By adult I mean over 18-20 years of age and with adult appearances. Nothing against anime with younger characters, but interested in finding some with older characters.
Eureka Seven
if you want a fantasy story with emotionally intelligent characters, well-crafted themes and messages, great animation and music
this is a gift for you
OP2 Spoliers
Series
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
- Black Lagoon
- Odd Taxi
- Moriarty the Patriot
- Cells at Work: Code Black
- Cowboy Bebop
- Trigun (1998)
- Psycho Pass
- Aggretsuko
- Panty & Stocking
- One Punch Man
Movies
- Patlabor
- Patlabor 2
- Ghost in the Shell (1995)
- Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
- Redline
- Porco Rosso
- Howl’s Moving Castle
- Paprika
- Dead Leaves
+1 for Black Lagoon, W anime pick.
Also for Ghost in the Shell, PatLabor, and Redline.
I will also add on:
-
Jin-Roh/Jin-Rou (not the Korean live action from 2019), but it does briefly show a child on screen as a supporting character, and I dont remember if Kei was over 18-20 or not
-
AD Police Files, and its related series Parasite Dolls (unfortunately, the other related series Bubblegum Crisis and Bubblegum Crash are disqualified because Nene Romanov is 18 and Priss is 19, both under 20)
-
Space Dandy (maybe, that anime had like a billion characters and I dont remember if all of them were adults or not, but its not exactly a kid oriented anime)
Black Lagoon is one of the most underrated shows. People who have seen it usually love it, but not enough people have seen it.
I need to watch Jin-Roh sometime.
86
The main cast would have grown into adults later on, and based how what’s released of the anime so far, I wouldn’t count it as “mostly” adults.
I’ve completed quite a few:
- Violet Evergarden
- Vinland Saga
- Odd Taxi
- Cherry Magic!
- One Punch Man
- Saga of Tanya the Evil
- Delicious in Dungeon
Honorable mentions - depends on how strictly you’d define “mostly”:
Honorable mentions - unique circumstances:
- Cells at Work! - Your typical red blood cell lives for about 120 days :( The cells that look like adults do behave like adults though
- PLUTO - Robots’ mental age can be different from their physical appearances
The only one I’d take issue with here is Spy X Family. I think it’s more of an “all ages” show that focuses heavily on Anya and her classmates antics. All the rest make sense!
Saga of Tanya the Evil
Uhh, the main character is technically a child, even though they >!have the mind and soul of a middle-aged man!<. I’m not sure I’d include this, but the other characters still work.
The rest of the cast appear to be adults though.
One child among numerous adults satisfy the definition of “mostly adult cast of characters” that OP asked for IMO.
Do 1000+ year old characters that look young count?
I mean, I don’t remember watching an anime that has a character like that, but IDK some people are really weird about that.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
I don’t care how old the character is canonically. If they look and act like a child, they should be treated as one. Simple as that.
Fair enough. I’m just tired of the excuse that the reader/watcher is supposed to believe that the very obvious child is supposed to be hundreds or even thousands of years old and that somehow magically makes it not weird or creepy to view this character sexually.
I love manga and anime myself, but I just feel like this kind of shit makes everyone that enjoys this form of Japanese media look bad.
and act like a child
I don’t really remember any examples of hundreds year old loli vampires that actually act like kids. Shinobu certainly isn’t one. I didn’t include anything like this because OP specifically asks for adult appearances though.
I can’t argue this point or agree with it. I honestly haven’t read or watched enough media with characters like this because it’s not my thing.
I just added that because it fit the earlier duck metaphor. And I’m willing to bet money there are actual characters like that as well.
Heh, does western anime count?
Legend of Korra, Vox Machina, DOTA: Dragons Blood
And Pantheon.
For heaven’s sake, if you have not watched Pantheon, correct that immediately. Techically the cast is young, at first, but it doesn’t feel like that at all.
It’s so underrated! And it’s gorgeous, being Studio Mir.
It’s kinda over the top, but I guess that’s relative.
Is the series ending anytime?
Maybe I missed the joke, but it’s ended :(
Maybe I missed the joke, but it’s ended
Oh cool, thanks. Time to pick it up again.
I placed it on hold because season 1 didn’t have a conclusive ending. I’d rather binge everything at once.
