Chihayafuru follows Chihaya, a girl that always felt overshadowed by her older sister. But as an elementary school student, she was introduced to the competitive card game karuta by a friend. Chihaya fell in love with the complicated game, even joining a club to improve her skills. By the time she reaches high school, Chihaya has become a karuta master. She wants to create a karuta club at her school so that they can eventually compete at a national level, her childhood dream of becoming the top player in Japan in her grasp. But first, she has to make a team, and finding others as inspired by karuta as her won’t be easy.

Chihayafuru is an older anime on our list, but we still feel it deserves its spot here. Firstly, it features a uniquely Japanese card game. Karuta is complicated to learn but fun to play, with more physical and mental demand than your average card game. That already sets Chihayafuru apart from other game anime with such an interesting game at its centre. Chihayafuru is also a well-written anime with great characters and a story that genuinely makes you care about what is happening. Who knows, you might even want to try your own hand at karuta after they have watched it!

Summer Wars is about OZ, a virtual world where people create custom avatars and interact with one another through games, shopping, chatting, and more. OZ has so many convenient applications and uses that a lot of society has integrated it into their systems and everyday life. Nearly everyone has an account. OZ is also known for its tight security system to make users feel safe using it. But that all changes when high schooler Kenji Koiso accidentally breaks the security algorithm, unleashing a very dangerous hacker into the system. And it seems like only he and a strange boy named Kazuma can stop the hacker from creating total chaos!

Summer Wars takes place in two settings, the real world in Japan and the virtual world of OZ. While OZ is more than just a game, it does have game applications within it. When the hacker known as Love Machine takes over the system, he sees everything in the world as a game to be played. And that’s exactly what he does, using people’s avatars and real lives as his playing chips. In order to defeat him, the famous avatar King Kazma challenges him to a Hanafuda card game called Koi-Koi. Eventually, all of the avatars in OZ join in the game to try to defeat Love Machine and keep the world safe. Summer Wars is a mix between being about a video game and a card game and makes that card game incredibly exciting and high stakes.

Net-juu no Susume begins with 30-year old Morioka quitting her job, and turning to play an MMORPG full time. She chooses a game called Fruits de Mer and recreates herself on the game as a handsome adventurer named Hayashi. She soon becomes friends with a cute healer named Lily and spends all of her time with her in the game. Slowly but surely, Morioka becomes more engrossed in her gaming life as Hayashi than in real life as herself. She begins to not leave her flat except when necessary. And she spends all her time logged in. But when she runs into an awkward stranger named Yuuta at the convenience store who also plays the game, maybe fate has more in store for her than she realises...

Net-juu no Susume is an MMORPG anime, the newest one on our list. While most of these game anime follow a male lead, especially the video game ones, Net-juu no Susume has a female main character. Admittedly she plays as a boy IN the game, but in real life, Morioka is a woman. Net-juu no Susume is a fun and romantic anime as well, and it’s actually quite hilarious! It has its share of action and adventure, but the focus is more on a comedic romance that is set mostly in an online video game and eventually in real life, too. That makes Net-juu no Susume quite a bit different than the other game anime on our list, and something special so that even more audiences to enjoy game anime too!

Accel World is about a bullied, overweight middle school boy named Haruyuki. He finds comfort in playing online games - or well, he did until all of his high scores were suddenly beaten by Kuroyukihime, the Vice President of the student council! When he confronts her, she tells him about a strange programme called “Brain Burst,” which accelerates brain activity to the point that reality seems to stop entirely. Kuroyukihime wants to meet the creator of Brain Burst, but can’t do so without winning duels against the programme’s powerful faction leaders. And she wants Haruyuki to help her do it!

Accel World is focused on Brain Burst, which serves as a virtual reality fighting game. Users must duel one another to get points and gain levels, but there is a lot at stake. If you lose all your points, you lose access to Brain Burst forever. That’s why Kuroyukihime cannot afford to lose the difficult battles against the faction leaders as she tries to obtain Level 10. That is also why she has enlisted the help of Haruyuki, someone she normally wouldn’t associate with. But he’s a powerful gamer, and she needs his skill set. Accel World takes the idea of a virtual reality game and adds a fantasy twist to it with the high stakes and ability to stop time itself, creating an interesting anime about a game to watch.

Kakegurui is set at a prestigious high school called Hyakkaou Private Academy, with most of its students coming from rich families. By day the school is an average high school, but at night it transforms into a gambling den. The value of this is to teach its students the arts of making money and manipulating people - valuable life skills for their roles in life. When Yumeko Jabami transfers into the school, she’s a different player from everyone else. While most people play the games with the intent to win, Yumeko plays simply for the thrill of playing. And that means she will take any risk and throw caution to the wind for the thrill of the game!

Kakegurui has an interesting concept, shaking things up from the usual prestigious high school trope stories. It also doesn’t go in the direction of a death game, which is what many anime do. Instead, it focuses on gambling and card games, and the social art of human manipulation and lying. Yumeko makes a great main character for a game anime because she cares less about winning and more about just playing the game and having fun. That means she never plays cautiously but always makes the games exciting and fun to watch. Whether you’re a fan of the casino or not, Kakegurui is a new twist on game anime you won’t want to miss.

Elder Tale is the latest popular MMORPG in Japan in Log Horizon, and thousands of players log in every day. And then one day, the game updates with a new feature that doesn’t allow them to log out again! One of these players is veteran gamer and master strategist Shiroe, who immediately takes to living life in the game and trying to figure out what happened. Alongside his friend Naotsugu and a girl named Akatsuki who insists on calling him “master,” Shiroe sets out on an adventure in the virtual world to bring stability and help everyone find their way back home.

Log Horizon may have a familiar plot to you, but don’t let that let you write it off immediately. This somewhat recycled plot is really well done in Log Horizon, and the anime feels fresh and new despite being an old idea. It’s full of mystery and politics on top of fantasy adventure and action and has well-developed and memorable characters. Log Horizon looks at the world of gaming through the eyes of a real gamer and strategist, and Shiroe’s plans and actions make intellectual sense. It’s not about luck, it’s about skill, and that’s the mantra many true gamers will tell you holds true to game success. Log Horizon brings that gaming mindset to life.

Rei Kiriyama has already become a professional shogi player by the time he has reached middle school in 3-gatsu no Lion, and the pressure becomes too much for the young man. He decides to move to Tokyo alone at age 17, but his introverted personality isolates him from everyone at school and at the shogi hall, too. When Rei meets three sisters named Akari, Hinata, and Momo, though, things start to change positively. Through his friendship with these girls, Rei learns how to deal with his own emotions, and sustain a healthy lifestyle by interacting with other people as he embarks on a career as a professional shogi player.

3-gatsu no Lion follows the complex traditional Japanese game of shogi, which is an intense strategy game played with tiles. It takes a long time to learn and even longer to truly master. It’s also a rare topic for anime, making 3-gatsu no Lion stand apart from other game anime with its unique focus. 3-gatsu no Lion is a coming of age story about friendship and what it means to enter adulthood, and it’s being told through a story centred on a game. It has a good balance of shogi time along with character interaction and development. Game anime fans can enjoy both watching the game play out on the screen while also enjoying a feature story about what it means to be human.

The popular MMORPG Yggdrasil is coming to an end, and in its final hour online, a player named Momonga decides to stay logged in. But when midnight hits, he isn’t ejected from the game as he thought he would be. Rather, the game world seems to have shifted, with NPCs developing their own personalities. Momonga decides to investigate this phenomenon and see what has happened to the world of Yggdrasil. Along with his loyal companions, they explore this “new” world and see if anyone else is also still logged in after the end of the game.

Overlord is an exciting anime taking place inside of an MMORPG. It’s incredibly action-packed, but as a warning to more faint-hearted viewers, it’s also very violent. The fantasy fight scenes are awesome though, and will satisfy lovers of video games and great action sequences! Overlord is a much darker look at the world of MMORPGs compared to another game anime with similar plot lines and is a lot more intense. For game anime fans that are looking for something more than average with a serious plot and serious action, Overlord is the best choice. It won’t let you down if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty.

Quanzhi Gaoshou is about a top-tier professional player named Ye Xiu in the MMORPG Glory. When he is forced to retire, Ye Xiu finds a job at a local Internet cafe. But when Glory launches an all-new server, he isn’t able to stay away from the game. Instead, he starts over with a brand new character named Lord Grim. With ten years’ of knowledge and experience playing Glory, Lord Grim immediately gains a lot of attention in the game. But starting from scratch still isn’t easy, and Yu Xie has to climb his way back to the top with all new companions, a new team, and of course his new character.

Quanzhi Gaoshou is a newer MMORPG based on a Chinese web novel. Stylistically, it’s a bit different since it does not come from a usual Japanese source, which makes it a refreshing and new game anime to enjoy. It’s a lot of fun to watch an experienced player start from the beginning, taking the viewer along for the ride this time as he goes through the game. But of course his experience makes him a great player, so it’s always fun to watch him! Quanzhi Gaoshou is full of fantasy action and adventure, with constant reminders that it’s an online video game to keep the spirit of a game anime alive and well.

Siblings Sora and Shiro are the main characters of No Game No Life. They are famous online as the gaming duo “Blank,” but in real life, they’re actually shut-ins. Their entire lives get turned upside down when they accept a strange challenge to a chess match and get swept into another world. There, the siblings meet Tet, the God of Games. In his world, all disputes whether big or small are settled by high stakes games. Since Sora and Shiro always saw the world and life as a game anyway, it seems like the perfect place for them to make a name for themselves. They set out to unite the different races to overthrow Tet and become the Gods of Games themselves.

No Game No Life has the idea of games at its very core - each episode features at least one major game as the key plot point, and often has smaller games on the side as well. It features a huge variety of games from classic board games to rock, paper, scissors and more. All of the games are high stakes and everyone in the land takes them seriously. No Game No Life makes games the most important part of existence, and those who are good at playing them can have infinite power and control. The title itself says it all - No Game, No Life.