While there are a number of historical, or at least historically-inspired anime, historical anime does tend to have a love affair for specific time periods. When it comes to historical anime set outside of Japan, creators have a specific fondness of Victorian era England.
Defined by the lengthy 63-year reign of Queen Victoria, the Victorian era spanned 1837 through 1901, although because it is such a long time period, many refer to the 19th century as a whole as the Victorian time period.
During this time, the United Kingdom was still a powerhouse across the globe and had a finely honed culture of tea, social hierarchy, and frilly dress that anime creators seem to adore.
If you also enjoy a Victorian aesthetic in anime and are looking for more anime recommendations that capture the magic of the time period, head on down below.
Victorian Anime
Black Butler
Black Butler is the quintessential Victorian anime. It follows a young noble who runs his estate, manages his toy business, and serves Her Majesty Queen Victoria by solving a number of supernatural issues in the country.
However, the core of this story is his quest for revenge. He sold his soul to a demon that serves as his butler in order to reap bloody vengeance on a group of people who assaulted him years ago. Of course, when this revenge is realized, his demon butler gets to consume his soul in payment for his service.
Although outlined as a revenge story, Black Butler most often ends up a mystery-solving anime with a healthy dose of action and interesting supernatural characters.
Moriarty the Patriot
You will find a lot of Sherlock Holmes in Victorian anime, but Moriarty the Patriot breathes new life into old mystery tales by interest following Moriarty, the legendary antagonist of Holmes, as the main character. Instead of solving mysteries, enjoy watching Moriarty cleverly plan murders of corrupt nobility …and occasionally solve murders that he was not involved in.
It is interesting to see the mysteries from the other side morality, and the series creates an even more interesting relationship between Moriarty and Holmes than the stuffy old fiction does.
The Case Study of Vanitas
The steampunk aesthetic is often the Victorian aesthetic, and no series highlights that better – and with more vampires – than The Case Study of Vanitas.
The Case Study of Vanitas features a unique take on vampires where they were created by failed alchemic experimentation. After some lengthy war with humanity, they widely removed themselves to another dimension.
The series explores a human who bears the powers of a legendary (and legendarily shunned) vampire and is the key to solving a plague that is causing vampires to become corrupted and go berserk.
While this Victorian-themed steampunk is filled with vampires, action, and surprisingly deep world building, due to the Holmes and Watson dynamic of the main characters, it often plays out like just another Sherlock Holmes series of mysteries, just with more blood-sucking and super-powered action.
Undead Murder Farce
You will notice that a goodly chunk of Victorian-set anime are mystery solving anime, or even more specifically, supernatural mystery solving anime. While Undead Murder Farce is another for the pile, it sets itself apart by having a healthy dose of style.
In Undead Murder Farce, you follow a trio of detectives – a near-unkillable half-oni stage performer whose oni blood makes him effective at hunting supernatural creatures, the head of an immortal who had her body stolen, and the lady immortals’ maid. Together, they travel and solve seemingly unsolvable mysteries in hopes that they will get clues to a mysterious organization that stole the lady detectives’ immortal body right from under her nose, literally.
Emma: A Victorian Romance
If you are looking for Victorian anime that is a little more Jane Austen and a little less Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Emma provides all the pride and prejudice you can handle in its Victorian romance affair.
This series follows the titular Emma who works as a maid for an aging governess. She meets a man who was once the ward of the governess and they have a romantic connection immediately. However, with Emma being a working class woman and the man being the eldest son of higher aristocracy, the thing that stands in the way of their relationship is not the reciprocation of their feelings, but instead, the social hierarchy and classism of the time period.
Princess Principal
Princess Principal is an alternate history anime that keeps all the classism and fancy dresses of Victorian England, but adds a large does of steampunk and espionage.
Princess Principal takes place in a London that has been divided Berlin Wall-style into two nations after a new mineral was discovered that fostered the rapid technological advance of nations. Now, locking in a Cold War conflict with each other, the greatest weapon a nation can invest in is espionage.
The series follows a group of spies from the opposing country in a prestigious academy behind enemy lines who not just gather information inside the academy, but engage in espionage missions outside of it as well.
Due to its cute and all-female cast, you may think this is Cute Girls Doing Cute Spy Things, but in truth Princess Principal often has some intense missions and even more gripping character drama. It could have easily languished as CGDCT anime, but it crafts an intricate story that elevates it to be legitimately one of the better spy anime series out there.
Earl and Fairy
Due to its dense history of folklore, there are quite a few anime that present Japan as a land rife with spirits that range from benign and insentient to malevolent and violent. However, Earl and Fairy takes that approach to Victorian England.
Earl and Fairy follows a girl who is a fairy doctor in her small Scottish village, despite all her neighbors thinking that is hokum. She is sought out by a handsome roguish noble who asks her to help find a sword that would prove he is the Earl of the fairy kingdom, a title granted by the King of England to bring fairies under his rule.
What follows is a romantic (often contentious) love affair balanced out with supernatural-based mysteries and dark character intrigue. Earl and Fairy may be a fairly old school shoujo romance at this point, but good stories never age – and this is one of them.
The Tale of Outcasts
In this supernatural-laced Victorian anime, demons exist among the populace and typically cannot be seen aside from a select few. One of those select few is a young orphan girl who becomes friends with a lonely and bored immortal that is among a rank for demons renowned for legendary power.
After the pair become friends, they get embroiled in conflict between others who befriended demons and the royal order that is charged with killing any and all demons.
In should be said that The Tale of Outcasts is a series for those that like both the Victorian aesthetic and the furry aesthetic, because it features both prominently.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
As Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is a generational adventure, its different parts span a variety of time periods. However, the entire bizarre adventure started in ye olde Victorian England with the first of the Joestars.
Originally following Jonathan Joestar, young English noble and gentleman extraordinaire, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part One – Phantom Blood sets up the Joestars’ relationship with Dio, a rapscallion who would go on to be one of the major antagonists of this generational tale.
Phantom Blood may be the least bizarre and often least beloved part of Jojo, but it is a crucial foundation to the adventure to come and is quintessentially Victorian.
The Mystic Archives of Dantalian
After the death of his grandfather, a man heads to his estate to deal with his large collection of rare books. There, he discovers a mysterious girl taking care of his library. He also learns that his grandfather wasn’t just any old eccentric, he was collecting forbidden tomes that contained magic which proved dangerous to humanity.
Seeing the dangers these books pose with his own eyes, he agrees to help the girl in his grandfather’s place to secure them.
The Mystic Archives of Dantalian is a surprisingly intriguing set up that is carried by its character dynamic and often held back by the low budget its creation was. Its plot of collecting forbidden books is the perfect set up that allows it to explore a number of small mystery stories and surprisingly dark phenomenon.
Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth
While these days the concept of a stranger in a strange land is used most in isekai, Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth explores a historical East-meets-West tale when a Japanese girl moves to Paris in the 1800s where she works as a live-in maid at a metalworking shop.
Unlike other Victorian anime where the plot is motivated by fantasy action or romance, Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth is very much a slice of life series. You watch a Japanese girl and her culture intermingle with a French blacksmith and his culture.
Pandora Hearts
While Pandora Hearts takes place in a fictional world, it is one of those fictional worlds that fully embraces the Victorian aesthetic due to its heavy Alice in Wonderland inspirations.
Pandora Hearts follows a young noble boy who, on the the day of his coming-of-age ceremony, is forced into the Abyss, a nightmarish alternate dimension. There, he terms up with Alice, a monster from the Abyss, in order to return home.
Think of Pandora Hearts like an abridged re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, but shounen action anime.
Code: Realize
Code: Realize follows a girl whose body contains a deadly substance that prevents her from touching anyone. As the object embedded in her body by her father that produces the substance can produce infinite energy, she is taken by the British military before being simultaneously stolen from them by master thief Arsene Lupin. This kickstarts her journey to discover the truth behind the substance as well as recover her missing memories.
Code:Realize is an anime adaptation of a visual novel. Unfortunately, like is the fate for many visual novel anime adaptations, it pales in comparison to its source. It dabbles in many concepts and struggles to realize them as fully as its source material did.
Devils and Realist
Devils and Realist follows a young noble who learns that despite his noble lineage, mismanagement of his estate has caused his family to go bankrupt. Going home to ransack his estate for valuables, he finds a secret room where he accidentally summons a demon.
It seems money troubles will now be the least of his problems as he is declared the Elector who is the only one able to select a temporary successor for Lucifer, King of Hell, who has recently fallen into a deep sleep.
While a recently broke noble dealing with the inter-hell tensions between demons who have to deal with the external tensions with heaven seems like a recipe for action, Devils and Realist is distinctly more of a comedy drama than anything else.
Gosick
Consider Gosick an honorable mention as it is technically set in a fictional European country after World War II to cleverly avoid having to accurately portray any of the complicated European politics of the time period.
That said, while it does not take place in the Victorian Era, Gosick sure does capture the aesthetic as if Victorian garb and mannerism are as much the stereotype to Europe as the kimono and bushido code are to Japan.
If you were looking not so much for a legitimate Victorian setting, but more so enjoy the Victorian aesthetic in anime, Gosick fully embraces it.
This series follows what is essentially a small blonde Sherlock Holmes-esque detective and the man she roped into being her Watson as they solve mysteries that seem supernatural, but always have a culprit firmly based in reality.
The series features a variety of clever mysteries as well as a character dynamic that carries the show. The relationship invests you enough by the end that you need to see how their character arcs end, and if the oft-hinted romance between them is realized.
Do you have more anime set in the Victorian Era or at least capturing the Victorian aesthetic that people seem to love? Let fans know in the comments section below.
