The normal process for creating an anime series or film is to wait and see how well a manga sells then translate that into moving pictures once the series already has a decent audience. While sometimes an anime series will be created without any pre-existing story to pull from, at other times, it will pull from other sources, such as video games, instead.Considering how big the JRPG genre is, not only in Japan but in the world at large, it should be no surprise that a large portion of these anime series modeled after video games come from various JPRGs. Not all of these anime, or games, are worth the time investment to watch or play, though a few have gone on to become some of the more popular representatives of their medium.Updated December 23, 2021 by Mark Sammut: Games based on anime are a dime a dozen, and while not quite as prevalent, the reverse also happens quite often. While visual novels have served as inspiration for numerous spectacular anime, other genres have not fared quite as well. Most of these anime struggle to justify their existence, delivering neutered versions of their source material. However, as this article shows, exceptions do exist. To further illustrate that point, a few more of the best anime based on JRPGs have been added to this list.
13 God Eater
God Eater can't seem to escape comparisons to other, more popular properties. In gaming, the Aragami-slaying RPG exists in the shadow of Monster Hunter; conversely, the anime lives in a post-Attack on Titan world. While these comparisons are not unfounded, both versions of God Eater have their strengths.
In this universe, humanity has been pushed to the brink of annihilation as a select few warriors fight to protect everyone from massive creatures known as Aragami. Unsurprisingly for an anime created by Ufotable, God Eater's animation is its greatest asset, with the action sequences delivering in terms of scale and ferocity. The characters are unfortunately quite basic and uninteresting, although they are aided by a decent story with a solid final act.
12 The Tower Of Druaga
Starting out as an arcade RPG, The Tower of Druaga went on to spawn Bandai Namco's Babylonian Castle Saga, a franchise that released games over the span of three decades. In 2008, the license was rebooted as an anime, producing two pretty good seasons in the process. Set 60 years following the events of the 1984 game, The Tower of Druaga revolves around different groups trying to conquer a tower filled with monsters led by Druaga.
Putting aside an out-of-place pilot episode, The Tower of Druaga is an above-average action anime that builds momentum nicely as it moves along. The protagonist, Jil, is not the most instantly likable character ever, but he does grow quite a bit as the anime progresses.
11 Valkyria Chronicles
Sega's Valkyria Chronicles is an ideal candidate to go through the JRPG to anime process. Although not lacking in gameplay, the 2008 tactical RPG has a strong cast of characters, immersive world-building, and a story that holds up well. The anime retains most of what makes the game so engrossing, including well-realized representations of Squad 7's soldiers and the external and internal conflicts they face.
The anime has a few issues, like introducing new characters who don't gel that well with the game's roster, but it is overall a respectable adaptation of a stellar JRPG.
10 Ni No Kuni
First released in 2010 on the Nintendo DS before being re-released on more powerful consoles to near-unanimous critical acclaim, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is a JRPG that takes several cues from monster taming games in its first outing before abandoning this aspect in favor of an action RPG for its sequel, Revenant Kingdom.
In 2019, an animated film was released that, while not carrying over any of the same characters as either Wrath of the White Witch or Revenant Kingdom, was set in the same fantastical universe and featured the same world traversal aspects that were found in both games with Oliver and Roland.
9 Tales Series
The Tales series of RPGs is absolutely enormous, spanning nearly two dozen games released over the last 25 years, and is considered the third-largest RPG series behind Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Considering both of these series also have their own cinematic adaptations, it should be no surprise that the Tales series was also translated into anime form with adaptations of several of the series' main titles, such as Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Phantasia.
8 Yo-Kai Watch
Although it has largely fallen by the wayside, in no small part due to the insistence to not localize the series outside of Japan, Yo-Kai Watch was once a serious competitor to Pokemon, both in its video games and anime form, and is largely the reason why the Alola season of Pokemon was so vastly different from everything that came before it.
Unlike Pokemon, which follows its own story while having a vague association with the video game series, Yo-Kai Watch's anime and video games follow largely the same storylines, though the video games translate the slice-of-life aspect of the show into a more dramatic engagement with additional conflict and villains.
7 Persona
The Persona series has seen something of a resurgence in the west in recent years, with Persona 5 and its various expansions being some of the most well-received RPGs on the PS4. As the characters and story are what draw most gamers into the Persona series, this is the aspect that the anime adaptations focus on the most, being something of an animated retelling of the events of the video games.
So far, there is an animated sequel to Persona 3 in Persona: Trinity Soul as well as an anime retelling of Persona 4 and Persona 5. The Persona 3 movies are the best of the bunch.
6 Pokemon
It's impossible to mention anime born from video games without mentioning Pokemon. Although many fans find the timeline of when each iteration of the Pokemon world was released, the video games were the first to be released, followed shortly by the anime and various manga series.
In general, the Pokemon anime doesn't follow the same stories as found in the video game series, though several story elements, such as the various evil Team's criminal activities, as well as some in-game events like the sleeping Snorlax in X & Y, do carry over into the anime.
5 Night Wizard
Although the Night Wizard series began life as a fantasy tabletop RPG, it would later go on to expand into two fairly unknown video games that didn't release outside of Japan, as well as subsequent anime and manga series.
Night Wizard isn't the best-reviewed anime adaptation, generally garnering fairly middling reviews that amount to "not bad, but not great," but it does successfully bring both the tabletop RPG and the video games to life in anime form fairly faithfully.
4 Ys
Like the Tales series of video games, Ys was a fairly unknown JRPG series when compared to the likes of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest until fairly recently with the release of Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana, which managed to be a great competitor to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 at the time it was released.
However, the animated spin on this world was released very early in the game series' life, releasing one OVA in 1989 and a second in 1993 that follow the first and second games in the series respectfully.
3 Dragon Quest
Although the Dragon Quest series' anime spin-offs have had about as much success as most other video game adaptations, it has at least, for the most part, stayed faithful to the original art style of Akira Toriyama.
So far, Dragon Quest has been adapted into two anime series, The Adventure of Dai and Legend of the Hero Abel, though more recently it has also been turned into a CG anime film, Your Story, that follows the events of Dragon Quest V, which was criticized for not using Toriyama's original designs and its choice of voice actors.
2 Blue Dragon
Blue Dragon is something of an underground hit when it comes to JRPGs, being released on the Xbox 360 to varying degrees of success, with critics both loving and hating its adherence to traditional RPG designs. Blue Dragon was also the first Xbox 360 game to span over multiple discs, something that happened far more frequently during the PlayStation era than the PlayStation 3.
Once again, the character designs for Blue Dragon were done by Akira Toriyama, though this time, the anime series kept his iconic art style intact in the transition to the anime medium.
1 Brotherhood: Final Fantasy 15
Although the Final Fantasy series has had adaptations in the past, such as the Final Fantasy 7 film Advent Children or the in-name-only Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within film that was released in 2001.
However, while there have been several anime adaptations of the Final Fantasy universe, few have been as successful as Brotherhood: Final Fantasy 15, which takes place during the event of Final Fantasy 15 and gives a backstory to the main characters, particularly Noctis.