9 anime on Crunchyroll to watch on Friendship Day

The anime on Crunchyroll selection, without a doubt, is one of the largest legally available collections in the modern day, especially following their Funimation acquisition. Likewise, fans can often find the perfect series to watch for a specific holiday or time of year, like Father’s Day, Halloween, or even the perfect anime to watch on Friendship Day.

While the medium in general often incorporates themes of friendship and camaraderie, there are a few specific anime on Crunchyroll that particularly incorporate such themes. Likewise, there are select offerings on the platform that undoubtedly serve as the best anime to watch on Friendship Day.

Naruto, Tokyo Revengers, and more are the perfect anime to watch on Friendship Day among the many anime on Crunchyroll

1) Fairy Tail

Kicking off the list is Fairy Tail, with this anime on Crunchyroll serving as the adaptation of mangaka Hiro Mashima’s original work. Inherently, the series uses friendship as a core theme and narrative device, revolving around the exploits of the members of the wizard guild Fairy Tail. The guild is shown to be incredibly close with each other, being like friends at their worst and like family in all but blood at their best.

This story of friendship starts with Natsu Dragneel and Lucy Heartfilia (as well as her Exceed companion Happy) meeting and befriending each other and forming a team in the guild. Eventually, they meet their future closest friends Gray Fullbuster, Erza Scarlet, Wendy Marvell, and Carla (who is an Exceed companion like Happy) and all go on adventures together.

2) Naruto

One of the many anime on Crunchyroll that needs no introduction, Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto is a perfect anime to watch on Friendship Day. The series centers around the titular Uzumaki clan ninja, whose story, in a way, is about finding and making friends. As a child, this comes across via his desire to become Hokage, the leader of his hometown Hidden Leaf Village, and have everyone in the village acknowledge him likewise.

Along the way, he makes several friends on his own before achieving his goal, with his closest being Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, his Team 7 allies under mentor Kakashi Hatake. However, as Naruto grows stronger, he and Sasuke grow more distant, sparking the story of one friend who will never stop offering their hand and another who doesn’t know how to take it.

3) After School Dice Club

After School Dice Club (Image via Crunchyroll)

The first slice-of-life-adjacent anime on Crunchyroll to appear on this list, After School Dice Club takes a much more grounded and realistic approach to friendship than the above series. As the title suggests, the story centers around a group of friends who love board games, spending their time bonding over different games after school.

The series focuses on protagonist Miki Takekasa, a shy high school girl who keeps to herself until meeting new transfer student Aya Takayashiki. Aya convinces Miki to go on an adventure, eventually spotting class representative Midori Ono heading to the entertainment district. It’s here that they learn of Midori’s afterschool job at a game shop, thus starting the titular group and the girls’ adorable friendship.

4) You and Me

Also known as Kimi to Boku, You and Me is the second slice-of-life-esque anime on Crunchyroll featured here and is also a great anime to watch on Friendship Day. However, it’s unique in that the series’ central friend group isn’t characterized as particularly close. Likewise, it’s the fact that they love each other’s company that keeps them together, even with their different personalities or perspectives.

Making up this friend group are the good-looking Asaba twins Yuta and Yuki, the effeminate Shun Matsuoka, and class head Kaname Tsukahara, all of whom have known each other since early childhood.

The four are later joined by half-Japanese transfer student Chizuru Tachibana, completing this adolescent friend group, which gets into light-hearted humorous adventures with each other. The series’ main themes revolve around the everyday life of adolescence.

5) Orange

The Orange anime on Crunchyroll serves as a unique entry on this list, dealing with mature themes in the guise of a romance slice-of-life series with sci-fi elements. However, the series emphasizes friendship as one of its core themes, seeing its central group go to extreme lengths to ensure one of their own lives a long, happy life. For some, it even means sacrificing things they also want, which conflicts with this goal, emphasizing what true friendship is all about.

The series follows second-year high school student Naho Takamiya, who begins receiving letters from herself 10 years in the future. While she doubts these letters asking to prevent her own “biggest regrets” at first, they eventually prove themselves accurate.

Likewise, Naho and her friends Hiroto Suwa, Takako Chino, Saku Hagita, and Azusa Murasaka make it their goal to prevent new transfer student Kakeru Naruse from committing a tragic act that will change all their lives.

6) Laid-Back Camp

This adventurous slice-of-life anime on Crunchyroll is yet another perfect anime to watch on Friendship Day, and one of the most low-stakes on this list likewise. Laid-Back Camp focuses on Rin Shima, who enjoys camping on her own until one day meeting Nadeshiko Kagamihara.

Nadeshiko encourages Rin to join their school’s camping club, with classmates Chiako Ogaki and Aoi Inuyama making up the other members. Together, the foursome travels all around Japan, camping and enjoying their daily lives together as they grow to be incredibly close friends.

7) Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

Often shortened to Anohana, this anime on Crunchyroll is one of the most infamous friendship series ever made. Officially categorized as a coming-of-age series, the story opens with the death of one of six sixth-grade-age childhood friends, Meiko “Menma” Honma. This causes the group to drift apart, with leader and protagonist Jinta Yadomi having fully withdrawn from society as a total recluse five years later.

This changes when Menma’s ghost appears before Jinta, convincing him to help her pass onto the afterlife by granting her wish. To do so, Jinta regathers the old friend group, with Menma eventually revealing herself to them as well. The group struggles as long-hidden feelings are revealed and rekindled, but they all become closer for it and help each other move on from both Menma’s death and each other as true friends.

8) The Promised Neverland

The Promised Neverland (Image via Crunchyroll)

While one of the most divisive anime on Crunchyroll, The Promised Neverland is also one of the best anime to watch on Friendship Day given its story. The story opens up with a focus on an orphanage, with 11-year-old Emma as the series’ protagonist. Emma and her two best friends, Ray and Norman, are characterized as the leaders of the orphanage’s children, often comforting and helping their friends given their role as the oldest three.

Their care for their siblings is likewise discovered when Emma and Norman chase after the adopted Conny one night after she left her stuffed animal at the orphanage. This leads to a gruesome and horrifying discovery regarding the true nature of their surroundings. Inspired by Conny’s fate, the pair become determined to free their siblings with Ray’s help, emphasizing the care they feel for their friends-turned-family at the orphanage.

9) Tokyo Revengers

Rounding off this list is one of the most popular anime on Crunchyroll in recent years, Tokyo Revengers. From the jump, this series is about friends, focusing on 26-year-old Takemichi Hanagaki learning of the death of his middle school ex-girlfriend Hinata Tachibana. However, he suddenly finds himself having been transported to the past after being pushed onto a train platform and dying, giving him another chance to save Tachibana and others.

Likewise, the series is heavily structured around friendship, with Takemichi characterized as someone who will sacrifice anything and stop at nothing in order to save all of his friends. It’s an emotional anime on Crunchyroll that will constantly tug at viewers’ heartstrings, making them want to tell their closest friends how much they care for them after each of Takemichi’s struggles for his own companions.

Final thoughts

While there are nearly countless anime on Crunchyroll, the above nine serve as some of the best anime to watch on Friendship Day with how central the theme of friendship is to each. That being said, there are plenty more anime on Crunchyroll that deal with friendship that fans should check out, such as One Piece, Tamayura Hitotose, and many more.

Disclaimer: Sportskeeda doesn't claim ownership of any images included in the list. They were supplied by Crunchyroll.