Souichi Negishi just wants to debut as a pop singer. He tries to sell music to get people interested, but he just cannot seem to get the right attention. Souichi also has a double life as a singer for a death metal band called Detroit Metal City. Known for their incredibly extreme lyrics, intense shows, and overwhelming persona, DMC is a very popular band. Souichi is trying to balance the two, but it doesn’t seem to be going well. Especially when the girl he likes agrees to going out on a date. Can Souichi realize his dream, get out of DMC, and bag the girl?

Detroit Metal City starts out very similarly in humor to Back Street Girls with the whole “gotta keep the secret” vibe going as well so no one dies literally or of shame. This is also one of the very few anime out there that also explores what it is like to have an outer and inner ego and both be existent at the same time. If you really want to go there too, both series explore playing on the very extreme ends of the social construct of gender.

Takeshi Kamiyama is just another student who transfers into Cromartie High School. He himself is fairly smart and well put together, but it turns out that the school he goes to is full of delinquents and degenerates. Takeshi thinks he is going to be fine, but when a classmate eats pencils right in front of him, clearly, things are not going to be the same. Takeshi must now navigate this new environment with little to no understanding of what happens all while being surrounded by a colorful cast of individuals.

The three yakuza from Back Street Girls are quite similar to Takeshi, while they find themselves in hilarious situations for the viewer, they are struggling to understand the logic behind everything. Everyone around them is a unique character from their boss who is always about two steps away from murdering them to their manager who has no idea that the three girls in front of him used to be men. The humor flows a lot in the same way in that you should expect the unexpected. Example: When we watch a robot and a gorilla in a school like it’s no big deal, or when the idols talk about having phantom limb syndrome due to their lack of male genitalia. If you are ready to laugh while saying “what??” to yourself, you’ll enjoy Cromartie High School.

A prestigious all-girl academy is finally letting its guard down by allowing male students to start attending. In order to keep things calm, only five boys are let in. They are given incredibly harsh treatment and more or less cast aside as the girls couldn't care less. However, when the boys set out on a mission to spy on the girls bathing time, things get real fast as they fall afoul of the Underground Student Council, a horrifyingly powerful entity within the school. Now locked up in the school’s prison, Kiyoshi, Gakuto, Shingo, Andre, and Jo are left down there. Suddenly strangers are now the closest of allies.

Prison School may appear to be more serious than it is, but looking at the idols from Back Street Girls and the boys of Prison School, a lot is shared. Both find themselves in horrible situations against their will, where things like sexuality, friendship, loyalty, and more are frequent conversation topics. In fact, loyalty is an overall arching theme between the two! The same goes for the utter confusion both sets of characters find themselves in as well as the cruel and unusual amount of power wielded by the Student Council and the Boss of the organization. Not to mention too, the pure absurdity of the comedy from these two series are sure to make you laugh.

Yoshifumi Nitta comes home one night drunk. When a weird object hits him in the head, he looks closer and sees that there appears to be a girl inside of it and she is asking to be set free. Chalking it up to the alcohol, he goes to bed. When she is still there the next morning, he sets her free, but then learns that she has immense psychic powers and can do just about anything. This is perfect for him as he’s a semi-high ranking yakuza. Thus their life together of “kinda” father and daughter, begins now. Their initial encounter though is just the start of more to come.

Bringing it back with Hinamatsuri, we are now circling back to another reason as to why you might be enjoying Back Street Girls: Yakuza. Yakuza are a bit of an odd thing in Japan due to their grey existence. They are not supposed to exist, but are permitted till they are caught red-handed, committing a crime. As you can see from back Street Girls, the men commit plenty, but their boss commits the most egregious and they are fine. The same goes for Hina, while there is a lot of comedy throughout the series and they meet a very colorful cast of characters, at the end of the day, Nitta is still committing crimes and that includes Hina when she lays waste to that rival Yakuza headquarters. If you are in search of hilarious interactions, a closer look at the lives of Yakuza, and the unexpected at every turn, then go for it. Plus, this anime features new best girl, Anzu.

Set in yet another school overflowing with delinquents, Ishiyama High has a terrible reputation amongst the student body. There is one rule though, don’t mess with Tatsumi Oga or you may be pushing up daisies soon after. Tatsumi happens to be by a thriver one day when he sees a man floating down it. Tatsumi saves him, but the man reveals a baby inside of him?! The baby climbs on his back, and now Tatsumi cannot get rid of him. As if things couldn’t get worse, the baby is actually the future kind of Hell! He tries his best along with Hildegard, the maid from hell, to raise Beel in this new world, but it’s not going to be easy.

Usually the delinquent lifestyle is a stepping stone for getting into the yakuza life. People make the wrong decisions and end up in a life of crime. So in effect, you could saw that Beelzebub could be priming up the characters to turn to the Yakuza way after graduation. The humor here between the two series is more or less the same; crude, dark, and borderline offensive. If you want a really good laugh, then Beelzebub is a fantastic place to go.

Gokusen tells the story of Kumiko Yamaguchi, a new teacher for mathematics at Shirokin Academy. Her students are demons, her fellow co-workers are worse, and somehow she needs to make an impact on the lives of children who would sell her for 100 yen. Kumiko may seem average, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Kimoko is actually the daughter of the current head of a very powerful Yakuza group and can decimate just about anyone in seconds. But teaching is her dream job and she just wants to really make a difference for these kids. Can she manage though?

If Gokusen and Back Street Dolls can teach us anything, it would be that appearances can be deceiving. Both the three girls and Kumiko have to keep up a facade in the face of what appears to be something impossible all while not accidentally gutting someone. The girls from BSD do it out of fear but Kumiko does this because it is her dream. Both series also feature punks/rivals/yakuza that test our main characters. Either way, be ready for countless hysterical setups and jokes nonstop as both try not to blow their cover.