I’ve written a lot about things I find problematic in anime – lack of older women in lead roles, focus on style over substance, too much animated lens flare, and so on. But that’s a lot of negativity, so I feel like I should balance that out by putting forward some ideas for anime stories I would actually love to see.
So here are ten ideas for stories that I think would make awesome anime series.
Note: I may or may not be developing two of these as actual original fiction, since the chances of seeing them made by anyone else are slim to none.
1. A sports anime about playing conkers (or some similar playground game like nipsy or British Bulldog) that takes the game as seriously as any other sport in anime. Each episode has the challenger go into great detail about what they do to make their conker indestructible (pickling it, baking it, coating it with varnish) but they all get defeated by the mysterious transfer student who claims to have been playing with the same conker for ten years.
2. A magical girl anime where an inter-dimensional mascot character tries to recruit a new magical girl, but when looking for Earth’s best fighters, ends up recruiting a marine or a champion boxer or similar adult. They still have to wear the pastel-coloured outfit (it represents the flowers of the mascot’s home world) and call the attacks with the magic sceptre (the mascot refuses to change the voice activation on the magic-tech), but they only take on the role to keep the mascot from recruiting more child soldiers for their inter-galactic war.
3. A romantic comedy about a woman who is fat. It’s never mentioned. It’s never a plot-point. She’s just fat, and she’s in love with someone who loves her back but she doesn’t know it.
4. A ‘My Hero Academia’ spin-off or OVA about the teachers. I want to see Aizawa and Mic shopping for groceries. Cementoss and Powerloader going for drinks after work. All Might trying to do lesson-plans.
5. An isekai show where the protagonist is trapped on the Discworld.
6. A slice-of-life comedy about two warriors who’ve retired from fighting and just want to enjoy their quiet domestic life as house-husbands, gardening and painting and having some couple-time, but their respective armies keep trying to pull them back to fight or advise on battles. Bonus points if they used to be enemies, and every time their subordinates turn up at their house, it’s super-awkward because they’re talking to their old leader who’s baking cookies with their mortal enemy.
7. A yuri romance about adult women in their 40s.
8. So I knew that Girl Guides were an international organisation, but I recently learned that there are also Brownie troupes in Japan. So how about a yokai show with Brownies meeting British spirits – imps, pixies, sprites, and so on? With other creatures like the Wharncliffe dragon or the Beast of Bodmin.
9. Something with dinosaurs. I don’t know what. But dinosaurs were in every cool kids’ TV show when I was a kid, and I never see dinosaurs in anime.
10. An anime adaptation of ‘Five Nights At Freddie’s where all the animatronics are re-designed as young women. It’d be terrible, but hilarious.
Think you can do better? What concepts and plots would you love to see in anime? Tell me in the comments!
Fan Of A Certain Age 
these are really interesting! I wouldn’t mind seeing some of these myself. Running down the list for thoughts:
1. I’m from the US so I had to look this up, but if it would get the YuGiOh treatment that sounds like a hilarious one-season anime.
2. It’s a fantastic setup. Strong adults willing to shout out the silly magical words to keep kids out of the inter-galactic war. Maybe some younger people misunderstand it in-universe and think their job defending Earth is very glamorous, and it could evolve to be a take down of the glamorous trivialization of war depicted in moe-ified anime. I’d watch it.
3. Anime could really do with some diversity in their rom-com MCs, and this sounds pretty good without being offensive.
4. lol I’ve never watched My Hero Academia, but I would consider watching the adults going about their lives. Teachers are often featured in anime, but not the center of it are they?
5. This is pretty funny. I don’t know what an anime Discworld would look like but its an amusing premise.
6. I’m actually doing this story, and it’s basically the premise of my upcoming SFW comic SWORD KINGS – heroes (and at least one major villain – I can’t say who tho ;3) who have completed their quest and now live pretty domestic lives in love with each other, and having adventures. They keep getting pulled back into the fray because now the world has a feral monster problem: Kings, villagers, and all manner of people keep calling them to fight or solve their problems and they kind of have to say yes because it pays the rent lmao.
The only difference is that mine isn’t just two people, but a group, and it’s more like half slice of life half adventure. Still, if you’re interested, I’ll probably have it out this year :3
7. This would be awesome. More older women MCs in general would be great.
8. I’m very surprised there isn’t a show about British mythological spirits given that there has been representation of so many different mythologies in anime / manga.
9. You Are Umasou and Dinosaur King are the only ones that come to mind, but the former is aimed at a younger audience and the latter is a pretty meh shonen series.
10. Awful idea, lol. You know exactly the kind of audience who would watch this and enjoy it unironically. They’d make so much money off of merch.
I don’t have a specific idea for anime I’d personally like to see, but I was a big fan of the 4Kids dub of Ultimate Muscle back in the day lmao. Dubs that sound like ‘Abridged Series’ level of wild are the best.
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#1 needs to play out exactly like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxCukwjjhhg
#2 is one that I’m trying to develop as original fiction. It’s still in early planning stages right now (mostly pages of character notes and plot points) but I’d love to see it fulfilled as a full-length story. If I had any kind of art skills, it’d be a comic, but I can’t draw for toffee.
#6 is one that I would develop if I could, so I’m glad to see someone else is doing something similar! I look forward to reading it!
I just had a look at the trailer for ‘You Are Umasou’ and it looks adorable!
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