Shows Like Kaiji
If you loved Kaiji's Animation and Drama storytelling, these series deliver a similar experience — chosen for tone, narrative quality, and viewer satisfaction. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks

Akagi
Nangou is a compulsive gambler who has accumulated debt over three million yen. In a last ditch attempt to clear his record, he decides to wager his life on a game of mahjong with the mafia. Unfortunately, as the game progresses, Nangou only moves further from the prize and closer to death. When all hope seems lost, the game parlor is suddenly intruded upon by Shigeru Akagi, a young boy on the run from the police. Desperate to turn the game around, Nangou hands the game over to Akagi after teaching him a few of the rules. The mafia can only smirk as Akagi sits down to play. However, they soon come to learn that Akagi is a natural born gambler. An imposing figure who does not fear death. One who is destined to become a legend.

Kakegurui
Run by a corrupt and sadistic school council, the “system” at Hyakkaou is based on gambling, with losers who cannot cover their debts being demeaned by their peers and forced to serve their debtholders. And if that’s not terrifying enough, some games can result in losing an eye, one’s fingernails, or even their life! But the system is shocked when transfer student Yumeko Jabami arrives. Dark, mysterious and attractive, she’s a wildcard who plays for the thrill of it…

HIGH CARD
Fourland Kingdom is an island nation in the North Atlantic. In this country, there are 52 X-Playing Cards, considered the origin of playing cards. A card with a unique supernatural ability can gift its abilities to a qualified person: the player. One day, the X-Playing Cards in government's custody were spread all over Fourland leading to troubles caused by the supernatural abilities of the players with cards across the country. The king secretly assigns Pinochle, one of the top corporations of the nation, to a mission, to collect the cards that are causing all the chaos in the country.

Great Pretender
Supposedly Japan's greatest swindler, Makoto Edamura gets more than he bargained for when he tries to con Laurent Thierry, a real world-class crook.

Death Parade
There is a place after death that’s neither heaven nor hell. A bar that serves you one chance to win. You cannot leave until the game is over, and when it is, your life may be too.

No Game No Life
Bored with life and considering the real world to be just a “crappy game,” savvy sibling shut-ins Sora and Shiro have withdrawn into their own fantasy world filled with video games. However, one day they find themselves summoned to another world by a boy who calls himself “God,” their abilities are about to be put to the ultimate test! Now not only their fates — but the fate of all of humanity — will be decided by a series of games that may just be the hardest these super-geniuses have ever faced!

Koikimo
One rainy day, salaryman Amakusa Ryo is saved by a high school girl he doesn't know at the station. He later finds out that the girl is Arima Ichika. Ryo is somewhat of a womanizer and to repay her for saving him, he suggests giving her a kiss or going out on a date with her, in which Ichika tells him he's creepy. This, however, opens a new door for Ryo and he falls madly in love with her. Ever since then, Ryo tries to overly express his feelings to Ichika. Ichika just keeps insulting him and says he's being creepy, but he just seems to take it as her way of showing affection towards him...

Tomodachi Game
After his class' school trip fund is stolen, Yuichi and his best friends are abducted to play a debt repayment game; there is more than money on the line, as their bonds are tested with dark secrets and a lingering question of who is behind it all.
More Shows Like Kaiji

Secret Mission - Undercover Agents Never Back Down!
Narcotics Enforcement Agent Riko Ikazuchi is undercover with her junior colleague Noma in an apartment that serves as the hideout for a criminal organization. Despite Riko and Noma posing as a newlywed couple, the criminals begin to suspect them after not hearing any marital intimacy during the night. To convince them that they are a loving couple, Noma starts touching Riko's body...
![[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w342/wYr2SAWynWi2N4mLCzmHkVici0w.jpg)
[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control
Kimimaro works two jobs to make ends meet. He could go from pauper to prince in a parallel world called the Financial District—if he’ll invest his future as collateral in a dangerous game. Winning gets you more wealth, but losing could erase you from existence. When the destructive forces at play compel Kimimaro to confront the most powerful player, can he save the real world from total collapse?

Liar Game
Nao Kanzaki is a college student who is known for her honesty and naivete. One day, she receives a black postcard indicating that she has been selected to participate in the "Liar Game Tournament". Along with the postcard is a box with 100 million yen. The goal of the first round of the game is to trick the other player out of their hundred million yen. At the end, the winner would get to keep the hundred million earned, and the loser owes the LGT 100 million yen, which "will be collected by any means and at all costs".

Kakegurui
Children from influential families in politics and businesses attend the Hyakkaou Private Academy. There, the hierarchy of the students are classified by a series of games. Students that win the games are on the ruling side and the students who lose become slaves. One day, a mysterious girl, Yumeko Jabami (Minami Hamabe), is transferred to Hyakkaou Private Academy. She looks pure and pretty, but she is actually a compulsive gambler and seeks out the thrill of taking calculated risks.

xxxHOLiC
Kimihiro Watanuki is a high school student plagued by ayakashi spirits, both of which are invisible to everyone else but him. The series begins when Watanuki stumbles, seemingly by chance, into a shop that grants wishes. The shop is owned by Yūko Ichihara, a mysterious witch of many names and esoteric renown. For a price, she offers to grant Watanuki's wish to be rid of the spirits. The price, according to Yūko, must be of equal value; so, as payment, he must become Yūko's temporary, part-time cook and housekeeper.

The Fruit of Grisaia
Mihama Academy—on the surface, a closed learning environment established to nurture students who find themselves at odds with the world around them; in actuality, an orchard-cum-prison built to preserve fruit that has fallen too far from its tree. Yet with the arrival of the institute's first male student, the nearly preposterously opaque Kazami Yuuji, the students at Mihama begin to fall out of step with their predetermined rhythms. Will Yuuji prove to be the element the girls around him needed to take hold of their lives once more, or will the weight of their pasts prove too steep a wall to overcome?

Baccano!
Alchemists, swindlers, thieves, and gangsters cross paths on The Flying Pussyfoot, a 1930s American transcontinental train, as it embarks on a legendary voyage that leaves a trail of blood all over the country.

The Prince of Tennis
Tennis prodigiy Ryoma Echizen enters the tennis powerhouse Seishun Academy. Once he fights his way onto the team, the game will never be the same.

Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom
Mafia is rife in America where assassinations are a regular occurrence on the streets. Inferno, a mysterious company, is behind most of these dealings through the use of their near-invincible human weapon, "Phantom." One day, a Japanese tourist accidentally witnesses Phantom's latest murder. Desperate to escape, the tourist hides in a secluded building. However, Phantom, revealed to be a young woman named Ein, and the leader of Inferno "Scythe Master" captures the tourist and brainwashes him. Given the name "Zwei," this once peaceful tourist is now a puppet of Inferno with no memories. Drawn into a world of lies, deceit, and violence, Zwei must fight to survive, hopefully to one day regain his memories and escape from this world where he is constantly on the brink of death.

Nisekoi
Raku Ichijo is an average high school student. He also happens to be the sole heir to the head of a Yakuza Family called the Shuei-gumi. 10 years ago, Raku made a promise… a secret promise with a girl he met. They promised one another that they will “get married when they reunite.” Since then, Raku never let go of the pendant the girl gave him.

Hayate the Combat Butler
16-year-old Hayate is really down on his luck. Because his unemployed parents are good-for-nothings who waste what money they have on gambling, Hayate had to start working at a young age to help out his family. Although such experience has made him inhumanly fast and tough and skilled at things boys aren't normally skilled at, it has also left him in an awkward position, as his parents have racked up such a huge gambling debt that they have sold Hayate to the yakuza for the value of his organs. In a desperate attempt to avoid that fate, Hayate decides to become a "bad guy" and kidnap someone to be held for ransom, but his efforts to do so are mistaken as a confession of love by the girl he targets. When he helps save the (as it turns out) ultra-wealthy 13-year-old Nagi from real kidnappers, she takes him in and gives him a job as her new personal butler (and love interest) until he can pay off his debt. But Hayate is more attracted to Nagi's beautiful teenage maid Maria, and head butler Klaus is initially disapproving of a boy with such a poor look. And then there's Nagi's pet Tama, who is also a force to be reckoned with.

Maison Ikkoku
Godai is a ronin (someone who has failed university entrance exams) living in a run down apartment house called Maison Ikkoku. Among the other residents are the nosy Ichinose, the sexy Akemi Roppongi, and the mysterious Yotsuya. The others are given to having wild parties which makes it difficult for Godai to study. Into this mayhem comes the recently widowed Kyoko as the new live-in manager. Godai falls for her, but doesn't have the nerve to tell her. As time passes, their relationship slowly develops amid life at Maison Ikkoku, despite all sorts of romantic hurdles.
Why These Shows Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Kaiji (2007): Animation and Drama themes, similar pacing, and comparable production quality. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface series most likely to resonate with fans of Kaiji.
See full details for Kaiji (2007)