The term “road trip” tends to be a little specific, but not all road trips need to happen on a road. Road trip-themed anime are more about the journey than the destination. They are more about the adventures and friends that they found along the way. In fact, a good deal of anime have some element of road trip plots to them as characters often need to travel. However, some series focus on the journey a little better than others, allowing you to really get a broad sense for the world.
Best Road Trip Anime
Kino’s Journey
There is perhaps no more iconic road trip anime out there. Kino’s Journey has a plot that is summed up in the title. A girl named Kino travels on her talking motorcycle and never spends more than a small amount of time in any one place. The plot is the absolute perfect framing device for telling a number of small stories about their diverse world.
El Cazador de la Bruja
While this series was never the most popular kid on the block, it did excel in crafting a road trip-type journey. Sure, it is about two girls that are constantly being chased through South America by bounty hunters, but that element makes things often feel more urgent. You know that because they are pursued, they will find trouble in every place they end up.
Samurai Champloo
This series does something common in journey-type anime series. It sets up a very vague goal and just lets the strong character make their own adventures. It focuses up on the ultimate destination by the end, but the lion’s share of the series is a girl and her two bodyguards getting into trouble in every new place they visit.
Michiko and Hatchin
Nothing like a coming-of-age road trip with a busty criminal, right? Michiko and Hatchin is about Michiko, aforementioned busty criminal, looking for a man and using the child of said man to try and track him down and / or lure him out. It is a weird pairing for sure, but it captures real road trip vibes as they work their way around the seedier parts of fictionalized South America.
Girls’ Last Tour
What’s one last road trip at the end of the world? That’s Girls’ Last Tour. Two girl are rolling on through a world that has ended. They aren’t the last people on the planet, but they are very close. It is often melancholic, but it does a good job of adding in nice moments even if they will never fully feel like happy ones given the heavy tone.
Takt Op. Destiny
Takt adds music to the the road trip formula by making it kind of a central part to the world and the battles that happen within. This series features three characters on a road trip across America as they fight any music-adverse aliens that get in their path. That makes it sound rather stupid, but while Takt can be faulted for lacking deeper substance in the plot department, it has stunning visuals and their road trip does showcase a unique cast of crazy characters.
Moribito
After his father decides that his son must die to prevent famine, the young prince’s mother hires a mercenary to spirit him away. This female mercenary ends up bonding with the boy as they essentially flee for their lives. As such, it is a bit more of a hectic road trip, and they do even settle down in one area eventually. However, a major element of this show is how the mercenary teaches this sheltered prince about the finer details of the world, and journeys are often about expanding your understanding of the world.
Spice and Wolf
At face value, the plot in Spice and Wolf is super basic. A wolf goddess who wasn’t being worshiped by her village after they grow more modern makes a visiting merchant give her a ride home. Of course, that trip isn’t a straight line. They get into shenanigans, grow closer, and explain the finer points of medieval economics. While their world definitely has some fantasy elements, this series is one of the more grounded road trips.
Katanagatari
This series is one of those that has the most basic of journey plots, but is carried by its strong characters. Katanagatari follows a pair that are collecting a series of blades for the Shogun. Of course, they aren’t swords just stuck in stones somewhere, they also need to beat the people that wield them. While it is essentially just traveling to the next battle, the visuals of this series and the fun characters make it feel like a trip through a vibrant world.
Rolling Girls
If there were some hypothetical award for most interesting road trip anime plot, Rolling Girls would 100% be the frontrunner for it. The series follows a girl traveling across dystopian Japan that is now divided into several different nations and run by gangs. She is trying to complete a series of requests on behalf of the leader of her chosen gang which takes her all over this brilliant new world on her motorbike.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures
You may think this is a placeholder until Steel Ball Run gets animated, and you’d only be a little right. While that arc is more quintessentially road trip-themed, what is Stardust Crusaders if not a big old boys trip around the world? If they aren’t stopping to fight some tarot card-themed stand user, you know what they are doing? Traveling. It allows them to meet a lot of people and showcase a lot of different locales.
Wolf’s Rain
Wolf’s Rain is yet another melancholic sort of road trip. The series follows wolves who can turn into humans as they travel across a dying world hoping to reach paradise. The ambiguous destination of “paradise” is said to be a place that only wolves can open the way to. However, as wolves after rare and the world is quietly dying, there are very few happy moments on their trip.
Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina
We mentioned Kino’s Journey above, and as a classic anime staple, you may have already seen in. However, Wandering Witch is very much like an even more fantasy-themed spiritual successor to that. It is about a cute girl witch who just travels. She meets people, briefly becomes part of their lives, and moves on to a new place to experience new adventures.
Somali and the Forest Guardian
There are no shortage of anime series about an older person who acts like a parental figure to a too-cute child. However, typically the pair aren’t traveling like they are in this series. Somali and The Forest Guardian is about a golem trying to return a child to humans, who have become rather rare in their fantasy land. Their travels not only highlight how they bond together, but serve to showcase the fantastic world they live in and how different fantasy creatures coexist without the destructive influence of humanity.
A Place Further Than the Universe
It isn’t exceptionally often that you happen across an anime with a clear and ridiculous destination in mind that realistically takes the characters there, but this is one such rare beast. A Place Further Than The Universe is about a group of regular school girls who want to go to Antarctica. It doesn’t just take them there with the power of friendship either. It details very realistic steps that they need to take to get there. This series doesn’t take them all over the world like some other series here, but it is a very much a journey among friends.
I’m entirely sure that there are more road trip anime series that I have missed. If you have a good one, let fans know in the comments section down below.
