Comedy anime is an underappreciated genre in the art, as many who watch anime got into it during the time of Dragon Ball and Pokémon, where comedy is a small part of the larger story rather than the focus of it, and where the real draw is the action scenes rather than the jokes that often miss the mark.
There are many comedy anime with the standard run time, but sometimes that's just too long to keep our ever-dwindling attention spans. As much as fans love long drawn out storylines that span days worth of watching time, sometimes what we really want is a short chunk of entertainment that we can indulge in between the busy moments in our lives.
10 The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.
In a manner similar to Mob Psycho 100, this series follows Kusuo Saiki, a high school student with ridiculously overpowered psychic abilities as he tries to fly below the radar and live a somewhat normal life.
Despite every attempt he makes at maintaining the facade of his normalcy, he is often dragged into his friend's drama with hilarious consequences and will have to result to using one of his many superpowers. While the episodes as they stand now are full 20-minute runs, they originally aired as short, standalone stories that interconnect in some way.
9 Hetalia: Axis Powers
Hetalia: Axis Powers is a historical anime told through a comedic lens, showing events that happened during and around World War II, as well as other political and historical events throughout history. In a strange twist, each country is depicted by a single character, who is named after that particular country and embodies the general cultural stereotypes of the people they represent.
Although there has been some obvious controversy surrounding the series, it has also been commended for its historical accuracy and ability to tackle heavier subjects in a successfully light-hearted tone.
8 Tonari no Seki-kun: The Master of Killing Time
Yet another slice-of-life anime set in high school, Tonari no Seki-kun has a rather straight forward premise that sounds downright boring when described but is wholly entertaining in execution. Toshinari Seki, a slacker who sits in the back corner of the classroom, is constantly distracting Rumi, the girl who sits next to him, as he does everything except pay attention in class, somehow without being caught by the teacher.
What starts out as simply playing dominoes at his desk quickly escalates into more elaborate means of wasting time, like playing on a miniature pool table and recreating a driving test using remote control cars.
7 I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying
This slice-of-life comedy follows Hajime and Kaoru, a young married couple, as they navigate life despite their quirky personalities. Each episode is roughly 3 minutes long, and often has meta-references to other anime series as it jumps fanatically between scenes.
Unlike many short anime series, I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying follows a relatively simple story that progresses as the show goes on, culminating in the birth of the couple's first child.
6 Senyu
Starting life as a web manga, Senyu is a fantasy comedy that follows Alba, one of 75 probably descendants of the great hero Creasion, and his quest to save the world from the Demon King. In his travels, he is accompanied by Ross, a soldier with violent tendencies who often abuses Alba in comedic fashion, as well as others who join his cause as the story progresses.
Senyu pokes fun at many different genres and stereotypes, including romance anime and video game tropes, while following a story that should, for all intents and purposes, be much more serious than it is presented as.
5 Aiura
Short both in run time and episode count, Aiura simply follows Amaya, Iwasawa, and Uehara, three schoolgirls with no motivation for school life, as well as their other friends and classmates as they navigate life.
What makes this series stand out, aside from the fact that the opening and closing credits take longer to watch than the actual show, is its art-style. Aiura combines watercolor backgrounds with animation and CGI to create a look that is unique among animated shows.
4 Miss Monochrome
Miss Monochrome is centered around an android called Miss Monochrome, who one day decides that she wants to be a popular idol. After being hustled by her assistant and losing her 19.3 billion yen fortune, as well as her luxurious mansion, she is evicted and has nothing left except her pet Roomba.
After running into the manager of a supermarket, Maneo, and mistaking him for an idol manager, she ends up finding a job working at the supermarket while simultaneously trying to reach her goal of being a singer.
3 Hacka Doll
Focusing more on the cringe side of humor, Hacka Doll is a sci-fi comedy played out in a world where the internet is so overloaded with information that special AI companions have been created to help humanity sort out the junk and find what they really want, as well as being personal entertainment.
Each episode focuses on a different person's problems that are made inevitably worse by the intervention of the three main characters, Hacka Doll #1, 2, and 3, as they try their best to do their jobs, despite their ditzy natures.
2 Merman In My Tub
The title of this comedy does nothing to hide what the series is about. A merman, Wakasa, stays in the bathtub of a high school student, Tatsumi, while he recovers from living in a polluted waterway. As the merman can't leave the bathroom without drying out and dying, the show takes place exclusively inside Tatsumi's bathroom.
His new house-mate continues to demand extravagant meals and hot water, as well as constantly inviting other water-dwelling creatures over to keep him company while Tatsumi either works or goes to school. To add to the comedy of the series, the opening credits are played out in an overly serious action-drama fashion that you would expect from a much less light-hearted show.
1 Space Patrol Luluco
If this show could be described succinctly, it would be "21 Jump Street with aliens". After her father, a Space Patrolman, accidentally swallows alien contraband for breakfast and ends up frozen solid, his daughter, Luluco, is forced to become part of the Space Patrol and is sent undercover to her school to help reduce the rampant criminal activities going on.
Her dreams of having a normal life are utterly destroyed as she inadvertently shoots one of her alien classmates as he flees from being arrested, and is forced to embrace the crime-fighting life that was forced on her.