Although he suffers from financial hardship, Yuuichi Katagiri has always been kept positive by his friends. They even inspired him to furiously work in order to get the funds to go on the school trip with them. However, when the gathered money goes missing, his friends are blamed. Yet, days later, the friends all get mysterious letters that end up with them being force to join a Tomodachi Game where each game they win together lowers a debt. However, when betrayal and secrets start pouring out, these simple games become a malicious test of trust.
Can you really trust your friends? Its interesting to see a survival game not so much about battle and blood. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Tomodachi Game, then head on down below.
Anime Like Tomodachi Game
For Fans of Manipulation-Based Survival Games
Battle Game in 5 Seconds
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.
While Battle Game in 5 Seconds is definitely more action-oriented, it, like Tomodachi Game, relies heavily on being able to manipulate an opponent in order to get a specific outcome. In essence, both are more about strategy than just abstract violence.
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.
Both series are survival games about more than murder. In order to escape their circumstances, the characters must meet a specific goal. In The One’s Within, they must reach a view count, which means not necessarily manipulating their peers, but manipulating things into being watch-worthy.
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.
Both series are survival games more so about using your brain rather than just outright fighting people. However, obviously the puzzles in Phi Brain are more complex than the children’s games in Tomodachi Game. Yet, both encourage you to think about the outcomes.
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.
While Danganronpa is mostly just murder, it is also a murder mystery spin on a survival game. In it, the main character attempts to deduce who killed one of their classmates while others manipulate and kill in order to win. While there is a lesser element on manipulation than in Tomodachi Game, it is a game about more than just murder.
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 more in line with other survival games where it is very much kill or be killed. However, what ultimately ties it to Tomodachi Game more so than the other survival game anime series is that the series is all about manipulation. Everyone is working some angle, it is just that those angles usually end in vicious death.
For Fans of High Stakes Gambling
Kaiji
Kaiji Itou is a thug in the truest sense. With his days spent drinking and stealing hubcaps, his world is turned upside down when a co-worker tricks him into taking on a huge debt. In order to pay it off, Kaiji takes up a shady offer to participate in illegal gambling on a cruise ship that is filled with even worse scumbags than him.
Both series are built upon playing stupid children’s games for big, big money. The ultimate goal of each anime is also to earn enough to pay off a substantial debt. Whereas Tomodachi Game is about betrayal, in Kaiji, everyone is kind of garbage people, even the main character.
One Outs
Toua Tokuchi is an athlete and a gambler. He makes his money with a serious fastball and a simplified game of baseball called One Outs. However, one day he is approached by a veteran slugger and asked to join his long unsuccessful team, but the owner of the team doesn’t want him to threaten the money that he makes by losing. Toua, being the gambler that he is, eventually settles that for each out he pitches, he gets 5 million yen, but for each hit, he loses 50 million.
While it may be about baseball, this is one of the finest gambling anime series if you enjoy manipulation. Like in Tomodachi Game, the main character is constantly thinking in moves and countermoves, though Toua may be more malicious than Yuuichi.
Kakegurui
Hyakkaou Private Academy is an institution for the elite of society with a very special curriculum. These students are the children of the wealthiest people in the world, but they won’t need athletic prowess or book smarts for a successful life, they will need to know the art of the deal and how to read people. So instead of traditional classes, this school features a curriculum of rigorous gambling where the winners live like kings and the losers suffer. However, they haven’t seen anything yet until they meet new student Yumeko Jabami.
These series are both about gambling, and more importantly, manipulating people in order to get the desired outcome. However, Kakegurui isn’t a survival game, and as such, there is a certain amount of joy harvested from those big wins for the main character. While Tomodachi Game occasionally tries, Kakegurui is a master at beautifully twisted facial expressions as well.
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 some may be put off by No Game No Life’s fantasy isekai setting, it is a series about high stakes games. Like Tomodachi Game, No Game No Life features occasionally very simple games that are grown wildly complex by the way the characters bend and manipulate the rules and the players. However, instead of money, they are playing for countries.
For Fans of Traitorous Friend Groups
Death Note
Light Yagami is a high school prodigy and genius. However, he has an ever-increasing boredom and disdain for the rotten violent world. One day, he happens upon a notebook, called a Death Note, which states that if you write a name in it, the person will die. To his surprise, the notebook’s claims turn out to be true. This Death Note, the property of the Shinigami gods of death, gives Light the power to change this world and he decides to become its new God by executing all criminals.
While Death Note would only be similar in that it is a master tale at manipulation, it grows even more similar to Tomodachi Game when Light becomes friends with the detective he is trying to kill. Like Tomodachi Game, it becomes about friends trying to ensnare each other for their own gains.
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.
Both series involve individuals who are able to get large sums of money by completing tasks. However, Classroom of the Elite isn’t a survival game in the same way as Tomodachi Game. Regardless, it also becomes about manipulation. The biggest similarity is perhaps the main character. While Ayanokouji is cold on the exterior, he is calculating, clever, excellent at manipulating his peers, and surprisingly soft-hearted though it only shows in his actions.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Tomodachi Game? Let fans know in the comments section below.
