Cowboys, outlaws, lawmen – They are all iconic to the long-gone lawless days of the Wild West.
While cattle drives and saloon towns have been replaced by Starbucks runs and spa towns in many of those once-lawless areas of the American west, media still keeps alive that brief period of history.
While only a spare few anime series can be compared to true Western movies and even less take place in the actual Wild West, they can often capture the same spirit.
If you are interested in seeing what cowboy-feel anime Westerns can capture, then mosey on down below to browse these Wild West-inspired anime recommendations.
Best Wild West Anime
Trigun
A more distinctly Western anime you will never find. While many other series have some Western themes, Trigun fully embraces melding sci-fi, space, and the Wild West into a very successful setting and long-beloved anime series.
Trigun is set on a desert planet that highly resembles the idea of frontier life in the Wild West. It features everything from the barren endless desert to the saloon towns all while its gun-slinging outlaw with a heart of gold main character wanders looking for a specific man.
While the plot travels into more sci-fi territory at times, much of it is Vash seeking to settle things with his brother and fighting those that seek to kill him in epic gun fights.
*Note: There is a difference between Trigun and the newer Trigun Stampede. Both are solid entries as well as anime Westerns, but the original Trigun is distinctly more Western in many respects. Trigun Stampede, the re-imagining of the original story, often highlights more of the sci-fi elements.
Gun Frontier
This series is particularly unique. It is an alternate setting of the Space Pirate Captain Harlock universe in which Captain Harlock is not a space captain, but a ship captain.
He heads to the United States with Tochiro, his samurai friend, and they tear up the Wild West looking for lost Japanese immigrants.
If you are into Wild West tropes from too many old Westerns, this is one for the books.
El Cazador de la Bruja
Although the setting looks somewhat Western, El Cazador de la Bruja actually takes place in Mexico with a world that is relatively technically advanced. However, its south-of-the-border setting pairs perfectly with the Wild West themes it presents.
The story of El Cazador de la Bruja follows a bounty hunter who, instead of capturing her charge and turning her in, decides to protect her amnesiac ward as they travel to and ancient city that holds the key to her memories.
There’s danger abound on the open road, especially with other bounty hunters looking to bring this girl in.
Cowboy Bebop
Anime has a certain penchant for the genre of “space westerns,” and Cowboy Bebop is one of the quintessential ones.
Despite happening in a universe where humans travel space as they please, it is presented as the “new” Wild West. A frontier rife with lawlessness. Enter the Bebop Crew, a crew of ragtag bounty hunters brought together through circumstance and constantly chasing criminals to put meat on the table.
Spike is certainly as cool as a lawman of old, and the rest of the crew also displays some classic Western character tropes as well. However, the only dusty frontier in Cowboy Bebop is the vast expanse of space.
Outlaw Star
Outlaw Star simultaneous combines space opera, pirate, and Western themes into a tidy, lovable anime classic.
It follows a young man that wants to someday have a space ship of his own. To follow this dream, he takes on a series of odd jobs, but one of them actually ends up with him being on the run with a treasure-hunting outlaw. From there, this skyrockets the crew in to a universe full of adventure.
While Outlaw Star, at a glance, doesn’t look like much of an anime Western, the heart of the Wild West is really in the plot and character attitudes rather than the setting.
Coyote Ragtime Show
While Cowboy Bebop and Trigun both rose to great popularity, Coyote Ragtime Show remains quite underrated. However, as another “space Western” anime, it shares a lot of the same Western themes primarily due to the fact that it follows a few outlaws on a good, old-fashioned treasure hunt.
The gun play and the hard-fightin’, cigar-chawin’, lady-liftin’ main character give you that great Wild West vibe even if it lacks the depth of plot of some of its peers.
Gun x Sword
Gun X Sword is what I like to call a “samurai Western”.
In it, you have a lone swordsman on a quest for vengeance, but like any good Western story, he happens across a girl that needs his help.
Initially he declines, but after a run-in with bandits, he agrees to help since they ticked him off enough.
Gruff loner? Innocent girl? Story of vengeance against a man only identified by one characteristic? Bandits? It is a classic Western story mixed mixed right in with a classic samurai ronin story.
It actually works quite well for how deeply steeped in tropes it is.
Grenadier
While cheesy as hell in terms of plot, Grenadier is a Western-themed anime with a female gunslinger as the main character.
Although she is an expert with a gun, instead of fighting, she goes around taking away people’s will to fight with a smile. Of course, when that fails, as it often does, she uses fan service and bullets!
While perhaps not as action-heavy and interesting as other anime Westerns, Grenadier is worth a watch because its anime positivity is unintentionally funny.
Desert Punk
Desert Punk is post-apocalypse anime meets anime Western to very silly results.
After the world ended, what was left reverted to very much how the Wild West was. Japan became a great, lawless desert where most struggled to eek out an existence.
You have good guys and bad guys, but mostly you have morally ambiguous people that work in shades of grey. Furthermore, this time, not unlike the Wild West, is a time where you can take odd jobs to make ends meet. No need for a dedicated profession when you can be literally everything.
Desert Punk follows the titular little character whose skill is a thing of legend, a legend only rivaled by his lecherous desires.
Gungrave
You may think we picked Gungrave purely because Grave wears a cowboy hat in the future, but you’d wrong!
We actually picked Gungrave because the first part of the anime heavily mirrors a lot of Western themes despite being in a somewhat modern, often more Prohibition Era Mafia-themed world.
Gungrave focuses on a group of criminals, not unlike your average outlaws, that end up joining a Mafia family. While this is happening, you witness a lawless and almost hopeless city where you never see police and gangs often rule the streets.
While the future arc changes to more sci-fi tones, you still get yourself a classic Western-esque plot line of revenge with a ton of gun-slinging.
Sabikui Bisco
Just like there aren’t a lot of new Western movies made these days, there aren’t a ton of new entries in the anime Western genre. And Sabikui Bisco is not perhaps the classic anime Western you desire.
In Sabikui Bisco, the world has been eaten away by rust. Much of Japan is a vast desert and even humanity is suffering from rust disease blown in the air. This disease was originally blamed on mushrooms, but Bisco, a mushroom keeper, searches for the mushroom that will cure the ailment.
As mushrooms are vilified, Bisco is painted as a mushroom terrorist for his ability to grow mushrooms wherever his arrows land.
Sabikui Bisco embraces a lot of anime Western tropes without being as obvious about it. However, while doing that, it paints a distinctly more interesting story that the usual tired Western tales.
In truth, there aren’t a lot of Western-themed anime out there, just like there aren’t a lot of good samurai movies made by Hollywood, you know? If we missed another good anime Western, let fans know in the comments section below.
