Anime Like Motive
If you loved Motive's Crime 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
Vera
A sharp detective with a messy life, DCI Vera Stanhope patrols her “patch” of northeast England, pursuing the truth in cases of murder, kidnapping, and blackmail. Vera is obsessive about her work and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage.
Frankie Drake Mysteries
Toronto’s only female private detective in the 1920s takes on the cases the police don’t want or can’t handle. From airplanes and booze running to American G-men, Communists and union busters, Frankie’s fearless sense of adventure gets her into all kinds of trouble, but she always manages to find her way out.
Marcella
Marcella is shocked to the core of her being when her husband Jason leaves her unexpectedly, confessing he no longer loves her. Heartbroken, Marcella returns to the Met’s Murder Squad. Ten years ago Marcella gave up her fast-tracked police career to marry and devote her life to her family. With the abrupt end to her marriage and isolated from her 13 year old daughter and 10 year old son, Marcella throws herself into work to stop herself from falling apart.
Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent
An elite squad of detectives investigate high-profile crime and corruption in metro Toronto.
Cardinal
Detective John Cardinal attempts to uncover the mystery of what happened to the missing 13-year-old girl whose body is discovered in the shaft-head of an abandoned mine. At the same time, he comes under investigation by his new partner, Lise Delorme, a tough investigator in her own right.
Prime Suspect
Highly skilled Detective Inspector Jane Tennison battles to prove herself in a male dominated world.
Midsomer Murders
The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.
Unforgettable
Former Syracuse, New York, police detective Carrie Wells has hyperthymesia, a rare medical condition that gives her the ability to visually remember everything. She reluctantly joins the New York City Police Department's Queens homicide unit after her former boyfriend and partner asks for help with solving a case. The move allows her to try to find out the one thing she has been unable to remember, which is what happened the day her sister was murdered.
More Anime Like Motive
Rizzoli & Isles
Perhaps their strikingly different personalities make the relationship between detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles so effective. Jane, the only female cop in Boston's homicide division, is tough, relentless and rarely lets her guard down, while the impeccably dressed Maura displays a sometimes icy temperament — she is, after all, more comfortable among the dead than the living. Together, the best friends have forged a quirky and supportive relationship; they drop the protective shield in each other's company, and combine their expertise to solve Boston's most complex cases.
Cold Case
The Philadelphia homicide squad's lone female detective finds her calling when she is assigned cases that have never been solved. Detective Lilly Rush combines her natural instincts with the updated technology available today to bring about justice for all the victims she can.
CSI: NY
Follow the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers identified as "Crime Scene Investigators".
Coroner
Jenny Cooper investigates unexplained or sudden deaths in the city of Toronto. Fierce and quick-witted, Jenny is a newly-widowed single mother with secrets of her own to unearth.
The Closer
Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson transfers from Atlanta to LA to head up a special unit of the LAPD that handles sensitive, high-profile murder cases. Johnson's quirky personality and hard-nosed approach often rubs her colleagues the wrong way, but her reputation as one of the world's best interrogator eventually wins over even her toughest critics.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries
DS Barbara Havers is assigned to work with the upper-crust DI Thomas Lynley to solve murders.
Death in Paradise
A brilliant but idiosyncratic British detective and his resourceful local team solve baffling murder mysteries on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
A Las Vegas team of forensic investigators are trained to solve criminal cases by scouring the crime scene, collecting irrefutable evidence and finding the missing pieces that solve the mystery.
Baretta
Baretta is an American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a milder version of a successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police officer David Toma. While popular, Toma received intense criticism at the time for its realistic and frequent depiction of police and criminal violence. When Musante left the series after a single season, the concept was retooled as Baretta, with Robert Blake in the title role.
Crime
Detective Inspector Ray Lennox investigates the disappearance of a schoolgirl while battling cocaine addiction and a mental breakdown.
Rookie Blue
Ambitious young cops try to prove themselves in their high-stakes careers, in which the smallest mistake can have deadly consequences. At the core of the close-knit group is perfectionist Andy McNally, whose father was a homicide detective before he burned out on the job. The series follows Andy and her four colleagues -- Dov Epstein, Gail Peck, Traci Nash and Chris Diaz -- as they experience the trials, triumphs and tribulations of police work, as well as its effect on their personal lives.
Why These Anime Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Motive (2013): Crime 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 Motive.
See full details for Motive (2013)