Hokuto no Ken?
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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King of the Hill
It's Akimajo Hill Master X: Chi No Rondo you fucki g gaijin
Bobby is arguably the main character in that show, since the majority of episodes center around or at least feature a coming of age story about him.
I think you're over estimating the Bobby episode ratio, he was a major character and probably a secondary lead but hank was the lead character.
Black Lagoon
Cowboy Bebop
Trigun
Mobile Fighter G Gundam - pretty sure most if not all the pilots are adults in this series.
Dungeon Meshi, the characters are young but all adults I think.
Senshi and Chilchuck are solidly middle aged, the rest are young adults.
Izutsumi is 17 I think
Izutsumi is a cat
Also dunmeshi doesn't sexualize anybody
Vinland Saga shows a character from childhood to adulthood. Almost all other important characters are also adults, and the main character is an adult before the start of the second season
ZOM 100 Bucket List of the Dead. The cast are almost all in their twenties and it's genuinely one of the best shows to come out in the past few years. It's a class-conscious, pro-social schlocky b-movie zombie story that continuously interrogates its own premise (a burnt out wageslave and other people who were also miserable with their careers setting out after the end of the world to do everything they never got to do, before it's too late) in an almost dialectical process to arrive at a tempered version of it that centers helping others while still trying to enjoy what time one has left in the face of the apocalypse. The manga is amazing, and the anime is gorgeously animated and incredibly stylish.
Sakamoto Days is probably the best show of the past season, and focuses on a middle aged retired hitman and his I'm assuming twenty something psychic sidekick. It's creative, gorgeously animated, and very funny all throughout.
+1 for Sakamoto Days (and the banger theme song)
Armored Trooper Votoms (and its sequels plus the spinoff Armor Hunter Mellowlink)
Mobile Police Patlabor (both the movies and TV continuities)
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Ghost in the Shell (movies and Stand Alone Complex + Solid State Society - haven't seen Arise and all the stuff after that)
Rose of Versailles
Dallos
The Big O
Oh, and 
Cowboy Bebop, but I'm assuming you've already seen it
Ghost in the Shell (movies and Stand Alone Complex + Solid State Society - haven't seen Arise and all the stuff after that)
Arise is okay. You also have that Netflix reboot/sequel SAC2045, which is also okay if not repetitive.
I think reading the manga kinda killed part of my interest in GitS.
I only recently got around to watching Innocence lol.
one punch man, Satoshi Kon's movies.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team,
Bubblegum Crisis/Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040;
The Animatrix;
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust & Vampire Hunter D (1985);
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge;
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo;
Wicked City (1987 film);
Record of Lodoss War;
Eat Man (1997);
Robot Carnival (1987);
Dear Brother (teens but its an lesbian classic);
cyber city oedo 808 (that took me ages to find)
- Sakura Quest
- Shirobako
- Lupin III Part 2
- Maison Ikkoku
- Servant x Service
- Library War
There's also a greater number of anime where I'm not sure whether to include them because they might e.g. have both adults and children in the main cast, or might have a time skip such that characters who were originally children are later shown as adults, or there's maybe some form of age ambiguity.
You might also find this link to be useful.
omg Sakura Quest mention! And Shirobako my beloved, I really ought to rewatch it sometime.
Besides those, I'd add:
- Odd Taxi
- Dungeon Meshi
- Frieren
- Death Parade
- Mononoke (not to be confused with Princess Mononoke)
- Perfect Blue
- Psycho-Pass
- Recovery of an MMO Junkie
- Wotakoi
- Yuri!!! on Ice
- A Sign of Affection
And these, with some asterisks:
- Rose of Versailles - The main characters are teenagers at the beginning, but they're adults for the majority of the show. Even the teenager part is not anything like your typical school anime because they're in the royal court of Versailles and everyone else is an adult.
- Apothecary Diaries - Technically the lead character is 17 but again, it takes place in a royal palace, she behaves and is treated like an adult, and nearly all of the other characters are adults.
Odd Taxi is fantastic, easily my favorite anime in recent years. I also want to recommend sore dake ga neck (weirdish story about convenience store workers, I liked the voice acting) and the great passage (slice of life about a dictionary's editorial staff) Edit: I can't believe I forgot this but Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is about a man who gets released from prison and immediately apprentices himself to a rakugo master who has never taken apprentices before. It's one of my favorites, I highly recommend it
I just started Apothecary Diaries and can confirm it doesn’t fall into any sort of adolescent weirdness, also just really good besides.
The main character seems really grounded and not some dumb anime stereotype.
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Kaiji
Would Akagi count too, since Washizu is the real main character?
Castlevania TV series and the follow up show Castlevania Nocturne.
- the new Devil May Cry show.
Besides that Kaiju 8 features a main char that is over 30 years old . Pretty recent show
Frieren and Delicious in Dungeon
Ghost in the Shell (and SAC and 2nd Gig)
Promare
Brave Bang Bravern! (yes the exclamation point is part of the title)
Bravern is fantastic!
Crazy taxi
Dorohedoro (If you count Ebisu and Fujita as villains.)
Kaiju #8 is relatively new and all the characters are adults to my knowledge. They don't confirm the ages of alot of the characters, but they're all written as adults, and they even do a good job portraying the age differences between the main character who's in his 30s with the young, spry 20 year olds.
Also, has some kickass female characters
Where's the second season of this shit
Ergo Proxy
Texhnolyze
Monster is only adults after the backstory in the first 3 episodes
House of five leaves
Darker than black (first season)
Kurozuka
One outs
Kaiji
Mononoke
Berserk
Aoi bungaku
Monster
The fable
Planetes
Tatami galaxy
Texhnolyze
Ergo proxy
Black lagoon
Welcome to the NHK
Spice and wolf
odd taxi
Kochikame
Nodame cantabile
Nana
Golden time
Showa genroku rakugo shinjuu
Initial D (if 18 year old highschooler main character in first season is okay) Dorohedoro
Kokkoku
Legend of the galactic heroes
91 Days
Princess Jellyfish
Yayayayaya great recco 
Psycho Pass is the only thing that came to mind. I haven't watched much more recent than that and other people here already said a lot of what I would have
Mushishi technically fits the bill and I'm mentioning it just because it's very good. It's almost a ghibli vibe where its kid appropriate but not wholly centered on kids and very much good enough to stand on its own. Just a very touching series of basically fables in anime form, but a lot of them have one or two child characters. (some revolve around an older person or just a village or spirit or something but probably more than half have kids, but its very episodic and the main recurring character is an adult)
- The Venus Wars
- Big Wars
(I'm biased toward OVAs)
Blue eye samurai, My Happy Marriage, Outlaw Star, Hellsing, The Witch and the Beast
Edit: removed pedo-guy anime
I'd probably recommend against Samurai X - Nobuhiro Watsuki is a pedophile.
Damn TIL, thanks for letting me know
Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju
Even deals with aging from an adult to an elderly person, and the regrets that come with.
Rent a Girlfriend
Oh wait you said good anime
I also hate the weird pedo and fanservice stuff. The original Berserk is really good if you like very dark/bleak things.
Warning: there is some sex & sexual violence, but none of what I would call fan service - though it toes the line sometimes. Still worth it, imo, and everyone is an adult.
Hajime no Ippo is one of the greatest ever made and while the character starts out at seventeen he graduates a couple episodes in and him being an adult with other obligations that are in tension with his desire to be a pro boxer is a major theme of several story arcs.
Magilumiere Co. Ltd. is a recent one that takes the premise of magical girls fighting monsters and reimagines it as the tech industry. The main character and everyone else are all full time working adults in a struggling startup in an industry dominated by a few giant corpos.
I'm not an anime person but Kino's journey is the only one I can think of and even then I'm not sure the character's intended age or even gender and I refuse to look it up. It's the tale of a wandering they/them and their talking g motorcycle GF and combines mad max with twilight zone. Main character lone wanderer goes into a different place wash episode and they all have a Rod Setling concept or twist. It feels very serene even though there is some pretty brutal stuff.
Otherwise I like Gundam and Nichijou. Those don't suit the credentials
Do thousand year old dragons or vampires count?
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