8 Must Watch Anime for Sci-fi Junkies

Calling all space junkies, robot enthusiasts and time travel theorists! If you love all thing science fiction – aliens, time travel, galaxy hopping, robots, dystopias, virtual reality, etc. – then this is the list for you! It may come as a surprise to newer fans of the genre, but science fiction and animation have always gone hand in hand. In the days before high quality CGI and VFX, the genre relied on animation to bring its high-concept tales to life. The popularity of the original Star Wars trilogy in the late '70s and early '80s triggered an explosion of anime in Japan that hoped to emulate the space opera.

What followed was a rich and dazzling body of work that fanned all facets of the genre. Below, I’ve highlighted 8 must watch anime for all sci-fi junkies. For the sake of variety, I’ve selected one anime per sub-genre, but I leave out fantasy titles. To make it on this list, science and technology must be forefronts in the realities of each series. 

 

Virtual Reality Gone Awry: ‘Dennō Coil’

This indie darling deserves an order of magnitude more love and attention than it’s gotten. The brainchild of veteran animator and creator Mitsuo Iso, whose animation has been featured in the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise and the works of Studio Ghibli and Satoshi Kon among countless others, Dennō Coil revolves around the Yūko Okonogi and her mysterious connection to Daikoku city — the epicenter of the emerging augmented reality (AR) world.

Seamlessly and gorgeously animated, Dennō Coil tricks viewers into thinking that the series will be a whimsical, light-hearted affair, but instead delivers a wholly immersive, intricate and heart-pounding experience from the first episode that only continues to escalate until the very end. Iso effortlessly creates an AR world that is introduced and developed organically, and the character designs — especially for the ‘pets’ of the show — are some of the most memorable I’ve seen. Although a sci-fi by designation, it would be a disservice to Dennō Coil to pigeonhole it to one category — the show is equally a mystery, a thriller and an action-adventure. Show this amazing series some love and check it out sooner rather than later!

 

The Space Western: ‘Cowboy Bebop’

Directed by the famed Shinichiro Watanabe, Cowboy Bebop is the definitive space western anime. I debated between Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, which to me is a mix between the former and Yu Yu Hakusho, but I had to give it to the mismatched crew of the Bebop and its iconic soundtrack by Yoko Kanno, which oozes seamlessly between each scene.

Cowboy Bebop is everything you want in a space western — cooler than ice, larger than life characters who follow nobody’s code but their own, a lawless frontier, a whole lot of dope spaceships, and a metric ton of ennui. The series provides no answers, only more questions as you peer into the lives of bounty hunters Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, con-artist Faye Valentine, hacker extraordinaire Edward Wong and genetically-engineered Welsh Corgi Ein as they travel around the cosmos in an escape from the past and present and future. In all seriousness, if you have any taste at all, sci-fi fan or not, you must add this critically acclaimed series to your watch list.

 

The Cyberpunk Thriller: ‘Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex’

Chances are, you’ve heard of Ghost in the Shell. The original film and subsequent sequels and TV series have delighted audiences for over two decades. The first television adaption of the original 1995 film, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone, introduces its audience to Public Security Section 9, an elite special operations task force, and its fearless squad leader Major Motoko Kusanagi in their pursuit of a Super Class A corporate hacker known as The Laughing Man.

Set against a futuristic Japan in which over half the population are cyborgs, Section 9 must unearth the sordid truth behind The Laughing Man and his vendetta against micromachine mega-corporations. Not for the faint of heart, the cyberpunk thriller is made all the more pulse pumping with an electronic soundtrack by, you guessed it, Yoko Kanno. This timeless classic narrowly beat out Akira for the spot on this list with its explicit focus on technology, cybernetics, technological terrorism, and systemic corruption.

 

The Mecha Anime: ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’

This series never fails to incite the flames of controversy, and rightly so. While the original series is a widely praised deconstruction and critique of the mecha genre, its subsequent sequels such as The End of Evangelion have been less well-received. Regardless, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a cultural icon.

More than just your typical mecha anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion opens on an apocalyptic Tokyo on the brink of destruction following an attack by mysterious monsters known as Angels. The series then follows the emotional journey of Shinji, a shy teenager who is recruited by the organization NERV to pilot an Evangelion in the hopes of preventing another extinction-level catastrophe. The series is fraught with religious iconography, imagery and symbolism spanning both the Western and Eastern canon, and is rife with references to the psychoanalytic catalog of Freud, Hegel, Sartre and Schopenhauer. Over its 26-episode run, Neon Genesis Evangelion touches heavily upon depression, mental illness and trauma to examine how the past permeates the present. Prepare to be thoroughly wrecked by the time this series closes the curtains.

 

The Tech/Neo-Noir: ‘Psycho-Pass’

In Psycho-pass, a futuristic Japan has adopted the Sibyl System — an omnipresent network of psychometric scanners — to predict future criminals based on a person’s aggregated personality traits and history. Those concluded to be potentially dangerous to society are dealt with by a team of Enforcers from the Criminal Investigations Division who are armed with weapons that automatically gauges an enemy’s threat level and modulates its power in response.

Psycho-pass explores the concepts of free will, determinism, emotional subjugation and the moral cost and legal legitimacy of the Sibyl System. The central dilemma that guides the series is, “should we punish a person for a crime they have yet to commit?” In a world without crime, what happens when we fear the judge and executioner more than the criminal? Thematically, the series draws heavily from Minority Report, Blade Runner, and LA Confidential, so if you’re a fan of those films, Psycho-Pass is a must see.

 

The Time Travel Paradox: ‘Steins; Gate’

What if I told you that you could change the future by sending your memories back in time using a microwave? Sound absurd? Well in Steins; Gate, that absurdity is a reality. The invention of a self-proclaimed “mad scientist” named Rintaro — a cell-phone operated, time traveling microwave wreaks havoc on the space time continuum.

The series offers up a trifecta of time travel delights: death, love and alternative timelines! Surprisingly enough, this overall wacky series is one of the best in the genre for its smart, albeit far from perfect, treatment on the classic time travel paradox. Although criticized for uneven pacing and tone in the beginning, Steins; Gate has become a critical darling and fan favorite, spawning four original video animations (OVAs) and a film sequel. Next time you’re itching for a thriller that will leave you both delightfully confused and thoroughly content by the end, give Steins; Gate a try, and I promise you won’t be disappointed. 

 

The Slice-of-Life Critique: ‘Time of Eve’

This slice-of-life drama takes a slower approach to the normally fast-paced genre. In Time of Eve, futuristic Japan is oddly familiar, with much of the scenery and technology taking on a much homelier aesthetic. Androids, now commonplace across Japan, serve as service industry workers and caretakers and are generally regarded as second class citizens.

Time of Eve follows the lives and patrons of “The Time of Eve,” a café in which androids and humans enjoy equal status. The main rule: in “Time of Eve,” never ask a patron if they are android or human. In this café, Rikuo Sakisaka and his friend Masakazu meet many different patrons and try to determine whether they are android or human, oftentimes interpreting Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics in new and surprising ways. Time of Eve deals primarily with the emerging independence of androids and how that independence takes shape within the bounds of the Three Laws. Time of Eve is the thinking man’s drama, posing many unanswered questions for the viewers to ponder and contemplate.

The Hard Sci-fi: ‘Planetes’

If you enjoyed Andy Weir’s The Martian (the book, not the movie), you should expect to enjoy Makoto Yukimura’s hard science-fiction series Planetes, which revolves around the crew of the DS-12 “Toy Box” as they perform routine trash collections to prevent debris from colliding with Earth’s many satellites and space crafts. Although a banal concept from the outside, Planetes is quite rich in character development and explores many sociopolitical concepts surrounding space travel. The series, however, does not solely direct its gaze outward. Ideas concerning class structure and warfare, environmentalism, and other decidedly more Earthly affairs are just as much a focus in this series as the vast vacuum of space.

As a hard science series, Planetes does not shy away from the scientific and mechanical aspects of space exploration, focusing in on many of the minute technical details with living in space. Animators took great care portraying space and the conditions living in space accurately, and writers took equal care to present a nuanced and compelling story with a uniquely multicultural cast. Planetes is a great destination for those searching for a down-to-earth tale that’s a little further from home.

See what else made it into our Top 8 by visiting its official page.

 

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