Comedy is used throughout a lot of anime to help bring a little humor and lessen the drama. There are plenty of anime shows like One Punch Man, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., and plenty of others that use comedy as their main genre while adding other elements from other genres.
Lots of shows are being made and added onto streaming services. Plus, big names in anime like One Piece and Naruto tend to be front and center when it comes to comedy. There are a few anime shows that have been forgotten because there are plenty of shows to choose from. If viewers are willing to search, there are a few hidden comedy gems waiting to be seen.
10 Happy Lesson
A twist on the harem genre. Happy Lesson is about Chitose Hitotose, a 16-year-old boy who lost his parents in an accident. Despite this, Chitose seems to have it all in life for a high school student. He has a large, beautiful house and the class president likes him. However, his grades are slipping and his five teachers decide to help him out, by moving in with him. Chitose finds himself in the middle of five women vying to be his "mother" and help get him back on track as a productive student.
To top it off, he was also "adopted" by two girls who now claim to be his sisters: younger sister, Minazuki Rokmatsuri and older sister, Hazuki Yazakura. This anime takes the harem genre and flips it over on its head. While some of the characters do have romantic feelings for Chitose, their main focus is getting him back on his feet. Meanwhile, Chitose is just trying to survive his the antics of his "mothers."
9 Clean Freak! Aoyama-Kun
Imagine being a soccer prodigy that's also good at just about everything off the field. Now, add being a germaphobe. This is Aoyama, the main character of the show. He's a star player in high school soccer team, but also suffers from mysophobia, the fear of germs. It seems like a paradox that he has this fear and plays a high-level contact sport like soccer. Somehow, he's mastered a way to control how much physical contact he has with other players and the ball.
Aoyama might be the main star of the show, but other characters like Kaoru and other soccer team members shine just as much as him. Their interactions with Aoyama are funny to watch and their antics overall makes this show great.
8 Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
An anime about two friends, Satoshi "Sasshi" and Arumi, that find themselves transported to an alternate magical world. Sasshi and Arumi work together to get out of the magical world that seems to be based on Sasshi's passions, such as sci-fi, role-playing games, guns, visual novels, and other likes.
To get back to the real world, they have to figure out what to do in each world so they can move on. However, there is something that's working against them that prevents them from truly leaving that'll surprise fans. The comedy is strong, but the anime also has a great coming-of-age story that blends perfectly with it.
7 GALS! AKA Super GALS!
An anime that helps introduce the kogal/gyaru subculture that's popular in Japan. This anime is about Ran Kotobuki, a 16-year-old girl that comes from a family of police officers. She was very immersed in the gyaru subculture, dying her hair orange with a red streak and accessorizing rather excessively.
The show is about Ran and her two friends, Miyu and Aya, living their best lives while attending school, defending Shibuya from shady characters, and figuring out what to do with their lives. All three girls are lovable in their own ways while still having some similarities. As the series goes on, all three of them grow up but still maintain the characteristics that made fans fall in love with them.
6 Azumanga Daioh
A comedy anime that kind of fell off the map thanks to big comedy anime shows like Food Wars!, FLCL, and Gin Tama. Azumanga Daioh is about the everyday life of six high school girls and two of their teachers. Each of them gets a good amount of screen time so there's not just one main character that the series follows.
They all have very different personalities that make the comedy aspect perfect. Plus, the teachers, Yukari Tanizaki and Minamo "Nyamo" Kurosawa, are just as hilarious and show that some rivalries don't go away no matter the age. With so many eccentric characters, this anime will give viewers tons of laughs. It has excellent comedic timing and a lot of running gags that made it one of the best anime shows released in 2002.
5 Shimoneta! A Boring World Where The Concept Of Dirty Jokes Doesn't Exist
It might seem like a typical anime that takes place in a dystopian future, but this anime changes it up a bit. Taking place in the year 2030, the Japanese government has essentially banned any "immoral" activities such as using risqué language, telling dirty/adult jokes, and the release of adult content. All citizens are even forced to wear a device that prevents them from doing so.
Tanukichi Okuma is the son of an infamous dirty joke "terrorist" that finds out the student vice-president, Ayame Kajou, is a perverted terrorist known as "Blue Snow". Ayame fights back against the government after she kidnaps Tanukichi and forms a group to spread adult content across the city as a form of protest. A hilarious take on the dystopian genre compared to others. Shimoneta! will leave viewers shaking their heads at the nonsense they see on the screen along with Ayame/Blue Snow's way of keeping her identity a secret.
4 Himouto! Umara-Chan
Popular and smart high school girl by day, die-hard, junk food-eating otaku at night. Umaru Doma seems like the perfect student while she's at school. She's popular among her peers, gets perfect grades, and is known for being beautiful. Once she's home, it's a whole different story.
She becomes a lazy, food and video game-addicted, spoiled child. Her brother Taihei works hard to please her and make sure no one at school figures out her secret life at home. However, Nana Ebina stumbles upon this version of Umaru, but thankfully she doesn't have any plans to reveal this. With her help, Taihei and Ebina show Umaru there's a little more to life than junk food and video games.
3 Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
An anime about three high school girls that create their own anime club. Midori Asakusa has always had a very active imagination, constantly drawing in her sketchbook and creating her own world. Her parents forbid her from joining the anime club at school, so she and two other girls, Sayaka and Tsubame, form their own anime club under the guise that it's a film club.
Each girl brings something different to the table to make their visions come true. While this show has its funny moments, it also helps viewers understand a little more of what goes on behind the scenes of the anime world.
2 Daily Lives Of Highschool Boys
An anime that gives an exaggerated yet realistic look into what some high school-aged boys go through in their daily lives. This show follows three friends: Tadakuni, Yoshitake, and Hidenori. They have the most random conversations, from talking about their thoughts on skirts and cute girls eating their lunch.
Even random subjects like having white eyebrow hair or sharing "scary" stories (think shaving chest hair and accidentally cutting a certain area). Of course, there are hilarious antics like undergarment stealing. Plus, helping "rescue" each other from girls that seem obsessed with them.
1 Excel Saga
An anime that will leave viewers shaking their heads at the nonsense of what's going on. Excel Saga is a slapstick, satire show that pokes fun at a good number of tropes in anime. It has violence, action, and sci-fi all mixed in with comedy. This anime is about Excel, a girl who works for the secret organization Across. Believing the world to be corrupted, Across plans to rule it starting with one city. It follows Excel and her partner Hyatt as they interact with their neighbors and complete their missions in hilarious and catastrophic fashion.
It has plenty of gags that will entertain viewers and keep them laughing. This anime has 26 episodes, but only 25 were aired between 1999-2000. The final episode was said to be too violent and obscene, but it has been shown in other broadcasts since. Fun fact: the original English voice actress, Jessica Calvello (the English VA for Hange Zoë in Attack on Titan), damaged her voice after the 13th episode. Larissa Wolcott took over after Calvello couldn't continue.