Anime Like It Takes a Thief
If you loved It Takes a Thief's Action & Adventure and Drama storytelling, these anime deliver a similar experience — selected for art style, narrative depth, and emotional impact. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks
The Saint
Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.
Covert Affairs
A young CIA operative, Annie Walker, is mysteriously summoned to headquarters for duty as a field operative. While Annie believes she's been promoted for her exceptional linguistic skills, there may be something or someone from her past that her CIA bosses are really after. Auggie Anderson is a CIA military intelligence agent who was blinded while on assignment and is Annie's guide in this world of bureaucracy, excitement and intrigue.
The Sweeney
Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.
Renegade
Framed for murder, Detective Reno Raines becomes a fugitive bounty hunter who fights crime while trying to clear his name. His troubles began after he testified about police corruption, leading Lt. Donald Dixon to set him up.
Steal
A typical day at Lochmill Capital is upended when armed thieves burst in and force Zara and her best friend Luke to execute their demands. In the aftermath, conflicted detective Rhys races against time to find out who stole £4 billion pounds of people's pensions and why.
Police Woman
Sergeant “Pepper"” Anderson, an undercover cop for the Criminal Conspiracy Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department, poses undercover from mob girl to prostitute.
Leverage
A five-person team comprised of a thief, a grifter, a hacker, and a retrieval specialist, led by former insurance investigator Nathan Ford, use their skills to fight corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on ordinary citizens.
Hardcastle and McCormick
Hardcastle and McCormick is an American action/drama television series from Stephen J. Cannell Productions, shown on ABC from 1983 through 1986. The series stars Brian Keith as Judge Milton C. Hardcastle and Daniel Hugh Kelly as ex-con and race car driver Mark "Skid" McCormick. The series premise was somewhat recycled from a previous Cannell series, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe.
More Anime Like It Takes a Thief
The Mod Squad
The Mod Squad was the enormously successful groundbreaking "hippie" undercover cop show that ran on ABC from September 24, 1968, until August 23, 1973. It starred Michael Cole as Pete Cochren, Peggy Lipton as Julie Barnes, Clarence Williams III as Linc Hayes, and Tige Andrews as Captain Adam Greer. The executive producers of the series were Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas. The iconic counter-culture police series earned six Emmy nominations, four Golden Globe nominations plus one win for Peggy Lipton, one Directors Guild of America award, and four Logies. In 1997 the episode "Mother of Sorrow" was ranked #95 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.
Transporter: The Series
The adventures of professional transporter Frank Martin, who can always be counted on to get the job done—discreetly. Operating in a seedy underworld of dangerous criminals and desperate players, his three rules are: Never change the deal, no names, and never open the package. Occasionally, complications arise and rules get broken.
Danger Man
Danger Man is a British television series which was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. Ralph Smart created the programme and wrote many of the scripts. Danger Man was financed by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment.
Knight Rider
Michael Long, an undercover police officer, is shot while investigating a case and left for dead by his assailants. He is rescued by Wilton Knight, a wealthy, dying millionaire and inventor who arranges life-saving surgery, including a new face and a new identity--that of Michael Knight. Michael is then given a special computerized and indestructible car called the Knight Industries Two Thousand (nicknamed KITT), and a mission: apprehend criminals who are beyond the reach of the law. The series depicts Michael's exploits as he and KITT battle the forces of evil on behalf of the Foundation for Law and Government.
Fastlane
Fastlane is an American action/crime drama series that was broadcast on Fox from September 18, 2002 to April 25, 2003.
Mannix
Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is a private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors. Mannix was the last series produced by Desilu Productions.
Starsky & Hutch
Streetwise Detective David Starsky partners up with a more intellectual partner, Kenneth 'Hutch' Hutchinson, to protect citizens and patrol the streets of Bay City.
Almost Paradise
A former DEA agent forced into early retirement runs a gift shop in in the Philippines. Despite his best efforts to begin a tranquil new life, he’s pulled back into a world of dangerous people and deadly situations, either through his friends in the local police department or running into people from his old life. And the problem is: he likes it.
Wiseguy
Vinnie Terranova does time in a New Jersey penitentiary to set up his undercover role as an agent for the OCB (Organized Crime Bureau) of the United States. His roots in a traditional Italian city neighborhood form the underlying dramatic base throughout the series, bringing him into conflict with his conservative mother and other family members while acting undercover as syndicate enforcer.
Walker
Cordell Walker, a widower and father of two with his own moral code, returns home to Austin after being undercover for two years, only to discover there's harder work to be done at home.
Carmen Sandiego
A master thief who uses her skills for good, Carmen Sandiego travels the world foiling V.I.L.E.'s evil plans -- with help from her savvy sidekicks.
Why These Anime Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with It Takes a Thief (1968): Action & Adventure and Drama themes, comparable animation style, and similar narrative pacing. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface anime most likely to resonate with fans of It Takes a Thief.
See full details for It Takes a Thief (1968)