Anime is awash in killers, but assassins aren’t just killers, now are they? Hard in heart and body, assassins are killers trained specifically for the task. They carry out their contracts with precision and supreme skill that makes even some experienced villains look like rank amateurs when they cross another name off that list. If you enjoy yourself a skilled assassin in anime, here are our assassin anime recommendations full of the most cold-blooded professional killers for hire in all the fandom.
Best Assassin Anime
Akame ga Kill
What are assassins if not tools for war? That is somewhat what Akame ga Kill is about, but the assassins it follows are tools without a master. The main group is a group of assassins that are leading a revolutionary shadow war against an empire. The members are strong and look to take out key members of the military and monarchy. Since they do have super human abilities, it does lead to some epic fights, but it still kept all the brutality that you likely want to see with an assassin anime.
Darker Than Black
Darker Than Black is an assassin series where the assassins, or Contractors as they are called, all have supernatural abilities. The inclusion of superhuman characters can often unravel an assassin series and undermine some of the so-called skill they need to possess, but not here. Darker Than Black still masterfully maintains character mystique and does well to display the skill of the Contractors that it shows off as they get entangled in a number of political conspiracies that are lurking in the shadows.
Gunslinger Girl
Gunslinger Girl is more traditional with its assassins. It is a group of individuals that are specifically trained to kill people. However, in true anime form, those individuals are cute little girls. Regardless, the age of the assassins adds in another interesting layer of mental strain as it follow several different young members of the same agency.
Assassination Classroom
Perhaps one of the best assassin anime series is set in a place you wouldn’t expect – a school. No, it isn’t specifically a school for assassins, but for one class, it becomes one. The reject class at an elite academy is taken over by a monster who destroyed part of the moon. He tasks them with learning to kill him before the year is over. What they didn’t expect is how good of an actual teacher he would be when it came to life as well as academics.
Black Cat
While assassins aren’t uncommon in shounen anime, it is less common to make them main characters. Black Cat takes this unique route by having the main character be an assassin on the road to reformation. It is a difficult road when you have a deadly reputation, but if you have experience with shounen anime, you will know that battles must be a frequent thing.
Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom
If you crave your assassin anime to be more on the dark and melancholic side, then this is your series. It follows a man who witnesses the last kill of an assassin. She captures him and ends up brainwashing him, making him, too, into a tool for the mafia. It’s dark, it’s gritty, and it is filled with interesting characters.
Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens
There is a whole conspiracy and intrigue plot going on in Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens, which is not a show about the food, by the way. However, the thing that draws you out of the whole intrigue is that the way the cast is set up and how they all interact makes it feel like this city is entirely inhabited by assassins, mercenaries, and other such hitmen. If you can get past that realization, it is a story that unfolds quite interestingly as all the characters become intertwined with each other.
Akuma no Riddle
In killing game anime series, everyone is usually pretty skilled in (mostly) unexplained way. However, this killing series quickly explains their skill by making them all assassins. They are tasked with killing one girl, but they only get one shot at it. The twist is that one assassin decides to defend the target instead of try to kill her.
Canaan
While the titular character in Canaan is technically a mercenary, her skills are nothing short of your traditional assassin. Good with gun and with the added benefit of synesthesia that allows her to focus her senses, she and all the characters in Canaan find themselves tangled in a gritty plot full of intrigue.
The World’s Finest Assassin is Reincarnated Into Another World as an Aristocrat
Fantasy and isekai anime aren’t necessarily strangers to assassins, but this series is a rare treat in that it has one as the main character. In his previous life he was an assassin, and when he was reborn into his new world, he was reborn into a family of skilled assassins. Unfortunately, because it is an isekai anime, it treats things less seriously than most other assassin anime on this list.
Golgo 13
Perhaps the most aged of assassins in anime, Golgo 13 has many iterations, but all of them following the same character. He is a man of legend and skill. Golgo 13 is like a mystery series, but you aren’t unraveling a whodunit, you are unraveling a how-he-gonna-do-it.
Noir
When it comes to assassins in anime, the common trope is that they are the intriguing ones. Even when they are main characters, they are usually the coolest people in the room. Noir kind of subverts that. The assassin ends up traveling to Japan due to an intriguing message from a Japanese student who, once she gets there, turns out to be a proficient fighter herself with no memories of how she came to be so skilled. The series then unravels that overall mystery as they take jobs together.
Talentless Nana
This is perhaps one of the more unique assassination anime series. Talentless Nana follows a girl without superpowers as she infiltrates a school for those with superpowers. She was sent there specifically to kill those super humans who pose a threat to humanity outside of the island that they are contained on. Often her schemes surround turning their own powers back against them, but she also uses more traditional means of taking out her dangerous targets.
Madlax
I imagine being a contract killer is good steady business when your country is in the middle of a civil war, and that is what Madlax follows. A cute girl with a big gun works as a mercenary until, as these things tend to go in anime, she gets caught up in a much large conspiracy.
009-1
This series is both sci-fi and an alternate history series. It follows a cyborg spy who works contracts in a world where the Cold War has spread globally and raged for 140 years. With the world split into the East Block and West Block, under constantly threat of nuclear war, and chaos threatening to spill over at any moment, she navigates these complicated politics with blade and bullet.
Basilisk
Basilisk is perhaps not as in-your-face of an assassin anime series, but it still fits the bill, I reckon. Basilisk follows two different clans of ninjas, both who take contracts from the Daimyou, and both told by the Daimyou to fight each other to the death until only one ninja clan remains. So the series has less focus on contract killing and instead shows you what each member of the clans can do in terms of skill as they fight each other.
Do you have more assassin anime that you think deserves to be on this list? Let fans know in the comments section below.
