7 Best Dark Fantasy Shonen Anime to Watch if You Love Tougen Anki: Nikko Kegon Falls Arc

There’s something about Tougen Anki that gets under your skin.

At first glance, it looks like another supernatural battle shonen: angry teenager, secret bloodline, special powers, mysterious school, rival factions, and a lot of people punching each other through walls. But the deeper you get into the story, the more interesting the setup becomes. The conflict between the Oni and the Momotaro isn’t simply a convenient excuse for flashy fights. It’s built around inherited hatred, identity, revenge, and the uncomfortable question of whether you should be judged for something your ancestors did.

That’s exactly why Tougen Anki: Nikko Kegon Falls Arc feels like such a natural fit for fans of darker modern shonen.

The series has never been afraid of blood, cruelty, or characters making questionable decisions. Shiki Ichinose is also a particularly fun protagonist because he doesn’t arrive in this world as some perfectly composed chosen one. He’s reckless, emotional, stubborn, and frequently looks like he wants to solve every problem by pulling the trigger first and thinking later.

And honestly? I love that about him.

If you’re watching the Nikko Kegon Falls Arc and already wondering what you’re supposed to watch after the next episode, I’ve got seven recommendations. These aren’t just shows that happen to contain supernatural powers. They share some of the same DNA that makes Tougen Anki work.

1. Jujutsu Kaisen

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first.

Jujutsu Kaisen is probably the easiest recommendation for anyone who has fallen hard for Tougen Anki’s combination of supernatural combat, dangerous inherited power, secret organizations, and increasingly horrifying consequences.

Yuji Itadori starts as an unusually athletic high school student before becoming the vessel for Sukuna, one of the most terrifying beings in the entire story. From there, he enters the world of Jujutsu Sorcerers and discovers that fighting curses is considerably uglier than the average school curriculum.

The connection to Shiki is obvious, but it isn’t just the protagonist setup.

Both series are fascinated by the idea that power can be both a gift and a curse. Shiki’s Oni blood makes him dangerous. Yuji’s connection to Sukuna makes him dangerous. Neither character can simply walk away from that reality.

And then there’s the combat.

Jujutsu Kaisen fights are rarely just about who has the bigger explosion. Abilities interact in clever ways, characters exploit weaknesses, and battles can change dramatically in seconds. If the strategic brutality of the Nikko Kegon Falls Arc is what you’re enjoying most, this should be near the top of your list.

2. Chainsaw Man

If your favorite thing about Tougen Anki is the violence, weirdness, and general feeling that absolutely nobody is safe, go watch Chainsaw Man.

Denji’s life is already miserable before he becomes the Chainsaw Devil hybrid. After that, things somehow get considerably worse.

What I love about Chainsaw Man is how quickly it can move from something ridiculous to something genuinely disturbing. You’ll laugh at Denji’s bizarre priorities one minute and then sit there staring at the screen because the story just did something incredibly cruel.

That tonal unpredictability makes it a fascinating companion to Tougen Anki.

Both series feature young characters thrown into supernatural conflicts controlled by larger organizations. Both have characters whose bodies and blood are directly connected to their abilities. And both are interested in what happens when teenagers are treated less like ordinary people and more like weapons that can be pointed at the next monster.

Chainsaw Man is also considerably stranger than Tougen Anki, so don’t expect a one-to-one experience. That’s part of the appeal.

3. Hell’s Paradise

If the Nikko Kegon Falls Arc has you craving something darker and more dangerous, Hell’s Paradise is an easy recommendation.

The premise alone sounds like somebody took several great anime ideas, threw them into a blender, and somehow made it work.

Gabimaru is a notorious ninja sentenced to death, but he refuses to die because he desperately wants to return to his wife. He eventually receives a chance at freedom by traveling to a mysterious island and searching for the legendary Elixir of Life.

Naturally, the island is absolutely horrible.

It’s filled with monsters, bizarre creatures, competing criminals, and an atmosphere where death can arrive from almost anywhere.

The biggest similarity with Tougen Anki isn’t the setting. It’s the constant sense of danger. Characters don’t have unlimited protection simply because they’re important. Alliances are unstable, motivations are complicated, and every new location seems to contain something capable of killing you.

The Tao power system also gives the series that satisfying supernatural-combat foundation that fans of blood-based abilities tend to appreciate.

4. Blue Exorcist

There might not be a more obvious thematic cousin to Tougen Anki than Blue Exorcist.

Rin Okumura discovers that he is the son of Satan. His adoptive father is killed, his demonic heritage awakens, and instead of embracing his biological connection to evil, Rin decides to become an exorcist.

Sound familiar?

The similarities with Shiki are almost impossible to ignore.

Both protagonists are hot-headed young men who discover that their family history is far more complicated than they imagined. Both lose an adoptive father because of supernatural forces. Both must learn how to control powers connected to the very world they are fighting against.

But Blue Exorcist has another strength that makes it worth revisiting: its mythology keeps expanding.

If what has grabbed you about Tougen Anki is the history behind the Oni and Momotaro conflict, Blue Exorcist offers a similar pleasure. The further you go, the more you understand that the supernatural world isn’t divided into convenient categories of heroes and villains.

5. Kemono Jihen

This is the recommendation I’d give to people who want something slightly less obvious.

Kemono Jihen doesn’t have the same nonstop intensity as Jujutsu Kaisen or Chainsaw Man, but its supernatural world has a surprisingly strong connection to what makes Tougen Anki interesting.

The protagonist, Kabane Kusaka, is a strange and isolated boy who eventually discovers that he’s a half-Kemono. He is brought to Tokyo, where he becomes involved with other supernatural children and a detective agency investigating cases involving humans and monsters.

What makes this one stand out is its focus on beings who don’t fit neatly into the human world.

That idea sits right at the center of Tougen Anki too. The Oni aren’t simply random monsters that appear for the heroes to defeat. They have families, communities, history, abilities, and their own understanding of the conflict.

Kemono Jihen explores similar ideas through folklore-inspired creatures and characters who are forced to figure out where they belong.

It’s quieter than Tougen Anki, but don’t mistake that for harmless.

6. Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War

If you’re watching Tougen Anki and thinking, I want this faction war to become absolutely enormous, then it’s time for Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War.

Bleach has always been obsessed with different supernatural groups having their own cultures, abilities, grudges, and complicated histories. The Thousand-Year Blood War takes that concept and turns the scale up dramatically.

Ichigo Kurosaki finds himself caught between the Soul Reapers, Quincy, Hollows, and other supernatural forces. Eventually, the ancient Quincy empire emerges and launches an all-out war against the Soul Society.

The reason I recommend it here is simple: the faction conflict feels important.

That’s something Tougen Anki does particularly well. The Oni and Momotaro aren’t just two teams waiting for their next tournament fight. Their conflict has been developing for generations.

Thousand-Year Blood War takes that same basic idea and turns it into a massive supernatural war filled with personal grudges, devastating abilities, betrayals, and some spectacular animation.

And yes, the fights are ridiculous.

That’s meant as a compliment.

7. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

I’d also throw Demon Slayer into the conversation, even though its structure is somewhat different from Tougen Anki.

Tanjiro Kamado’s family is murdered by demons, leaving his sister Nezuko transformed into one. He joins the Demon Slayer Corps in an attempt to find a cure and stop the creatures responsible.

The obvious connection is the conflict between humans and supernatural bloodlines, but there’s more to it than that.

Demon Slayer is built around family, inherited trauma, supernatural abilities, and generations of conflict. Characters don’t simply fight because they need another villain for the episode. Their battles are often tied directly to their pasts.

And visually, it scratches a similar itch.

If what you’re enjoying in the Nikko Kegon Falls Arc is watching supernatural abilities explode across beautifully animated battlefields, Demon Slayer absolutely delivers.

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What I find interesting about Tougen Anki is that it exists in a really strong period for dark shonen.

The genre isn’t afraid to let its protagonists suffer anymore.

Older battle shonen certainly had tragic characters and dark arcs, but modern series are much more comfortable putting their young heroes into situations where victory doesn’t automatically fix everything. Characters lose people. Powers have consequences. Organizations can be morally questionable. Sometimes the protagonist’s greatest advantage is also the thing that could destroy them.

That’s the appeal of Tougen Anki: Nikko Kegon Falls Arc.

The Oni versus Momotaro conflict gives the series a built-in source of tension, but Shiki’s personal journey is what keeps the whole thing moving. He’s trying to understand his blood, his enemies, his friends, and ultimately what it actually means to belong to the Oni.

For me, that’s the part worth watching.

The flashy fights are great. The blood abilities are fun. The darker atmosphere certainly helps. But underneath all of that is a much more interesting question: if the world tells you that your blood makes you a monster, how much of that identity do you accept?

That’s why these seven anime work so well as follow-ups.

They don’t all copy Tougen Anki. In fact, I wouldn’t want them to. Jujutsu Kaisen is more intricate with its battle mechanics, Chainsaw Man is much stranger, Hell’s Paradise leans harder into survival horror, and Blue Exorcist spends more time exploring its mythology.

But each one captures at least one piece of what makes Tougen Anki such an entertaining dark fantasy shonen.

And if you’re already counting the days until the next Nikko Kegon Falls episode, that’s exactly what you want from a recommendation list.