Comedy, slice of life, and spokon anime may feature multiple main characters, all with their importance and relevance to the plot.
If you are like us and want to watch something different from the usual, this is the right place. Tired of anime where the main character does everything? We are too, and this listicle can help you.
Let’s see what are the best anime without an actual protagonist, in which the cast is quite large and there are several points of view.
This listicle is purely based on our opinions and knowledge.
Table of Contents
13. Tsuredure Children
Tsuredure Children is a 2017 anime based on a yonkoma manga. The beauty of this anime is that chronicles the lives of many high school students, without overfocusing on a specific one.
We will see these boys and girls, all protagonists in their way, living their youth between study, love, joys, and disappointments.
This set of shorts makes its cast extremely relatable and you will feel part of the events. That’s one of the main reasons why we love it and recommend it to anyone who wants a fresh experience.
Since Tsurezure Children has a wide array of characters, we are almost sure there will be some characters that will bring back some memories of high school.
12. Genshiken
Genshiken is a very light school comedy released in 12 episodes.
It tells the story of Sasahara Kanji, a freshman at Tokyo Shiiou college.
When it comes time to choose a school club she hesitates quite a bit but eventually opts for the Genshiken, a group of diverse otaku who have failed to fit in with the classic clubs.
From this point on, he will experience a great deal together with them.
An anime that by nature has little action, but chronicles the days of the club members in a calm and relaxed atmosphere that will make you feel part of the events.
And this is mainly because although the story starts from Sasahara’s eyes, we won’t see an actual protagonist.
Each member of the club will have his or her importance, role, and screen time.
11. Daily life of High School Boys
A very light and enjoyable school comedy of only 12 episodes released in 2012.
The comedy tells the ordinary events of Tadakuni, Hidenori, Yoshitake, and their other classmates at a boys’ high school.
And of course what can be their main target if not girls?
Daily life of High School Boys is the classic nonsense comedy, encompassing a set of situations bordering on the absurd with a Lucky Star-style plot, but with a male cast.
So think of it as the male counterpart of the cute-girls-doing-cute things, if you want an improper point of view.
10. Asobi Asobase
An anime that to call demented would be a compliment, even though it has some room for mature themes.
It chronicles the daily lives of 3 classmates: Hanako, good at board games but scared of her older sister’s demands; Olivia, a blond foreigner with problems with English; Kasumi, a serious and composed girl.
All of them will hold their own excellently and have complementary personalities, with none standing out over another.
This creates a good balance and gives an equal voice to all the 3 heroines, something you don’t see in anime where there is a dominant female lead.
The animation style is apt to express the nonsense that permeates this anime, with frequent over-the-top scenes.
9. Free!
Free! is undoubtedly the number one spokon anime about swimming.
Haruka Nanase, Makoto Tachibana, Nagisa Hazuki, and Rin Matsuoka are swimming phenoms, and just before they leave elementary school, they win a prestigious competition.
Years pass and the 4 have now split up. Haruka lives his boring high school life, but meeting Rin will lead the two to reform the old team with the addition of Rei Ryugazaki. The only goal? To win every competition.
Free! is an excellent spokon, with fleshed-out protagonists. If you are fond of swimming or practicing it, then it’s the perfect anime for you.
8. Lucky Star
Lucky Star looks like a cute anime but it’s actually adapted from a seinen manga and covers some more mature themes.
It follows the daily routine of the 4 protagonists, namely pretty high school students. Konata Izumi, the lazy otaku, twins Tsukasa and Kagami Hiragi, and intelligent Miyuki Takara.
We will always see them together, and this enhances their synergy in terms of interactions and leads to some bizarre situations.
This close-knit group is one of the best you can ever meet and strikes the right balance between comedy and entertainment.
Their eccentric and lively friendship provides amusing observations about the world around them and life in general.
7. Fate Zero
This anime from 2011 is based on the light novel by Gen Urobuchi and narrates the Fourth Holy Grail War events 10 years before Fate/stay night. So Zero is a prequel for all intents and purposes.
There will be many characters that we will see a return in Fate/Stay Night, such as Saber and other Servants.
But the real feather in the cap and protagonist is Kiritsugu Emiya, Shirou’s father, which we will finally see after hearing about it often in the main series.
But contrary to how it seems, he won’t be the absolute protagonist of the story.
There will be many others, such as Saber, Kirei, Irisveil, Rider, and Waver, who will play their pivotal roles, and without even one of them, the story couldn’t have moved forward.
6. Nichijou
An anime that can be summed up in one word, oozing from every pore: dementia. Nichijou literally translates as everydayness, and it makes the most mundane things exciting.
We are catapulted into gag-story episodes full of comic-demotic scenes with also dirty jokes that paint the lives of a group of out-of-the-ordinary students and their paradoxical experiences.
Robot girls with a spring loader on their backs, deer in class between school desks, and more will be just among the more normal things you’ll watch.
Amid all this incredible welter of events and scenes without the slightest logical thread, can there be a protagonist?
If you want to get lots of laughs and embark on a vision outside the norm, don’t think twice.
5. Honey and Clover
Honey & Clover combines slice-of-life with a lot of love triangles.
The story chronicles the lives of 5 boys (3 boys, 2 girls) who go about their daily lives while attending a fine arts academy college.
The highlights of this anime are the depth of characters and their variety, a necessary trait if you want to build your plot on triangles and affairs.
Honey & Clover is one of the perfect examples of why this narrative device can work. Having one main lead forces the plot to move around them, causing problems in how all the other characters are introduced and characterized.
But this isn’t the only reason, you should also watch it because it’s a great romance.
4. Kuroko’s Basketball
Kuroko’s Basketball is an anime focused, of course, on basketball released from 2012 to 2015 in as many as 75 episodes.
The Teiko Middle School basketball club is most famous for its frightening strength, with a team so skilled that they have been dubbed the miracle generation.
But after middle school, the players scattered around different high schools, based on which had the strongest team. Except for Kuroko, who chose a secondary one, preferring fun and team play.
But don’t be fooled by the last sentence, the protagonist of the events is not Kuroko. You will follow the stories of all the players of the miracle generation and their lives in the different teams, especially Kagami.
3. Non Non Biyori
A purely comic anime of the slice-of-life genre released in 2013 in 12 episodes.
Hotaru Ichijo is a girl who moves from Tokyo to a country town and adapts to the slow pace of the place. Here she will meet her new companions, with who she will spend her days in a quiet countryside background.
All the girls will be protagonists in the story, as we will always see them together.
An anime that is ideal for relaxing, since it depicts everyday life in a bucolic setting with a lot of space for comedy and cute things.
Non Non Biyori is also a must for memes and to spend some time with a chill show.
2. Baccano!
This is an anime tv show based on a series of light novels written by Ryohgo Narita.
The plot is set in the US during the 1930s. It involves a war that breaks out between various mafia gangs in America during the Prohibition Era.
And this aspect is well rendered, with customs and traditions that look like a real photograph.
There will also be a touch of the supernatural, as the war between these gangs is caused by the research of an elixir of immortality.
But one of the special features of the anime is that it in no way has a protagonist.
Each member of the main gang, the Jacuzzi’s Gang, is a protagonist in their way as made clear during the first moments of the anime.
1. Durarara
Durarara!!! is based on Ryōgo Narita’s light novel of the same name, which was also later transposed into a manga, and it’s one of the best anime set in modern day Tokyo.
The story is set in the Ikebukuro district where the protagonist Ryugamine Mikado moves to. Here he will be warned about the various criminal gangs that infest the area, especially the Dollars.
As soon as he arrives, he will also come across a Dullahan in the guise of a headless motorcyclist riding a motorcycle with headlights off.
The strong point of the series is the storytelling, and it’s quite strange for first-time watchers as there is no main character.
Durarara!!! is a continuous weaving of stories and characters, and it is not so abstract to say that the real protagonist is the city that houses all these excellent personalities.
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