Do you ever wonder why there are so many open-ended one season anime series out there? One of the lesser known tidbits about the anime industry is that many anime series are created to sort of hype sales for other media rather than to necessarily be successful hit anime. It is more common with light novels, which is part of why we get so many isekai series each season. However, gacha games are also commonly adapted to anime series in order to tempt more weebs to play their game.
For those not in the know gacha games are a game model for free-to-play games named after those small toy vending machines you may see at arcades. They are typically mobile games that have various techniques in order to get you to spend in-game currency to pull a random item from a loot box. For some, that translates to spending real life currency to get more pulls of that delightfully addictive slot machine.
There are, of course, various strong feelings about this type of game. However, we are not here to talk about those. We are here to give you some anime recommendations about series that were actually based on gacha games, whether you play them or not. Not mentioned here are the gacha games that came from popular anime series, of which there are several.
Best Gacha Game Anime
Princess Connect: Re: Dive
I can personally get behind more gacha hyping anime series if they are like this one. Princess Connect takes characters from the game, adds in a mute stand-in male character for the watcher to slip into the skin of, then sends them out of food-based adventures. Is Princess Connect a food-based gacha game? Not particularly. Regardless, it was an enjoyable, if plotless show.
Hortensia Saga
Hortensia Saga is one of the more recent examples of gacha-to-anime that shows off why so many anime fans cringe at gacha-to-anime series. It’s just bland. It’s a bland ol’ fantasy show that does nothing new and maybe leaves nuggets for people who already play the game. It does, however, provide an introduction into the world of the game, and looks nice enough.
King’s Raid
Like Horensia Saga, King’s Raid is an gacha-to-anime series that received the barest effort in terms of everything. It promotes a bland story, passable visuals, and all around doesn’t do anything particularly memorable. You wonder why it even got made, since I don’t feel compelled to seek out the game, even if it is a beloved strategic RPG.
Stand My Heroes: Piece of Truth
I have certain lowered expectations when I know an anime is based off a gacha game, but because I lacked that knowledge here, my enjoyment of it really took a hit. Stand My Heroes is an otome game featuring a female main character and her many handsome cops that fight narcotics crime in Japan. You can do a decent plot with that even with otome themes. Oh, but they put the bare bones effort into the plot here. If anything positive can be said, it is that the men did indeed looks very pleasing.
Idolish7
Idols and gacha are the hand-holding, spit-swapping, close kissing cousins of the weeb world. Pluck out an anime with idols and it is almost guaranteed to either be based off a gacha game or have one made off of it. Idolish7 is one of many, but just so happens to follow handsome male idols. That’s something more rare, but also not really that rare anymore. You can guess the plot of nearly all the gacha-based idol shows, and you can even guess the gameplay. Hint: It’s rhythm-based.
Revue Starlight
Revue Starlight is yet another idol-based gacha game, but unlike all the others I left off here, it made itself special as both a game and an anime. Instead of being rhythm-based, it was a turn-based sort of battler with idols still doing idol things. This is reflected in the anime as well, which basically has girls duking it out in a secret pop idol fight club. Of all the idol anime I have had to watch, this is one that I wouldn’t mind watching again because it is indeed unique and entertaining.
Uma Musume
Uma Musume is a fun one. Well, funny, I suppose, since I’ve never played the game. This series about race horses who were reincarnated into cute horse girls that run track races was created to hype a game not yet out yet at the time. The game got delayed from a 2018 release to a 2021 release. So, they ended up having to make a second season for it to sort of re-hype the new release date. Awkward.
Azur Lane
It is not a good sign when even people that are enamored with your gacha game think the anime adaptation is terrible. The biggest issue with it, I feel, is that it opts to take nothing from in-game events and just free styles its own plot. People like your game, Azur Lane committee, maybe show off why other than “anime waifus cute,” because I know there are other reasons that people play Azur Lane. …Right?
Granblue Fantasy
Sometimes I wonder if Granblue weren’t based on a gacha game, if the anime would be better received. It creates a slightly above average fantasy anime, and there are tons of those. However, Granblue Fantasy is a widely known gacha game, and probably was lumped in with so many of those other sub-par series before it even aired. Regardless, it puts effort into the world, has some decent characters, and doesn’t outright feel like a lazy 12-episode advertisement. If you like enjoy fantasy anime, it is actually a nice watch.
Rage of Bahamut
I watched Rage of Bahamut, and I absolutely adored Rage of Bahamut. It wasn’t until two years after watching that I discovered it was actually based off a game. They did an excellent job crafting the anime into a perfect standalone thing with a wide world full of lore and lovable characters, and had Rage of Bahamut had an advertised western release, well, I wouldn’t of played it because its a card game. To be extremely fair, though, card-based mobile games are just not my thing.
Shadowverse
Shadowverse is a unique case in which it is an anime based off a mobile card game. The show has mechanics that reflect the gameplay of the game, but it goes weird because the anime does not match the tone of the game. It also lacks a good deal of the characters. The easiest way to quantify it is that instead of being a dark undubbed Yugioh sort of affair where people die, it became a 4Kids dubbed Yugioh affair where the guns are edited out and guys are just aggressively pointing and people get sent to the “shadow realm”.
Fate/Grand Order
I know I said I would leave gacha games based on popular anime off this list, which is ultimately why Magia Records isn’t here, but I wanted to mention this one. Fate/Grand Order is a sort of hybrid. The Fate/Stay anime is based off a visual novel, and the anime became so popular that they launched Fate/Grand Order as a gacha game. The gacha game became so beloved for its story that it, in turn, spawned an anime to hype it further. It’s a vicious circle, unless you’re a fan, then it is a lovely circle.
Cinderella Nine
In living proof that you can sell any sort of game as long as your girls are cute enough, Cinderella Nine is a game based around girls playing baseball. It’s a unique spin for a game, but the anime was pretty meh as sports anime series go. Unless, of course, you enjoy cute girls doing cute things.
Kantai Collection
In an even weirder version of “you can make a game out of anything if the girls are cute enough,” Kantai Colle is a game about ships personified as cute anime girls. I actually don’t have much more to say about this series. It is abundantly clear that the anime was meant to appeal to people who have played the game or at least have an interest in playing the game. This is one of those gacha-to-anime series for the fans rather to try to garner up new interest, which is actually just fine in my book.
There are certainly more anime based off gacha games that even I don’t know about. If you have more that you think need to be recognized, leave them in the comments section below for all those dopamine-starved fans.
