15 Best Anime Under 12 Episodes For You To Binge Watch
If you love anime, but don’t really have time to follow thousands of One Piece episodes, or don’t want to go all the way into the 80s to watch Dragon Ball from the begging, then you are in the right place. In this article, we are bringing you the best anime under 12 episodes you can binge-watch in a day or less.
Anime on our list are short, but some are really underrated gems, so if you haven’t watched them, be sure to give all 15 a try, and watch the best anime under 12 episodes in one sitting.
No Game, No Life (2014)
Sora and Shiro are two hikikomori step-siblings who are known in the online gaming world as Blank, an undefeated group of gamers. One day, they are challenged to a game of chess by Tet, a god from another reality. The two are victorious and are offered to live in a world that centers around games. They accept, believing it to be a joke, and are summoned to a reality known as Disboard.
There, a spell known as the Ten Pledges prevents the citizens of Disboard from inflicting harm on one another, forcing them to resolve their differences by gambling with games whose rules and rewards are magically enforced. In-game, rule enforcement only occurs when the method of cheating is acknowledged and outed by the opponent, allowing players to cheat through discreet methods. Sora and Shiro traverse to Elkia, the nation inhabited by humans, and befriend the duchess Stephanie Dola.
Learning about Elkia’s decline, the two participate in a tournament to determine the next ruler; after winning the crown, they earn the right to challenge the Disboard’s other species as humanity’s representative. Their next goal is to conquer all sixteen species in order to challenge Tet to a game; as of the sixth volume, five of the sixteen are under their control.
Grand Blue (2018)
Iori Kitahara looks forward to his new life on the Izu Peninsula as he prepares to start his college life there, staying in a room above his uncle’s diving shop “Grand Blue.” However, he is quickly shocked as he meets the local Diving Club, a group full of buff men who spend more time drinking, partying, and stripping naked than actually diving.
Despite his attempts to distance himself from the group, Iori gets quickly swept up in their antics, while his cousins try to show him the wonders of diving into the ocean and sea.
Angel Beats! (2010)
The story takes place in the afterlife and focuses on Otonashi, a boy who lost his memories of his life after dying. He is enrolled into the afterlife school and meets a girl named Yuri who invites him to join the Afterlife Battlefront, an organization she leads that fights against the student council president Kanade Tachibana, a girl also known as Angel with supernatural powers.
Erased (2016)
In 2006, 29-year-old Satoru Fujinuma, a man living in Chiba, possesses an ability known as “Revival” that sends him back in time moments before a life-threatening incident, enabling him to prevent it from happening again.
When his mother is murdered by an unknown assailant in his own home, Satoru’s ability sends him back eighteen years into the past and Satoru is given the opportunity to not only save his mother but also prevent a kidnapping incident that took the lives of three of his childhood friends.
Zankyou No Terror (2014)
Tokyo has been decimated by a terrorist attack, and the only clue to the identity of the culprit is a bizarre internet video. As paranoia spreads, two mysterious children form the “Sphinx”…
The FBI becomes involved in the case, and when a new puzzle is sent via a public test message – but from a different quarter – the trap is set.
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun (2014)
High school student Chiyo Sakura has a crush on schoolmate Umetarou Nozaki. When she confesses her love to him, he mistakes her for a fan and gives her an autograph. When she says she wants to be with him, he invites her to his house and has her help with some drawings.
Sakura discovers that Nozaki is actually a renowned shōjo manga artist working under the pen name Sakiko Yumeno. She agrees to be his assistant in order to get closer to him. As they work on his manga Let’s Fall in Love, they encounter other schoolmates, who assist them and serve as inspirations for the story.
Another (2012)
In 1972, Misaki, a popular student of Yomiyama North Middle School’s class 3-3, suddenly died partway through the school year. Devastated by the loss, the students and teacher behaved like Misaki was still alive, leading to a strange presence in the graduation photo. In the Spring of 1998, Kōichi Sakakibara transfers into Yomiyama’s class 3-3, where he meets Mei Misaki, a quiet student whom their classmates and teacher seemingly ignore.
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The class is soon caught up in a strange phenomenon, in which students and their relatives begin to die in often gruesome ways. Realizing that these deaths are related to the “Misaki of 1972”, a yearly calamity that has struck almost every class 3-3 since 1972, Kōichi and Mei seek to figure out how to stop it before it kills any more of their classmates or them.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)
The story follows a group of middle school girls, led by protagonist Madoka Kaname, who make supernatural contracts to become magical girls (mahō shōjo). In battling surreal enemies known as “witches”, they learn of the anguish and peril associated with their new roles.
Violet Evergarden (2018)
The story revolves around Auto Memory Dolls. There was a machine invented as a prototype for the typewriter. It was originally made by Professor Orlando, the authority on letterpress printing and a researcher of mechanical dolls. His wife, Molly, was a novelist, but she became blind and could not write anymore. Dr. Orlando then created the first Auto-Memories Doll for her, meant to register everything said by a human voice.
In the present time, the term refers to the industry of writing for others. The story follows Violet Evergarden’s journey of reintegrating back into society after the war is over as she is no longer a soldier, and her search for her life’s purpose in order to understand the last words her mentor and guardian, Major Gilbert, had said to her: “I love you.”
Deadman Wonderland (2011)
After being falsely convicted for the murder of his entire class, a young man must learn to survive in a mysterious prison with a perverted take on incarceration while also looking to clear his name.
Death Parade (2015)
Whenever someone dies, they are sent to one of many mysterious bars run by bartenders serving as arbiters inside a tower in the afterlife. There, they must compete in Death Games with their souls on the line, the results of which reveal what secrets led them to their situation and what their fate will be afterward, with the arbiters judging if their souls will either be sent for reincarnation or banished into the void.
The series follows Decim, the lone bartender of the bar where people who died at the same time are sent to, known as the Quindecim bar, and his assistant.
Prison School (2015–2016)
Hachimitsu Academy, one of the strictest girls’ academies in Tokyo, has decided to admit boys into their system. Kiyoshi Fujino is one of these new boys, but he discovers to his shock that he and his four friends—Takehito “Gakuto” Morokuzu, Shingo Wakamoto, Jouji “Joe” Nezu, and Reiji “Andre” Andou—are the only male students among 1,000 girls.
The draconian laws that are still in place make the school even worse, which punishes even the most minor infractions with a stay in the school’s prison. The five boys all commit voyeurism in the school’s bathing area with the lecherous philosophy of “all for one, one for all”. Their capture and “arrest” by the Underground Student Council causes the five boys to receive an ultimatum: either stay a month in the school’s Prison Block or be expelled.
The boys are incarcerated in the Prison Block together and Kiyoshi is overwhelmed by the discovery that all the other boys are masochists that revel in the punishments handed to them by their attractive but vicious supervisors.
Elfen Lied (2004)
Elfen Lied takes place in Kamakura and Kanagawa, and focuses on the “Diclonius”, a newly mutated species. Their appearance is similar to humans, but with several differences, namely horn-like protrusions on the forehead and the presence of telekinetic invisible arms called “Vectors”.
One such Diclonius, Lucy, is the main character of the series: Initially held in a facility built for experimentation, located off the coast of Kamakura, she manages to escape and wreak havoc, but is injured in the process, an event which causes her to develop a secondary, childlike personality known as Nyu.
Lucy is found by two locals, Kouta, who studies at the local university, and his cousin Yuka. They take her in, and become involved with the numerous, often brutal, attempts to recapture her by a Special Assault Team and a number of other Diclonius, who shift frequently from oblivious to murderous.
Yuri!!! On Ice (2016)
The series revolves around the relationships between Japanese figure skater Yuri Katsuki; his idol, Russian figure-skating champion Victor Nikiforov; and up-and-coming Russian skater Yuri Plisetsky; as Yuri K. and Yuri P. take part in the Figure Skating Grand Prix, with Victor acting as coach to Yuri K.
Baccano! (2007–2008)
It focuses on various people, including alchemists, thieves, thugs, Mafiosi and Camorristi, who are unconnected to one another. After an immortality elixir is recreated in 1930 Manhattan, the characters begin to cross paths, setting off events that spiral further and further out of control.
