I'm making this thread in suggesting to make a community for anime and spotlighting the anime that I like. For all the criticism it gets for being Japanese cartoons as childish or sexy, you won't believe how accurate anime gets in predicting how the current society will look like. It has way more intelligent social commentary, you wouldn't really connect the dot at the time you were watching to wait a minute, Isn't it this?
Anime I want to give endless spotlight again and again is Gatchaman Crowds Insight and Shiki. They were both released in post-2010, yet they didn't really get the massive fan following because they do have some problems if you watch them in your typical weekly anime watching routine. If you watch it back to back, I don't think it's going to cause a much problem. So I urge you to give it a go. Their main topic is about danger of mob mentality and it does very good job of demonstrating how harmful it is.
But I want to give more attention to Shiki because I think it serves as a cautionary tale. It's also very relevant in terms of how we are dealing with world full of people unaware of harmfulness of vaccine and built a cult around it. You have group of teenagers and a cynical doctor knowing who the culprit is but cannot convince the villagers before any more harm is done. The intensity keeps growing and the end result gets predictable.
The culprits in question should be familiar. They move in to some secluded village for survival but eventually earns the scorn of the village due to their complacency. This anime probably just wanted to tell the story about the danger of mob mentality but it tells so much more, it's quite mind-boggling.
Have you watched any of them?
I heard Legend of the Galactic Heroes is one of the best. Haven't seen it myself though.
You don't know the glory of out of context quotes.
"What is that?"
"What do you mean 'what is that', that's Petty Officer Louis Machengo."
"I know that. Why's he on this ship?"
-Yang being the ironic stereotype of a racist Japanese person
Yang is a Chinese name though....
He's Chinese but the character is written by a Jap, and it's probably a self insert.
LotGH is basically Japanese Starship Troopers.
It goes in a different direction though, exploring the merits and flaws of republicanism vs oligarchy vs autocracy.
There is an actual Starship Troopers anime from 1988 (Uchuu no Senshi). You have to look on the seas for it, since it was only released on LaserDisc.
There's also Blue Gender, which I can recommend. 26 episodes and a movie. In the future, giant bugs are the main threat on earth, and the military's headquarters is in orbit. A guy from the past, who was frozen in the past wakes up to this world.
Oberstein did nothing wrong
Ah, one of my favorite of all time. It does a good job of highlighting the issues of mob rule (Trunicht and council).
A lot of redditors compare Trunicht to Trump. Which I find annoying. Im also a moderator for a discord about the show, and there are quite the number of leftists who are fans.
Unironically I think it's because everyone else just gets too busy to watch anime or just loses interest because they age out of the target demographic. The weebshit I watched when I was, say, 17, hits a lot different at 28.
Going a bit on the degenerate side, Shimoneta is an interesting take on things. The premise: People are too degenerate, so society bans any and all things even loosely approximating sexuality, from sexual jokes to even basic reproductive education.
This leads to violence, rising criminality, terrorism, and civic unrest as the government uses the excuse of quashing impure thoughts to basically enslave the populace: People are required to be collared at all times, with active monitoring of all their bodily functions from speech to mere arm motions, to ensure no one goes against Big Government.
The two factions are the pro and anti authoritarian factions. But notably, most people are pro, because propaganda says that being pro fascism is good for your (and society's) health.
It is a romantic comedy. But the concepts explored in the background of the main "plot" are quite telling about a trend in society's urge to offset all morality, ethics, and child-rearing to government hands.
Now you've got me hungry for cookies wink wink
Shimoneta's story is kind of prescient as well. How not just purity but degrees of lesser purity are punishable is basically how the woke mob sees the world. That and the pro-authoritarian side lacks any humor and can only see things with their confirmation bias built in, are all a symptom of our times. In an ideal world that anime should just be simple entertainment that does not reflect on society at all.
LOL. Who would have guessed you’re a man child who watches cartoons.
Lol.
I've watched Shiki, and I mean its not so farfetched. People have rallied behind and killed eachother over stupider things.
Oh finally someone that watched Shiki!
I know angry mobs form for stupid reasons but you know if the villagers could understand things earlier, the ending wouldn't have been as bloody as it ended with the casualty on the both side. I think they could have come to compromise before it lead to bloody war. I think the way the villagers behaved remind me of a lot of people that refused to believe Vaccines aren't good at all.
Gatchaman Crowds was a fantastic anime that unfortunately aired at the same time as a few much bigger anime so achieved little reach.
Another great one with a somewhat similar theme is Samurai Flamenco.
If you ever liked Power Rangers, I would HIGHLY recommend SamFlam.
Nah, even if that anime came out in less busier season, some people would have been still turned off. It had a lot of new ideas and very polarising main character, so it's shame not a lot of people watched it.
Oh I will give it a go.
Don't watch anything on it, don't read any reviews, go in fully blind and enjoy the experience.
I don't think it would have ever been a top-billed show, but it definitely would have done much better.
The music was excellent, the animation was great, and the plot was interesting.
Indeed, I thought everything was top notch. I'm normally pretty damn picky with anime I watch.
Also recommend Tentai Senshi Sunred (Astro Fighter Sunred) if you like Power Rangers. They didn't officially bring it west, so only fansubs are available. It's Power Rangers if it was a comedy where the heroes were too strong, and the villains are great members of their communities.
There's an ongoing manga called Ranger Reject. The villains were killed, and only the goons are left, but the rangers have them pretend to be villains and launch a failed attack weekly. If they don't the heroes will kill them also.
I recommend an obscure japanese cartoon called Naruto. It follows the journey of a boy with brain damage that keeps muttering the phrase "you better believe it." He also sometimes growls, pretending he's a fox. It's great.
i watched crowds s1, never got around to insight.
i didn't care for shiki, but i watched it when it was airing and i'm pretty sure the subs were half garbage.
That's a shame. If you already watched some of shiki, watch the rest. And as for crowds, Insight was the one I wanted to recommend.
Shinsekai Yori (From the New World) is a mature tale about a group of kids growing up in a society within a holy barrier, and where people have psychic powers (telekinesis). The society part is important, with some relevance to modern times.
You have to get through some uncomfortable content in the middle. It does serve a legitimate story purpose, but that's where I took a break and ended up not going back to it. I'm going to watch through it to completion, because it is really good.
Just want to thank you for this post OP. I was wishing for more discussion about anime here but wasn't sure how it would be received. (there are many perfectly fine reasons not to like it)
Expect a follow-up post from me within a few days.