The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)
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Anime tells stories in a visual format that for years and years you simply could not get anywhere else. Adult genre fiction was not well represented in American media. Even today, adult American cartoons are almost entirely "sitcom" format. They don't want to ever end, and they do not want to tell a story, they want to make more episodes.
Today, people are spoiled with their options for genre fiction. Cowboy Bebop blew my mind as a kid. Berserk was also one of my favorites. I did not think anything could be cooler than Vampire Hunter D. This was before Game of Thrones or The Expanse or any number of other amazing science-fiction or fantasy media we have today. Coming from a small town, it felt like a secret that nobody else knew about and I loved immersing myself in this grim, beautiful, foreign worlds[0].
A lot of anime has a lot of gross "fan service" that objectifies their female protagonists, and that is something I was never a fan of. It was something you tolerated because there wasn't anywhere else to go.
Lain is a great example of all of this. Where else are you going to get a gorgeously rendered cyberpunk-horror series?
0: Probably at a younger age than I should have been allowed to. Though honestly I don't see myself censoring everything from my kids. Part of the draw was the adult nature and feeling like I was getting away with something.
It also lends itself to an odd bit of realism: because its cheaper to animate characters without faces, people actually tend to wear helmets in situations they obviously should.
I'll have to watch Lain now, thanks to your comment.
I enjoy the usual suspects: Akira, Ghost in the Shell (including Standalone Complex), and Cowboy Bebop immensely. I like Robotech, though much of it is nostalgia. But I've found straying from the essentials to be challenging for my very Western tastes.
I tried to watch Stein's Gate and thought it was very clever, but the awkward romance and over-the-top characteristics of the main character were a bit too much. Knights of Sidonia and Attack on Titan got too weird, too quickly. I was too old for Dragonball. There's a lot of Western-focused, Japanese-animated options out there, but they almost universally lack the depth of their anime counterparts.
I'd love some recommendations if you have any, whether they be newer stuff or classics that I've overlooked.
In the lighter more children spectrum, Mamoru Hosoda does beautiful things like Summer Wars or The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
The Tatami Galaxy is another great one
Oh, and check out Legend Of The Galactic Heroes. It's an epic along the lines of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, with like 30 'main' characters and maybe 300+ named characters throughout its run. Huge in scope and scale, but always willing to take a couple minutes and reflect on philosophy, politics, and the horrors of war. It's a seriously adult show.
Would echo this recommendation. It's a massive commitment to watch fully (even just the main series, not including spinoffs), but it's quite good.
Like who goes in to battle with less than 20 thousand warships (LotGH), closes to less than 100 000 km before firing (Honorverse) or starts a campaign without god-AI driven relativistic autowar swarms of death (Orions Arm)? ;)
I only recently found that it was a cartoon originally.
I read it as a novell like 20 years ago.
Death Note is awesome, especially the first half. There's a bit of cringy overconfident adolescent personality going on, but I think it's all for the best considering the plot.
Monster is one I'm torn about. The themes it touches on are just perfect for a great dark story, but I feel like it under-delivers by always making it sound like it's gonna get really dark but never making it so. There's quite a bit of "semi-filler" episodes. Thought-provoking but never goes as deep as I'd like.
One movie I'd recommend is Perfect Blue. Realistic psychological suspense/horror with great animation.
Not at all the same genre, but Welcome To The NHK is pretty nice if you want some realistic "light-hearted dark humor" (if there's such a thing), but maybe not if you don't relate to being a hikikomori (or social recluse in general). There's over-the-top characteristics, especially in the first episodes, but it gets better. Watch, say, 10 episodes; if you don't love it by then, it may not be for you.
EDIT: Oh, I also watched Ergo Proxy in an overnight binge so I honestly can't remember much about it. A lot of people like it, I found it really boring and felt too grandiose for what actually happened in the end. There's an interesting story behind it all, but I had to resort to reading fan theories to get it.
EDIT2: For the sake of completeness, the show I actually love the most is Avatar (The Last Airbender. I'm right now watching the sequel and still making up my mind on it). Possibly because I was a kid when I first watched it, but it still really moves me. And yes, I said before I prefer realistic stuff, but this is one of the greatest exceptions. It's also not dark by any means - it's a kid's show after all -, plenty of light-hearted humor and all, but there are many many things I'd say even an adult can get from watching it.
The most common reaction to it I saw at the time actually was "really boring and felt too grandiose for what actually happened in the end". (That was my reaction, too.) It just has a lot of other characteristics that make it appealing; it's arguably still the best-looking anime I've seen, despite being 15 years old. Especially since I'm a fan of that kind of dark aesthetic. And it starts out really promising and curiosity-grabbing.
Gurren Lagann is a wonderful homage to other mecha series. The series evolves in a REALLY interesting way, it blew my mind. Is worth sticking it out to the end!
Berserk (2016) is awesome, though I go back and forth on weather it transcends it's own violence. I'm probably just being a prude though, since nobody else seems to care haha.
DevilMan Crybaby(2018) is worth a watch. It is a gorgeously animated edgelord anime, run through a modern filter to make it more palatable.
Dorohedoro (2020) is bizarre and nihilistic and is written by a female author which is cool.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (2012 - present) suffers from being the product of a "less woke" 80's and 90's but man... I love it so much. It is so dumb and fun. There is a LOT of it but you just have to go along for the ride.
One Punch Man (2015) is great fun.
I tend to follow individual studios and directors.
Hiroyuki Imaishi has been consistently excellent.
Satoshi Kon is a legend, pick ANYTHING by him and you will not be disappointed.
Shinichirō Watanabe. I'm especially fond of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.
Studio Trigger makes great stuff.
Kick reason to the curb and do the impossible!
Sorry.
Gurren Lagann, paired with Evangelion, remains one of my favorites. Though it’s a different production crew, it is the same studio, and it’s fascinating to watch them as a counterpoint. There is an obvious point where the main character in Gurren Lagann could, and perhaps should, break, but hope comes through. It’s the optimistic version of NGE.
Also, their ridiculous explanation for where all this mass-energy comes from, and the consequences? Fun.
Sure, you don't believe in yourself. You tear yourself down all the time. But you also believe in your best friend, you think the world of him, and here's your best friend saying he believes in you.
EDIT: Add Revolutionary Girl Utena to the list, although it might be considered somewhat repetitive and way too symbolic.
Mushishi is an excellent philosophical supernatural journey.
Samurai Champloo is very accessible samurai stories (Samurai X is less accessible but good)
Soul Eater (and pretty much anything by the Bones crew) is great unqique fantasy with some interesting themes. Wolf's Rain is another thoughtful one.
Planetes was recommended in the recent HN thread about space junk, and I ended up watching the whole series over the course of 4 days. It's similar to Evangelion, in that the first few episodes are goofy and awkward (except they're in their early 20s instead of teens). But by the end of the show I was blown away.
It's effectively an adult coming-of-age story, set against a sad, beautiful near-future world in which everyone is just trying to live their lives and get by. The space debris stuff is fun and maybe metaphorical, but from a plot perpsective it's almost parenthetical. I'm too young and immature to have words for the journey it took me on, but (much like Evangelion) it was exactly what I needed at the time in my life when I first saw it.
Survive through the "ninja" episode (you'll know which one I mean when you see it), and you will be rewarded.
Edit: apparently the anime and manga diverge significantly because the show was finished first. I intend to read the latter after I've had a chance to cool off from the former!
> Attack on Titan got too weird, too quickly
It picks up and starts to tie together. I almost didn't watch the second season, but a friend convinced me to and I don't regret it at all. Apparently the show and manga track closely together in plot, so you don't need to read if you've already watched, or vice versa (unless you want to read the last 20-ish chapters if you don't want to wait for the last season of the show to come out).
Don't expect profundity like Evangelion, although the plot is clearly inspired by Evangelion in some ways. But do expect high drama, long threads of intrigue, and whopper plot twists. It's one of the most exciting TV shows I've ever seen.
> I was too old for Dragonball
Too old to take it seriously, maybe! But it's still good fun, just like Space Ghost and Looney Tunes. If I ever have kids, I plan to watch it with them (although IIRC there were some racist and sexist moments that would best be elided).
> Western-focused, Japanese-animated options
I also have to recommend Avatar: The Last Airbender! Its target audience and Western origin belies its depth.
That series was done dirty by the fansubbing community: When it originally aired back in 2003 only the first couple of episodes were translated, then it was dropped and no other group stepped up to keep translating it.
While I'm at it: speaking of Tatami, you should also check out Yuasa's Kaiba: it's a lot more abstract than Tatami but ultimately ticks a lot of the same boxes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descending_Stories:_Showa_Ge... is arguably the best character-focused drama of the last few years.
Satoshi Kon has also already been mentioned, but I'd specifically call out Paranoia Agent as it's often less prominent than his feature films, yet (imo) is the most incisive of his stuff.
ignoring the good story and psychological elements, Paranoia Agent is worth watching for the sheer style and drawing methods.
Satoshi Kon was always stylish, but Paranoia Agent is one of the best examples.
It's a western/sci-fi set in a vast desert-dwelling society, focusing on the legend of the mysterious criminal Vash, with a 60 billion dollar bounty on his head, usually called by the nickname "Vash The Stampede", who wreaks destruction and mayhem wherever he turns up.
We follow around a goof who looks just like him.
Mushishi is a bit "standard anime fare" but I found it surprisingly wholesome and emotional.
Samurai Champloo is a very well drawn, animated, and stylish show with an amazing soundtrack by nujabes.
Fullmetal Panic! is very mecha shonen, but probably my favorite of the genre without having to delve into the more massive franchises like Gundam with it's bazillion different shows.
Also: Check out Satoshi Kon's stuff like Perfect Blue or Paprika.
Very different but I also enjoyed Naruto as I grew up myself. It's long (but you can skip all fillers) but sometimes very deep. I enjoyed Kenshin but never finished it.
As mentioned below Samurai Champloo is also nice and Steins Gate (nice, strange atmosphere) and Death Note: very psychological: He thinks that I think that he thinks and I'm smarter so... Love that. And One Punch Man, puts a smile on my face.
If you want weird: FLCL. What was that about?
It's especially annoying when you naturally start to pattern match and pick up certain common words (if you've watched a lot of stuff for years) and see a short subtitle that seems like an extreme simplification or ham-fisted watering down of what a character just said. Subtitle timing and duration can also make a difference.
It makes you really appreciate good subtitling, at least.
Post-EoE Gainax staff letting off some steam (heh). It is unironically Evangelion through a mirror goofy; a coming-of-age story where fraught filial relationships, older women who come on wa~y too strong, and more robots than you would expect c. 2000 figure in heavily. Just assume that anything you don't immediately understand is a metaphor for pubertal dysfunction and you'll be right 90% of the time.
Now, if you really want to be confused, pick up Revolutionary Girl Utena.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj7sZlNQB7w
(also affirming all the kon and yuuasa recommendations)
These maybe aren't the same kind of show as your traditional animes, but they all really resonated with me during Covid times.
Adventure Time is deeply empathetic to the human condition. To communicate this connection it rewrites all the rules about how the world works and forces you to navigate them with no explaination.
To a child this is taken as a mater of course, to them that is how the real wold works. Children have to discover the world on their own and learn to navigate it, hopefully with the guidance of parents, family and teachers.
Most lessons are hard won and come only through experience. As the story progresses you see the characters in Adventure Time strugle to learn these lessons, sometimes succeeding sometimes failing.
As an adult this show opens me up to all these lessons again and gives me a chance to reevaluate my experiences as well as consider those my son is or will go through and how I cam be there for him.
8th MS Team, 0080: War in the Pocket, and Iron-Blooded Orphans are good to start with (even if you don't understand everything right off the bat, just flow with it). The first, because it is THE most grounded of all the series; the second, because it's by far the most moving, and the last because it's probably the most self-assured execution of the franchise's "child soldier" trope (with a fully-formed conception of just what kind of world produces that horror).
Mob Psycho 100 may seem out of left field and extremely Japanese at first, but it's such an effortlessly insightful, and universal, exploration of purpose, motivation, and the lies we tell ourselves about each, make it an easy recommendation, especially for someone who presumably might need some healing from Eva.
The Great Pretender will remind you a lot of Cowboy Bebop.
Edit: Oh, duh, Kon. Anything by Satoshi Kon.
Big O is also a good show though it gets better as it goes along. It gets kind of abstract and embraces a sort of "theater of the absurd" sort of atmosphere so don't go into it expecting a typical narrative to the story.
If you like American superhero movies or comics at all Tiger and Bunny is a great Japanese show with a unique take on them.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica was sort of described as a "deconstruction" of Sailor Moon type shows, a writer with a horror background does a grim and gritty story that starts off like a Sailor Moon sort of thing and goes somewhere else.
Manga too, but in Japan it's much better praised than anime.
Wonder Egg Priority comes to mind but due to production delays the final episode won't be coming out until a few months so it will leaving you hanging for the conclusion. In this age of gatcha-game, manga or light novel anime adaptations it's a rare anime only series. It follows teenage girls fighting what are essential nightmares with poppy color and well animated scenes but it's a symbolic battle with serious issues such as hikkomori, homosexuality, sexual abuse and suicide.
The isekai genre is definitely overused at this point, just as slice of life got done to death before it.
Lately, I've been having more luck w/ manhwa (Korean manga). If steampunk sci-fi with social commentary plot is your cup of tea, I've been finding Leviathan enjoyable.
Yet somehow we can't get enough of it!
I mean, I know I'm a sucker for isekai. Some of it is poorly animated with terrible stereotypes (for anime) and far too much fan service but it's not isekai that's cliche it's the story that's being told inside of it that could be.
I'd argue that isekai is one of the best and truest forms of sci-fi: Instead of just "drama, in space!" or "drama, in the future!" isekais are (normally) answering the question, "what if?"
Like, what if you were reincarnated in another world but you weren't human? What if you were a monster? Or a machine? Or immortal? Overpowered because of nature or overpowered because of nurture (i.e. the ability to carry forward knowledge from this world)? The possibilities are endless!
There's so many great isekai anime that explore these and other questions. Some get quite detailed and realistic (in terms of emotions or the sorts of problems one might run into) while others are more about comedy or relationships (again, "drama, in <another world>!").
Some of the more interesting aspects/concepts of isekai anime that I've watched:
- Main character is not the only one that was brought to another world *but the others who also came are from completely different alternate universes* (Shield Hero).
- An *entire group of people* get sent to another world (Arifureta, So I'm A Spider, So What?, Grimgar)
- The other world is *super early* feudal-ish (so primitive they don't know how to make paper or even crochet... yet) and the main character remembers all the arts & crafts stuff her mother and grandmother taught her (Ascendance of a Bookworm). Hehe: How well do *you* understand the process of making paper (think you could figure it out in that situation? =)
- What if your mom came to the other world with you? (this one is actually so over the top and ridiculous but the question itself is kind of interesting: Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?)
Another example: the orc arc of moonlight sculptor was an absolutely epic read in text format; I don't think the cartoon format can really do it justice.
If you start digging into Isekai manga, there at least one order of magnitude more works to choose from. Then if you look into light novels, there is even more stuff, again with just a fraction getting manga adaptations.
But the real breath of Isekai are web novels - that's where most of the current hit novels started, on websites like "I'll become a novelist" (https://syosetu.com/) where people just type away their fantasies with minimal friction, one chapter at a time and often with lots of direct feedback from the community.
That can result in even more original/crazy ideas being explored, such as:
- What if you were transported to a fantasy world with your solar powered camping vehicle ? (Himekishi to Camping Car)
- What if you became your game character in a fantasy world that has a different gender (female) and is a total glass cannon ? (Alice Tale)
- Whats more fun than raiding dungeons ? Running them! (Lazy Dungeon Master)
- What if there is stable gateway between the other and the modern world and you can go back and forth ? (quite a few series actually, even some mainstream ones like Gate or Isekai Shokudo)
- Fantasy is nice but steampunk and heavy industry is even better! There are quite a few rather non-mainstream series that introduce robots and guns into an Isekai setting. Yet there are others that set out to industrialize the whole thing as including building stuff like railroads.
- What if magic was just a foreign language or alphabet the locals aren't good at but you are, as it's your native language ?
- What if you are the only one who can see the GUI in an Isekai world ? Nothing better than meeting a famous aristocrat with "class: vampire" blinking above his head telling you about mysterious kidnapping cases in the vicinity. Or "goblin shaman [invisible]" floating in the air of dark cave. (Skill Takers World Domination")
- What if due to some mistake no one person gets reincarnated as a son of poor aristocrat but 3 - a high school student, a salaryman and Nobunaga ?
- What if you actually got reincarnated to the buggy mess of an MMO you helped to develop (Death March) ?
- What if a modern Aegis cruiser or even the full Japanese archipelago (including some disputed islands, no less ;-) ) gets transported to an Isekai ?
Really the possibilities are endless. There is definitely a lot of repetition and series that frankly are not any good (especially between web novels, thanks to the same zero entry barriers that enable so much creativity in the first place) but there are many gems to be found if you search a bit. :)
Destroyer! But thanks, I laughed really hard at the realization that Zipang is indeed an isekai of sorts.
Thanks to that show, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daqing_Oil_Field is one of my favorite historical counterfactuals.
Yes, that's an elf, an Aegis class destroyer and a dragon on the picture. ;-)
I haven't read this series yet but it seems to be doing good with 10 light novel volumes out so far. :)
While I haven't seen that that yet but an Isekai series based around a nuclear submarine would be cool. Being nuclear powered it could be rather independent from the now missing modern infrastructure. They could also include dramatic elements such as the submarine hiding underwater during a nuclear Armageddon only to surface later to find out they have been somehow transported into a world of swords and magic instead of the radioactive wasteland they have expected. Not that it would make it any less dangerous and their adventures any less epic. ;-)
BTW, tracked down the Japanese-island-chain-in-Isekai as well: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/nihonkoku-shoukan/
"Basically, the Japanese version of Island in the Sea of Time.
For clarity: The summoned area of Japan are the four disputed Kuril Islands, Japan Home Islands, and Ryuku Islands"
Shield Hero was good but FFF-Class Trashero probably tops the lot for me. Really good storytelling and incredible character development.
Unfortunately, the rest of my backlog is mostly just older shows I've been meaning to watch for a while. Golden Kamuy is probably one of the newest and it's still not that new. Same for Parasyte, which has some of the best body horror I've seen ever. High on my list is also Shin Sekai Yori, which I've heard nothing but praise for.
I'm also interested but not yet totally committed to Tower of God - there's some really neat stuff there, along with a lot of shounen - but I think it's a pretty solid production all together.
With that caveat, and bearing in mind that preferences are extremely subjective, here are a few recent shows that I'd suggest checking out:
The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl (a surreal interpersonal comedy/drama movie, from the writer and director of The Tatami Galaxy)
SSSS.Gridman (a very loose reboot of a 90's live-action tokusatsu series, with a lot of stylistic homages to Evangelion; has a sequel, SSSS.Dynazenon, which is currently airing)
Girls' Last Tour (a slow, contemplative journey through the ruins of a post-industrial civilization)
Thunderbolt Fantasy (although it's debatable whether this one counts as "anime"; fantasy puppet wuxia, from the writer of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass; it's deliberately kind of over-the-top, but with a great command of pacing and characterization)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica if you're into Anime-deconstructing-Anime. "What if Magical Girl... but actually, when you think about it that's entirely horrifying". There've been a bunch of other attempts at similar things, usually not as successful.
Vinland Saga for heightened, violent historical drama.
Mushishi if very-very-Japanese things aren't a turn-off. Largely episodic series about a guy who deals with dangerous spirits. Which I know reads like it'd be terrible or "oh my god not another one of these shows", but it's not. Slow-paced, brooding, bittersweet.
Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day. Short slice-of-life series about kids, but actually about accepting loss. IDK how "adult" it is, but it's pretty good (I mean actually-good, not anime-good).
Carole and Tuesday. Again, not sure how "adult" it is but it's just charming and heartwarming, while also not being terrible, which is a rare enough combo in any media to be worth a look, I'd say. From the creator of Cowboy Bebop, and also heavily music-focused.
May not look like it from this list, but I don't actually watch that much anime. I know there's a fair amount of really good stuff I haven't seen, plus a huge pile of OK-but-not-great. I keep up with a couple ongoing series I didn't put on this list because they're definitely not aimed at adults (My Hero Academia, for instance). I find it's really hard to find good recommendations for anime unless they're personal recs from a person I know well—but I also find that's true of most other genre-fic sorts of things. Recommendations from Internet randos or "best-of" lists of fantasy are often (IMO) full of garbage, and sci-fi's barely better. Ditto comic books.
Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasuka? Isogashii Desuka? Sukutte Moratte Ii Desuka? - might look like another lightweight fantasy harem story but actually has one of the best romantic pairs recently and handles some pretty hard topics.
Actually I would say a Shield Hero is another one. It might look like yet another cookie cutter isekai show, even with some of the heroes being summoned taking it like if it was just a game. But it turns out it's a real and rather brutal feudal world where your actions have real consequences and a lot of people have very insidious evil and inhuman agenda.
Hell, I would actually even call Kemono Friends (series 1) an adult series. What looks like a funny child series with anthropomorphic animals turns out into something much deeper once all the various hints and fragments of information start to fall in place.
Stuff like Time of Eve or Planetes are like beacons of light in a sea of shit.
It's an adult story. A story of homelessness, of community; of addiction, of compassion; of parenthood, of adolescence. And there's some boxing.
I find though, I can't get into newer anime, or a lot of newer animation in general these days. I really miss the old style of animation and artwork, both western and Japanese. Every series or movie had its own unique style, some of the artwork was so fantastic and just mind blowing. Some of the landscapes and scenery created in older animation could take you to some of the most amazing or terrifying or strange places you couldn't even imagine.
I find a lot of animation to look generic and overproduced these days and in general, the format's become fairly formulaic and nothing really stands out as special in the ways a lot of those older animes did. Don't get me wrong, i have seen some fantastic modern animation. I was speaking more in general.
I keep hoping that we'll have this Renaissance of artists who want to go back to the traditional ways just to break this new mold animation seems to have gotten itself stuck in.
Fast forward to today, you have access to the full gamut of anime series and movies. Completely unfiltered by others unless you specifically only watch things that others (that you have some trust in or similar taste to) have watched and promote. And thanks to legit streaming services and less than legit streaming services and torrents, you can much more easily be one of the first people in the US to watch something so it's now much easier to find the crap if you don't specifically go through the filtering process of time or critics or peer group taste and recommendations.
I noticed back then too, watching different dubbed versions of different animes, the censoring would be different depending on whether it was American or not.
We also didn't really get much funimation stuff until later on, which as far as i know, whatever you think about their early work, was pretty fundamental in popularizing anime in the west.
Honestly, back then most of the anime I watched were fan translations of varying qualities I found on file sharing programs i watched because I found them recommended on websites.
Once I found out the anime we got here was often heavily altered compared to its original form, I kinda just focused on what was recommended online. My friends weren't really into anime or anything so it wasn't really something I could get peer recommendations on or anything.
I never really got into a lot of those popular ones of the time. I just kept searching out the weird obscure stuff that never made it here.
These days though, there's so much, I honestly wouldn't even know where to begin. I guess the last 'anime' I watched was Castlevania, but I'm not even sure if I would have classed that as anime back in the day.
But I also think it's different from the sort of 'aim at western audience' type of anime (to be frank the appeal is a bit different from asia perspective, at least for me). The dark universes of Akira and Ghost in a Shell have some equivalent in the cyberpunk genre in the west, e.g elements of a dystopian society, which do not feature too often in the Japanese anime world. In that sense Lain really experiments with the genre and rebel against the typical characters and gave it a unique style (hence the name I guess :)
Agreed. Check out Final Space. It relies a bit on comedy in the beginning but grows into a drama. Give it a few episodes.
There's a lot. It's like Tim Burton's Seveneves.
There was a flying robots flying killing everybody. Do you know its's name? I always wanted to rewatch it, but have no idea what's its name.
I'm trying to piece together what I watched in childhood.
Since a few years ago, people who are more into cartoons cued me on that:
Blue alien who shoots lasers from its bra is Guyver, and that it's not an alien, and is a guy.
A communist coup in space is Ryvius, and on a closer look, communists were actually high class cadets with parents in high up places, and not the other way around.
For the opposite experience, have a look at UK dramas. They're often mini-series with as few as 6 episodes, well defined story and aren't afraid to try new stuff.
For example "Behind her eyes" (not a cartoon) is a recent good one. (don't be deceived by the first episode, it's not as simple as it seems)
Japanese studio anime follows a formula that you might have noticed. This formula is still unnecessary to western audiences, which has learned to tolerate it. It includes characters with certain hair colors having certain behaviors and relationships to the protagonist, it includes a filler episode at a sauna.
Something like Cowboy Bebop would be a hit in the west, for the same reasons that The Expanse - which is not anime - is a hit. But Japanese studios gravitate towards portraying fantasies only relatable and comfortable to a socially awkward viewer, while Western studios don't invest heavily enough into what fans of the medium and anime art-style would like, and still target children.
(I wonder if someone still knows that refferrence, even I can't find it online anymore. :P )
The one thing I will say is that, as an anime watcher, you do start to pick up on the repetitive tropes that might have felt fresh in your first few series, and with the aforementioned unsavory pandering towards the figma crowd, American TV that apes anime definitely has me less fatigued or concerned about sharing my enthusiasm with any particular show with F&F.
Check out Infinity Train for something different. Ostensibly aimed at kids, but, uh, honestly, I seriously question that based on some of the content in that show [0]. Between that and Over the Garden Wall, Cartoon Network's contributed some great work to American animation in recent years.
Amazon's Invincible is having a good run so far, on the side of things definitely made for adults.
[0] MASSIVE MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUgeSJhXNeQ&t=64
I read the Wired as not less real than the real world, as the influence could flow in both directions, with events in one place causing effects in the other. The ultimate confirmation of that is the final scene, which was actually depicting Lain meeting her grown up school friend some 10 years later, while Lain stayed - timelessly - a child.
I once read a story which dealt with the lack of purpose in a world dominated by technology, where humans had nothing left to do, nowhere obvious to progress. The story presented an escape into tradition and slavery along with the progression into virtual reality, where new worlds could be built, shaped by the will of the participants as opposed to the hard rules of physics, therefore granting a whole set of new universes in which to search for meaning.
While we don't have fully fledged universes yet, we have gotten to various lengths along that road thanks to the Internet. Why should we say that experiences of the people who value their Internet goals more than the real world are invalid?
Glad to see this though, because it reminds me I should get around to finally trying Lain. Oh, and I highly recommend Mob Psycho as well.
What I find interesting about anime reviews, as opposed to video game ones IMO, is more often than not the review is about what the writer got out of it as opposed to trying to set expectations for the audience on what they will get out of it. I guess in a lot of ways that’s because anime reviews often happen after the fact or are spurred on by genuine excitement. It seems very rare that someone publishing the review is doing so because the media was dropped in their lap and they were told to review the first three episodes for the release.
I like that, and it works pretty well for video essays.
The villains decided fighting with psychic power was the best thing, therefore they were the best humans. Mob thought helping people and living your life was best, so he idolized his master and the bodybuilding club.
Mostly because Chiaki Konaka is incapable of writing endings. I don't think Lain is that abstract (there's some early parts that look like it but I think are meant to be representative of schizophrenia), but it is hard to follow what the last episode is saying even though they're talking nonstop. With such a heavy script you can't always trust the translation to present it well either.
I found it hard to follow what most episodes were saying, and I changed my interpretation several times, always feeling that I'm on the verge of understanding, but not quite getting it.
And I actually liked it that way.
There was a social oriented MUD in the 90's exploring that.
I tend to agree with the above point, but it has been quite some time since I watched it. I wonder if a new personal perspective and rapidly changing tech landscape would change how I feel about it today.
It is babies first philosophy: the anime. Nothing wrong with liking it, the problem comes when people think it is deeper than it actually is. It is quaint when viewed through current affairs, and much like the article, absolute thesaurus bait pretending to be something more.
If may sound harsh but it is not a bad thing. It creates an atmosphere, and it is thought provoking, as evidenced by the article. It is a work of fiction, and fiction is like magic, it is all fake, but we enjoy being tricked into it. And that is a perfectly good trick when well executed.
Maybe Lain overdid it a bit, but I enjoyed the show, and for me, it is the important part.
Protagonist visits a highly advanced planet where everyone lives on their own plot of land. People lead lives of leisure, all of their needs are taken care of by highly efficient robots. However, they are terrified of physical contact, especially with the protagonist, due to a risk of infection with off-planet viruses. Here’s where it gets kinda scary:
- all interactions are done via advanced telepresence. It’s been perfectly replicated to mimic physical interaction. People only meet in person, apprehensively, for reproductive purposes
- one of the main supporting characters is an extreme extrovert who subliminally craves physical human contact. Due to society’s rules, the only thing she’s able to do is take lots of socially distanced telepresence walks with a friend.
This book was written in 1957.
Third (edit: second) "Robot" novel (human detective pairs up with a robot partner and solves crime mysteries). The world's written that way to provide a polar-opposite setting from earlier settings for that series (an incredibly tightly-packed and bustling city). In both cases, the natives of the worlds have adapted to their situation to the point of pathology—people from Earth (the city-world) tend toward agoraphobia, for instance. The whole setting is part of a sci-fi trend of settings that suppose Earth will become crushingly overcrowded with humans, leaving space as the only escape from that.
EDIT: other poster is correct—I got the book wrong the first time (I had it as The Robots of Dawn, from the same series)
The "meeting in person is odd, interactions are typically machine-mediated and remote" thing was also done (most famously) by EM Forster (1909; collected 1928), and also by Clarke's The City and the Stars (1956 publication; based on a 1948 novella, though I don't know whether that element was present in it as I've only read the novel). Probably a bunch of others, too. I'd rank the oracular qualities of Asimov's sci-fi fairly low, so far as that matters (shrug), especially for any original and not already-tropey-by-the-time-he-did-it ideas of his.
Asimov's use of the trope in that story had more to do with creating a setting as much the opposite of the packed-like-sardines city-world of the first Robot Detective book than trying to predict anything, or to present the mostly-remote-interaction society thing as a novel notion per se. The defining characteristics of the society on that planet were extreme wealth, individualism, and personal-security paranoia. Their interaction habits fell out of those traits and preferences.
This point would be more relevant if it had accidentally become the norm, but that straight up hasn't and won't happen (hence the ongoing pandemic, to some extent).
Even if the show turned out to not be prescient at all, it would still be one of the top classics. Combined with the fact that it was, it's really something special.
Evangelion came out in 1995, Lain came out in 1998.
This category only exists in the minds of Westerners who were pirating shonen manga at the time. It's not the most popular anime in Japan at any point.
It's also funny Bleach made this list since it was frankly terribly written and not as popular as the other two. The author had no control over his story and would try to get out of plot holes by introducing another 20 characters every so often (he liked designing them but not writing them). And for some reason his main strength was fashion but then he moved the plot to a world where everyone wears the same plain black and white robes.
And then let’s finish the series by having their king, and all his powerful vassals, very blatantly fight only using swords.
Very consistent.
I found it became much more enjoyable when I decided to "finish" it (after ignoring it for a while) by watching every 5th episode. It was very rare that I missed any story elements because half of each episode was a recap of the recap of the recap from several episodes prior. Stupid completionist tendencies.
Avoid placing Americans as "westerners", because we the Europeans already finished Dragon Ball by 1994 for sure.
Hopefully there'll be more like that on the horizon. Maybe we're only going to get 1 - 3 per decade, though.
His designs are present in Lain, Niea Under 7, Haibane Renmei, Despera, Phenomeno, Texhnolyze and others. I really like his artwork and I made a habit of buying one of his artbooks everytime I visit the Akihabara Mandarake building.
Previously you had in-person conversations, letters and phone calls. But, then the whole world quickly ramped up dealing with love, hate, sex and all the depths of humanity through the network. It was a exciting and worrying transition. For me, Lain was there to reflect on a lot of that angst.
I don't agree, personally. The visuals seem a bit dated, due to it being released 23 years ago, but I watched it for the first time a few years ago and found it very thrilling and memorable.
>her hardware expands to turn her bedroom into a dim, electrified jejunum
I'd like to think I'm well read, but who the hell pulls "jejunum" out of their duodenum!
- Moryo no Hako (not sure what's the English name, but it's a nice horror/detective story from a novel)
- Millennium Actress (an IMO nice way to show the evolution of the Japanese cinema)
- Perfect Blue (mostly Satoshi Kon's work, but Murai worked in the screenplay)
There's also Boogiepop Phantom, but you lose a bit of the plot if you haven't read the original novels.
i am safe from physical harm online, i can block people online.
i am not safe from physical harm in person, i cannot block people in person, they insult me when i try to assert boundaries, knowing that they can mistreat me with impunity since I'm financially dependent on them.
and i don't know anyone i relate to who lives nearby to talk to, and i can't meet even if i knew them.
There are more like those. Telegram anime chat channels are also a good source to anything anime.
I figured that coding in lisp is all she needed for the show to become a cult classic - but here we are...
(a Neocities site)
Alan Kay's classification of modern state of computing as pop culture continues to ring true.
I would have benefited greatly to be exposed to Lisp early on, but it was outside of the info-bubble I was in.
"Close the world, open the nExt."[0]
with the capitalisation presumably being a reference to the company NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs.[1]