There is plenty of war in anime. It is a pretty easy setting and/or plot motivator. However, not all war anime is created equal. There is anime about war and there is anime that just happens to take place in a war. Anime that takes place in a war tends to be more drama-oriented or is, at very least, used as a venue for a main character to be a Dynasty Warrior’s-style one man army. If you are looking for a deeper war story that focuses on the tactical side of leading men into battle, you aren’t overwhelmed with choice, but you can find some decent strategic gems if you dig deep enough.
Best War Anime With Battle Tactics
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
If you have been looking for strategic anime about war, you have probably already found that this is the first recommendation every single time. However, it is one of those series with a few high bars to entry. First, you have to be able to deal with old animation. Second, you have to be able to deal with sci-fi space combat. If those aren’t deal breakers, then it has the best tactical combat of any anime.
Kingdom
While Kingdom gets the shaft in its animation, it is a series to consider if you are looking for big battles that utilize actual tactics because…That’s a large majority of Kingdom’s substance. It follows a character on his way to the throne in a fictionalized era of Chinese history. They borrow historical tactics, but largely make up their own characters and results. Personally, I recommend the manga, but the anime does still capture some of the military genius of its characters.
The Heroic Legend of Arslan
Arslan becomes a coming-of-age story of a young prince who, on the day of his first battle, sees his kingdom betrayed and watches it fall before trying to take it back. The anime itself has very few large-scale battles, but the ones it does have involve sound tactics. The rest of the anime is more political maneuvering in an attempt gain forces for a counterattack.
Saga of Tanya the Evil
Tactics where you least expect it – in an isekai anime. However, this isn’t just any isekai anime, its not chill or happy or even wish fulfillment for the audience. Instead its about a man reincarnated into a girl who then goes on to be a ruthless tactical soldier in a world ravaged by war. He tactics allow her side to soar, of course.
Angolmois
While Angolmois has some occasional visual problems and leans sometimes superhuman with the character’s physical abilities, it is a historical show focused on the attempted Mongol invasion of Tsushima. You watch them prepare defenses and engage in battles with limited supplies and manpower, gaining advantage through tactics alone.
Alderamin on the Sky
What looks like a absolutely mediocre anime about war between two countries is actually one of the most underrated sleepers when it comes to war anime. Where Alderamin on the Sky really succeeds is putting battle tactics in to a variety of applications. They take you from training exercises to outposts to actual war and show off a variety of tactical maneuvers that the military employs.
As the series is the story about how a lazy and unwilling soldier came to be known as The Invincible Lazy General, the series kind of had to be really detailed in showing his genius. Luckily, it succeeded.
Gate
Perhaps this show isn’t so much about tactics all the time. Mostly it is about watching a military guy travel around with his tiny harem of cute fantasy girls. However, have you ever wanted to watch modern military technology rip apart medieval forces? If the answer is yes, then Gate is for you. There is some strategy used in the battles, but usually it ends the same way – with helicopters spraying apart loaded battlements.
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This series is most notable for doing well to show how much awful war is for the actual soldiers and what they lose with each battle. Alongside that gripping emotional drama, however, is also a series of brilliant minds afield and on overwatch that allow them to succeed against the odds that were stacked against them.
Code Geass
Code Geass is tactical in many things, even with the main character’s supreme power to cheat via his eye powers. However, while it is part school slice of life and part political drama, there is a fair bit of fighting in it too. While Lelouch isn’t the best fighter, his tactics help a rebel force topple an empire in those skirmishes.
Valkyria Chronicles
Based on an actually really fun game, Valkyria Chronicles, the anime, isn’t anything particularly special. However, it has all the things that make you fall in love with the characters and suffer when they suffer. Most importantly, though, the anime still keeps the focus that the game had on what a huge role that good strategy plays in helping a small nation confront an overwhelming invading force.
Beyond the Heavens
For as popular as the Romance of The Three Kingdom is, there sure aren’t many anime series about it. However, Beyond the Heavens is one such beast and is one of the rare gems that portrays Cao Cao as a positive figure as well as an already well-documented brilliant military mind.
Utawarerumono
This series follows a man with no memories who ends up becoming a strategist for the village that found and cared for him. However, the defense isn’t against bandits or creatures, but rather a huge empire that rules through tyranny. Over the course of the series, his tactics help them win battles and transforms the village into a nation.
Marksman and Vanadis
Full disclosure that Marksman and Vanadis becomes a harem anime in that the main character is so cool and strong that all other female warriors bow to his might over the course of the series. On the bright side, it is also one of the less obnoxious harem action series out there. When it does come to the larger scale battles of the war the main character is fighting, he uses both his troops and his super-powered weapon tactically. Although, on the scale of good tactical war anime, this is on the lower side of both being good and tactical if you are looking for very serious shows.
Drifters
While Drifters can have its moments of big shounen-style hero fights, much of the series is about war. Several famous historical figures are brought to a fantasy world and since the main characters are warriors, they decide to conquer it. That war is not waged with overwhelming force, but rather the use of strategy from Oda Nobunaga that helps them even out the playing field.
Do you have more anime recommendations about war where large armies use sound tactics? Let fans know in the comments section below.
