Akuru “A-kun” Akutsu is your average antisocial guy who studies hard and wants a future with a good-paying job and good living. But his life at high school is pandemonium because his childhood friend, Hanabatake Yoshiko is a complete idiot, and she gets into trouble and creates mayhem due to her lack of intelligence and basic comprehension of, well, literally everything. Despite her lack of spatial awareness, Yoshiko is an energetic girl with a future ahead of her, and she needs Atsuku by her side.

The double act routine (or Manzai in Japanese) is one of the usual tropes you see in comedy and slice of life anime. Jin and Ranka are an example of a straight man and funny man pair—Jin is the serious straight man who is mostly annoyed at everything and Ranka is the funny man to liven things up by doing crazy things leading to funny moments at the expense of the straight man.

A-kun and Yoshiko from Aho Girl share the same roles as Jin and Ranka in Murenase! Seton Gakuen, and, actually, the pairs are so similar that you can swap them between shows and no one would tell the difference. Jin and A-kun are constantly annoyed at everything Ranka and Yoshiko do, and they prefer to be left alone. Yoshiko is, well, dumb, so she gets into crazy situations that force A-kun to step in and diffuse the problem. Ranka is more a free-spirited girl rather than having the mental capacity of a monkey (A-kun said that, not us!), but Ranka also gets into crazy situations and Jin is forced to play along like helping a beluga whale perform along with the bottlenose dolphins. Oh and Yoshiko and Ranka love their men, whereas A-kun and Jin don't find them attractive even when they’re naked or in heat, HA!

Demi-humans like monsters and mythical beings are real and they’re living peacefully with humans in the human realm. A demi-human transitioning to human society is very difficult and some may not adapt, but here’s where the Interspecies Cultural Exchange Act comes in—Any demi-human who wishes to live in the human realm is assigned to live with host families so they can learn the ins and outs of human society. Kurusu Kimihito is a host and he currently lives with a lamia named Miia and other monster girls. And since Kimihito is one hot guy and one of the nicest people around, the monster girls have fallen in love with him and they show their affection in their own quirky little way.

Seeing various animals interacting with each other in Murenase! Seton Gakuen is one thing, and the other is the interspecies relationships that have been going on, like the members of the cooking club being Jin’s harem and the most popular interspecies couple being the lion King and the impala Shiho. If you’re into this sort of kinky thing, then you might want to check out Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou, an anime with a focus solely on interspecies relationships. Instead of animal girls, we get monster girls ranging from lamias (snake girls) and mermaids to centaurs. And of course, just like Murenase! Seton Gakuen, the girls’ personalities and quirks in Monster Musume are based on their species: snake girls hug by constricting the guy, harpies can fly and lay eggs, mermaids dehydrate outside of the water, and centaurs… well… they’re huge and have huge butts.

Japari Park is a massive zoo populated by humanoid, female animals called “Friends” and each species of Friends populates the various biomes ranging from the hot savannas to the frozen tundras. The park has long been abandoned and nature has slowly taken over but the Friends are still thriving and living their happy lives in peace. One day, a strange creature wearing clothes and a hat appears out of nowhere and she has no memories. A chance encounter with the Friend Serval changes everything and she offers her abilities as a serval to help this clothed Friend to cross the vast zoo in search of answers. Serval names this new Friend Kaban, and the two travel together meeting new Friends along the way, facing new challenges, and finding out Kaban’s true origins.

Murenase! Seton Gakuen gets compared to Kemono Friends a lot because the premise is almost 1:1 identical. Well, the comparison ratio is obviously exaggerated, but Murenase! Seton Gakuen and Kemono Friends are similar in so many ways. Firstly, both have cute animal girls, the personalities and quirks of the girls revolve around the behavior of the animals they are based on, and we get to learn about animals through Murenase! Seton Gakuen’s narrator and the audio clips from professional zoologists at every first half in Kemono Friends.

When it comes to story, both are very different—Murenase! Seton Gakuen is a slice of life anime, focused on animals learning to live together in chaotic harmony and Kemono Friends is an adventure anime where Kaban and Serval cross various biomes and meet Friends from these biomes who help the duo cross using their specialized abilities and adaptations. Don’t be discouraged at the subpar CGI animations of Kemono Friends because despite its lack of polish, Kemono Friends is full of passion and soul thanks to one director who was determined to breathe life into Kemono Friends.

At Cherryton Academy, anthropomorphic animals, be they carnivores or herbivores, are living together and studying together in tranquil peace. However, this unity between the two types of animals is being put to the test when a herbivore is found mutilated, and evidence points out a carnivore is the culprit. Distrust among the animals and fear engulf the academy and it’s only a matter of time until another herbivore falls prey to a carnivore hiding amongst the students of Cherryton Academy.

Beastars is a more serious take on interspecies cohabitation and relationships than Seton where they usually gloss over the fact that one type of animal preys on another. In Beastars, the personality of each animal is still based on their behavior in the wild, like Legosi is a literal lone wolf, so he’s socially awkward towards everyone, he’s silent, keeps things to himself, and he can be very aggressive when provoked because he’s a male wolf. Haru is a rabbit and, well, if you heard the term “f*ck like rabbits”, then you now know why Haru is sexually promiscuous in the anime (we know her reason for her promiscuity, just an FYI).

Murenase! Seton Gakuen, on the other hand, portrays these animal traits in a more comedic way like the sloth Miyubi is very slow and burns out when doing something rigorous like walking, but she’s a capable swimmer and manages to reach the other end of the pool.

Kuromine Asahi is the type of person who is easy to read and can’t keep a secret even if his life depends on it. Though that’ll change when he accidentally discovers that his crush, Shiragami Youko, is actually a vampire, and now that her cover is blown, she’ll be forced to leave the school. But fear not, young lady! Asahi doesn’t want her to leave and he promises he’ll keep her secret from anyone, despite his inability to keep his mouth shut. So far so good? NIGHTMARE MODE SELECTED! More supernatural beings show up and they’re obviously attracted to Asahi, so he has to keep everyone’s true identities a secret.

Murenase! Seton Gakuen isn’t a harem anime, but given the format of one guy surrounded by cute anime girls with animal ears, it might as well be one. Though it sucks Jin hates animals and only has eyes for Hitomi, the rest of the girls like Jin very much and they’re not afraid to show it. And with Jin being the only male in the cooking club, everyone at the academy, and the school council president Miki see him as a miscreant, creating his own interspecies harem. Asahi from Jitsu wa Watashi wa has his own harem of cute supernatural beings because harem magic dictates all girls are attracted to the hero. Let’s see… A vampire, an alien, some god-in-training, a demon, and hey, there’s a time traveler too!

Both series follow a similar episode format of hero meets new girl, girl has a unique quirk and she’s the one to solve a problem, girl ends up liking the hero and she’s part of the hero’s group of friends, or a “harem” if you will. Murenase! Seton Gakuen is a fun and crazy ride, and if you want more of that with fewer animals and more harem shenanigans, Jitsu wa Watashi wa is a great recommendation.

Suzuki Iruma has a crappy life—his lazy parents forced him to work at a young age, Iruma never had a decent school life because he’s working his ass off just to pay the bills, and he never had a normal childhood. One day, Iruma gets taken away to the Demon World because his parents sold his soul to one powerful demon. Yep, Iruma’s parents are indeed wonderful people. But, plot twist—the demon Sullivan adopts Iruma to be his grandson and Iruma enrolls in the demon school Babyls. Iruma has got to be careful, though, because if the demons find out he’s a human, he will be on some demon’s menu.

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is like Murenase! Seton Gakuen in many ways—both main characters are humans stuck in a school with non-human students, lots of chaos due to the hero being human, and lots of cute girls. Jin, the human, is technically part of the animal kingdom, but to him, Seton Academy is like a zoo filled with loud, annoying and unruly animals. Iruma is also a human and he’s studying in a school populated with demon students, and he’s trying to keep his identity a secret because it’s completely unheard of to have a mere human studying in a school for demons, and, you know, we’ve heard demons love the taste of human flesh. And, well, yeah, that’s it. Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is simple to understand but it’s also a whole lot of fun. If there’s one thing bad about Mairimashita! Iruma-kun it’s that the ecchi moments aren’t as good as Murenase! Seton Gakuen. Probably. It depends what kind of fanservice you prefer.