8 Best Anime With Death Games

Nothing gets the heart pumping like a good death game anime. In these games, players must either work together or fight against each other to achieve a goal that will set them free. In some cases, it’s a fight to the last person standing. Other times, there is a reward at the end of the games that every player wants for themselves.

Regardless, death games are an interesting way to get viewers invested in each character and keep them on the edge of their seats as they wonder which of their favorites will survive. From the streets of Japan to the afterlife itself, these are the eight best death game anime.

8

Danganronpa 3

One Final Killing Game

While the Danganronpa anime is an abridged version of the events of the game, Danganronpa 3 offers two different anime in one. This is the hope side and the despair side. Each one takes place at separate points in the timeline, with the Despair arc showing the first killing game caused by Junko Enoshima.

Meanwhile, the Hope arc shows another killing game in which players must discover who among them is a behind the murders. With blackout periods between murders and actions that will trigger an instant death, this is Danganronpa at it’s finest, with many fan favorite characters returning to take center stage.

7

Future Diary

Don’t Forget To Check Your Messages

Future Diary is a death game anime with a unique twist. Each player has a chance to become a god, and to do so, they need to be the last one standing. To help them defeat the other players, the God Deus EX Machina grants each player a phone-like device known as a future diary. Each one is individualized to fit with the player’s personality and can perform unique tasks such as tracking other players, predicting future actions, or even giving a detailed analysis of a person’s surroundings.

Future Diary may have its flaws, but what really drives a viewer to keep watching is how the diaries themselves alter the playing field. Every character has a reason for wanting to become the next God and what they would change about the universe if given the power. This makes it a compelling drama to see who will take the crown.

6

King’s Game

Do As You Are Told

In most cases, a session of King’s Game shouldn’t be that dangerous. Each player draws straws, and the one who pulls one with red paint gets to order people around. In the King’s Game anime, the game soon turns deadly when mysterious orders start arriving on the cellphones of class 2-1.

These orders get deadlier with each message as a class of 63 students soon starts to dwindle. Who will make it out alive? What will the next terrifying message order the students to do? Most importantly, who is behind this sick game? The anime is adapted from a cellphone novel called Osama Game and Osama Game: Extreme.

5

Darwin’s Game

Survival Of The Fittest

Darwin’s Game is an interesting death game anime because it offers a twist that shakes up the foundation of the genre. When Kaname Sudō is invited to play a game through a phone app, he unwittingly agrees. Unfortunately, this leads to a fight to the death against various participants.

However, this isn’t your average death game. Players are assigned opponents as opposed to it being a free-for-all battle royale. In addition to this, the players are given special abilities that will aid them in battle.

4

Deadman Wonderland

Life Is A Prison

Ganta Igarashi is your average ninth-grade student. However, when his class is massacred by a strange being, all the evidence points to him being the culprit. Taking the fall for these murders, Ganta is sent to a facility that acts as both a prison and a theme park.

Here, the inmates are forced to play dangerous games for the entertainment of others. Each game is meant to wipe out a good portion of the population. Meanwhile, a lethal poison is injected into each prisoner that can only be kept at bay with a special candy that contains the antidote. This is the main driving point towards winning the games.

3

Sword Art Online

Stuck In A Video Game

Sword Art Online poses a very interesting premise during its first season. If you suddenly found yourself trapped inside a fantasy VR Game, would you be able to survive? This is something Kirito must do when he and every other player find themselves trapped within the game world. They only get one life, and if they die, they die in real life.

This kick-starts a quest in which players band together to try to tackle stronger dungeons. If they can make it all the way to the top of the game world, they can defeat the final boss and free themselves. In this game, the stakes have never been higher.

2

Death Parade

One 1v1 In The Afterlife

If you die but find yourself inside a bar, you might just be the next contestant in Death Parade. This is a literal death game anime with your immortal soul being put on the line. In this particular bar, people who died at the same time are thrust into a 1v1 competition where they fight for the right to reincarnate.

In this game, there aren’t multiple people that need to fight each other. It’s just two people and the baggage that led them to die in the first place. Their performance is judged by Decim, a bartender who acts as an arbiter for the dead. These games take the form of bar games such as billiards, darts, or even arcade games.

1

Gantz

Fighting For A Second Life

In Gantz, players are not fighting for their lives but a chance to live a second one in peace. Much like the plot of Destiny, Gantz follows humans who are resurrected from death and sent to fight aliens. However, these aliens are nothing to scoff at with their abilities to kill humans in horrific ways. Perhaps it’s better to stay dead.

Each player is given a target, and for each one they manage to kill, they get awarded points. If a player manages to survive long enough to reach 100 points, they can return to their old lives as if nothing happened or reap other rewards.