The paranormal is everything beyond the scope of human scientific understanding. Espers, aliens, ghosts, everything that supernatural and sometimes sci-fi anime uses to be creepy. However, just because the paranormal can be creepy doesn’t need it always needs to be. Sometimes, these things beyond normal scientific understanding can be great devices for comedy, too.
If you enjoy your paranormal, but are also in the mood for a laugh, give these paranormal comedy anime recommendations a try.
Best Paranormal Comedy Anime
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.
If he were so inclined, the titular Saiki could take over the world with his extremely powerful psychic abilities.
Instead, the show is about him doing everything in his power to live a low-key normal life. Not only do his powers present problems, he is also surrounded by people who present various problems to his peaceful existence.
Mieruko-chan
The simple synopsis of Mieruko-chan is “a girl that can see ghosts and pretends not to.” Now that doesn’t seem especially interesting or even comical, but it finds a way.
While occasionally prone to light ecchi between the actions of some of the more horny ghosts and camera angles, much of the jokes come from the main character trying to remains sufficiently disinterested looking to not get a reaction from the ghost.
While straight-faced on the outside, her inner monologue is where the jokes dwell as she understandably freaks out.
Hinamatsuri
In Hinamatsuri, a girl with powerful psychic powers crashes into a yakuza man. She offers to let him use her powers in return for help, but he refuses to use her as a tool. Instead they form a wholesome new partnership.
Now this could easily be played seriously. You know, where they form that found family bond and then someone tries to take her back to some lab for drama later.
However, Hinamatsuri makes a joke out of everything about that situation. Even in parts where you should be sad as she has to leave home, it is undercut right away with a joke. It actually makes for a pretty effective mix at both keeping the comedy while also advancing a slow plot.
Ghost Stories
If you are the sort of anime fan to watch only subtitled anime, this recommendation is not applicable. Due to some issues when it came time to dub Ghost Stories for the West, this shounen ghost hunting show became a raunchy comedy thanks to the English dub cast kind of just having fun with it.
Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun
Not all paranormal comedies are like The Disastrous Life of Saiki K or Hinamatsuri where everything is just all jokes and minimal plot. Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun has an actually somewhat sinister seeming plot that is is following.
However, while it is doing that, its overly cute child characters are often acting like children might. The comedy here comes from the many slice of life moments of human students interacting with the primary joke of the series – a boy ghost who bears the name of a toilet ghost who is traditionally female in Japanese mythology.
Zombieland Saga
For a goodly portion of their mythos, zombies have sat firmly in the horror genre. Zombieland Saga changes all that by making a silly idol group of zombie idols.
Most of the girls are former idols from Japanese history, resurrected to join a new group made up of all of zombies in make up pretending to be human. The series has a great variety of jokes thanks to its diverse cast of girls from various eras of history, and it also has a few decent songs.
Gegege no Kitaro
This series was rebooted in 2018 for the 50th anniversary, so now it looks slick but still has all the earmarks of the old series. Like a number of supernatural series, Gegege no Kitaro is an episodic show about a ghost and his human companion solving spiritual problems to keep the peace between ghosts and humans.
However, whereas shows like Natsume’s Book of Friends or Mushishi, for example, tends to have serious problems all the time and a touch of melancholy throughout, Gegege no Kinatro is as silly just as much as it is serious. It is a show for a younger audience, but is filled with both fun and fear.
Mob Psycho 100
Very similar to The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, Mob Psycho 100 is about a boy with magnificent psychic powers who really doesn’t use them. Instead, they pursue normal interests like getting a girl to like him.
As the titular Mob gets taken advantage of by a charismatic, not very powerful at all professional psychic, the show becomes a bit heavier on action as it goes on. However, they keep thing pretty light outside of fights with silly character designs and sillier situations.
The Vampire Dies in No Time
Vampires are kind of easy comedy since when you live forever, it seems like you would also develop a bit of eccentricity. The Vampire Dies in No Time is that. In the vampire lore of this world, a vampire gains incredible power only by having terrible weaknesses as well.
For one such vampire, his weakness is pretty much everything. He lives in infamy, but when a vampire hunter infiltrates his castle, he gets caught up in this innocent vampire’s silliness.
The Eccentric Family
As the series has a plot based around a brutal murder, it must be said that The Eccentric Family focuses as much on drama as it does on comedy.
However, because it follows the eccentric characters of the unseen side of Kyoto, it is filled with just that – characters. Everyone is uniquely strange and that is what acts as the comedy to balance out the more serious sides of the show.
Hoozuki’s Coolheadedness
The comedy of Hoozuki’s Coolheadedness is not set around the obvious joke of the setting, which is that Hell is a tedious bureaucracy. Instead, the comedy comes from the only level-headed person in all of Hell basically running it like a eccentric, but well-oiled machine.
You see fiercesome demon beasts humbled by his prowess and charisma. It is refreshing to see Hell creatures acting more humanly flawed and less demonically menacing.
Interviews With Monster Girls
Monster girls in anime are portrayed as everything from thirsty for blood to thirsty for flesh. However, there are only a few series that cover the slice of life side of being a monster girl, and even less about portraying the problems that come from that.
This series follows a high school teacher studying three demi-human high school girls and his co-worker. It gets into all the inconvenient situations that come from monster traits in a light and often comedic way.
Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs
If ecchi is more your idea for comedy, then this is a show for you. It follows a homeless psychic who agrees to exorcise a malicious ghost in exchange for a place to live.
However, the ghost turns out to not only be a cute girl, but everyone living in the inn is able to see her due to their own paranormal abilities. It is essentially a big dorm full of quirky characters, so of course the comedy would follow.
Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun
All supernatural shounen shows have an element of comedy to keep things light, but they also tend to focus in hard on action. Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun is a show that, while it has action, tends to keep on the very light side of shounen.
The fights can have some weight to them, but most every episode is light-hearted and filled with silliness as this human boy tries to adapt to the demon world of his new adoptive father.
Vlad Love
This is yet another vampire comedy built around eccentricity. However, in Vlad Love, the eccentric one is more the human character while the vampire acts more of like her archetype.
This little comedy with hints of girl’s love for the shippers is about a girl with rare, but useless blood shacking up with a vampire who can’t suck blood that saves her. They are a fun odd couple that play well off each other comedically.
Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt
While many of the paranormal comedy anime series here are pure comedies, they are rather safe and tame comedies.
If you crave something more raunchy like the Ghost Stories dub and want a comedy that really isn’t afraid to dive into those dark and edgy crevices for its jokes, Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt is for you. It is essentially about two badly behaved angels trying to buy their way back into Heaven by exterminating ghosts.
Gugure! Kokkuri-san
Gugure! Kokkuri-san has a similar synopsis to a more popular anime, Meddlesome Kitsune Senko-san. They both follow a fox spirit noticing a human that can’t take care of them and deciding to step in. However, what makes Gugure, Kokkuri-san a comedy and Meddlesome Kitsune,Senko-san not as much?
Well, Senko has some comedy, but it is more a wholesome show about healing an overworked salaryman through love and care. Gugure, Kokkuri-san is instead about a grumpy fox spirit growing soft but frustrated by a girl who can’t take care of herself.
Gintama
While much of the series on here surround the paranormal occurrences of spirits and psychics, aliens are technically paranormal too. This means Gintama and its many shenanigans, some of them centering around an alien-invaded Edo era Japan, fits the bill as a paranormal comedy.
While it makes a number of parody jokes, Gintama is a show where there is a little type of comedy for everyone.
Do you have more paranormal comedy anime recommendations? Let fans know in the comments section below.
