Video games and anime have a lot in common. Both can be enjoyed as solo activities but you can also savor them with your friends, so they are highly versatile. But in general, they are both mostly indoor introverted activities.
I have noticed that many gamers enjoy anime (and vice versa). Including me.
So why not both?
In this list, I compiled the top 20 anime about video games, gamers, and gaming culture. The important thing is that each and every one of them is related to gaming in one way or another.
Let’s get started!
20. Magic of Stella
Here we have an anime about cute girls obsessed with creating video games. 🎮
Tamaki Honda enrolls in high school and joins the SNS Club, a club that produces doujin games. Shiina the programmer, Ayame the writer, and Kayo the composer join the team, while Tamaki starts as an illustrator for the club’s upcoming game.
19. New Game!
Another anime about cute girls making cute video games.
In this series, Aoba and her coworkers at the game development studio Eagle Jump go about their daily business.
18. Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs
I have mentioned this isekai many times because it’s underrated and fairly unknown for no good reason.
The MC dies from exhaustion after playing a dating sim game for too long with no proper sleep or nutrition and ends up reincarnated in that exact game… as a MOB character!
17. Seven Senses of the Re’Union
Subaru was a top team of legends in the wildly popular MMORPG “Union” in the year 2034. The group was made up of six elementary school pals. However, Union shut down the game when one of its members passed away from a heart attack that was probably caused by dying in the game.
Six years later, a new game with similar mechanics called Re’Union is released, and when Haruto, one of Subaru’s founding members, encounters Asahi, his friend who passed away six years earlier, the group comes together once more to solve the puzzle.
16. Infinite Dendrogram
The virtual reality MMORPG Infinite Dendrogram, which can precisely simulate players’ five senses, is introduced in the year 2043.
Reiji Mukudori reaches the world of Infinite Dendrogram almost two years later under the guise of “Ray Starling,” where he is met by his more experienced sibling Shuu and his Embryo companion Nemesis.
As Ray explores the realm of Infinite Dendrogram, he discovers how to survive there and encounters many types of allies and enemies.
15. .hack//Sign
Tsukasa, a Spell caster in the game “The World” abruptly wakes up in a dark dungeon with no memory of how he got there or what he was doing before his collapse. He discovers that he can’t log off of “The World” while he is in town. He realizes that he is stranded in the virtual world and unable to escape to the real world. Then, as Tsukasa and his friends try to determine why he can’t log out, they uncover some sinister truths about what The World actually is.
14. Full Dive: The Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even Shittier than Real Life!
High school student Hiroshi Yki, also known online as Hiro, enjoys playing virtual reality MMORPGs to escape from reality. He is duped into purchasing the game Kiwame Quest by Reona Kisaragi, the manager of the game store, and finds very quickly that everything is not as it seems. It is a game that, unlike most others, aims to be as realistic as possible.
Hiroshi begins to grow a disdain for the game as soon as he realizes that it is worse than his already challenging reality. However, Hiroshi still finds himself logging on again and again. His current precarious predicament leaves him with no second chances, therefore his only option is to win the game!
13. High Score Girl
The protagonist of High Score Girl is an avid video gamer in sixth grade. His life isn’t going very well because he plays video games in his free time instead of studying. This continues until a wealthy and attractive girl his age hard-stomps him at the video game. A part of Haruo can’t help but detest her for that but the other part of him wants a rival who can compete with him fairly, and Akira is more than capable of doing so!
12. I’m Standing on a Million Lives
A bunch of high schoolers gets transported to a strange game world inhabited by mythological creatures. After that, they receive a time-limited quest that they have to complete in order to survive and save the real world.
11. The King’s Avatar
In the MMORPG Glory, Ye Xiu, a top-tier pro-player, is compelled to retire. He returns to the game when its tenth server launches but chooses a new character. With ten years of experience and self-made weaponry, he aims to climb to the top!
10. Recovery of an MMO Junkie
In order to escape her demanding corporate career, Moriko Morioka resolves to become a NEET. She creates a male character named Hayashi in the online MMORPG game called Fruits de Mer.
While playing the game, she meets an adorable high-level pink-haired character, Lily, and she helps her to learn how to play the game. The two get along well and join the same guild, @HomeParty. Meanwhile, in the real world, Moriko runs across Yuta Sakurai, a handsome employee of a prestigious corporation who could know her better than she thinks.
9. BOFURI
Kaede Honjou, the protagonist of the show, is a young girl who, up until she bought the VRMMORPG NewWorld Online, had never played any video games.
She chooses a shield-class character she names Maple and invests every status point into vitality (defense) since she is so terrified of getting hurt. Until Kaede acquires a skill called “Absolute Defense,” this can appear like a rookie mistake. But now, after learning a powerful spell that can cancel out any incoming damage, she is more than prepared to go on the thrilling adventures the game has to offer!
8. And you thought there is never a girl online?
Hideki Nishimura, who plays the game Legendary Age under the gamer name Rusian, vowed to never enter into an online marriage after confessing to a girl who was later proven to be a guy in real life.
Two years later, Ako, a fellow Legendary Age player who is in the same guild as him, persisted until he gave in and consented to their in-game marriage.
When he eventually meets the rest of his guildmates in real life, he is astonished to discover that not only are they all female, but they also attend his school!
7. Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online
The MC of this SAO spin-off is Karen Kohiruimaki, a college student who has a complex over her unusual height.
She starts seeking escape from reality by playing the VR game Gun Gale Online after creating a short, adorable avatar, which has the exact appearance she would love to have in real life.
6. Gamers!
This is a tale that centers on a few students and one particular interest—gaming.
Gamers’ lone protagonist, Amano Keita, is passionate about video games and is pals with Uehara Tasuku, who also loves video games and thinks his life is ideal. Additionally, we have Chiaki Hoshinomori, who is constantly arguing with Keita, and Karen Tendou, the president of the video games club.
Watch this story chock full of confusion and amusing scenes that never stop!
5. Accel World
The least popular student at his middle school, Haruyuki, is an overweight child. He frequently seeks solace in a virtual world while living in the sci-fi environment of the real world.
But one day, when he is given the chance by the most attractive girl in the school to combine the two through a program called accelerated world, his life is forever altered. But there’s a catch—in order to keep the feature, he must earn points by engaging in combat with other players in the new virtual realm.
4. Log Horizon
Log Horizon is often compared to the more popular Sword Art Online. Many consider it of high quality, often stating how well-executed and implemented the story was.
In this show, 30 000 players end up stuck in-game with no way to log out.
But since the players can respawn infinitely, there is not that much to worry about, as opposed to SAO. This is where the assimilation aspect kicks in, as they have to adjust to their new world. This basically means that you will the daily life of the protagonist and his friends through various situations and challenges.
3. Overlord
Overlord follows Momonga, a guy who becomes trapped in the Yggdrasil virtual reality game. With all NPCs suddenly developing personalities on their own, it’s now up to him to conquer this new world!
2. No Game No Life
While some people could argue that the anime doesn’t take place in a video game, it starts with video games & the various games that they play in the new world include a full-dive VRMMORPG game.
Sora and Shiro are a duo of NEET siblings who dislike the real world. They go under the gamer name “blank” and have already made a name for themselves in the online gaming communities for being highly skilled and undefeatable.
One day, they receive a strange e-mail challenging them to play a chess game and they willfully accept and win only to be teleported to another world where they meet Tet, the God of Games. During the brief introduction of Tet, they find out that in this strange and mysterious world, everything is getting resolved by playing games—the physical harm is blocked by magic.
The invincible duo of siblings now has a completely new goal in mind—to become gods in this new realm!
1. Sword Art Online
The most famous anime about video games is Sword Art Online.
SAO takes place in the year 2022 when every gamer’s dream becomes reality—people can now experience and control their in-game characters with their minds thanks to a special helmet called Nerve Gear.
A boy called Kazuto Kirigaya is an avid gamer who is more than hyped to join the SAO world. He even previously tested the game as a beta tester.
But after 10 000 players log in for the first time to SAO, they are bound to discover that the mad creator of the game disabled the logout button. The only way to get out of the game is to beat all 100 floors of Aincrad, a castle where unique monsters reside on every floor and every dungeon. To make matters worse, if their health bar drops to zero in-game, they will also die in reality!
