There are a lot of anime out there based on manga, light novels, and video games. Anime doesn’t hesitate to take inspiration from a large variety of sources. One such source, which has proven over the past few years to be great fodder for anime, are visual novels.
They’re heavy on story and character since they’re so focused on the participation of the players, but since there’s so little animation, it’s exciting for fans to see them adapted into a more fully fleshed-out story. There are several visual novels that haven’t yet been adapted into anime, but many would make excellent candidates.
10 The House In Fata Morgana
Like many visual novels, The House in Fata Morgana is a mystery, with the main character being a spirit that awakens inside of a mansion without any of their memories. As the story progresses, and more characters and details are added, the player starts to put together what happened in the past.
It would be a fun thing to see adapted into an anime, especially considering its slightly nonlinear storytelling and slow unfolding of information.
9 Raging Loop
For people who like horror anime and also unsettling stories like that of Welcome to Night Vale or Twin Peaks, Raging Loop might be a particularly interesting visual novel to see made into an anime.
The story follows a young man who goes on a road trip on his motorcycle. He happens upon a weird town that feels mysterious and stays the night there after befriending someone who lives there. Of course, horrible and scary things happen from there.
8 VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action
VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action is a little bit different than a lot of visual novels. The game has some narrative motion to it, but a lot of it takes place in a futuristic cyberpunk bar, where the bartender makes drinks for various weird cyberpunk style customers and participates in stories depending on what drinks they make.
It would make a really fun anime, since each season could focus on different characters and storylines, or the stories could all be short-form arcs.
7 We Know The Devil
We Know The Devil isn’t a Japanese visual novel, but it is heavily inspired by anime story tropes and Japanese visual novel styles. It takes place at a summer camp where teenagers are sent into battle to fight against the Devil.
As with many visual novels, the ending is different depending on which relationships are fostered by the player, which could make this a When They Cry-style of anthology series in which each season offers different narrative viewpoints and directions.
6 Heaven Will Be Mine
Heaven Will Be Mine, as might be obvious from the name, comes from the same creators as We Know the Devil, and the visual novel deals with a lot of the same themes.
This game has a much more science fiction bent, with the series taking place mostly in space and dealing with an invasive alien species which the last humans of Earth have to fight. This visual novel has a lot of queer themes, which are not regularly seen and explored in anime.
5 428: Shibuya Scramble
428: Shibuya Scramble has great potential for an anime series to have five very different seasons. The series follows five characters who each have 10 hours to solve a mystery, which seems to be a run-of-the-middle kidnapping case, in order to stop what could be a huge disaster.
Depending on which character the player chooses to follow, the genre of the story changes, with one being more like a hardboiled detective story, another being a silly comedy, and yet another being a psychological thriller.
4 Murder By Numbers
Murder by Numbers, despite its slightly unoriginal name, is a visual novel that borrows from both the L.A. noire and cyberpunk genres. The story follows a young woman who is the star of a detective show who gets wrapped up in a real-life murder mystery.
With the help of a robot named SCOUT, she goes on to solve a series of murder mysteries while simultaneously helping SCOUT— who was abandoned in a dump— recover his lost memories.
3 Root Letter
As all of the best visual novels do, Root Letter has a number of different possible endings depending on the choices that the player makes throughout the story. The plot follows a protagonist who goes to a small town looking for answers about what happened to his pen pal, who disappeared 15 years earlier.
He interrogates her classmates, follows clues, and ultimately tries to figure out if anything she ever told him about her life was actually true.
2 Hatoful Boyfriend
Hatoful Boyfriend is likely the most bizarre visual novel included here. While it’s difficult to explain the plot in full, the main premise is that some kind of apocalyptic event has happened and there are no human beings left on Earth, save for the protagonist, who attends high school with sentient pigeons.
It’s a strange, surreal game and also, wildly, a dating sim, and there are a number of endings to the game, all weirder and more unsettling than the last— perfect to be the next weird, beloved anime.
1 The Silver Case
The Silver Case was originally released in Japan in 1999, and it didn’t see release outside of the country until 2016, but it's a well-established visual novel in its native country.
Like several other visual novels, it’s a murder mystery, and this one has the twist of being a series of murders that appear to be the work of a serial killer who has supposedly been dead for several years. The story involves playing as a pair of detectives, helping them investigate leads and make decisions.