Anime Adventures Enemy Types

This guide to Anime Adventures enemy types covers the ones that UPD 21 sources actually document: flying enemies, the new Soaring type, shields, regen and elemental resistance. It is not a list of every enemy in the game. Most of it comes from creator videos, including the UPD 21 patch notes as creators read them out on screen.

What changed for flying enemies in UPD 21

Damage against flying enemies by placement

Ground attack 50 %

Hill or hybrid on a Hill 100 %

The UPD 21 patch notes, as players read them out, let every unit attack flying enemies. The cost is damage. A ground attack that could not hit flying before now deals 50% less damage to a flying enemy, and it cannot stun or slow that enemy either.

The penalty skips anything that sits on a Hill spot, whether a pure Hill unit or a hybrid placed up there, and it skips attacks that could reach fliers before the patch.

The upgrade panel shows the upgrade at which a unit starts hitting flying enemies at full damage, so open it before you write off a ground unit for flying waves.

If a ground unit is on your team for its stun or slow, it brings neither against flying enemies, so give that slot to something else on flying-heavy stages.

What are Soaring enemies?

Soaring is a new enemy type added in UPD 21. As read from the patch notes shown in videos, these enemies fly higher than regular flyers and only units placed on Hill spots can hit them. Unlike regular flyers, they take no hits at all from ground attacks.

Hybrids need the most care. A hybrid can sit on the ground or on a Hill, and more than one creator found that a hybrid on the ground cannot hit Soaring enemies. So when you build for a Soaring stage, plan around the map’s Hill spots rather than unit labels, and put your best damage on them.

Where Soaring enemies show up

Creator videos point to two places so far. Sky Portals send Soaring enemies, which is why a portal team needs units on Hill spots; our anime adventures sky portal guide covers the portal itself. The Summer Hunt is the second: windy weather brings Soaring enemies into it.

When the Summer Hunt weather turns windy, look at your Hill spots before the next wave arrives.

Units that can and cannot hit Soaring

Who reaches Soaring enemies

Available Not available

• Water Goddess Available Water Goddess is a Hill unit with 4 placements that gives units in range +50% water damage and can hit Soaring enemies
• Dark Mage (on a Hill) Available Dark Mage is a hybrid that hits Soaring enemies when placed on a Hill
• Honey (on a Hill) Available Honey can hit Soaring enemies when placed on a Hill
• Iron Sentinel Available Iron Sentinel is a Hill unit whose drones reach Soaring enemies
• Goku (on a Hill) Available Goku can hit Soaring enemies from a Hill, but the fused Vegito cannot
• Phoenix (on a Hill) Available Phoenix is a hybrid: placed on a hill it hits Soaring enemies
• Sky God Not available Sky God is a ground unit, so it cannot reach Soaring enemies and needs a hill unit next to it
• Explosion Mage Not available Explosion Mage is a Secret unit with 2 placements that fires an explosion you aim, about every 20 seconds at max upgrade, and cannot hit Soaring enemies

The table and chart list units with at least two matching creator videos. Six units reach Soaring. Water Goddess, Iron Sentinel and Goku do it from a Hill, and three hybrids do it once they sit on a Hill spot: Dark Mage, Honey and Phoenix.

Water Goddess is a Hill unit that can hit Soaring enemies. The creators we compared also show it with 4 placements and a +50% water damage boost for units in its range, which makes it an easy first choice for a Hill spot. Iron Sentinel is a Hill unit too, and its drones reach Soaring enemies.

Three units cannot, in the videos we compared. Sky God is a ground unit, so it cannot reach Soaring enemies, and it needs a Hill unit placed next to it. Explosion Mage cannot hit Soaring enemies either, even though its explosion covers the whole map. Goku hits Soaring from a Hill, but the fused form, Vegito, cannot.

Captain God is the open case. Sources disagree on whether its plants hit Soaring enemies from a Hill, and we give no verdict. Test it yourself before building around it.

A unit missing from the table has no reliable Soaring report yet, which does not mean it fails against them. For overall strength, check the anime adventures tier list and the anime adventures units pages.

Shield and Regen enemies

Shield and Regen enemies: what counters them

Shield enemiesRegen enemies Counter Multi-hit attacks are the counter to shielded enemiesBleed stops the health regeneration of regen enemies

Several videos name multi-hit attacks as the counter to shielded enemies. If a shielded wave stalls your lineup, reach for a unit that hits many times rather than one that hits harder once.

Regen enemies recover health over time. In the creator videos we watched, Bleed stops that regeneration and Ashborn’s Decay cancels it as well. One Bleed or Decay source on the map means your damage dealers stop losing ground to the heal.

Elemental resistance and weaknesses

In some modes, enemies resist or are weak to certain damage types. The game shows this as icons above each enemy’s health bar. Read them when a wave starts and lean on units whose damage type matches a weakness.

Word Mage works directly against resistance. Creators covering the unit agree that its hits leave a curse that never wears off: elemental resistance drops by 10 straight away and by 10 more every 3 seconds, up to 80. On paper, that makes it most useful in long fights against resistant enemies, where the curse has time to stack.

Each Chuuni mark makes the enemy take 50% more magic damage, more than one video shows, which suits a team built on magic damage.

In the Summer Hunt, players say Sandstorm weather gives enemies magic resistance, so if most of your damage is magic, expect slower kills while it lasts.

Armored and Burst: what we can confirm

An older update log, copied on the community wiki, describes Armored enemies as taking less damage from Full AoE attacks. This rests on a single source, the only one we have. That log is from Update 13.5 in May 2023, long before UPD 21. No UPD 21 source mentions Armored enemies, so we will check it in game and update this section.

Burst follows the same pattern. One source reports, from a similar old update log on the community wiki, that Burst enemies open with a burst of speed and slow down later. That log is from Update 19 in December 2024. No UPD 21 source mentions Burst either, and we will check it in game too.