The Use of Color
Primary, secondary, and complimentary colors are used in pretty much every anime. The way that the creators use them differ from one another, though, and here are a few examples.
This anime's cover art makes great use of secondary colors such as orange, purple, and green.
There are all of the primary colors in this image, but they have more of a delicate tone.
All of these colors combined definitely create complimentary colors. You can tell because the overall image looks pleasing to the eye. The green is complementary to the pink, the blue is complementary to the orange, etc.
If you watched the actual anime, you would notice that the show presents more soft colors rather than vivid since the show is trying to portray the feeling of calmness.
All of the colors used in this show includes tints of white, therefore giving it a more pastel look. The reason to why they used this color scheme is because the anime goes through the daily life of a lazy high schooler, thus using soft colors to match the theme.
Tanaka-Kun Wa Itsumo Kedaruge
(Tanaka Kun is Always Listless)
This anime's cover art also makes great use of primary colors (red and blue), but as you could tell, it's way more vivid compared to the previous art to match all of the action and dramatic scenes that this show exerts.
The secondary colors that this image uses appear to be darker when used on a character (such as the purple in the girl on the right's hair), but as you could see, orange is used in the background to make the overall image pop out.
The complimentary colors that this image uses the most is orange and blue. The orange lights that overlap the blue buildings gives the picture a mysterious look, thus looking good together.
Unlike the anime prior, this one has more despair to it instead of calmness. So just as you'd expect, they're not going to use soft colors during something such as a fighting scene, but instead dark and vivid colors to create the feeling of uneasiness.
Tokyo Ghoul