The 2010s were overflowing with comedy anime, but plenty of hilarious gems disappeared beneath bigger franchises. The best underrated comedy anime of the 2010s were never simply collections of jokes. They built identities around their humor. The Tatami Galaxy made existential anxiety hilarious. SKET Dance could turn school absurdity into genuine emotional drama. Hinamatsuri somehow made psychic powers, yakuza life, homelessness, and dysfunctional parenthood coexist in one of anime’s strangest sitcoms.
That is ultimately why these shows have aged so well. They did not need to be the loudest, most commercially dominant, or most immediately recognizable comedy series of their respective years. They simply needed to be funny and memorable enough that, years later, someone could discover them and wonder how they ever missed them.
Here are 10 underrated masterpieces that deserve more hype than they originally got:
10. Servant × Service (2013)
Forget The Office. Japan’s civil servants are bringing their own brand of workplace chaos. Servant × Service follows rookie bureaucrat Lucy Yamagami as she navigates a Hokkaido government office where paperwork, petty disasters, and painfully awkward coworkers turn nine-to-five life into sitcom material.
Its secret weapon is deadpan delivery: nobody reacts to absurd situations quite as calmly as these employees do. Karino Takatsu’s manga began in 2007, while A-1 Pictures’ 13-episode anime aired in 2013. It ranks tenth because its low-key laughs lack the explosive insanity of higher entries, but its workplace satire remains ridiculously relatable.
9. Tanaka-kun Is Always Listless (2016)
Imagine making laziness an Olympic sport, then giving your champion a human chauffeur. That is Tanaka-kun Is Always Listless. Tanaka treats standing, walking, and basically existing as exhausting side quests, while his dependable friend Ohta repeatedly rescues him from his own commitment to doing nothing.
The comedy thrives on deadpan reactions, ridiculous levels of lethargy, and the wonderfully strange contrast between Tanaka’s apathy and everyone else’s energy. Based on Nozomi Uda’s manga, Silver Link’s 12-episode adaptation aired in 2016. It ranks ninth because its gentle pacing lacks bigger laughs, but its cozy charm is almost dangerously bingeable.
8. Prison School (2015)
Five boys enter an elite girls’ school expecting paradise. Instead, they get surveillance, punishment, humiliation, and enough increasingly terrible decisions to power an entire season of television. Prison School thrives on escalation: every escape plan becomes more elaborate, every lie becomes stupider, and every character seems determined to make their situation catastrophically worse.
J.C.Staff adapted Akira Hiramoto’s manga into a 12-episode series in 2015, packing its outrageous premise with slapstick, erotic comedy, visual insanity, and surprisingly tense plotting. It lands eighth because its humor can be aggressively raunchy, but its commitment to absolute chaos is impossible to ignore.
7. Wasteful Days of High School Girls (2019)
Wasteful Days of High School Girls distills teenage boredom into an art form. Bino’s comedy manga began online in 2014, and Passione’s 12-episode anime aired in 2019. Baka, Ota, and Robo sound like a terrible idea for a friendship group, and that is precisely the point.
Their nicknames become comedy shorthand, while classmates such as Yamai and Waseda create an ecosystem of dysfunctional personalities. The humor thrives on insults, awkwardness, escalation, and sincerity. It ranks seventh because its episodic structure offers less narrative ambition than higher entries, but its ensemble chemistry makes it one of 2019’s easiest recommendations.
6. Asobi Asobase (2018)
Asobi Asobase begins like the cutest schoolgirls’ comedy imaginable, and then punches you directly in the face with demonic screaming. Based on Rin Suzukawa’s manga, Lerche’s 2018 anime follows Hanako, Olivia, and Kasumi as their innocent Players’ Club turns playground games into psychological warfare. The show’s secret sauce is contrast: adorable character designs collide with hideous reaction faces, savage insults, absurd escalation, and wildly theatrical voice acting.
Sixth place reflects its deliberately chaotic, mostly episodic nature, which gives the higher-ranked shows more emotional or narrative range. Still, when Asobi Asobase goes feral, few comedies can match its glorious, completely unhinged energy. This is a must-watch for everyone.
5. Humanity Has Declined (2012)
Humanity Has Declined looks like a pastel fairy tale, then casually asks, “What if civilization deserved this?” Based on Romeo Tanaka’s light novels, the AIC A.S.T.A. anime aired in 2012 for 12 episodes, with Seiji Kishi directing. Its unnamed Mediator negotiates with tiny fairies while humanity slowly becomes spectacularly irrelevant.
The comedy is deadpan, surreal, dark, and deliciously weird, often hiding social satire underneath candy-colored chaos. Fifth place suits it because its originality is almost unmatched, but its eccentric structure demands more patience than the entries above. Think Studio Ghibli after three espressos, one existential crisis, and no adult supervision.
4. Sket Dance (2011)
SKET Dance is the school comedy equivalent of a Bollywood ensemble film where every side character gets a dramatic entrance. Kenta Shinohara’s manga debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2007, while Tatsunoko Production’s anime ran for 77 episodes from 2011 to 2012. Bossun, Himeko, and Switch run a school-help club, but their “missions” routinely spiral into glorious nonsense.
The series can roast school clichés one minute and land an unexpectedly emotional backstory the next. That versatility earns fourth place: it offers bigger character development and storytelling than the entries below, without losing its gag-comedy swagger. Basically, chaos has office hours.
3. Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun (2014)
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun is what happens when a rom-com forgets it is supposed to have romance and decides comedy deserves the spotlight instead. Izumi Tsubaki’s manga began in 2011, while Doga Kobo’s 12-episode anime aired in 2014. Chiyo confesses to Nozaki, accidentally becoming his manga assistant instead. From there, every romantic cliché gets dragged, flipped, and thrown into traffic.
Nozaki’s obliviousness, Seo’s menace, Kashima’s princely nonsense, and Mikoshiba’s accidental flirting create a ridiculously strong ensemble. Third place feels right because its character comedy is razor-sharp and endlessly memeable, though its single-season anime leaves considerably less room to grow overall anyway.
2. The Tatami Galaxy (2010)
The Tatami Galaxy feels like someone put college regret, romantic frustration, existential dread, and three energy drinks into a blender, and somehow made television magic. Masaaki Yuasa’s 2010 Madhouse adaptation of Tomihiko Morimi’s novel follows an unnamed student desperately chasing the mythical “rose-colored campus life,” only to repeatedly sabotage himself.
The rapid-fire dialogue is practically a cardio workout, while its looping structure turns déjà vu into a punchline. Beneath the manic comedy lurks a surprisingly moving story about choices and self-acceptance. It takes second place because its inventive storytelling is extraordinary, though its experimental style demands more patience than Hinamatsuri’s effortless chaos.
1. Aho-Girl (2017)
Aho-Girl is basically what happens when anime gives one girl unlimited confidence, zero common sense, and a lifelong supply of bananas. Hiroyuki’s four-panel manga inspired Diomedéa’s 12-episode anime, which aired in 2017, with episodes running roughly 12–15 minutes. Yoshiko’s relentless stupidity drives childhood friend Akuru toward increasingly spectacular exasperation, while the supporting cast keeps adding fresh chaos.
The comedy is loud, physical, shameless, and gloriously repetitive. It earns the top spot because its rapid-fire insanity makes it a seriously underrated 2017 comedy gem.
Which underrated comedy anime do you think deserved a spot on this list? Tell us your pick in the comments!
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