Kotaro was a regular boy living a regular life, at least until the overly-cheerful Misha appeared at his doorstep, asking to be his friend! It turns out that Misha is an apprentice angel, but unfortunately, she tends to do more harm than good. Alongside Kotaro are his friends Takashi and Koboshi, as well as the demon known as Shia (who does more good than harm), all of whom spend their days getting into wacky adventures.

Angels, demons and their interactions with humans are the topic of the day where this anime is concerned. With its light-hearted comedic feel reflected in both the premise and the art, Pita-Ten is the kind of angel anime you watch after a hectic day, or with your kid siblings. Another attractive concept explored by Pita-Ten is the reversal of the roles of the angel character and the demon character, who are performing each other’s perceived and assumed roles.

Thousands of years ago, an ancient dragon called Bahamut wrought havoc upon Mistarcia, a land where gods and demons live amongst humankind. Teaming up to prevent the world’s destruction, gods and demons sealed away the ancient threat and split the key between them in order to prevent Bahamut’s resurrection. Living in a relatively peaceful world is expert thief Favaro Leone, who lives a carefree life occasionally running away from bounty hunter Kaiser Lidfard, who seeks revenge against Favaro. Favaro’s life; however, spirals out of control when he meets a woman named Amira, who bears one half of the key needed to break Bahamut’s seal. The three of them, Favaro, Kaiser and Amira find themselves in the middle of an intense clash between gods and demons alike, all underpinned by the readily approaching return of Bahamut.

Shingeki no Bahamut is a story of collaboration between warring factions of a Manichean nature – gods, often depicted as just while demons are often shown as depraved, have had to put aside their differences for the greater good. Angels in this series are every bit as beautiful and glistening as one would imagine. Relating to religious lore, archangels such as Gabriel and Michael are characters who are prominent angels in the series and also look really, really cool. To that end, Shingeki no Bahamut’s artistic direction is quite the marvel – angelic, if you will.

Hyoudou Issei is a perverted high school student who spends all his time peeping on women and daydreaming about having his own harem one day. When a girl from another school asks him out on a date, Issei feels like he’s finally having his big break; however, she turns out to be a fallen angel who kills him. Luckily, Issei is given a second chance at life when his upperclassman, Rias Gremory, a high-class demon, revives him as her servant. He then joins the ranks of the school’s Occult Research Club, learning to fight and survive the violent new world into which he has been thrust, all while keeping it a secret from family and friends.

High School DxD is rich in occult material, particularly the demonic aspect due to the fact that much of the show’s perspective is that of the demons. In this world, God has died and the Archangel Michael has taken over his duties, including the answering of prayers and the like. The series also presents the interesting dichotomy within angels – those who fell vs those who didn’t. Fallen angels are aesthetically different from their regular counterparts, with black wings clearly marking their fall from grace.

Mudo Setsuna is a 16-year-old who is just trying to get through life without getting too much trouble from his high school seniors who bully him. His life is fairly complicated given that he is in love with his younger sister who he only sees once a month and to top it off, he is suddenly approached by all manner of supernatural beings who claim to know his destiny. The angels claim he is the reincarnation of their leader, Alexei, while the demons claim he once led their rebellion against God himself. Struggling with his identity, will Setsuna be prepared when the ever-bubbling conflict between Heaven and Hell pops off yet again?

An identity crisis wrapped up in the sudden appearance of entities long thought to be the subject of human folklore is presented in Angel Sanctuary. While it would seem straightforward to move with the angels when presented with a situation like this, Angel Sanctuary creates a stunning dilemma by mirroring the request of both angels and demons – both factions are simply looking to be led and Setsuna seems the likeliest candidate.

Hanato Kobato came to Earth with a mission: she must collect a substance known as “konpeito”, the residue that comes from healing the heart of someone who is suffering. She collects konpeito in a bottle because she wishes to go to a certain place. Despite her eccentricity, her openness and kindness make her the right candidate for this kind of task and she sincerely helps everyone she meets. There is but one condition: Kobato is not allowed to fall in love with anyone whose heart she has healed.

While it does not outright claim that Kobato is an angel, her extra-terrestrial origins and incredibly wholesome kindness make her out to be the archetypical angel – the kind of person we’d metaphorically call an angel. An incident happened in the space between Heaven and Earth which very nearly cost Kobato her life. The solution was to have an angel inhabit her body and collect konpeito in order to grant Kobato’s wish and have her truly saved from danger.

Goro has really bad luck. He keeps losing jobs and he has very little money. He meets a fortune-teller outside of a pet store one day who tells him that his luck is bound to change. Later that night, three girls appear in his apartment, claiming to be his guardian angels. Before long, that number increases to a total of twelve girls all show up to help him; each one being a reincarnation of one of Goro’s dead pets.

In truly heartwarming fashion, Angel Tales comes to us presenting a concept many pet-owners can only dream of: being reunited with a deceased pet. Goro finds himself lucky in this sense as pets (especially dogs) are some of the purest souls we humans have the pleasure of interacting with and for him, they come to help him in life yet again as angels. The story also comes across as slightly pun-tastic with the Japanese title directly translating to “Angel Tails”, an allusion to how the angels in this story came about.

Amakusa Kanade is a high schooler living an incredibly abnormal life as a result of a curse he calls “Absolute Choice.” Forced upon him by a certain god, Amakusa is randomly presented with a mental dilemma which he must resolve by choosing one of two equally ridiculous choices that he must then act out based on that choice. These random choices often happen at the most awkward times and as a result, he is forced to do consistent damage control on his ruined reputation while waiting in despair for the next unfortunate flaring of Absolute Choice. Things get even wackier when he is unwittingly “choiced” into the lives of several girls at school. The ultimate cracker? God sending a beautiful girl who comes crashing down from the sky who Amakusa must now live with while continuing to suffer even wackier choices.

Hilariously unfortunate is the story of Amakusa Kanade, whose life continues to get wackier with every passing day. After a phone call with God himself, Kanade is forced to look after Chocolat, a beautiful girl dropped down from Heaven who suffers from amnesia. Whenever she is drunk or bumps her head; however, her carefree nature dissipates and is replaced by her real nature – a very knowledgeable and articulate person who knows about Kanade’s curse. She is actually one of God’s servants and can hence be considered an angel.

When a certain individual dies, they are kicked out of the cycle of reincarnation due to the grave sin that they committed. After winning a certain lottery, an angel tells them that they have the chance to remember the sin and so their spirit possesses the body of 14-year-old Makoto, a boy who committed suicide. They quickly become distressed with the state of Makoto’s life and come to grips with the painful reality of living in a colourful world where no one can distinguish themselves from other people.

While it isn’t all about the angels, Colourful is an emotional ride where a condemned soul seeks redemption after an angel helps them out. Angels in this movie carry out the role ascribed to them by myth and common conception, which works well given the fact that this movie isn’t about them. Colourful explores themes of individuality, sin and suicide.

For centuries, it has been the requirement of Heaven to have its young angels live and study among humans in order to become fully-fledged angels. Top-of-the-class angel Gabriel White Tenma believes it is her mission to become a great angel who will bring happiness to humankind; however, she gets addicted to videogames while on Earth and eventually becomes a shut-in! Calling herself a “Faillen Angel”, Gabriel grows apathetic to everything else, to the chagrin of Vignette April Tsukinose, a demon Gabriel befriended in her early days on Earth. Vignette’s attempts to return Gabriel to her days of angelic greatness prove to be useless as Gabriel shoots down any attempt to change her lifestyle. The two soon meet the angel Raphiel Ainsworth Shiraha, one of Gabriel’s classmates and the demon Satanichia McDowell Kurumizawa. The four of them live hilariously wacky lives as they fail at coming to grips with what it means to be a demon or an angel.

Placing angels in a school environment is something we can come to expect of anime – the high school environment is one of the most common placements in anime. Gabriel’s fall from grace is also an aspect rarely explored since angels are always expected to be the pinnacle of perfection before God, the ultimate standard before the ultimate abstraction. The show comically explores these concepts of angels and demons while also giving personality to each individual.

For most people, death is the final frontier. For Asogi Rin; however, death is just an inconvenience. Rin is immortal and as a detective, she consistently finds herself in life-threatening situations. After eating a “time-fruit” from the tree Yggdrassil which makes women unable to die after their consumption, Rin has died countless times in various ways. But in 1990, a series of events sends Rin spiralling towards her fate – someone out there is hunting immortal women and for the first time since eating the fruit, Rin is in actual danger. It all begins when a search for a lost cat ends up in the finding of amnesiac Maeno Koki instead…

Daughters of Mnemosyne is top of our list here for this batch of angel anime due to the way it presents it all: women eating from the guardian tree Yggdrassil makes them immortal but when men partake of the fruit, they become “angels”, the only ones capable of killing the immortal women. In that regard, aside from the violent deaths that Rin experiences, the show presents a dark aspect to angels as the only foil to immortality, which contrasts what we are often told about angels. They are usually the protectors, but in this scenario, they’re anything but.