By adult I mean over 18-20 years of age and with adult appearances. Nothing against anime with younger characters, but interested in finding some with older characters.
Mushishi. Very serious, well-told stories told in single episodes. Occasionally a younger character will come along, but it’s mostly adults, and the cast outside of the MC rotates episode to episode.
I’ve completed quite a few:
- Violet Evergarden
- Vinland Saga
- Odd Taxi
- Cherry Magic!
- One Punch Man
- Saga of Tanya the Evil
- Delicious in Dungeon
Honorable mentions - depends on how strictly you’d define “mostly”:
Honorable mentions - unique circumstances:
- Cells at Work! - Your typical red blood cell lives for about 120 days :( The cells that look like adults do behave like adults though
- PLUTO - Robots’ mental age can be different from their physical appearances
In no particular order these come to mind. Most of these are outside what I typically watch, but I did enjoy them.
Monster (Crime Drama) https://anilist.co/anime/19/Monster/
Mushishi (Psychological Slice of Life) https://anilist.co/anime/457/Mushishi/
One Punch Man (Comedy Action) https://anilist.co/anime/21087/One-Punch-Man/
TRIGUN (Action Adventure) https://anilist.co/anime/6/TRIGUN/
Hellsing (Vampire Action) https://anilist.co/anime/270/HELLSING/
Overlord (Evil Fantasy) https://anilist.co/anime/20832/Overlord/
I think a lot of the other answers here are being too generous with your rules and not giving you characters that both look older and are older.
I loved Wotakoi. The 4 main characters are 26-28 and employed. It’s in the especially rare category of adult romcoms. It’s a shame the anime never got a second season, but the manga is finished so if you give it a watch and want to find out what happened after, give it a read!
Wotakoi is basically my default answer to when people ask about adult romcom series. Great suggestion.
Eureka Seven
if you want a fantasy story with emotionally intelligent characters, well-crafted themes and messages, great animation and music
this is a gift for you
OP2 Spoliers
My favorites have been :
- Bang Brave Bang Bravern - Big dumb gay robots
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam - Big dumb straight robots
- Redline - Just some fun racing action. Some of the best animation I’ve ever seen.
- Wotakoi - Love story between nerdy office workers
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes - The best space opera
- One Punch Man - depressed superhero
This was harder to answer than I thought, pushing up to 20 eliminates a lot of contenders I think. I would say maybe Vinland Saga? The main character starts as a child, but it also covers a large time span so he hits twenty partway through the second season. Major recurring characters are almost all adults throughout. Its a semi-historical anime set mostly in England and Denmark during a war between the two. It’s a show that deals heavily with violence and trauma, has some very complex characters, and I can’t recommend it strongly enough
This was harder to answer than I thought, pushing up to 20 eliminates a lot of contenders I think.
Maybe so, though that’s why I tried to relax it with 18 and older as well as mostly vs only adults. If there’s some younger characters I don’t mind, but I thought I’d ask about anime with a primary cast of older characters for a little change of pace.
Appreciate the suggestion!
A few off the top of my head: Shirobako. Space Dandy. Samurai Champloo. Ghost in the Shell: SAC.
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid was pretty cozy, and features primarily adult characters.
Call me a bit old fashioned, but Lupin III. Regardless of which part or movie, I tend to enjoy some of the sometimes wacky antics that occur.
Off the top of my head, Darker than Black. Same director, different take on bleakness: Wolf’s Rain. The main characters don’t really have ‘ages’ given, but they’re pretty clearly adults.
Record of the Lodoss War (a D&D campaign turned into anime, if I recall rightly)
That time I reincarnated as a slime (technically the main character is ~34, and very few children are shown, but the cast has a lot of ‘childishness’ in them… the style is the equivalent of a popcorn superhero movie I’d say)
Legend of the galactic heroes
Witch Hunter Robin
Van Helsing (if you just want to laugh at idiocy, simply watch the abridged series, but the actual show is good)
Dragon Ball Z, except for a few episodes every now and then. The show itself is obviously aimed at the younger shonen crowd though, if you haven’t seen it.
.hack//sign (dot hack sign) is a pretty interesting one. It has several other series in its ‘canon’ if you like it. I’d say it was the adult oriented, well-presented premise of sword art online before sword art online was wet-dreamed up. A friend described it as ‘waving its dick around because they had an actual orchestra for the soundtrack’ in several scenes.
Record of the Lodoss War (a D&D campaign turned into anime, if I recall rightly)
Mixed-age cast—the main characters are adults in the context of their society, but not all are necessarily 20+ years of age. Also be aware that there are two different versions of this, an OAV and a later TV series. There are significant differences in story between the two (the TV series adapts more of the original material, the OAV ends differently). I prefer the OAV, but it’s mostly a matter of taste.
.hack//sign (dot hack sign) is a pretty interesting one. It has several other series in its ‘canon’ if you like it. I’d say it was the adult oriented, well-presented premise of sword art online before sword art online was wet-dreamed up. A friend described it as ‘waving its dick around because they had an actual orchestra for the soundtrack’ in several scenes.
The last time I watched it (admittedly about ten years ago now), I found that it hadn’t aged all that well. The loose ends left because it was a prequel to some of the games in the .hack franchise were very noticeable. (It’s still a better version of the “trapped in a game” trope than SAO, though, because it doesn’t repeatedly reduce the female lead to a damsel in distress). And not all the main characters were adult, although some clearly were. The soundtrack is still excellent if you like Yuki Kajiura’s style, though.
(trying not to duplicate other mentions)
Current:
- Ramen Akaneko - is a current show with working (adult) cats and a human running a ramen restaurant.
- The Fable - is a current show that I classify as Yakuza noir, about a uh… idiot savant assassin? I love Yoko.
- Kengan Ashura - Extremely violent bizarre macho underground fighters.
Recent:
- Paripi Koumei/Ya Boy Kongming - An absolutely fantastic blast about making it in the music industry. All of the music is sooooo good! All major protagonists work in a bar.
- Akiba Maid Sensou/Akiba Maid War - A parody of maid cafes operated like Yakuza gangs.
- Brave Bang Bravern - was a pretty good farce of 90s super robot shows with all adult military guys as protagonists.
- Glass Of God - was about godlike knowledge of bartending, so obviously no kids or teens there.
Loving all of the Odd Taxi mentions.
- Planetes (sofa king good)
- Hellsing
- Area 88
- Genshiken (adults but college setting)
- Read or Die
- Gundam 08th MS Team
- Excel Saga (the main cast are all adults, but it’s a comedy and just about everyone is an idiot, so they won’t necessarily act like adults)
- Gintama (main character is an adult, his sidekicks are not, but the majority of the cast is adult. Again, comedy, so maybe not “adult” enough lol)
- Cowboy Bebop
- Way of the Househusband
- Gundam Thunderbolt
From my spouse:
- Servant x Service
Not sure if it’s considered true anime, but Castlevania on Netflix was excellent.
Wotakoi, Black Lagoon, Baccano (I think?), 91 Days, Akudama Drive, Golden Kamuy, Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens, ID: Invaded, Dragon Maid, Spice and Wolf, Wave Listen To Me! to name a couple
Genshiken
Bartender
Spice and Wolf
The Fable
Dungeon Meshi
Goblin Slayer
Saihate no Paladin
Shirobako
Psycho Pass
Wotakoi
Zom100
Golden Kamuy
My Home Hero
Kyokou Suiri
Vinland Saga - He’s like 16 in the first half but grows up by the 2nd half.
Isekai Ojisan
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
Blue Period
Megalo Box
Samurai Champloo
BNA
Aria
Ishuzoku Reviewers
NHK no Youkoso
Drifters
Trigun
Osomatsu-sanThat takes the record for the longest LN title /s
I swear I formatted it properly on mobile.