With anime becoming more mainstream, anime fans have infiltrated almost every government and organization.
It’s only a matter of time before we finally take over civilization and lead humanity toward a future full of genetically-engineered catgirls and giant humanoid robots, where access to anime is considered a human right.
We need to prepare for our glorious future – and we can start by filling Paradox’s Stellaris to the brim with anime content.
Whether you want to play as a cute anime galactic emperor or wage war against them, you’ll find everything you need in this list.
The first thing I’d do if my civilization mastered genetic editing would be commission an adorable anime girl to be my personal assistant.
You can live the dream with the Anime Advisor mod, which adds a whopping 17 different anime girls as voices for your trusted counselor.
These are made using Vocaloid and Voiceroid synthetic speech programs, which gives their voices a very slightly mechanical edge similar to the Spiritualist advisor in the base game.
Indeed, having the advisor speak Japanese can be confusing if you haven’t mastered the language – but the advisor rarely says anything useful, so it really doesn’t matter.
The Touhou and Warship Girls franchises are some of the most popular in the anime game sphere – and also some of the most prolific when it comes to churning out cute anime girls.
If you want some of that moe goodness in your Stellaris, the Touhou x Warship Girls Species mod will make your dreams come true with over 500 adorable anime portraits.
It’s not only the portraits, though. This mod also features a beefy namelist, some new flags, a couple new traits, and even unique starting systems!
If you like anime and Stellaris but still haven’t watched Legend of the Galactic Heroes, it’s time for you to stop reading and come back once you’ve watched all 110 episodes.
You’ll thank me later.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes is celebrated by its fans as one of the best anime series ever made. Its complex characters, realistic portrayal of war and politics, and deep ideological problems will make you think instead of mindlessly looking at giant spaceships shooting each other.
If you do want to focus on the exploding spaceships, you can do that on your own time with the Legend of Galactic Heroes shipset.
Space Battleship Yamato is another classic sci-fi anime with a bombastic ship design.
This SBY shipset brings some of the most iconic vessels from the SBY 2199 and SBY 2202 anime series to Stellaris.
While the Yamato itself is literally a WW2 destroyer refurbished into a spaceship, these newer models are evidently designed for sailing the stars. Still, they retain some of the old-school navy appeal that makes the Yamato attractive.
Fans of the Hyperdimension Neptunia RPG (and anime series) will find a lot to love in Supergalactica Neptunia: Galaxy of Peace and Chaos – a pretty massive mod bringing together horror, sci-fi, and cute anime girls.
This mod is basically Hyperdimension Neptunia fanfiction.
It adapts the setting and lore of the Neptunia series to tell a story about cyber-bullying, the tragic reality of suicide, and more.
Even if the storyline sounds extremely grim, it’s still entertaining and a significant shift from Stellaris’ vanilla storytelling. The mod features custom anime leaders, shipsets, preset empires, and an all-new soundtrack.
Any mod with “weeb” in the title is just asking me to try it out – and, in this case, I wasn’t disappointed.
This mod introduces a variety of new “species” based on popular anime series and Otaku culture.
Some of the new portraits include humans (based on the Sengoku Rance series), catgirls, elves, lizards, avians, and even “hannies” – a race of funny-faced critters based on Haniwa clay figures (similarly to Cactuar in Final Fantasy and Gyroids in Animal Crossing).
It’s not the most extensive mod, but it’s well-maintained and a great way to add a touch of weeaboo pride to your Stellaris.
If you want something with a little more content, consider Animaris – featuring a whopping 132 new character portraits based on popular anime series and related video games.
The mod divides the portraits into different groups to help you give your anime empire a specific tone. There are cute “moe” characters, more serious “bad-ass” characters, and Hyperdimension Neptunia characters.
There are also exclusively male and female portrait groups.
If you make rival empires with these two, it’ll be like the plot from mecha harem anime Vandread.
Considering the interests and aesthetic sensibilities of modern humanity, it’s very likely that – once we figure out how to make realistic humanoid robots – many of them will look like anime girls.
The Animated Polynian Species explores that future by introducing 127 fully-animated robot girl portraits based on Dalmadi Production’s line of “Polynian” figures.
This line of movable figures puts a robotic twist on many anime girl tropes, such as maids, glasses girls, and the like.
The “lore” for the Polynians mentions they’re from outer space, which makes them perfect for Stellaris.
In the cutthroat world of space politics, might makes right – and the same goes for mods.
Just as a large fleet size will earn you a bigger voice in the galactic council, a large number of new portraits earns you a high place on my ranking – and it really doesn’t get more extensive than Anime Galaxy.
This massive mod introduces a mind-boggling 8600 different portraits from countless anime series and Japanese video games.
Not only that, but the mod actually replaces the vanilla species, including curators, artists, fallen empires, and even marauders, with appropriate anime characters.
For all intents and purposes, Anime Galaxy is a complete anime leader conversion for Stellaris.
If you want the ultimate anime conversion for Stellaris, you’ll find it in the Azur Lane Portraits Universe mod.
Azur Lane is a fantastic Chinese video game series with a gorgeous anime art style focusing on “ship-girls” inspired by real-life battleships of World War II.
Despite having fewer portraits, I chose this mod over Anime Galaxy because of the high-quality and coherent style offered by these Azur Lane portraits.
And shipgirls are actually ideal for galactic conquest. Most of them have a military/combat-focused edge that’ll fit Stellaris like a ring.
Nelson Chitty is a Venezuelan expat living in Argentina. He’s a writer and translator passionate about history and foreign cultures. His ideal weekend is spent between leisurely playing games of Civilization VI and looking for the next seinen anime to marathon.
