Spy x Family is a heartwarming shonen comedy anime starring one of anime's best found families, the Forger household. As a part of his mission, the Westalis spy Twilight assumed the identity of Loid Forger and adopted the pink-haired telepath, Anya. Now, she is Anya Forger, a key part of Operation Strix.
Anya must befriend Donovan Desmond's tsundere son Damian for the sake of world peace, but it's not easy. Anya is brave and telepathic, but she's also a lousy student. She often miscalculates or comes up with humorously bad plans that never work out. Anya could never outwit other anime kids who could easily get Stella stars and complete Operation Strix. That also includes older anime characters who were smart, well-educated kids in their youth.
10 Shiro Is A Young Master Of Video Games
No Game No Life
No Game No Life is a popular one-season isekai anime starring Sora and Shiro. They are a foster brother/sister duo sharing the identity [Blank], and together, they can defeat anyone at any game. They're both quite smart, but Shiro, the younger one, is the smartest of all.
Shiro has a mind like a supercomputer, outperforming even the cunning Sora with quick calculations and perfect memory. This allows Shiro to play games and make predictions in ways no one could ever expect. Shiro is exponentially smarter than Anya but far less self-sufficient.
9 Shippo Is A Crafty Fox Demon Cub
InuYasha
InuYasha is an isekai fantasy anime that proves that not all demons are born evil. One example is the young fox demon named Shippo, who uses fox-like tricks to disorient or delay his foes. Shippo isn't very strong, but he makes up for it with his cunning.
Shippo is highly analytical, observant, and mature for his age, often taking others by surprise. At times, Shippo acts his age as a bratty tsundere, which amuses Kagome sometimes. However, he's definitely craftier than Anya Forger, even if he never went to a school like Eden Academy.
8 Senku Ishigami Was A Brilliant Kid
Dr. Stone
Senku Ishigami the scientist is in his mid to late teens in Dr. Stone's main events. He also appears in 21st-century flashbacks as a genius kid, a boy wonder who could calculate, invent, or experiment on anything he wanted. He also invited his classmate Taiju Oki to help out.
Senku's single foster father, Byakuya, was immensely proud of his brilliant son. Byakuya was never on Senku's level, but he did have the smarts and grit to become an astronaut for Japan's space program, leaving his young son far behind on Earth for a time.
7 Momo Yaoyorozu Was Born A Genius
My Hero Academia
Not much was seen of Momo Yaoyorozu's childhood in My Hero Academia, but all fans know that she was a child genius. Momo has always had a powerful mind, and as a child, she studied constantly and produced items with her Quirk. Bonus art depicted Momo's mother declaring her young daughter a genius.
There's no doubt that at age six, Momo Yaoyorozu aced every test in school and could outperform high schoolers three times her age. Now, Momo puts her incredible mind to use as the support hero Creati, a much smarter trainee hero than Anya Forger the wannabe spy.
6 Sakura Haruno Aced A Challenging Test At Age 12
Naruto
The pink-haired Sakura Haruno is one of the smartest Konoha 11 characters aside from Shikamaru Nara himself. In the early days of Naruto, Sakura proved herself a smart kid with her immense book smarts, compensating for her lack of a kekkei genkai or a hiden jutsu.
Sakura memorized all the shinobi code rules and cited one by number when she witnessed Sasuke's apparent death on Tazuna's bridge. Then, she completed the ultra-advanced chunin written exam not by cheating, but by actually solving the problems. No other genin in the room could have done that. Instead, they were actually expected to cheat.
5 Edward Elric Learned Alchemy As A Boy
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Fullmetal Alchemist's protagonist, the tsundere Edward Elric, always loved science as a kid. He and his younger brother, Alphonse, spent their time studying and conducting experiments, impressing and amusing their doting mother, Trisha.
Edward and Al were on a college level by age 10, and they weren't done yet. The brothers moved on to alchemy, a tricky arcane art that no ordinary child could master. They learned much from Izumi Curtis, and Ed rightfully became Amestris' youngest state alchemist in history.
4 Tanya Degurechaff Is A Military Mastermind
The Saga Of Tanya The Evil
Tanya Degurechaff is an unusual kid by most standards in The Saga of Tanya the Evil. This blonde girl has immense magical potential, which makes her an ideal soldier for the Empire's military. She is also a Japanese salaryman reincarnated by Being X as a kid.
Tanya is a young girl with a grown man's mind, a combination that takes everyone by surprise. Tanya is smart, crafty, and well-educated in military matters. That's how she survived and thrived fighting in an alternate World War I, pulling off tactics no one else could have thought up.
3 Killua Zoldyck Is A Smart But Deadly Boy
Hunter X Hunter
Gon Freecss' best friend and teammate Killua Zoldyck is a fan-favorite in Hunter x Hunter. Killua is a deadly trained assassin, having come from a reclusive family of killers. He's smart, too. Killua isn't seen acing tests in school, but he can easily analyze and deduce anything in battle.
Killua's sharp mind and sharper reflexes served him well in Hunter x Hunter, both before and after learning Nen. His lethality and witty intelligence are softened somewhat by his amusing "cat boy" antics and his deceptively innocent behavior as a 12-year-old boy during his downtime.
2 Mannish Boy May Be Anime's Smartest Baby
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure often features adult villains such as Yoshikage Kira and Ghiaccio, but it also has villains such as falcons, autonomous Stands, and even babies. Mannish Boy was a smart and deceptive baby boy in the Stardust Crusaders story arc, for example.
Mannish Boy was a sly anime child, tricking everyone into lowering their guard around him. Then, Mannish Boy started luring the members of Jotaro's group into the dream world, trying to kill them with his scythe-wielding Death 13 Stand. At the last moment, Noriaki Kakyoin found a way to defeat him.
1 Negi Springfield Is A Young Wizard Prodigy
Mahou Sensei Negima!
Mahou Sensei Negima! is an older anime based on Ken Akamatsu's much longer manga of the same name. The star is Negi Springfield, a Welsh wizard boy who mastered the Japanese language and taught English to a class of 9th graders in Japan.
That alone requires serious intelligence from Negi, but there's more. Negi is also a well-educated wizard and a gifted boy who keeps pushing himself to even greater heights. He's also resourceful, insightful, and brave in combat. Other times, though, Negi still acts and thinks like the 10-year-old boy he is.