The 1990s are often remembered as a golden age for anime, delivering cutting-edge animation techniques and imaginative visions of the future. Sci-fi and mecha were some of the most popular genres of the decade, but the giant robots, cybernetic technology, and dystopian worlds no longer feel like science fiction. In fact, they feel eerily familiar to fans in the modern world.
Decades before technological advancements that we take for granted today, such as social media, handheld mobile devices, and artificial intelligence, several anime had already explored the potential consequences of these developments with surprising accuracy. Whether they were warning audiences about the dangers of unchecked technology or exploring how digital connection would reshape society, these series captured anxieties and trends that now define the 21st Century.
Serial Experiments Lain Got Scarily Close to Modern Virtual Reality
The thriller aspect of the cult classic Serial Experiments Lain centers around a society heavily connected to the internet, where the lines between digital and physical become increasingly blurred. Its depiction of social alienation and overreliance on technology feels ahead of its time, as the loneliness some associate with the rise of social media is one of the anime’s core themes.
In Serial Experiments Lain, the Wired is an alternative digital world to which humans can upload their consciousness, allowing them full subconscious communication with humans and machines alike. Many critics have likened the Wired to the modern internet’s vast level of connectivity, as well as to emerging virtual reality realms, such as the Metaverse.
Ghost in the Shell Reflects Modern Fears of Cybernetic Technology
The debate around the line between human and robot has only become more mainstream with the advent of AI technology. Modern society is just as fearful of robots taking over the world as it was in the ’90s when Ghost in the Shell was released. In the sci-fi anime, many humans possess cyberbrains, a kind of cybernetic technology that allows digital interfaces within people’s brains.
Ghost in the Shell‘s protagonist, Major Kusanagi, has a body almost entirely made of cyborg parts. She is used as a weapon by the Japanese Public Safety Commission, and other characters’ fears of her remarkable strength and knowledge are certainly reminiscent of conversations around artificial intelligence and how overreliance on digital systems causes vulnerability to cybercriminal attacks.
Parasocial Relationships in Perfect Blue Echo Fan Culture Today
Thanks to the rise of social media, fans have never been closer to their favorite idols. It’s possible for celebrities to share their innermost thoughts online and for fans to like and comment directly, which often leads to the forming of unhealthy parasocial relationships. This phenomenon is Perfect Blue‘s entire premise, and the anime movie predicted it way back in 1997.
Ex-idol Mima Kirigoe finds a website called “Mima’s Room,” which takes the form of an online diary recording her public and private life. As Perfect Blue progresses, Mima realizes she is being stalked by a fan whose online presence is scarily reflective of some obsessive fan accounts today. The blurring of fantasy and reality is only exacerbated by social media, which Mima falls victim to as the anime descends into horror.
Cowboy Bebop is Relatable to Modern Freelancers Everywhere
Cowboy Bebop might be set in the year 2071, but its futuristic world is closer than fans think. Spike, Jet, and Faye’s careers as bounty hunters hold a remarkable similarity to the modern gig economy. They are given contract jobs by the Inter Solar System Police, often learning about them through public broadcast, and complete the work on their own time, just like modern freelancers would.
The obvious difference between Cowboy Bebop and modern society is that humans are not yet living in outer space, but that doesn’t mean the anime was completely off in its depiction of the solar system either. In one episode, one of Jupiter’s moons, Ganymede, is shown to have been transformed into an ocean planet. In 2015, scientists discovered that Ganymede does have saltwater oceans on its surface.
Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Cloning Wasn’t Totally Far-Fetched
Most fans agree that Neon Genesis Evangelion is an incredibly high-concept anime, exploring themes of identity, religion, and sexuality through the familiar lens of the mecha genre. However, not every part of Evangelion‘s story solely exists in the imagination, as even an anime about gargantuan robots fighting Angels from space can predict real issues from the future.
NERV, the organization fighting the Angels in Evangelion, creates the EVA suits by implanting human DNA and synchronizing them to their pilots’ nervous systems. Genetic engineering, cloning, and artificial life are real conversations happening in modern science today. In 1996, just one year after Neon Genesis Evangelion aired, the first sheep was cloned in the UK through nuclear cell transfer.
Macross Plus Predicted AI Entertainment
For better or worse, artifical intelligence has woven its way into the modern entertainment industry through music, film, and literature. While a few sci-fi anime series imagine AI being used in battle, Macross Plus took the concept a step further with the character of Sharon Apple, an AI hologram who is also the most in-demand entertainer in the galaxy.
What is even more interesting about the character of Sharon Apple, aside from her predicting AI and vocaloid music, is that she cannot express emotion. She needs her producer, Myung Fang Lone, to provide emotion backstage while she is performing. Sharon’s non-human qualities, along with her eventual villainous turn, make Macross Plus surprisingly accurate in its depiction of modern AI fears.
Sailor Moon Made Mobile Devices Magical
There are plenty of things that didn’t age well in Sailor Moon, such as some of the romantic relationships and its first English dub, but there were also lots of elements that still feel at home in modern society. One of the main future predictions Sailor Moon makes is the existence of hand-held mobile devices, something that wasn’t common at all when the anime aired in the early ’90s.
Sailor Mercury is the brains of the Sailor Guardians, and she uses a supercomputer to collect important information about enemies during battles. Her portable computer that analyzes and stores data looks very similar to phones used today. Sailor Moon may have even predicted the trend of cellphones with tiny keyboards that were popular in the early 2000s.
Dragon Ball Z’s Scouters are Just Like Modern Smart Glasses
Although Dragon Ball Z first aired in 1989, its popularity in the anime scene spanned the entire ’90s decade and beyond. The concept of a computer built into a pair of glasses has been used frequently in sci-fi stories over the years, including Dragon Ball Z‘s Scouters. The device is used by Frieza’s army to measure power levels, gather information, and for interstellar communication.
In recent years, this fictional sci-fi device has become a reality thanks to modern technology. Google Glass was a pair of smart glasses that could take photos, access the internet, and display information through the lenses. Other variations from different companies include the Apple Vision Pro and Ray-Ban Meta, although none have opted for Dragon Ball Z‘s spiffy monocled look.
Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Had Remote-Controlled Drone Warfare
The mecha genre in ’90s anime was famed for its innovative ideas about how robots and technology could be used in battle, many of which have eventually become a reality. Mobile Suit Gundam Wing may have predicted drone warfare through its Mobile Dolls, autonomous or remotely controlled combat machines that can fight without a human pilot inside.
The Mobile Dolls mirror several aspects of modern military drones and autonomous weapons. In Gundam Wing, they can be built and deployed in huge numbers, which characters promote as a way to achieve ‘clean’ warfare where fewer pilots die. The series also concedes that the lower cost makes wars easier to start, which has been exhibited in recent real-world conflicts.
éX-Driver’s Chaotic Autonomous Cars Now Exist in Real Life
At the turn of the century, right when many of the sci-fi fantasies from the ’90s were about to become a reality, éX-Driver made a bold prediction that turned out to be true. The anime is set in a future where self-driving cars powered by AI are the norm, but mechanics with the ability to drive normal cars are still needed to chase down the AI cars when they suddenly go out of control.
Although it’s still a relatively new technology, Waymo self-driving cars operate as robotaxis, delivery drivers, and road maintenance across the United States and soon in Japan and the United Kingdom. Just like in éX-Driver, these autonomous cars are not without their controversies thanks to multiple traffic incidents, so Lorna, Lisa, and Soichi still have their work cut out for them.