As my journey into weebdom continues (maybe I could do a Youtube miniseries on that) I have another recommendation request. I remember someone once telling me that I would like My Hero Academia since I am a fan of old school super-hero comics and I've heard My Hero Academia be described as a love letter to comic books. I plan on getting that omnibus soon but I would also like to know what are some good Sci-Fi/Fantasy anime or mangas? Probably the very first anime I ever saw was Robotech because my older brother was really into it when I was a kid. I read his Robotech book over and over. As for fantasy, I guess Howl's Moving Castle would count? I actually learned recently that was based on a manga so I want to check that out.
So is there any good sci-fi anime/manga y'all could recommend?
ONE PUNCH MAN
Second series isn't quite as good as the first but there's still a lot more coming if they bother to animate it. Even if they just go up until the fight with Garou that could leave things at a semi reasonable spot to stop.
But then modern companies are either idiots or fools so who knows what might happen.
Trigun, it’s the best and most Christian anime ever made.
Seriously though 99% of my anime knowledge is whatever was on Adult Swim when I was a kid. The only modern stuff I’ve seen is Goblin Slayer, Made in Abyss and Ranking of Kings. All of which I would recommend for different reasons.
Made in Abyss is so good. Watch it cold and plan the watching time as an event so there are no distractions.
Imo it has the absolute best worldbuilding of any series.
I saw Trigun a long time ago. Didn’t know it had Christian themes
lots of animes have "christian themes" for the aesthetics, not as means to promote Christian beliefs
Trigun pushes a lot of "thou shalt not kill" and "it's never too late to repent" themes.
But Knives was right about spiders and butterflies.
Do you know Tiger & Bunny? It does have fanservice, but it's basically about superheroes in a society where they became entertainment.
The conflict is how you are meant to be entertaining and advertiser-friendly to have the chance to do some crime fighting... yet just doing crime fighting is not going to get you the popularity you need.
Howl was based on a British novel, actually.
Sounds like an interesting show. Ill have to check out the howl novel
AKB0048 takes this to the next level.
Fairly good show with a freedom of expression / fight against tyranny of censorship theme. Mecha aren't the main focus, but they're there.
No problem. I can talk about this all day. Thanks!
The space opera of Legend of Galactic Heroes should be mentioned. It is long but very filling. Nothing like it. OP.
GiTS S.A.C is very good. A spin off series that focuses more on police action and criminal drama with a dash of philosophy. OP
Recently went through Bebop with some friends and it's really an amalgamation of different genres. Cowboy/crime noir set in space with the soundtrack inspired by blues and jazz but it comes together really well through the personal journey of Spike. It's a good time. OP
Darker than Black has that 2000s edge to it. A protag who drinks, his helper who doesn't emote set in a city that's always raining. It's not bad if you can get through a few of the arcs. OP
Oh boy, Code PANTS. I haven't watched Geass in about a decade due to loving it so much as a teen. It's a tightly focused mech drama with Lelouch carrying the show on his back. It straddles that line of the show being awesome with the tactics Lelouch comes up with vs cringe in the teen drama. I'd say give it a watch though, it doesn't waste a single episode and events and characters actually matter to the story, like orange for instance. OP.
Honestly can't go wrong with FMA: Brotherhood. I think it's overlooked by just how competent it is. OP
Few more I'd throw in myself
Girl's Last Tour. Two girls and their Kettenkrad travel through an empty city at the end of civilization. There is a depressing cloud hanging over everything but it's a real nice series that that's only 13 eps long. OP
Houseki no Kuni.The gem series that Steven Universe ripped of. This.. oh this series is good. Phos walks the path of the Buddha and to say any more of the plot would be massive spoilers. Suffice to say, the themes in this are to do with "what is a human?" It is 3DCG but the company that did it worked on game cut-scenes. and as a result it's really smooth, especially the 60fps blurays on Nyaa. OP.
Humanity has declined is almost the same as Girl's Last Tour, except this one has an upbeat and cheery nature to everything. It's also quite comedic in tone. The episodes are intentially told out of order but they should be listed there on anidb. OP.
Yamato (2013). A remake of the classic story from the 80s, it's really faithful to the source material. Plus it's Yamato, you've gotta see Yamato at some point. Leiji should get more recognition in turning an icon of Imperial Japan into a cultural icon in modern Japan, to the point that the Self Defense Navy still play the OP to this day.
Did you know there's a Zone of the Enders anime? Did you also know that it's pretty good. Story is James Link is on earth and gets a message from his dead with through the bot Dolores. Half of the series is him trying to get to Mars with his kids and evading authorities. OP
I've got a soft spot for Last Exile. It's kind of a weird one but the designs of the ships are second to none. Give it a shot, maybe you'll like it. OP
The early 2000s was a weird time for anime because each series had different takes on what the internet would be. Lain and Digimon for example. Dennou Coil is what would happen if you could see the internet and interact with it in the real world with taoist cards and symbols. Follows a group of kids in a pocket of the internet that might leak into the real world. OP.
One I just remembered. The Third. Samurai girl/mechanic that fixes up a homemade tank to travel around the desert. Can't remember if it's good or not. OP.
One series I've been meaning to check out is Aura Battler Dunbine. I used the characters extensively in Super Robot Wars X and it just has a good feel about it. A hollow earth with a fey kingdom that fights with insect mechs. OP
Another 80s Mech to check out is VOTOMS. It's a little on the long side but there's an entire arc that's like the Vietnam War with mechs, complete with napalm and mechs on boats. Watch it. OP.
I'm a fan of traveling anime and there's a few there.
Spice and Wolf is at the top of my list. A merchant and his wolf and the various economics of the day. First arc for instance deals with an ongoing war and the kingdom gathering up silver coins to devalue. Another one in S2 involves a speculative market around the inflated price of pumice, just like tulips. It's just a comfy series the entire way through. OP.
Kino is probably THE travel anime. A new destination and city every episode. There's 2 series, one from 2003 and one from 2017. They're not really the same apart from the Coliseum arc which differs slightly. OP
Should be noted that Kino is a girl, she just dresses like a tomboy because traveling in this world is dangerous, hence why she carries 2 guns. If she looks like a boy, then people don't trouble her as much. This is just a reverse trap, not tranny propaganda. Just want that noted.
Can't talk about fantasy without Mushishi. This is what got me into anime. The mushi are a part of the world, visible to only a few yet influence people everyday. Ginko is a traveling Mushi-shi, a monk/doctor type role where he tries and cures people affected by Mushi through non-violent methods. The series does have alot of taoist influenced and is pushed along mostly by it's character drama. An example here. The music is also really good. 2005 and 2014 series.
Moribito: A.K.A, Balsa and her Shota. I kid. Plot is the prince is special, so Balsa has to protect him up to a religious ceremony he can perform. It's a nice grounded fantasy anime with a likeable heroine. OP
Twelve Kingdoms was Isekai about 15 years before it became popular. The thing is though is that it's really good, Youko gets sucked through a magic portal and becomes queen of a country. Thing is, she wasn't the only one sucked through, she can't understand the language if she doesn't hold her sword and her country is occupied by a rival country. There are two main arcs and was going to be 50 episodes instead of 45, except the director died before the last 5 were done and they were never completed. OP.
One more: Thunderbolt Fantasy. 3 seasons, 2 movies and written by Urobuchi who's known for Madoka, Psycho-pass and a few others. Why you should watch Puppet Ball Z? Well I'm gonna spoil to get you to watch. The series focuses on Sho Fu Kan, a wandering warrior who gets caught up in a heist Lin Setsu A is planning and is forced to go along with it. He's clearly hiding something but won't say what. Events unfold and to protect someone he has to throw away his weapon. The villains taunt him for throwing away his weapon.
Then he picks up the stick
That Lv5 warrior that was the butt of the joke through out the series is a LV20 monk hiding his power level the entire time. The reveal at the end even has consequences for S2 and 3 as it becomes a major plot point for Sho's character.
Give it a watch, you won't regret it.
Full title: Kino's Journey (english) or Kino no Tabi (japanese)
Both versions are worth watching because the new one is more like a second season than a remake.
Holy cow this man has good tastes. You had me at remembering that Girls Last Tour exists. I was the only one at a convention that bought art for it and the vendor was so relieved someone finally knew what it was. (And this was the year it came out!)
Oh great, you just spoiled the best scene in the show. Well, I suppose I haven't finished S3 yet, and there are plenty of amazing moments.
I did like the April Fools joke of an FGO crossover (Shang/Sho is voiced by Archer).
Thank you!
For sci fi, the classics of Ghost in the Shell, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, and Neon Genesis Evangelion are all worthwhile watches. Fair warning, NGE is depressing and creepy.
How did I forget that one, an absolute classic.
Thank you
Again I'll offer a warning about NGE. You can pretty much pinpoint the exact spot in the show where the author tried to go cold turkey on heroin. Things go off the rails quick.
Thanks. I’ll keep an eye out
Keep in mind Robotech wasn't actually a show. It was 3 separate series redubbed and edited into 1 single story and the main timeskips happen because of this.
It's still wonky fun but there are some hardcore fans who dislike it for this reason.
Oh. What is the actual story?
Ever heard of "Space Dimensional Fortress Macross?" "Robotech Part 1" was the original Macross series, then it used other space fighter anime for its subsequent parts.
Macross was the sort of trendy thing where jet fighters could transform into bipedal machines (Even the capital ship Macross itself!). It's a long-running franchise that really got screwed in the foreign market (us) because of Harmony Gold. Transforming space jets and musical idols are the theme in every edition.
If you want good fantasy manga, you read Berserk. It's not only one of the best fantasy manga in my opinion, it's also one of the best fantasy stories I've read period. It's dark, it involves and depicts a lot of disturbing things like murder, torture, abuse, war, and rape in an uncaring Medieval European-esque setting, and it never pulls its punches. It doesn't just imply things, it shows them in gruesome detail. But it's not an edgefest and it does not show include these subjects in its narrative just for the sake of being dark, nihilistic like a lot of fantasy stories do because it's anything but; at Berserk's heart is very emotional and human story. Its characters are also amazing; Guts is a fantastic protagonist who develops all throughout the manga's run, but there are plenty of others, major and minor, who also leave an impact. The art is amazing as well, some of the best in the business. Miura was very inspired. He packs a lot of detail and emotion into his illustrations (and boy, did he love making a lot of epic two-page spreads), his paneling allowed the imagery and flow of the story to feel cinematic in a way most comic artists don't accomplish, he was perfectly capable of depicting action with still drawings, and he had some of the vastest and most varied creature designs ever.
Honestly, I'd skip all the anime series; none of them are good (especially the shitty CG ones made in the 2010s), none of them tell the whole story and what they do tell, they remove large swathes of. And no, the moving images do not make up for the utterly detailed majesty of the late Kentaro Miura's art, not when the animation in all of them was so cheap. Even if you do watch them, you're going to have to go to the manga eventually, so you might as well just get to the main course.
As for other sci-fi/fantasy series, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is also fantastic. It was made by Hayao Miyazaki (who was behind the Howl's Moving Castle anime), and tells a morally-nuanced story set in a neat post-apocalyptic world inhabited mostly by large insects and fungal forests that emit spores which are deadly for humans. There was an anime movie based on it which was alright, but it was made before the manga was finished and tells a story that just isn't nearly as epic as the original. Though really, you cannot go wrong with any of Miyazaki's films; just about everything he touches is gold; I personally consider Howl's one of his weaker movies, with the strongest ones being Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, though even his simpler films like Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro are worth watching. It should be noted that Howl's Moving Castle was not based on a manga, it was based on a British book by Diana Wynne Jones.
Akira was also great. Both the film and the manga are worth perusing. The former is admittedly simplified from the latter (considering it too was made before the manga was finished), but it opts for telling a generally different story with the same characters, setting, and themes, so it's able to stand on its own just fine as a kind of alternate universe tale.
As for other series, I'd recommend Cowboy Bebop (anime) if you haven't seen it already, Irresponsible Captain Tyler (anime), Battle Angel Alita or Gunnm as it was called in Japan (manga), and Iria: Zeiram the Animation (anime).
Thanks! I saw Battle Angel movie so I’m interested in the Manga and I’ve heard great thing about Berserk
There's just way too much anime, and varied tastes, that recommending something needs a bit more in-depth of a take. I suggest using this site: https://anilist.co/search/anime and going into the settings menu to the top right and choosing exactly what you like and don't like to see.
Thank you
If you want some old-school Sci-fi anime, I'd suggest Gunbuster.
It's relatively short, a 6 OAV anime, but I'd highly endorse it. When you look at it form the lens of the 'modern age', it's a very odd duck - it comes across as very much the classic 'Young girl wants to pilot giant robots and succeeds with SPIRIT and GUTS' and then it starts smacking you with the time-dialation effects of superluminal travel and space-faring aliens that would make the tyranids shit their pants and who's art design looks like something truly alien.
You'll probably have to pirate it, though. And if you can grab the science shorts, do so. They're fun.
Sounds great!
It really depends on your taste at the time as there is SO many to choose from that it's more finding your niche than anything else.
Like do you want sci fi but with a lot deeper characters and story, Steins Gate, Gundam 00, 86, Psycho-pass (1st season) comes to mind.
Something light hearted? Trapped in a dating Sim is technically sci fi (though as the MC says himself, it's like they took everything and threw it at the wall in this world)
Or something unique, Meglobox has the art style of the 90s but a killer soundtrack and great story.
As Gemmauger recommended, I'd use lists like that to do a search on what you want to see, I have only kept on board to most of the current releases thanks to a few YouTubers that check the new releases.
All those sound like they are worth checking out.
That sounds cool. I love Asimov
Fantasy: Princess Mononoke, Original Berserk, Yu-Yu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter, Fist of the North Star, FMA Brotherhood, Jujutsu Kaisen, Re: Zero, and not fantasy but feudal Japan- Rurouni Kenshin
Sci-Fi: Cowboy Bebop, Steins;Gate, Legend of Galatic Heroes, Code Geass, Ghost in the Shell, Darker than Black, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gantz
Awesome! Thanks!
Obligatory Demon Slayer and Spy Family. Someone figured out wholesome family content was missing in the market and they've basically cornered the whole thing.
20th Century Boys. The main character is a Hippie, but he fights a globalist conspiracy to unite the world with a deadly virus.
Also Mushoku Tensei/Jobless Reincarnation. I don't know how I managed to sleep on this for so long but the manga exists, so you can read much further ahead than the anime right now. If you liked Re:Zero... they poached the animators from Re:Zero to make Mushoku, so we're not gonna see a Season 3 in a long while... pity, because it's actually the better written story.
Finally would like to cast a vote against Attack on Titan. The ending is dogshit. If you feel like reading/watching a nationalistic/patriotic monarchy who has their shit together in the giant apocalypse get turned into the bad guys by it's own author because they don't embrace global liberal peace, then go right ahead.
Thanks!!!
Also, if you're into Isekai manga then definitely "I am standing on 1 million lives" which is Isekai Dark Souls. The writing is 100 times better than the art.
I'm actually interested in what the others here think of Oreimo. The writings good, but the values it normalizes are not.
Haven't watched it, but isn't the sister one of the most reviled characters in anime?
Wonder how she stacks against Kyubey (from Madoka Magica) and Malty (from Rising of the Shield Hero).
Kirino? Seriously?
It's a romance where both siblings harbor feelings for each other but don't admit it. So the whole thing is just subtext subtext. Every weird interaction of the sister from the brother's POV comes from the audience understanding "This character says this but is thinking that". Like I say, this is good character writing.
Don't watch Madoka, and way better than Malty.
Thanks
Thanks. I’ll look for it
Sounds like a plan. First one will be the Ah My Goddess since that was the first manga I ever bought.
Others have given a lot of good suggestions. As I've mentioned before, Fate/Zero is a good fantasy anime. And Sword Art Online is technically Sci-Fi. Have you seen the Gun Gale Online spinoff? I thought that was fun.
But for a series about sci-fi and fantasy crossing over, the "to aru" series must be mentioned.
The main setting is a city of science. They have technology ahead of the rest of the world and many of their people have developed "esper powers". Outside the city are various factions that rely on magic instead.
A Certain Magical Index (Toaru Majutsu no Index): The main branch of the series. First 2 seasons are good. Season 3 has a dramatic drop in quality of writing because they tried to adapt too many books into that season.
A Certain Scientific Railgun (Toaru Kagaku no Railgun): A spinoff that runs parallel to the main branch.
Two seasons.Three seasons.A Certain Scientific Accelerator (Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator): A side story.
Alternate between watching Index and Railgun since they're concurrent. The timing is a bit off, but figuring out how they fit together is half the fun.
Accelerator
is the last anime from this series that was released andshould probably not be watched until after watching the first two seasons of Index/Railgun.There also a movie, A Certain Magical Index the Movie: The Miracle of Endymion (Toaru Majutsu no Index Movie: Endymion no Kiseki). It's basically another side story that should be saved for after getting familar with Index/Railgun first.
I really appreciate this.
Dragon Ball Super is an awesome action series. If you can't handle Dragon Ball Z's filler Dragon Ball Z Kai is slimmed down version of Z that gets rid of all the filler. In general I prefer the action packed anime centered around fighting so I don't have much to recommend for sci fi.
Nothing wrong with that. Action is good. Thanks!
Thanks! Ok, I thought weeb was kind of a term of endearment. Thanks for setting me straight.
WEEB POWER!
https://imgur.com/6NNbfba
Gotcha. Thanks!