nime’s popularity has slowly grown more and more here in the west over the course of the last few decades. Thanks to the popularity of streaming services, getting into anime has never been easier. One of the most popular streaming services available on the market is Funimation. Funimation offers a wide variety of anime from multiple different genres, most of which are available to stream in either the Japanese original language or in English. For this list, we here at Adultist have selected 2 of the best anime from five genres available on Funimation that we think are worth watching.
Action/Adventure
Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball is one of the most popular and most beloved anime of all time and the entire series is available to stream on Funimation. This includes:
- Dragon Ball
- Dragon Ball Z
- Dragon Ball Z Kai
- Dragon Ball GT
- Dragon Ball Super
Funimation also has most of the movies and specials available for streaming as well. If you're looking to get into the action/adventure genre of anime, the Dragon Ball series is a fantastic place to start. Dragon Ball Z is often credited as being the anime to popularize many tropes that we see in other modern action/adventure anime. Things like:
- Transformations
- Power Scaling/Levels
- The Moddy Rival
- Training Arcs
- And of course, fights that last multiple episodes
The series was written by Akira Toriyama and follows Goku and his friends as they travel the world in search of the 7 magic wishing orbs called Dragon Balls. During their travels, Goku and his friends learn about martial arts, Demons, Aliens, and Gods. Goku and his friends are constantly forced to train and get stronger in order to combat the next big baddy that threatens their world.
One Piece
One Piece is written and drawn by mangaka Eiichirō Oda. As of 2021, One Piece is the most popular manga of all time, selling over 500 million copies. The manga is also relatively new, released in 1997. The anime came out in 1999 and has been running strong ever since. The anime is currently on its 1,035 episode.
The show follows Monkey D. Luffy and his quest to become the king of the pirates. During his journey, he assembles a pirate crew of interesting people that also have equally grand ambitions. The show is known for its unique character designs and art style, as well as its power system that is centered around magic fruits that grant the user crazy powers, flashy sword techniques, and Haki a power with multiple applications.
If you're looking for a show that is unique, action-packed, and full of fun and interesting characters, One Piece is a great pick for you. Funimation has every episode of One Piece available for streaming in Japanese with English subtitles. They do also offer an English dub of the show but be warned that the dub is behind the sub by a few arcs due to the show rarely taking a hiatus. Unfortunately, the One Piece movies are not available for streaming on Funimation at the time of writing this but some are available for DVD and blu-ray purchase in Funimation’s online shop.
Drama
Attack On Titan
Attack On Titan was written by Isayama Hajime. The show is currently sitting at a user score of 8.53 on Myanimelist.net and was scored by 2,542,601 users. The show is currently sitting at 87 episodes on Funimation spread across 4 seasons. Funimation also offers the Attack On Titan movie for streaming as well. The show is available in both the Japanese original audio with English subtitles and English dub.
The show is known for its lack of plot armor for characters. This means most characters in the show can and will die at some point or be greatly wounded. The show is set in a world where humanity lives in constant fear of giant-sized humanoids called Titans that seek out humans and consume them. The main character Erin Yeager and his friends make the life-changing decision to join the fight against the Titans.
Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist was created by mangaka Arakawa Hiromu. The show follows two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric who after failing to bring their mother back to life with alchemy and severely wounding themselves go on a journey to learn more about alchemy and repair their broken bodies.
Sitting at a comfortable 64 episodes. Brotherhood is a fascinating story centered around the concept of science and alchemy. It deals with complex philosophical concepts like the law of equivalent exchange, sacrifice, and more. The show doesn’t shy away from dark themes like murder and corruption but also takes its time to balance some light-hearted humor to keep the mood from staying too dark throughout the rest of the series. Funimation offers streaming of all episodes in Japanese and English.
Comedy
Assassination Classroom
Written and drawn by Matsui Yuusei, Assassination Classroom sits at a user score of 8.09 from 1,078,264 users on Myanimelist.net. The show is about an alien named Koro Sensei that declares that he will destroy the world unless this specific class of students can figure out his weakness before March of the following year.
Funimation has both seasons of Assassination Classroom in both Japanese and English. It features a unique and likable cast of characters including Koro-Sensei himself, despite the grim premise. The comedy of the show stems from the characters and the absurd antics they get into dueling Koro-Sensei. If you're looking for a show that offers a nice mix of beautiful animation, action, and comedy this show is the perfect pick for you.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. was written by Asou Shuuichi and has a user score of 8.42 from 543,412 users on Myanimelist.net. While it hasn’t been scored by quite as many people as Assassination Classroom, the show’s comedic style and structure are more in line with comedy shorts. Episodes are broken up into quick segments and focus on setting up and delivering jokes then moving on to the next segment.
The show revolves around a super-psychic boy named Saiki. Saiki is the world’s strongest psychic and can do basically anything. You might think this removes all conflict from the story but that’s where you’d be wrong. The main conflict of the stories and setups for the jokes in this show center around Saiki’s desire to just be left alone to his own devices. Unfortunately for him he often finds himself attracting the attention of strange and wacky characters despite his attempts to avoid attention.
Funimation has the entire first season of Saiki K. available for streaming in both Japanese and English. Unfortunately, if you want to watch the second season and its specials, you're a bit out of luck, they are only available for streaming on Netflix and even then the episodes are only available in Japanese with English subtitles. If you’re an introvert and you're looking for a show that you can watch in bite-sized chunks, you definitely need to give Saiki K. a watch.
Fantasy
Overlord
Sitting at a user score of 7.92 and scored by 857,573 users Overlord is a fantastic dark fantasy show that isn’t for everyone. Written and drawn by Maruyama Kugane Overlord follows Momonga who is trapped in the popular virtual reality game Yggdrasil. All of his friends’ characters and the NPCs in the games have been turned into real people as well. Momonga uses his power and influence to explore the world he is trapped in with hopes of finding others who may also be in the same predicament he is in. He also figures, why not conquer the world while he’s at it?
Black Clover
Black Clover is written and drawn by Tabata Yuuki. Boasting a respectable 8.13 on my anime list Black Clover is often considered to be a member of the new shonen big three. Though not as mainstream as its peers, Black Clover offers a story centered around classes and light political discourse between kingdoms. It’s an interesting angle that hasn't really been done in a lot of battle shonen before.
The entire series is available for streaming right now on Funimation in both English and Japanese. The show follows Asta, a boy born without the ability to use magic in a world dominated by it. Despite this fact, Asta still strives to become the Wizard King of the Clover Kingdom. In his pursuit of this, he joins the Black Bulls magic knight squad. His journey is going to be a long and hard one, but with good friends by his side and a bit of a secret weapon at his disposal, Asta’s dream might be more obtainable than you initially think.
Romance
Toradora
Written by Takemiya Yuyuko, Toradora is a charming little story about a boy and a girl who both like each other's friends. In an effort to help each other out, they agree to help one another get with their crush. But things don’t go entirely as planned for either of them.
The show has a user score of 8.10 on Myanimelist.net. All 25 episodes of the show are available in both English and Japanese for streaming on Funimation. If you're looking for a high school romance story with a bit of a twist in terms of its characters and plot this one is a great choice to check out.
Fruits Basket
Perhaps a bit of an underrated pic, Takaya Natsuki’s Fruits Basket falls into the category of shoujo. Shoujo are stories or manga that are targeted toward young, teenage girls. It is often viewed as the counterpart to shonen which is targeted toward young, teenage boys.
Fruits Basket is about a young girl named Tooru who after losing her mother ends up living with a family of boys that are suffering from the Zodiac curse. The show has 2 different adaptations, one from all the way back in 2001 and the newer one released back in 2019. All three seasons are available for streaming on Funimation in English. This one is a great choice for those interested in the Chinese Zodiac while also offering an interesting story alongside characters with actual depth. Check it out if it sounds interesting.
Please keep in mind that anime comes from Japan and is made with Japanese culture and traditions in mind. As a result, there may be some things in some anime that you may find weird or disturbing. The anime selected for this list were chosen with this in mind. We tried our best to pick shows that don’t feature anything too different from what you might find here in America. With that in mind, these are far from the only picks in these genres that are worth your time, if you’re willing to venture a bit outside your comfort zone, you’ll likely find shows that are nothing like what we have here in America. We hope you enjoyed this list. Feel free to tell us your favorite anime from each of these genres down in the comments!
