17 Action Anime About Monster Hunting

Certainly you can craft some memorable villains out of humans, but when it comes to the most deadly enemies of an anime series – it can only be monsters. Large and with infinitely more options to be deadly, monsters raise the stakes in action anime. If you are looking for anime series about monster hunting, you have a lot of good options.

Best Monster Hunting Anime

Claymore

The entire premise of Claymore is that there is an order of all-female warriors, infused with Yoma blood in order to fight Yoma. They are shunned by normal humans because of their infusion and lead miserable short lives filled with little happiness or peace. The series explores a few backstories and the brief relationships that these women explore before showing them enduring brutal fights.

Rising of the Shield Hero

In The Rising of the Shield Hero, the heroes need to grow stronger in order for a wave-like battle that is on the horizon. In these waves, numerous and powerful monsters appear and need to be fought off. Naofumi, the shield hero, not only focuses on leveling his battle power outside of these fights, but pretty much cleans up the unintended messes caused by the other heroes. As he is defensive, he needs to be a little more creative with his attacks against these monsters.

Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

As this anime is essentially a dungeon crawler, you will be exposed to a number of monsters of all power levels. At first, since the main character is pretty weak, they start off pretty small. However, you watch him get stronger and gather loot from the corpses of his defeated foes until it builds up to some truly large and challenging enemies.

God Eater

Based off a series of games that are essentially monster hunting games, God Eater is about fighting off the monster horde that threatens humanity. Although the CGI can be distracting in non-battle sequences, they make good use of it when it comes to huge, horrible, and violent monsters.

Goblin Slayer

As it is about a guy solely focused on killing goblins even though there are numerous other creatures that need slaying, you might think this little monster murder spree would be pretty boring. However, goblins have a pretty detailed hierarchy that means there are some complex battles ahead.

Demon Slayer

While it takes a few episodes before you get to see some of the more interesting demons, once Demon Slayer gets going, it doesn’t stop. With monsters based on Shinto and Buddhist lore, it has a distinct stylistic element to it that makes the battles a visual thrill to watch.

Grimgar of Ash and Fantasy

If you are looking for a fantasy series where the characters don’t just start off super overpowered, this is for you. In Grimgar, the characters end up in a fantasy world and it turns out fighting monster is a little harder than you’d think. The characters go through a lot of struggles to get stronger, and the only way to do that is to fight.

Dororo

It is a tale as old as time – your dad gave away all your organs and body parts to demons and allowed them to roam free. Dororo is about that man and his young orphan companion traveling the countryside to defeat these demons and get his bits back using a complex set of battle prosthetics.

Attack on Titan

You can’t talk about monster hunting anime without a nod to Attack on Titan these days. While the majority of the monsters just look like big humans that eat small humans, some of the more unique titans have very distinct designs. Unfortunately, the further you get in the series, the less about monster hunting it becomes.

Inuyasha

As it turns out, Feudal Japan was awash with demons of all sizes. Some of them inexplicably more human-like than others, but this series is about fighting them in all shapes and sizes. Awash in endless battles, Inuyasha may not be as innovative in its fights, but it has a large variety of monsters.

Berserk

Berserk tells the story of a mercenary that finds his place in the world with a mercenary group. However, things happen and the world becomes overrun with huge, terrifying demons and suddenly this mercenary is on a quest for revenge. While that doesn’t do a great job of selling it, Berserk, at least the 1997 version, tells an amazing story with one of the most shocking endings of all time. Unfortunately, that part of the story has much less of a focus on monster hunting.

Black Bullet

In Black Bullet, humanity is plagued by a parasitic virus that turns humans into horrific monsters. Naturally, they can only be fought by those who were exposed to trace amounts of the virus and given superhuman abilities. Paired with a normal human partner, the series sends these pairs out to battle imminent threats.

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress

Much like aforementioned Attack on Titan, Black Bullet, or God Eater, humanity is once again pushed back behind walls in this series by horrible flesh-eating monsters. While the Kanbane are less creatively designed than some other monsters, they are infinitely more vicious, crafting this into a pretty visceral series.

Garo

In a world threatened by horrific creatures aptly named Horrors, a group of knights is tasked with protecting the populace. However, the twist is that the people are being manipulated into turning on these knights, adding a nice layer of intrigue into this monster hunter.

Tower of Druaga

Much in the way of some other series here, Tower of Druaga is a dungeon crawler series about a group trying to get to the top of a tower. Every episode is them battling endless hordes and trying to surpass powerful bosses. The plot is a little basic, but the action is there.

Terraformars

If you are tired with too much plot getting in the way of your action anime series, Terraformars is for you. Admittedly, the monsters – in this case muscly cockroach men on Mars – are a bit same-y. However, the people that fight them, infused with animal DNA and monsters in their own right, have plenty of diversity. Considering that the first season is almost non-stop fighting, there is plenty of action.

Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On

Being a big fan of Capcom’s Monster Hunter series of games, I can’t in good conscious recommend this as the best recommendation here, but it is about monster hunting none-the-less. While it suffers being aimed at a younger audience and gets a bit meandering in the second half, if you enjoy monster hunting and Monster Hunter, you can get a few good moments from it.

Do you have any more anime recommendations about monster hunting? Let fans know in the comments section below.