Anime Like Surface
If you loved Surface's Drama and Mystery 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
We Were Liars
One year after a mysterious accident left her with amnesia, 17-year-old Cadence returns to Beechwood, an island off Martha's Vineyard, seeking answers. As three generations of the distinguished Sinclair family gather at their private summer utopia, no one will talk about the accident – neither her childhood friends "The Liars" nor her first love Gat, forcing her to uncover the truth herself.
Truth Be Told
Descend into the world of true-crime podcasts with Poppy Parnell, who risks everything—including her life—to pursue truth and justice.
Vanished
When a romantic getaway to Paris takes a dark turn with the sudden disappearance of her boyfriend Tom aboard a train to the south of France, Alice is plunged into a web of intrigue and danger, uncovering shocking secrets about the man she thought she knew.
John Doe
John Doe tell the story of a man who wakes up naked on an island off the coast of Seattle, knowing everything in the world there is to know—except for who he is and how and why he ended up there.
Damages
Damages is an American legal thriller television series created by the writing and production trio of Daniel Zelman and brothers Glenn and Todd A. Kessler. The plot revolves around the brilliant, ruthless lawyer Patty Hewes and her protégée, recent law school graduate Ellen Parsons. Each season features a major case that Hewes and her firm take on, while also examining a chapter of the complicated relationship between Ellen and Patty. The first two seasons center around the law firm Hewes & Associates. Later seasons center more on Patty and Ellen's relationship as Ellen begins to distance herself from Hewes & Associates and begins an independent career.
Doc
Dr. Amy Larsen must navigate an unfamiliar world after a brain injury erases the last eight years of her life. She can rely only on her estranged 17-year-old daughter, whom she remembers as a 9-year-old, and a handful of devoted friends, as she struggles to continue practicing medicine, despite having lost nearly a decade of knowledge and experience.
Revenge
When Emily Thorne moves to the Hamptons, everyone wonders about the new girl, but she knows everything about them, including what they did to her family. Years ago, they took everything from her. Now, one by one, she's going to make them pay.
Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist
After an unusual event, Zoey Clarke, a whip-smart computer coder forging her way in San Francisco, suddenly starts to hear the innermost wants, thoughts and desires of the people around her through popular songs.
More Anime Like Surface
The Tourist
When a man wakes up in the Australian outback with no memory, he must use the few clues he has to discover his identity before his past catches up with him.
The Stolen Girl
Mother of two, Elisa, allows her daughter, Lucia, to go on an impromptu sleepover with her new best friend Josephine after meeting Josephine's mother, Rebecca, at her beautiful home. But when Elisa arrives to collect Lucia the next day, the house turns out to be an empty luxury rental and Lucia has been abducted.
Devs
Young computer engineer Lily Chan investigates the secretive development division of her employer, a cutting-edge tech company based in San Francisco, which she believes is behind the murder of her boyfriend.
Only Murders in the Building
Three strangers share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one.
Perception
Dr. Daniel Pierce, a neuroscientist and professor, is recruited to help the federal government crack difficult cases. His intimate knowledge of human behavior and masterful understanding of the mind give him an extraordinary ability to read people, but his eccentric view of the world and less-than-stellar social skills can often interfere with his work.
High Potential
Morgan is a single mom with an exceptional mind, whose unconventional knack for solving crimes leads to an unusual and unstoppable partnership with a by-the-book seasoned detective.
The Dropout
The story of Elizabeth Holmes, the enigmatic Stanford dropout who founded medical testing start-up Theranos. Lauded as a Steve Jobs for the next tech generation and once worth billions of dollars, the myth crumbled when it was revealed that none of the tech actually worked, putting thousands of people's health in grave danger.
Before
After tragically losing his wife, child psychiatrist Dr. Eli Adler encounters a troubled young boy who seems to have a haunting connection to Eli's past.
Severance
Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.
Tell Me Lies
When Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco meet at college, they are at that formative age when seemingly mundane choices lead the way to irrevocable consequences. They quickly fall into an addictive entanglement that will permanently alter not only their lives, but the lives of everyone around them.
Wayward
A small-town cop suspects that the local school for troubled teens — and its dangerously charismatic founder — may not be all it seems.
Awake
Michael lives in two separate realities after a car accident. In one reality, his wife Hannah survives the accident; in the other reality, his son Rex survives. Michael does not know which reality is "real", and uses the wristbands to differentiate the two. He sees two therapists: Dr. Jonathan Lee in the "red reality" and Dr. Judith Evans in the "green reality". At work, Michael's erratic behavior triggers clashes with his team; they do not know about Michael's uncanny ability to solve crimes using details from both realities.
Why These Anime Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Surface (2022): Drama and Mystery 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 Surface.
See full details for Surface (2022)