I have always been puzzled by how action-filled and intense an anime about mafia, yakuza or gangster can be. It has that kind of angst and a bloody story that dares to defy human morality but at the same time has plenty of life lessons to deliver to its viewers. Furthermore, this kind of dark-themed anime story usually brings a good amount of action, fun, psychological-thrill and emotional that sometimes, it drives the viewers to ponder about their moral standard as a human being.
Anime About Mafia and Gangster Recommendations
Since we are talking about anime with the mafia, gangster, and a whole lot more of the chaotic mess that comes with them, let me share with you a list of 12 anime about mafia and gangster that I truly enjoyed and would like to recommend to everyone who is craving a perfect combination of action, humor, drama, and thrill.
Reborn!
Studio: Artland
One of the popular shounen in this list is Reborn! or also known as Katekyo Hitman Reborn! This anime is hilarious and full of action with great character development. It follows the story of a young man who found out that he is next in line as the successor of a powerful mafia organization. His simple life changed and he must learn to become the rightful successor under the tutelage of the mafia’s strongest hitman.
Synopsis
Middle school student Tsuna has always gone through life in last place; but when he learns that he is getting a tutor to help him raise his game, he had no idea that his benefactor would turn out to be… an infant and a mafia hitman?! As if things can’t get much stranger, Tsuna then discovers that the powerful Vongola family has chosen him to be its next successor – a position that has control over all mafia families. Joined by friends Tsuna unwillingly starts out on his path to becoming a mafia boss – if he can survive the training!
Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens
This anime about various groups including the mafia and mercenaries is an exciting series with many surprises and plot twists. It has a decent amount of action, comedy, and drama while also giving the viewers some delightful scenes that thrive in the interactions of its characters. What can we ask from this anime series? It has a mysterious samurai-mercenary, a beautiful cross-dressing assassin, and many more. Here, we follow the daily life of these people as they try to solve mystery cases while settling with their own past.
Synopsis
“There is a person you desperately want to kill. Now, how do you kill that person?” At a glance, Fukuoka seems like a peaceful town, but crime runs rampant behind the scenes. It’s now a battleground for professional killers, with urban legends suggesting that there’s even one who specializes in killing professional killers. Assassins, detectives, revenge seekers, informants, torture specialists… When stories are told of these and other professionals of the underground, a “killer of professional killers” appears…
Source: Crunchyroll
91 Days
One of the best anime about vengeance. 91 Days had been a fascinating and dramatic ride for me. How far will go to achieve the revenge that you desire? This anime will raise many questions about human emotions and moral standards.
Synopsis
During Prohibition, the law held no power and the mafia ruled the town. The story takes place in Lawless, a town thriving on black market sales of illicitly brewed liquor. One day, Avilio receives a letter from a mysterious sender, prompting him to return to Lawless for revenge. He then infiltrates the Vanetti family, the ones responsible for his family’s murder, and sets about befriending the don’s son, Nero, to set his vengeance in motion. Killing brings more killing, and revenge spawns more revenge. How will the 91-day story of these men guided by a tragic fate end?
Source: Crunchyroll
Banana Fish
This series is among my top 10 favorite anime of all time. Banana Fish is a painful anime experience for me and it thrives in the well-written drama and effective voice acting. The animation quality is also great, something that can always expect from MAPPA. Banana Fish follows the story of a young Japanese in America as he gets entangled in the underground world where gangsters and influential mafias dominate. What was supposed to be a simple interview ended up as a life-changing meeting?
Synopsis
Nature made Ash Lynx beautiful; nurture made him a cold ruthless killer. A runaway brought up as the adopted heir and sex toy of “Papa” Dino Golzine, Ash, now at the rebellious age of seventeen, forsakes the kingdom held out by the devil who raised him. But the hideous secret that drove Ash’s older brother mad in Iraq has suddenly fallen into Papa’s insatiably ambitious hands–and it’s exactly the wrong time for Eiji Okamura, a pure-hearted young photographer from Japan, to make Ash Lynx’s acquaintance…
Source: Viz
Bungou Stray Dogs
The battle of the gifted had always been a fun cliche to watch in every shounen anime and here’s an interesting series on our list. Bungou Stray Dogs take on the twist of where the characters are named after famous Japanese literary personalities and have their special skills inspired by the works of these historical figures. We have an Armed Detective Agency that aimed to solve mysterious cases while battling against the Port Mafia. These two groups are Yin and Yang they co-exist but can’t be at peace with each other. They are two sides of the same coin and the interactions of its members made Bungou Stray Dogs an exciting mafia anime.
Synopsis
Kicked out of his orphanage and on the verge of starving to death, Nakajima Atsushi meets some strange men. One of them, Dazai Osamu, is a suicidal man attempting to drown himself in broad daylight. The other, bespectacled Kunikida Doppo, nervously stands by flipping through a notepad. Both are members of the “Armed Detective Agency” said to solve incidents that even the military and police won’t touch. Atsushi ends up accompanying them on a mission to eliminate a man-eating tiger that’s been terrorizing the population… In the virtual city of Yokohama are individuals bearing the name of Bungo, “literary masters,” who possess unusual powers likened to that name. Now begins the battle between the mysterious Bungo powers!
Source: Crunchyroll
Ikebukuro West Gate Park
Probably the most ordinary yet sincerely human on this list. There are no special powers or whatsoever but people helping each other, getting blind and emotional at some point but at the end of the day, wishes for peace in their community. Ikebukuro West Gate Park is an exciting anime with well-written drama and character development. It has its perks and flaws but is good enough for people who want to see an exciting and unique gangster anime.
Synopsis
Crime-ridden Ikebukuro is a haven for violent gangs, the Yakuza, and home to Makoto Majima. To protect his friends, this charismatic troubleshooter mediates disputes among the warring factions—even fixing problems the police can’t. But when a rising tide of violence results in Makoto losing a loved one, can he ride out the storm, or will he drown in all the spilled blood that floods his streets?
Source: Funimation
Black Lagoon
Will you lose your humanity when you get involved with the scums of society? Black Lagoon dives deeper into the moral standard of people while at the same time offer an action-packed adventure for its viewers. This anime also had me realized not to mess up with badass women or they’ll blow away your head off.
Synopsis
Rokuro Okajima is a small-time salaryman who is carrying documents for his company, when the ship he’s traveling on is attacked by pirates. Kidnapped, he discovers to his dismay that his employers’ main concern is to ensure the documents don’t get into the wrong hands, even if it means sending the carrier to the bottom of the sea. Now, with his former life ruined and his kidnappers seeming comparatively friendly, “Rock” decides to join their merry band of mercenaries, and sets out with a new career to the shadier corners of the South China Sea.
Durarara!!
Here’s another story set in Ikebukuro and its underground world where it follows the chaos that unfolds where dangerous people in the area are involved including the internet-based anonymous gang called Dollars. Durarara has plenty of interesting characters that will catch the attention of the anime viewers and it is a big wild ride out there. There are many characters that viewers can relate to and follow the story through different perspectives.
Synopsis
Looking for a change, Mikado moves from the countryside to bustling Ikebukuro to attend the same high school as his best friend, Masaomi. Though navigating a new school and friendships can prove tough by itself, Mikado also finds an overwhelming number of new delights and dangers in the district he now calls home. From a friendly Russian sushi bar to the violent color gangs, to even an urban legend in the form of a black motorcycle rider, each resident of Ikebukuro is unique and frightening. But the town is smaller than it seems at first, and these strange events appear to be connected. Will the growing storm sweep up the transplanted country boy and his friends or will Mikado find himself at the center of a dramatic change for Tokyo?
Baccano!
This 2007 adventure-action anime is filled is a classic on its own. An anime that follows Mafiosi, alchemists, thieves and thugs, and Camorristi as characters where we can see the story that transcended times and ages. Baccano! brought these unconnected characters into a wild chaotic ride that went out of control due to a single common denominator and that is an immortality elixir.
Synopsis
It’s the 1930s, and Mafia groups fight for supremacy in American cities. Young Firo joins the secretive Camorra group; a meek street boy, Jacuzzi, finds himself the leader of a gang of thugs; an alchemist is producing a liquor of immortality, and a homunculus tries to retrieve it; and upbeat thieves Isaac and Miria head to New York after failing to strike gold in California. They ride the novel train, the Flying Pussyfoot, across the continent. However they find themselves embroiled in a ruckus caused by gangs, terrorists, serial killers, and others as multiple stories intertwine and unfold on this fateful ride. All are haunted and hunted by the legendary Rail Tracer…
Gangsta
An action-packed anime about the mafia, gangster, and mob, our two main characters in Gangsta both work for the police and mob where they took jobs that normal people can’t handle including eliminating gangs and hoodlums in a dangerous city where chaos is part of the daily living. Gangsta aired in 2015 as part of the summer lineup from studio Manglobe.
Synopsis
In the city of Ergastulum, a shady ville filled with made men and petty thieves, whores on the make and cops on the take, there are some deeds too dirty for even its jaded inhabitants to touch. Enter the “Handymen,” Nic and Worick, who take care of the jobs no one else will handle. Until the day when a cop they know on the force requests their help in taking down a new gang muscling in on the territory of a top Mafia family. It seems like business (and mayhem) as usual, but the Handymen are about to find that this job is a lot more than they bargained for.
Source: Viz
Darker than Black
Intense, thrilling, and tons of action, Darker than Black is just like your standard anime about mafia and gangster but it has more to its story than what meets the eye. Our main character is working for the syndicate and his journey as an undercover is an exciting and bloody story to follow.
Synopsis
A giant wall looms over Tokyo, shielding the city from a dangerous otherworld called the ‘Hell’s Gate’. Within the city, things are no less terrifying because Contractors, psychopathic killers with phenomenal powers, have started to appear. These killers are compelled to pay a price every time they use their powers, often in the form of a meaningless or painful task. As their deadly habits rack up a gruesome death toll, Kirihara Misaki and her team from the Foreign Affairs Public Security struggle to solve the cases and bring the Contractors under control. Their task is further confounded by the interference of a masked individual they title Messier Code BK201, a man with abilities that allow him to fight and defeat the Contractors. Who is this BK201? How can the Contractors be stopped permanently? And what does the appearance of the Hell’s Gate mean for the people of Tokyo?
Crying Freeman
Alright, this 6-part OVA is an amazing ride filled with blood and action with so much drama centered on assassin who worked for a Chinese mafia organization.
Synopsis
Yo Hinomura was an ordinary Japanese potter when a run-in with a Chinese mafia changed his life forever. Now an assassin for the 108 Dragons, Yo is the perfect killing machine. As a sign for remorse over his victims, he sheds tears after eliminating his targets. Because of this, he is infamously known by the Dragons and every crime syndicate in the world as “Crying Freeman.”
Source: ANN
This is my list of 12 anime about mafia, gangsters, and many more in their plot that will drive your anime soul who is looking for action and excitement on the edge. If you think there are other series that deserve to be included in this list, please let us know by leaving a comment below. Now, which of these anime will you add to your watchlist?
References:
Last Updated on September 25, 2022 by Yu Alexius
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