For skirt-chasing Ataru Moroboshi, the only notable thing about him is his extraordinary bad luck.
That luck kicks in when aliens suddenly invade Earth and he is chosen to represent humanity with their planet on the line. The duel for the fate of their planet ends up being a game of tag against the alien chief’s daughter, Lum.
While she is difficult to catch, eventually Ataru prevails by stealing her bikini top for the win.
However, his bad luck is at work again when Lum mistakes Ataru’s promise to marry his childhood friend as a proposal to her, which she has energetically accepted.
This is an anime series from another age, and it sure does show sometimes. However, anime, on occasion, used to be just about having fun. That’s what this series is – it’s a lot of fun and it doesn’t need to be much else. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Urusei Yatsura, then head on down below.
Anime Like Urusei Yatsura
For Fans of Otherworldly Love Affairs
To Love-Ru
Timid Rito wants is to confess his love to a girl in class. However, things quickly become complicated when one night a naked girl comes crashing in on him while he is in the bath.
This girl, as it turns out, is an alien princess on the run and she wants to marry him to avoid a political marriage.
Thus begins Rito’s endless days of girl struggle.
As Urusei Yatsura is a fairly aged series, you see a few newer series that took inspiration from it. To Love-Ru is one such series.
It features a guy who yearns to date his crush only to be completely sidetracked by an alien girl who arbitrarily becomes his fiancee. She then proceeds to be incredibly clingy.
The big difference is that Ataru is a playboy whereas Rito is more your standard spineless harem protagonist.
My Bride is a Mermaid
Michishio Nagasumi is living a normal life when he almost drowns on summer vacation. He is rescued by, of all things, a beautiful mermaid.
Unfortunately, she is from a yakuza family that states if a human sees a mermaid, either the human or the mermaid must die.
To save her life, Michishio agrees to marry the mermaid and become part of this crazy family.
Both series feature guys who find themselves suddenly engaged to an otherworldly girl.
From there on, the only plot to be found is a comedy one about their hectic daily life together. While they both also lean more towards slapstick comedy, the character dynamic is a bit different.
In My Bride is a Mermaid, the new sudden couple is actually fairly happy together whereas Ataru and Lum are, well, often less so.
Ah! My Goddess
Through the Goddess Help Hotline, humans can call to have their wish granted. However, Keiichi, a college student, accidentally calls and summons Belldandy.
In a joke, he wishes that she would stay with him forever.
Now, this young man finds himself living alone with a goddess.
If we wait long enough, maybe Ah My Goddess will be remade with shiny new animation too.
These two series were romances that came from a similar era. An era where male main characters were less wholesome and their love interests were violently clingy.
What’s more, in both series, the female love interests both have the power to inflict incredible damage if they feel like it.
For Fans of Jealous Beauties and Playboy Beasts
Inukami
Although Kawahira Keita is a descendant of a prestigious inukami tamer family, he lacks great ability in it and his family has all but forsaken him.
One day, he meets an inukami named Youko. He finds her charming, and even more surprising, he was able to contract her.
However, he discovers that she is a notoriously problematic inukami that no one has been able to control.
Instead of aliens, Inukami takes up a more spiritual twist by pairing up an average guy with an inukami that he contracted with. However, unlike other inukami, she is difficult to control and very jealous.
As such, you will find that there is a similar dynamic between the couple in Inukami and the couple in Urusei Yatsura.
However, Ataru and his wandering eyes often deserve the jealous slapstick action, Keita often gets it for no good reason although he, too, has eyes that wander at times.
So, I Can’t Play H
Ryousuke Kaga is more than just your standard teenage pervert. He is so enchanted by erotic reverie that he is ostracized by his peers.
However, one day he has a run in with Lisara Restall, a soul reaper who is trying to locate a magically potent person known as The One in the human realm.
In order to fuel this magically draining search, she makes a deal with Ryousuke to use his sexual desires as her energy source.
Both series follow a life-long skirt chaser who has that sort of lifestyle disrupted by a otherworldly girl entering his life. They form a sort of pact together that grows their relationship.
However, the jealousy of the female lead in I Can’t Play H grows as her feelings grow whereas Lum is violently jealous right from the get-go.
High School DxD
Average pervert Issei Hyoudou has done nothing productive with his life save for dreaming of attracting a harem.
Things are looking up when a girl asks him on a date, but unfortunately she turns out to be a fallen angel and brutal kills him.
However, he gets a second chance at life when a classmate (and devil) revives him to be her servant.
Both series have perverted protagonists and supernatural women that come to love them.
While his love interest in High School DxD has her jealous moments, she is definitely not as violently jealous as Lum is.
High School DxD also has the two notable differences of being a more flashy action show, and when it is not doing that, diving real explicitly into ecchi.
For Fans of Misadventures and Slapstick Comedy
Ranma ½
Ranma Saotome is a top-notch martial artist, but while training in China with his father, he meets a terrible fate. After accidentally falling into a cursed spring, he now turns into a girl when splashed with cold water.
Luckily, splashing hot water on him can turn him back into a boy.
Things are complicated further when Ranma discovers he is arranged to marry a daughter of another dojo, but this girl, Akane, is notorious for hating men.
Both Urusei Yatsura and Ranma ½ are by the same author and have the same general approach to storytelling – which is just whatever shenanigans she wanted to tell that week.
The main character has a love interest, they have a few violent problems between them that keep things from ever being very wholesome, and a character has a paranormal/supernatural twist.
That said, while Urusei Yatsura is mostly just silly shenanigans, Ranma ½, being about martial artists, does have some moments of action to it.
Actually, I Am
Completely on accident, average boy Asahi Kuromine discovers that Youko, the girl he has a crush on, is actually a vampire.
According to her father’s rules, she must now quit school, but since Asahi doesn’t want her to go, he agrees to keep her secret.
However, it turns out she won’t be the only supernatural being entering his life.
Both series are romances between a guy and a girl not from this world. However, romance is not really what either show is about.
They definitely lean more on the comedy end of the rom-com spectrum and use the same type of humor to pull that off. However, Actually, I Am does have more tender moments.
Love Hina
After making a childhood promise with a girl who moved away, Keitaro is dedicated to getting into the prestigious Tokyo University. Unfortunately, he is hopelessly stuck failing his entrance exams.
In order to continue trying, he moves out of his parent’s house into his grandmother’s inn to work as a manager.
However, what he doesn’t know is that her hot springs inn is also an all-girls dorm.
Both series are about a guy who is exploring a romance with a violent girl, while also pining over another.
However, Love Hina keeps that “other girl” a mystery for while Ataru is just a bit of a big playboy.
Regardless, both series are the type of comedy where a girl beats the guy she loves. Lum does it because she is possessive, Naru does it because she is a tsundere.
Osomatsu-san
In the Matsuno household, there are six identical siblings – the self-centered Osomatsu, the manly Karamatsu, the reasonable Choromatsu, the cynical Ichimatsu, the hyper Juushimatsu, and the cute Todomatsu.
Despite all being adults, they all live as NEETS. This is their journey of trying to become proper adults.
Both are remakes of older shows that had a love affair with slapstick style comedy. However, the new Osomatsu-san is often more angled at parodies, which makes it even more fun.
Regardless, both shows have little plot and instead just rely on character shenanigans each week.
Vlad Love
Mitsugu is a high school girl who finds meaning in her life donating her rare, but mostly worthless blood.
One day while visiting a blood bank she encounters a beautiful foreign girl. While this girl looks like she is about to faint, she ends up destroying the blood bank, causing Mitsugu to lose consciousness.
The next thing she knows, she is in the home of a vampire.
Instead of aliens and a normal guy, you have vampires and a normal girl.
Both Vlad Love and Urusei Yatsura share that same sort of zany, slapstick comedy where the plot is whatever the characters are doing that week.
If you enjoy quirky characters doing comical things, then this is for you.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Urusei Yatsura? Let fans know in the comments section below.
