In a world full of monsters and dangers, there’s an elite mercenary group known as Hunters. They make a living either finding treasures, bounties for the most dangerous criminals, or getting exotic animals for zoos. However, Gon Freecss, always raised by his aunt, doesn’t want to be rich or famous as he prepares for his Hunter exam: He wants to find his father, Ging Freecss, who is a world-famous Hunter himself. In the process, he meets three friends with their own reasons to do the exam, Leorio, Kurapika, and Killua, which convinces him more to follow his dream.

Based on the manga by Yoshiro Togashi (of Yuu Yuu Hakusho fame), Hunter X Hunter is a very good anime to follow up Mahoujin Guru Guru with in the sense that it’s another fantasy series with a group of adventurers, but also because, as the episodes advance, it becomes a bit darker and more mature in its subject matter. So if you liked the Fantasy in Mahoujin, but wanted some more serious consequences, Hunter X Hunter is for you. There’s also another point in common: Both series have had remakes. Here we’re recommending the 2011 anime, but there was a previous series made in 1999, with only 62 episodes that is a bit more light-hearted in tone since it hadn’t reached the point where the manga gets serious.

Gokudo is an adventurer who enjoys the free life and the chance of getting rich with little apparent effort. What he doesn’t enjoy is that people have this idea that because his brother is a nice guy, that means Gokudo is some sort of hero who can save villages from monsters. No, all what he wants is women, riches and power, not necessarily in that order. When he asks those gifts from a Djinn, the Djinn is so appalled at his selfishness that he downright refuses to fulfill them, and then spends his time following Gokudo to make sure he becomes a better man. Their party of two grows when they’re joined by Rubette, a girl that admires Gokudo but also wants to do everything better than him; and Prince Niari, a young magician who is forced to join the party by his mother when she finds out that Niari has been enchanting princesses to create a harem.

Gokudo Kun Manyuuki is a very fun anime, based on hilarious light novels, that spawned 13 volumes and a sequel, written by Usagi Nakamura and illustrated by Takeru Kirishima. There’s also a manga, published in Kadokawa Shoten, that while changes some of the situations of the novels and the anime, follows the same story. It is a great parody of all the tropes you can find in RPG-based games and anime, with a hero that wishes he could be anywhere but with his party, and who will, at times, be willing to make deals with the evil doers because, well, they have more morals than him.

Little Chacha wants to be a great witch, and she is in luck: after all, she is the apprentice of the greatest magician in the land, Seravy. Or she was, until he realized that she had huge problems with pronunciation and her magic always went awry. So instead, he decided to send her to magic school, so she can have teachers more patient than him, and also, have friends. To make sure she’d be safe, Seravy gave her the Princess Medallion, and, to his friends Riiya and Shiine, a bracelet and a ring. These trinkets enable Chacha to transform into Magical Princess, a great warrior that can defeat the Great King Daimao’s minions, who are trying to help his king conquer the kingdom where Seravy lives.

Akazukin Chacha is to magic girls anime what Mahoujin Guru Guru is to RPG fantasy games. They’re both parodies, meant for older children which hinge a lot of their humor in funny language puns. For example, when Chacha tries to summon her friend Riiya, she ends up with an old man instead (as it’s pronounced jii-san in Japanese), and her attempts to bring clouds to her garden ended up with spiders around (as both are pronounced Kumo). It also makes fun of the then recent boom of fighting magical girls, and in short, it is a great anime that will make you smile every episode at least once.

When an ancient evil gets released, only the descendants of the hero that originally sealed it can put it back in his prison. However, as the demon was sealed a hundred years in the past, now it’s a bit difficult to track all the possible descendants of the hero, and the King ends up with 75 possible candidates. His solution? Well, to send the 75 on a quest to re-seal the demon lord Rchimedes, and hope one of them is the right one to save the Kingdom. Among the candidates, there’s Alba Fruhling, a young knight-wannabe who fortunately has the help of the talented warrior Ross who is supposed to help him whenever he is in trouble. Unfortunately for Alba, Ross seems to actually enjoy seeing Alba get in trouble.

Senyuu is a parody anime that revels in deconstructing every single fantasy trope it can find, and then reconstructing it in new ways. Basically, whatever you think it’s going on with the story, it will find a way to surprise you, even with the short episodes since it’s based on a gag manga that doesn’t have very long chapters itself. While it’s heavy on the parody and the laughs, it also has very dark moments, so be warned, it’s as fun as Guru Guru, but it also has a darker side for people who love extra twists.

Kazuma Satou lived a very uneventful life. One might even call it incredibly boring, as he rarely left his house, and more importantly had no friends. So when he dies trying to “save” a girl from a runaway truck (in fact a slow moving tractor that wouldn’t have hurt anyone), a nearby goddess finds it in herself to give him a choice: He can go to heaven and the boring afterlife, he can reincarnate on Earth as a baby with no memories, or he can go and get reincarnated in his own body, with all his memories, into a fantasy land that needs a hero to save them from a Demon Lord. As he is used to be a gamer, he goes for the third option and then he gets the great news that he is allowed to take one “Cheat” item, whatever he wants. Angry at the goddess for mocking his death, Kazuma thus decides to choose her as his “item”, much to her surprise.

Kono Subarashii Sekai Ni Shukufuku Wo! Or Konosuba, for short, is a more straight fantasy anime than the others in this list, but it doesn’t mean it’s a serious one. Based on a series of light novels that is still going on, written by Natsume Akatsuki and Kurone Mishima, this anime was made by Studio Deen and it has everything a RPG fan could want: A daring hero –because Kazuma is surprisingly good at his job despite having the lowest stats of his party-, three gorgeous girls each with specialized magic, and a huge threat to fight.

Yet another kingdom where years ago a great hero defeated a dark power, but didn’t finish the job completely. Fifty years later, we met Haru Glory, a young man who lives in a very small island called Garage Island. Haru’s life is pretty normal until he fishes Plue, a creature that is called a dog but in fact looks like a strange mixture of a cartoon dog and a snowman, who pretty much selects him as the next great hero, the Rave Master. Soon, they also meet an amnesiac girl named Ellie, and a blacksmith named Musica, and together they start looking for the Rave Stones, the scattered remains of the Rave Master’s power, in order to put an end to the evil that plagues the land.

This is the most straight fantasy series of the list, but it’s not devoid of fun moments. Although the anime starts a little bit slow, it is from the pen of Hiro Mashima, and if you have read Fairy Tail, you know he is a great author who knows how to balance comedy, drama, and a great cast of characters. It will also help you get to know the tropes that the other series are parodying in case you’re not familiar with them. In short, it’s a great series to follow Mahoujin Guru Guru on your list of shows to watch.