Anime has always demonstrated an endless appetite for science fiction and it’s one of the medium’s earliest and most reliable storytelling genres. Formative sci-fi anime have helped anime grow in major ways and there’s a tremendous amount of versatility with these series, whether they’re action-heavy mecha stories or gritty cyberpunk psychological thrillers.
Cowboy Bebop, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Serial Experiments Lain and Patlabor are just a handful of some of anime’s most celebrated sci-fi series. However, science fiction continues to reinvent itself and tackle new ideas. There are some particularly impressive sci-fi anime that have been released in the past 25 years alone that highlight the genre’s bold triumphs and some of the best anime from the past two decades.
Planetes Is A Grounded & Gripping Character Study About A Space Junk Collection Crew
2003’s Planetes is a deceptively complex 26-episode hard sci-fi anime that breaks down the vast beauty of outer space from a unique and stripped-down point of view. Planetes follows a crew who is tasked with the collection of space debris to prevent this waste from damaging satellites, space stations, and other valuable crafts. It’s fascinating to see how Planetes adopts a blue-collar point of view to this heightened subject.
It’s a sci-fi anime about interpersonal relationships, cathartic character development, and a greater understanding of the universe’s cosmic balance where everyone has a purpose to serve. Plenty of sci-fi anime are set in space, but few present the level of philosophical depth and grounded realism to space opera storytelling. It’s unparalleled slice-of-life science fiction.
Parasyte: The Maxim Is A Subversive Take On An Alien Invasion Action-Adventure
Parasyte: The Maxim is a precarious balancing act between science fiction, body horror, and buddy-cop adventure that turns into one of the 2010s’ most thrilling anime. Parasyte deals with an in-progress alien invasion in which parasitic extraterrestrials are taking over humans and infiltrating the planet. Shinichi, a high school student, becomes the subject of a failed alien takeover that leaves this extraterrestrial interloper, Migi, contained to his hand. Shinichi and Migi work together to figure out the aliens’ plan and prevent the planet’s oppressive takeover.
Parasyte crafts an intriguing mystery that’s laced with genuinely unsettling body horror elements, but it’s Shinichi and Migi’s winning chemistry that’s the anime’s secret weapon. Parasyte is the type of sci-fi anime that might have fallen apart if it ran indefinitely and overstayed its welcome, but 24 episodes is the perfect length for this twisted tale.
Psycho-Pass Is A Thought-Provoking Cyberpunk Thriller About Free Will
2012’s Psycho-Pass is a genre-defining psychological crime thriller in a cyberpunk world that’s only become more prescient since its debut. Psycho-Pass came along at the perfect time and delivered three seasons throughout the 2010s. Psycho-Pass is a dark sci-fi thriller that would be right up Philip K. Dick’s alley.
Psycho-Pass’ dystopian future is built on an AI hive mind that’s constantly policing the mental state of its citizens. The police use a sophisticated system to assess the public’s “Crime Coefficient” and how likely they are to commit crimes. As Psycho-Pass‘ central mystery intensifies, a grander statement about free will and morality is unpacked. It also doesn’t hurt that there’s a truly exceptional villain at the center of Psycho-Pass who presents a real sense of danger.
Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song Is A Musical Meditation On Artificial Intelligence
Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song mixes sci-fi, drama, action, and musicals in a thought-provoking tale about the first autonomous AI, Vivy, whose sole purpose is to make people happy with her songs. Vivy’s quest to perform becomes considerably more complicated when an AI from 100 years in the future, Matsumoto, asks for Vivy’s help in preventing a cataclysmic war between humans and machines.
Vivy and Matsumoto jump between singularity points in this 100-year time period as the power of music is used to heal lives and amplify action. It’s a really powerful experience that’s surprisingly rich in emotion considering it’s an anime that centers on AI characters. The growth that Vivy depicts in each of her songs as she gains a greater understanding of humanity is so deeply touching.
Pluto Reinvents A Foundational Sci-Fi Series To Tell A Dark Tale Of Lost Humanity
Many of the best modern anime engage in a dialogue with the past. However, Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto goes one step further by reimagining Osamu Tezuka’s sci-fi classic, Astro Boy, as a gritty detective crime saga. Pluto takes Astro Boy‘s framework and themes to tell a reflexive story about identity, humanity, and understanding.
A grisly series of murders target human and robot individuals who were key in building peace in human and robot relations. Pluto is epic in every sense of the word and it’s a compelling argument for radical reboots when they’re in the right hands and have something to say. It’s an anime that’s so good that it makes Astro Boy simultaneously stronger.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Delivers Sublime Sci-Fi Crime Cases
The original Ghost in the Shell helped redefine cyberpunk anime in the ’90s, but its 2000s television follow-up, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, is another boundary-pushing masterpiece. Stand Alone Complex continues the adventures of Major Motoko Kusanagi and the Public Security Section 9 as they take on a litany of sci-fi-centric crimes that include rogue hackers, compromised cyborgs, and out-of-control technology.
Ghost in the Shell is evidently even better in an episodic format where its characters and cases have room to breathe. The anime seamlessly shifts between procedural stories and grander mysteries that act as each season’s focus. Curiously, Stand Alone Complex’s second season is even stronger than the first, but they’re both deeply impressive sci-fi stories that have helped keep the Ghost in the Shell brand alive and relevant.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Is A Coming-Of-Age Masterpiece In A Limitless World
There’s a rich relationship between video games and anime, even if they don’t always come together. Some video games aren’t suited for anime adaptations. Thankfully, Studio TRIGGER’s passionate and creative extrapolation of CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 is a revelatory sci-fi anime for the ages. This ten-episode anime is set in a dense, dazzling sci-fi world, yet it wisely chooses to tell an incredibly human story about a desire to fit in and find one’s place.
This means even more in a world where genetic upgrades and cybernetic changes are par for the course. It’s increasingly easy for fragile identities to fracture even further. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners uses this to become a raw coming-of-age parable that’s rich in entertaining characters, suspenseful heists, and action sequences, all of which are brought to life in glorious kaleidoscopic colors that reflect some of TRIGGER’s best work.
Gurren Lagann Helps The Mecha Genre Evolve
The late 2000s were an enlightening transition period for sci-fi’s mecha subgenre that was looking for new ways to break free. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is such an exciting burst of creativity that’s gone on to become a pivotal turning point for Gainax. Gurren Lagann is a story about oppression and conformity that’s explored in a punishing world of extremes. Humans are forced to exist in subterranean communities and two young teens, Simon and Kamina, long for more.
Simon becomes a symbol for something much greater, which reaches a surreal fever pitch when Gurren Lagann’s final form becomes the size of an entire star system and hurls galaxies at the enemy. At the same time, Gainax’s chaotic visual style matches Simon’s unflinching optimism and Gurren Lagann’s ability to accomplish the impossible. It’s a freeing step forward that’s directly followed by what Studio TRIGGER proceeds to do in the genre.
86: Eighty-Six Is A Haunting Look At The Horrors Of War In A Sci-Fi Dystopia
Science fiction anime can showcase radical technology and unbelievable alien worlds, but they also have a powerful capacity to critique society and say something that’s deeper than flashy mecha designs. 86: Eighty-Six is a harrowing futuristic dystopian sci-fi story that features a war in which one side proudly boasts that they only fight with autonomous drones in order to deliver a “bloodless war.”
The cruel reality is that disenfranchised individuals who have been shunned by society are forced to pilot these drones and put their lives on the line. It’s not unusual for anime of this nature to highlight war’s cyclical nature and its tendency to dehumanize soldiers. Eighty-Six passionately tackles all this in order to tell a moving story about systemic disparity and institutionalized discrimination. It uses its mecha and sci-fi tropes to unpack uncomfortable subject matter.
Steins;Gate Is Anime’s Definitive Time Travel Trauma Story
Time travel is one of the most challenging sci-fi subgenres to do properly. There are so many places where the logic can go off the rails and paradoxes are encountered or just outright ignored. Steins;Gate makes trippy time travel sagas seem simplistic with the level of confidence and creativity that it exhibits. Rintaro Okabe stumbles upon a means of time travel that results in a dystopian future from a butterfly effect of events.
Okabe continually attempts to go back in time and right these wrongs, with new anomalies and problems arising each time. Okabe’s constant hurdles are Steins;Gate‘s way of exploring the character’s trauma and grief, which continues to compound. At the same time, Okabe gradually matures into a more capable and well-rounded individual as he repeatedly experiences these cyclical sci-fi hurdles.