Madoka is the one that comes to my mind. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but on the surface it is a cookie-cutter magical girl show, but if you look at the tags on MAL/AniList you see things like suspense, thriller, and psychological. The show is not your typical magical girl adventure.
Stein’s Gate for, what I like to call, “Slice of Life Sci Fi”.
Princess Principal
Minor spoilers
- 2 potential lesbian main characters with badass sidekicks/friends
- everyones past is fucked up
- the series is so good they got 3 movies and 3 more on the way
- the wait is umbearable please god awdrasxgrdcgrefhyrexcswif4b3j
I’d personally recommend avoiding any and all trailers/spoilers and diving in blind to the series🤗
Never heard of this one. Sounds really interestjng though.
I hope it’s a good recommendation for you!
Not sure if it qualifies as “genre defying,” but Princess 9 is a sports anime where some girls are assembled into a baseball team and have to overcome sexism and internal rivalries to become the best team they can. It’s all female-driven and there’s realistic personal issues for them to deal with, and I recommend it as often as I can.
I don’t usually watch sports anime but the premise sounds interesting so I’ll check it out🤗
What do you understand genre-defying to be?
Uncle from another world comes to mind as a reverse isekai.
