Shows with primarily/heavily adult casts (non-Hentai)

[Ashyukun]

For a project I'm hoping to work on down the line, I'm trying to put together a list of shows where much of the cast are adults- ideally post-college aged- or there are a greater number of said adults than usual. I.e., way apart from the norm of the core cast being teenagers. No real restrictions on genre besides not being Hentai. I'd primarily like shows that have seen an R1 release, as I'll be looking to get footage from them.

Some of what I've got so far as examples:

Legend of Black Heaven
Paranoia Agent
City Hunter
Riding Bean
Wings of Honneamise
You're Under Arrest


Thanks!

[Glamrgrl104]

In any genre?


Eden of the east- College student age

Monster- Most adult or college age

Master Keaton- Mostly adults

Black Lagoon- Mostly adults

Black Jack

Antique Bakery- mostly adults

Death Note-college age

Heat guy j- ages mixed but mostly college age or adults.

Lupin the third

Welcome to the NHK- college age.

that's all I can think of lol. Depending on what genre you'd like.

[LKK]

Cowboy Bebop -- 3 adults, 1 teenager (tweenager?)
Big O -- all adults
Ghost Hunt -- 3 adults, 1 college age, 3 high schoolers
Junjou Romantica -- 3 adults, 1 college age, 1 high schooler

[Dennis_Mullin]

For a project I'm hoping to work on down the line, I'm trying to put together a list of shows where much of the cast are adults- ideally post-college aged- or there are a greater number of said adults than usual. I.e., way apart from the norm of the core cast being teenagers. No real restrictions on genre besides not being Hentai. I'd primarily like shows that have seen an R1 release, as I'll be looking to get footage from them.

Some of what I've got so far as examples:

Legend of Black Heaven
Paranoia Agent
City Hunter
Riding Bean
Wings of Honneamise
You're Under Arrest

Votoms, Armored Trooper (OOP)
Maison Ikkoku - Godai goes from pre-university to graduation to jobs to career and marriage (OOP)
Zone of the Enders - primary character is a frustrated space dad

[CheechMonger]

Ai Yori Aoshi - Mostly college age and adults
Maison Ikkoku - Mostly college age and adults

[pathos]

Taking into account just character ages, and not target audience age -

Darker than Black
Black Blood Brothers
Samurai 7
Solty Rei
Speed Grapher
Baccano
Basilisk
What I saw of Blassreiter (5 episodes or so)
Claymore (actually I don't really know what age they are)
Gun Grave
Berserk
Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne
Spice and Wolf
Trigun
Trinity Blood
Witchblade
Genshiken
Coyoto Ragtime Show
Innocent Venus
what I saw of Moonlight Mile (1 episode)
Rurouni Kenshin
Samurai Deeper Kyo

And, yes, some of those have younger characters in them. Sometimes, they are even important to the story. But, I think most of the characters in those shows are adults

[touma]

Pumpkin Scissors should qualify.
Patlabor, I think. I do not know how old Noa and Asuma are supposed to be but they are both real police officers so they cannot be too young. The rest of the main characters are adults.

[Njr Scrawl]

Gasaraki
Emma
Zipang
Master Keaton
Yugi the Negociator
Fist of the North Star
Crying Freeman
Gundam MS08th
Crest & Battle of the Stars
Agent Aika
Cat's Eye
Mermaid Forest
Human Crossing
Rumiko Takahashi Anthology
Planetes
SDF Macross
Zeta Gundam
Moonlight Mile
You're Under Arrest
Patlabor
Oh! My Goddess
Dirty Pair (not Flash)
Blue Seed

[Prede]

A Wind Named Amnesia - Released by CPM on DVD- 20-something year boy (Wataru) and girl (Sophia)

Black Jack OAV Series - Released by CPM on DVD- Adult Doctor (Black Jack), talking tumor who claims to be 18, but looks like a human child (don't ask :cool: ) , (Pinoko)

Dominion Tank Police - Released by CPM on DVD- Bunch of adult police

Cyber City - Released by CPM on DVD - Adult criminals

Descendants of Darkness - released by CPM on DVD- Mr. Tsuzuki looks like he's in his late 20's, but he's really =closer to 100 years old (same for the people who work with him), Muraki looks 30 something, Hisoka is 16 however

Speed Grapher - Released by Funimation on DVD- Saiga, Suitengu, and Ginza (self defense is a verb ;) ) have to be at least in their 30's, Kagura is in highschool.

Ergo Proxy - Geneon/Funimation - R-el and Vincent are adults.

Eureka Seven - Bandia Ent -The crew of the Gekkostate, sans Eureka and Renton are all adults. So is everyone in the military and government. Dominic is the youngest, and even he is in his 20's.

Gankutsuou - Geneon/Funimation - 16 year old lead (looks older), but plenty of adults in the main cast.

Le Chevalier D'Eon - ADV/Funimation - Primarily adult cast, minus Robin.

Megazone 23 - ADV - 20 somethings...

Pumpkin Scissors - ADv/Funimation- All adults in the army

Spice and Wolf - Funimation- 20 somethings and older

*I didn't really include a lot of movies. I can if you'd like.

[ibby]

Shows not on the list that should be added:

Ristorante Paradiso
Bartender
Legend of Galactic Heroes
Tytania
Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Hakairoku Hen
Mouryou no Hako
Shinrei Tantei Yakumo (some are college mixed with adults)
Toward the Terra (characters age throughout the series)
Hanasakeru Seishōnen
Level E (college mixed with adults and children. Mainly adults are mainly the supporting cast)
Kuragehime
Mononoke
Tiger & Bunny (more adult to teenage ratio of heros, as Blue Rose and Dragon Kid are the only teenagers in this series. The remaining 6 out of 8 heroes are adults).
G.I.S.T SAC (Can't believe some forgot this gem of a thriller series)
Kurau: Phantom Memory (Kurau's an adult and christmas is a child. The supporting cast are mainly adults.Released orginally by ADV and now Funimation)
Les Miserables - Shoujo Cosette (Characters age throughout the series, despite the first 13 episode focus on Cosette when she is young)

Most shows on this list are not liscensed in R1 yet, but that doesn't mean they are not good, and worth watching.That's all that I could think of at the moment, hopefully I've helped.

[sickVisionz]

Nana is almost all people aged 17-25

[Buckeye]

Going over the shows I have watched, here is all of the titles I have seen with mainly adult cast lists:

Black Heaven
Cowboy Bebop
Gundam 0083
Rurouni Kenshin
Trigun
Blue Gender
Heat Guy J
Hellsing
Scryed
Witch Hunter Robin
Wolf's Rain
Ghost in the Shell
Patlabor
Requiem from the Darkness
Texhnolyze
Descendants of Darkness
Gankutsuou
Gungrave
Paranoia Agent
Record of the Lodoss War
Samurai Champloo
Trinity Blood
Basilisk
Samurai 7
Solty Rei
Tokko
L/R
Le Chevalier d'Eon
Madlax
Death Note
Kurau Phantom Memory
Gundam 00
Black Lagoon
Get Backers
Saiyuki
Spice and Wolf
Moribito
Romeo x Juliet
Baccano
009-01
Eden of the East (Characters are college age, thus adults)
Canaan

[MitchH]

Ai Yori Aoshi - Mostly college age and adults
Maison Ikkoku - Mostly college age and adults

Ai Yori Aoshi has a pile of high school students, including like 1/3rd of the harem, and Maison Ikkoku has a number of secondary child characters, including, notably, a schoolgirl obsessively crushing on the student-teacher protagonist. In short, they're both typical seinen comedies, which means pandering to the desires and ages of the intended audience, undergraduate college students.



What I saw of Blassreiter (5 episodes or so)
Claymore (actually I don't really know what age they are)

I haven't gotten around to watching the second cour of Blassreiter, but the character of Malek & his coterie of bullying high school students (and victims!) kind of bends the no-kids angle pretty fiercely, don't you think? Not to mention that Malek's big-sister isn't nearly old enough to be playing single mother to an adopted brother like that... Claymore has a lot of teenagers and kids, although they let them grow out of that age set (or fail to grow up, as the show has an impressive body-count)



Eureka Seven - Bandia Ent -The crew of the Gekkostate, sans Eureka and Renton are all adults. So is everyone in the military and government. Dominic is the youngest, and even he is in his 20's.

Except that Eureka is (apparently) a teenager, has adopted a pair of little war orphans, and Renton's a *classic* example of a pubescent mecha pilot. Throw on top of that the way that Gekko State is a clatch of young, beautiful hipster-asshole rebels with a kick-ass military warship and are apparently a group of ex-Special Forces deserters I'd argue that this is the exact kind of show which *produces* exasperated pleas for age-appropriate casts.



Witch Hunter Robin
Moribito
Solty Rei

Robin herself is peculiarly young - she's like, what, sixteen? Maybe seventeen?
And the prince from Moribito is a child, the mother-son/mentor-student dynamic of Chagum and Balsa is the whole emotional point of the show. This aspect is part of why I didn't offer up Argento Soma over on the Fandom Post sibling of this post - although the majority of the characters are adults, there's that core child character.

Solty Rei is just crawling with nubile young techno-magical girls in combat roles, what, about six of them IIRC? This need for young flesh to fill out the marketing department's fanservice quota is what continues to cause age-inappropriate casting even in this age of a shrinking youth market & growing creepy-adult sales demographic. (And yes, my grey hairs put me firmly in that latter category...)

[ShireBeyay]

Silent Möbius

[Prede]

Eureka Seven - Bandia Ent -The crew of the Gekkostate, sans Eureka and Renton are all adults. So is everyone in the military and government. Dominic is the youngest, and even he is in his 20's.

Except that Eureka is (apparently) a teenager, has adopted a pair of little war orphans, and Renton's a *classic* example of a pubescent mecha pilot. Throw on top of that the way that Gekko State is a clatch of young, beautiful hipster-asshole rebels with a kick-ass military warship and are apparently a group of ex-Special Forces deserters I'd argue that this is the exact kind of show which *produces* exasperated pleas for age-appropriate casts.


1) I didn't really want to spoil what the deal is with Eureka. The little kids are not really main characters, so I didn't bother to mention them.

2) This is not for someone who is "tired of shows with young kids/teens in them", but rather, someone who is "looking to get footage" of adults in anime from these series. So I decided to include this show. Your point is well taken however.

[pathos]

I haven't gotten around to watching the second cour of Blassreiter, but the character of Malek & his coterie of bullying high school students (and victims!) kind of bends the no-kids angle pretty fiercely, don't you think? Not to mention that Malek's big-sister isn't nearly old enough to be playing single mother to an adopted brother like that... Claymore has a lot of teenagers and kids, although they let them grow out of that age set (or fail to grow up, as the show has an impressive body-count)

Actually, rereading the first post, it says

I'm trying to put together a list of shows where much of the cast are adults- ideally post-college aged- or there are a greater number of said adults than usual. I.e., way apart from the norm of the core cast being teenagers. No real restrictions on genre besides not being Hentai. I'd primarily like shows that have seen an R1 release, as I'll be looking to get footage from them

Much of the cast are adults......greater number of said adults than usual.

I don't see anywhere where he said "no kids"

[MitchH]

Actually, rereading the first post, it says

I'm trying to put together a list of shows where much of the cast are adults- ideally post-college aged- or there are a greater number of said adults than usual. I.e., way apart from the norm of the core cast being teenagers. No real restrictions on genre besides not being Hentai. I'd primarily like shows that have seen an R1 release, as I'll be looking to get footage from them

Much of the cast are adults......greater number of said adults than usual.

I don't see anywhere where he said "no kids"

Fair enough, I was chasing down my own ideas and let his exact request get shuffled aside. My mistake.

[General Hentai]

R.O.D. The OVA
R.O.D The TV Series - lots of adults, but also a good sprinkiling of kids, Anita, Hisa, their schoolmates and, of course, Junior.
Step Up Love Story aka Futari H - The anime OVAs of Futari Ecchi these are ecchi, very much so, but not hentai, following the sexual and romantic adventures of a pair of 25-year old newleyweds, who were both virgins when they married, and their friends, family and co-workers.

[ibby]

I forgot to add Rose of Versallies, Real Drive, X/1999 and GunXSword to my previous list.

[One Vorlon]

Has anyone mentioned Starship Operators yet? Its a Geneon title about a crew of cadets who end up in charge of a battle cruiser, and end up their planet's only hope (and the stars of a reality tv show).

However, despite the goofiness inherent in such a setup, it tries very hard to be serious. Everything has a reason (even the reality tv show), and while they never quite give the character's ages (at least not that I've seen), it does describe them as being on their last training flight before receiving their formal commissions. So - if its like contemporary society - that would put them around 21-22.