We all know the classic ecchi shows with the perverted boob slips and the pantshots but finding one that has a good story can be hard sometimes. Here are the best fan-service anime that are more than just lewd.
10 best Fan-Service Anime
10. High School DxD
Issei Hyoudou is your average hormonal high school teenager who wants nothing to do with life other than following around and peeping on women, hoping to have a harem of his own someday. One day, he stumbles upon a beautiful girl who asks him out on a date suddenly. Much to Issei’s surprise, she is a fallen angel and kills him on the spot.
With this, his life is over and he never did anything productive or even get a girlfriend, much less a harem. However, he gets a second chance at life when the beautiful upperclassman Rias Gremory revives him as her servant, forcing him to join the Occult Research Club.
High School DxD is one of the most popular and memorable ecchi shows out there and for good reason. There is a lot of ecchi scenes throughout the show but the develoment between Rias and Issei progresses nicely as they meet new angels and devils and fight to protect their town.
The comedy is above average for most fan-service anime and provides slight story progression. I highly recommend watching this if you want to start the ecchi genre fresh with a safe recommendation.
9. Myriad Colors Phantom World
In this world, there are supernatural entities that exist from the past emotions left over by humans known as phantoms (also known as youkai or ghosts). Until recently, they were believed to be superstitions but a certain virus spread across humanity that allowed everyone to be able to see them and it also affected the next generations in giving them abilities that they can hone to combat these phantoms.
Haruhiko Ichijou and Mai Kawakami are a duo of phantom sealers in Team E of Hosea Academy, a school focused on sealing phantoms. In a world where the real and surreal are indistinguishable, Haruhiko and Mai gain new team members and go on adventures to prove themselves to be the greatest phantom sealers ever.
KyoAni has always held the standard for what good anime should look like the ecchi scenes that are sandwiched in there do not disappoint. However, this is far from the actual enjoyment and praise that the series earns. It’s a slice-of-life anime with a background plot that pushes relationships closer and focuses on redemption and how broken bonds can be retied once again.
8. Haganai
Kodaka Hasegawa is transferring to a new school and he wants to get rid of his delinquent Yankee impression and make new friends. Unfortunately, this is completely in vain as he’s labeled a violent delinquent on the first day of class. Depressed, he walks into an empty classroom after school to see another loner Yozora Mikazuki, a girl standing by herself talking to an imaginary friend in an empty classroom.
The two share complaints about how tough it is to fit in high school when Yozora proposes to break their status quo and make friends by creating the Neighbor’s Club. A club created for people with no friends, the members learn how to interact with each other, play social games, and just mess around as normal friends would. Kodaka will encounter more and more girls who join the Neighbor’s Club, forming new connections and finding friends out of these oddities.
Haganai is one of the few ecchi animes that really bring out a feeling that can rattle your heart. Haganai focuses on the individual relationships that Kodaka creates over the year with the girls. The characters in the show are also hilarious and their design makes them a perfect fit for the show.
Sena Kashiwazaki the stuck-up eroge/otaku daughter of the school’s principal, Rika Shiguma the perverted mad scientists, and Yukimura Kusunoki, a cross-dressing reverse-trap with absolute loyalty to Kodaka as his self-proclaimed servant, much to Kodaka’s distaste.
7. Saekano
Tomoya Aki is one of the greatest otakus to live. Obssessed with collecting animes, light novels, manga, and games for years, he attaches himself to the fascinating stories and art that make each videogame great. Now, he wants to take the leap to prove himself as a true fan and share the same joy he feels playing by making a game himself.
Sadly, he cannot do this alone. He struggles but successfully enlists his literary-skilled upperclassmen Utaha Kasumigaoka to create the stories and childhood friend Eriri Spencer Sawamura to illustrate them. With Tomoya doing the programming and tailoring work, all he needs is something to push his dream forward, something that can inspire him. On a spring afternoon, he catches a hat flying away and gives it to the beautiful and docile Megumi Katou, the heroine that he just needs.
Saekano brings a different view on the otaku industry in comparison to eroge writers and mangakas and animators. An anime about video game creating is something that can bring all kinds of ideas and not just “plot-wise.”
6. Gleipnir
Shuuichi Kagaya is a monster. That’s what he believes, at least. However, he’s just a high school student with one interesting ability: he can turn himself into a giant fighting bear. He doesn’t know how or why he got these abilities but all he knows that he can shift to this machine of destruction at his will but he hates it. One night while taking a walk, he sees a building on fire with a girl from his school trapped inside. He forces himself to transform and save her but accidentally drops his phone.
When Shuuichi goes to school tomorrow, the girl he saves finds him and questions him about his powers with even going as far as to push him off a building to force him to transform. She blackmails him by taking a photo and asks him to help her find other monsters, including her sister who killed their parents.
This is an ecchi show on the more action-side of anime with the bits of humor coming from ecchi shots. The bond that Claire and Shuuichi have is a strange one and definitely a type of lewd one but their teamwork and bond pushes them forward to discover the truth behind these powers. Gleipnir does not have your textbook definition of ecchi but it’ll still be plenty of fan-service for people looking for some in an action anime.
5. Prison School
Hachimitsu Private Academy is a prestigious all-girls private school with prides itself on its high standard for education and discipline. Little do the students know that there will be a big change to their institution.
Enter 5 humbly boys walking in the heat towards their first semester at an all-girls high school: Kyoshi, Gakuto, Shingo, Andre, and Jo. Most of the girls are averse to talk with them because of their inexperience with guys.
Frustrated, the boys decide to take revenge by peeping into the girls’ bath. However, their plan is obliterated by the Underground Student Council that punishes them by sending them to a prison beneath the school to serve a sentence for their perverted crimes.
One of the funniest ecchi anime to come out, Prison School is a fan-favorite when it comes to crying laughing during fan-service. Not primarily focusing on themes like love, actual lewd topics, or affection, this is a gritty comedy about sadist women whipping these poor 5 boys into shape, and the boys bonding through brotherhood as they endure these long days.
Each officer in the prison has their own preferences for punishment that vary from straight out beating them up to doing insanely lewd acts out of embarrassment and humiliation.
4. Food Wars
Since his childhood, Souma Yukihira has helped out his dad as the sous chef at their diner. Over the years, Souma has refined his cooking skills through his passions for seeing his customers smile as they eat his food using creative culinary creations. He dreams to surpass his father and take over the family business as head chef.
Out of nowhere, however, his dad closes the restaurant and says he needs to go and train more because something is missing from his food. He enrolls Souma in Tootsuki Culinary Academy, the world’s most prestigious cooking school only open for the elites of the culinary world, while he’s away. The main aspect of Tootsuki is the “Shokugeki” or food war that is a battle between two chefs to see who can get the majority of the judges’ votes.
For a shounen cooking show, the ammount of fan-service in this show is unspeakable. Every spectacular food experience causes a wave of ecstasy animated in the most lewd fashion ever, even going as far to show their clothes ripping off from how good it is.
Fan-service in this show acts only to help improve the comedy and relieve the tension during food comeptitions but this anime is a great story about a boy wanting to follow in his dad’s footsteps but finding his own way to cook and becoming better and better.
3. To LOVE-Ru
Rito Yuuki is a shy 16-year old boy who still has yet to confess to his crush Haruna Sairenji who he met in junior high. Unfortunately, this becomes even harder for him when a naked girl crashes and falls into his bath. Not only that, but Rito learns she’s the runaway crown princess of an alien planet Lala Satalin Deviluke.
Lala doesn’t want to be tied to an unwanted political marriage so she falls for Rito, wishing to make him her husband. As Rito finds more and more supernatural things happening around Lala, it becomes harder and harder for him to finally confess to Haruna.
To-LOVE-Ru is one cluster of fun, ecchi, and slapstick comedy. This show reaches fan-service levels that I couldn’t think would be possible. Although it is mainly a show for fan-service, it follows a decently-lain plot and has multiple season as well, showing how popular of a series it is.
2. KissxSis
When Keita’s father remarried, he got two twin older sisters as well. The mature yet sensitive and homely Ako is the school’s student council president and the athletic, aloof, and scary Riko is the school’s disciplinary committee president. Two polar opposites, yet they still seem to love their new brother a little TOO much.
Since they grew up since kindergarten, Keita is laid back with them but when he gets a potential sports recommendation to a different high school than his sisters, he desperately needs to find a way to pass the exam without succumbing to the temptations of his sisters.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you one of the greatest and most well-known and iconic ecchi/fan-service series to ever bless anime. KissxSis is a lot more ecchi than others with little plot but tons of comedy and a calming slice-of-life anime between three loving siblings. Although there is a lot of fan-service from the sisters to Keita, it does show how a family bonds better coming from two sides.
1. KILL la KILL
Ryuuko Matoi’s father was murdered, driving her to wander, searching for his killer. Her only lead is half of his invention: The Scissor Blade. She stumlbes upon a werid city that hosts Honnouji Academy, a prestigious school with a deathly-strict disciplinary system of tyranny by the cold and intimidating Student Council President Satsuki Kiryuuin and her four subordinates.
The power system at the school works by a star-system on uniforms called “Goku uniforms” that provide superhuman abilities to wearer. After picking a fight with one of the four subordinates, Ryuuko retreats to an abandoned apartment where she sees a “Goku uniform” but this time, it’s a “Kamui,” a rare, sentient uniform also called the God Clothes.
Using this uniform and the the traces of it to her past, Ryuuko is now equipped with immense power and ready to make a stand against this oppressive system and follow the lead to find her father’s killer.
At the top of this list is probably one of the first fan-service anime we watched without even realizing it was called “fan-service.” Kill la Kill is a revolutionary shounen anime that features a powerful, headstrong female tomboy who goes beyond the cheesy morals that characters like Naruto and Touma Kamijou. On top of a great action/adventure storyline, the uniforms are perfectly made to suit any ecchi/fan-service lover’s action anime fantasies. With amazing “culture” and a great plot, Kill la Kill stands as one of the greatest ecchi shows.