Random Deceiving Anime That Prove You Shouldn't Judge A Book By Its Cover (15 items)

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  (#14) Punch Line

  Punch Line has one of the weirdest premises of any anime ever, and it's pretty easy to write it off as nonsensical ecchi anime with a completely absurd premise. For the first five episodes, that's exactly what it is. If Yuuta Iridatsu sees panties, his incredible powers will be activated, and the world will be destroyed. Sounds like a thinly veiled reason to draw anime panties, right? Wrong. Punch Line features one of the most tightly woven plots in anime history. Every single thing that happens makes some type of logical sense within the rules of its universe. What's more, the art is spectacular, the character development is spot-on, and it's just overall a really good series with a really good plot - something most people would never imagine given its wacky description.
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  (#11) Assassination Classroom

  Assassination Classroom is a brightly colored anime about a monster with a smiley face for a head who claims that he's destroyed 75% of the moon, and is going to do the same thing to the Earth in a years' time unless a group of middle schoolers is able to take him out. This sounds like a solid battle shonen concept, but this anime is not a battle shonen. Yes, it has some good fight scenes, but those fight scenes are not what's important about this show. Actually, its main themes are about how a teacher can inspire students to be the best versions of themselves. It goes deep into each students' learning style and emotional needs as they can be addressed in an educational setting - all while remaining entertaining. This isn't at all what viewers expect from the tentacle monster protagonist, but it's a heartwarming surprise. 
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  (#10) Fruits Basket

  • Romance, Comedy, Supernatural, Drama, Shojo

  On the outside, Fruits Basket looks like a bubbly shojo anime in which a teenage girl named Tohru finds herself at the center of a family full of attractive boys who are all interested in her for various reasons. Each member of the family transforms into an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. The premise sounds whimsical and light, and the show appears that way at first...but this anime is actually far darke than most people realize.

  At the head of the family is Akito Sohma, a cruel and despotic person who demands perfect obedience from each member of the family. If any member fails to comply with their rigid demands, they can be terribly abused. Punishments include everything from physical injury to locking people in cages for the rest of their natural lives. Though Akito is the most unsettling figure in the Fruits Basket universe, many of the characters also have abusive parents.

  None of this is what viewers expect when they first start this show, but it's what they get. 
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  (#8) Clannad

  • Comedy, Romance, Slice of Life

  CLANNAD is supposedly a slice of life anime that features Tomoya, a male protagonist who forms relationships with his female friends before ultimately settling on one of them. For the first season, that's essentially what it is, but in the second season, things get painfully real in a way that few viewers expected. Tomoya marries his childhood sweetheart Nagisa, and Nagisa gets pregnant. There are a number of complications that one just doesn't expect to see in an anime.

  Nagisa's already precarious health takes a nosedive during her pregnancy, so Tomoya works himself into the ground trying to support the family. He has bonding moments with a boss who once used drugs to cope with depression. When the baby is born, Nagisa doesn't survive the delivery, and Tomoya is so devastated that he drinks himself into a stupor and leaves his daughter Ushio with Nagisa's parents. When she's five years old, he finally gets his act together - just in time for Ushio to pass away from the same illness that claimed her mother.

  CLANNAD isn't an anime that looks like it's going to get this real, but the fact that it does is one of the reasons it is so highly acclaimed.
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  (#9) Magical Girl Raising Project

  • Action, Fantasy, Drama

  Magical Girl Raising Project is similar to Puella Magi Madoka Magica in that it takes the sweet and bubbly magical girl concept and turns it seriously dark. Koyuki Himekawa is a gamer who gets the opportunity to become a real magical girl in the virtual reality game that she plays during her spare time. What starts off as a fun and innocent game quickly becomes a battle royale with real-world consequences - those who are eliminated from the game meet gruesome ends in real life. 

  It's not surprising that the battle turns out to have real-world consequences - that much is clear from the summary. However, the jarring contrast between the cutesy character designs and the bloody brutality of the demises of just about every character in the series.
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  (#4) School-Live

  School-Live goes out of its way to try and lull viewers into a false sense of security. At first, it focuses on the cheerful adventures of the School Living Club, a group of girls who live at their school. It's not until later that viewers find out the reason behind this unusual arrangement - the girls are the last survivors of a zombie apocalypse, and are hiding out in the school to avoid becoming the zombies' next meal. This is lost on Yuki Takeya, who is under the same illusion that the audience is in the beginning, but for the rest of the club, life is an utter nightmare. 

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