to best utilize their power. However, as a more standard harem show, it focuses more on ecchi than well-animated action.
Date a Live
Thirty years ago, an explosion devastated East Asia, killing over 150 million people. In the present day, such “spacequakes” are now a common occurrence. One day, Shidou Itsuka races to rescue his little sister from one such spacequake. However, when he is caught in the blast, he discovers a mysterious girl who turns out to be a Spirit. These girls are responsible for the devastation when they come crashing to Earth. However, when Shidou is rescued by an anti-Spirit team, he discovers it is headed up by his little sister. Recruited in and tasked with neutralizing Spirits with extreme force, Shidou discovers he can come to a more peaceful solution – making the Spirits fall in love.
Date a Live is perhaps the most similar to anime on this list to Engage Kiss. While Date a Live is a harem-esque show, it is an magical action show revolving around females who do the large share of the fighting and all hinge around kissing being a central element.
For Fans of Episodic Supernatural Battles
Takt Op Destiny
After a meteor fell to Earth, the D2s invaded a large portion of the United States. In order to prevent angering the D2s who hate music, all music was banned. Despite this, D2 attacks aren’t uncommon. The only defense against them remains Musicarts and their Conductor companions. Takt, a piano prodigy, finds himself transformed into a Conductor after his friend Cosette is killed and transformed into his Musicart named Destiny. Together with Cosette’s sister Anna, they travel to New York City in hopes of stabilizing their pact.
Engage Kiss takes place primarily in one city. Takt Op Destiny, for a large portion of the series, is largely a road trip that justifies its “new day, new monster to fight” approach. However, both work towards large plots and feature women who do the large majority of the fighting up close while the men do their part from afar.
Tokyo 24th Ward
On an artificial island in Tokyo Bay labeled as the Tokyo 24th Ward, a fire at a middle school changed the lives many, including three childhood friends, Ran, Kouki, and Shuuta. Having drifted apart after the incident, they are brought together on the first anniversary of the fire when their phones ring simultaneously and they receive a call from Asumi, a girl that died in that fire, showing them a tragedy that will come to pass and asking them to choose the future.
Both series take place in a specialized future city that has an element that sets it apart from the rest of the country. While Engage Kiss is about fighting demons to keep the city safe, Tokyo 24th Ward focuses in on people who develop powers and use them to stop prophecized fatalities in the city. Regardless, ultimately each works towards unraveling a plot about the city as a whole.
Black Bullet
In the year 2021, a parasitic virus has ravaged humanity by turning them into monsters, driving the remaining humans into massive walled cities. However, while a special metal can keep these monsters at bay and fight them, children are already being born with the virus dormant within them. It is decided that these “cursed children” are humanity’s best hope for fighting the virus.
Both Engage Kiss and Black Bullet focus in on a man and woman pair that fight monsters. The girl is a special type of person while the man is the one who essentially enables them to use their abilities. Furthermore, both series are essentially a “demon fighting demons” sort of affair.
For Fans of Chronically Struggling Freelancers
Getbackers
Mido Ban and Amano Ginji are the Get Backers. Their job? Well, it’s to get back whatever was stolen from you with a 100 percent success rate. However, even though they are good at their jobs, they are terminally broke, forcing them to take even more dangerous jobs.
While Getbackers lacks the cute anime girl element of Engage Kiss, it also feature two protagonists that work for themselves, but have complicated pasts. While both incredibly skilled and should be able to make decent money, they are chronically broke for comedy.
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 worshipers, 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 weapon 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.
While firmly in different genres, both series document the struggles of men working for themselves. However, Yato isn’t necessarily poor, just a penny pincer. Like Shuu, he is also a silly man with a complicated past.
Black Cat
Completing every job with accuracy, Train is an infamous assassin under the moniker Black Cat. However, one night he stumbles upon Saya, a bounty hunter with a positive outlook on life. Her positivity begins to affect him and he begins to rethink his life, choosing to become an honest bounty hunter instead of an assassin.
While assassin-turned-bounty hunter isn’t such a huge difference from PMC-turned-independantly employed PMC, Black Cat is a distinctly more shounen action show. Like Engage Kiss, the main character is a man with a complicated back story and a passion for poor financial management used as a reoccurring joke in the show.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Engage Kiss? Let fans know in the comments section below.
