Anime Like Trial & Error
If you loved Trial & Error's Comedy 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

Documentary Now!
Loving parodies of some of the world's best-known documentaries. Each episode is shot in a different style of documentary filmmaking, and honors some of the most important stories that didn't actually happen.

Nick Cannon Presents: Wild 'N Out
Nick Cannon and an A-list celebrity lead a team of improv comedians as they compete against each other.

Reno 911!
This partially unscripted comedy brings viewers into the squad car as incompetent officers swing into action, answering 911 calls about everything from speeding violations and prostitution to staking out a drug den. Within each episode, viewers catch a "fly on the wall" glimpse of the cops' often politically incorrect opinions, ranging from their personal feelings to professional critiques of their colleagues.

Night Court
An eccentric fun-loving judge presides over an urban night court and all the silliness going on there.

Bad Judge
The series chronicles the personal life (and the wild lifestyle) of Rebecca Wright, a tough-as-nails judge serving on the Los Angeles County Circuit Court, whose time off the bench is spent partying and displaying a reckless behavior. Her reputation is about to be tamed—and judged—by Robby Shoemaker, a eight-year-old boy whose parents Rebecca put behind bars. He might be the one that can turn Rebecca's life around.

American Vandal
In the wake of their first documentary's success, Peter and Sam seek a new case and settle on a stomach-churning mystery at a Washington high school.

Portlandia
Satirical sketch comedy set and filmed in Portland, Oregon that explores the eccentric misfits who embody the foibles of modern culture.

Adam Ruins Everything
Host Adam Conover employs a combination of comedy, history and science to dispel widespread misconceptions about everything we take for granted.
More Anime Like Trial & Error

Police Squad!
In this cult parody of cop dramas, replete with farce and sight gags, Lieutenant Frank Drebin and his fellow officers from Police Squad bungle their way though crime investigations.

Curb Your Enthusiasm
The off-kilter, unscripted comic vision of Larry David, who plays himself in a parallel universe in which he can't seem to do anything right, and, by his standards, neither can anyone else.

Mock the Week
Mock the Week is a British topical celebrity panel game hosted by Dara Ó Briain. The game is influenced by improvised topical stand-up comedy, with several rounds requiring players to deliver answers on unexpected subjects on the spur of the moment.

Son of the Beach
A parody of "Baywatch" featuring Malibu Adjacent's Notch Johnson, the world's greatest lifeguard (hardly), and his unit SPF-30.

The Afterparty
Nothing is as it seems in this hilarious murder mystery where each suspect's story is told through a different film genre.

Welcome to Flatch
When a documentary crew sets out to explore the lives of residents in a small American town – their dreams, their concerns – they stumble upon the midwestern town of Flatch, which is made up of many eccentric personalities. It’s a place you want to visit and maybe even stay. If there was a decent motel. Which there is not.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is an American sketch comedy television series, created by and starring Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, which premiered February 11, 2007 on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim comedy block and ran until May 2010. The program features surrealistic and often satirical humor, public-access television–style musical acts, bizarre faux-commercials, and editing and special effects chosen to make the show appear camp. The program featured a wide range of actors, spanning from stars such as Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, Will Forte and Zach Galifianakis, to alternative comedians like Neil Hamburger, to television actors like Alan Thicke, celebrity look-alikes and impressionists. The creators of the show have described it as "the nightmare version of television."

In Living Color
Created by stars Keenen Ivory Wayans and Damon Wayans, this Emmy-winning sketch series offers cutting-edge satire and features a host of talent, including Jamie Foxx, Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier and Tommy Davidson.

Benched
Nina is a dedicated, career driven corporate attorney who has a very public nervous breakdown after getting passed up for an expected promotion and now finds herself working as a public defender. Her personal and professional worlds are turned upside down when she joins the ranks of the legal world’s underdogs and very quickly realizes that the law isn't quite as fair as she once thought.

The Muppets
The Muppets return to primetime with a contemporary, documentary-style show. For the first time ever, a series will explore the Muppets’ personal lives and relationships, both at home and at work, as well as romances, breakups, achievements, disappointments, wants and desires. This is a more adult Muppet show, for “kids” of all ages.

A Black Lady Sketch Show
A narrative series set in a limitless magical reality full of dynamic, hilarious characters and celebrity guests presenting sketches performed by a core cast of black women.
Why These Anime Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Trial & Error (2017): Comedy 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 Trial & Error.
See full details for Trial & Error (2017)
