Anime That Is Either Scifi or About Traditional Japanese Culture?

January 17, 2005 8:13 AM

Aside from the recent blockbusters, I haven't watched an anime movie (or series) in years. Can anyone suggest a series or movie that that is either in sci-fi genre or has a storyline that deals with traditional Japanese culture?
posted by jasonspaceman to Media & Arts (33 answers total)

If you can find it, I've really enjoyed the sci-fi police drama "Ghost In The Shell : Stand Alone Complex." There's two full-seasons of this TV show, which takes the characters from Ghost In the Shell and places them in a cop-drama setting. The characters are fleshed out a lot more and the storylines are interesting. I particularly like the Tachikoma tanks, who combine kawaii-ness with kakkoii-ness. I wouldn't call this "traditional Japanese culture" but then again it's hard to combine "sci-fi" with "traditional" effectively.
posted by gen at 8:22 AM on January 17, 2005

What do you mean by traditional?

I'd strongly recommend Princess Nine, which is a drama about a girls' HS baseball team (which is nigh unheard of) that competes with the boys' teams and attempts to make it to Koshien Stadium where the championship game for HS baseball is played (and is a REALLY. BIG. DEAL.). Awesome sports series with great characters and plot. And definitely very strongly tied in with Japanese culture.
posted by ursus_comiter at 8:27 AM on January 17, 2005

Cowboy Bebop is a common favorite, and one of the only anime series I've enjoyed. It descends into cheesiness at times, but overall it's well done.
posted by agropyron at 8:27 AM on January 17, 2005

I quite liked Reign: The Conqueror. It was done by Peter Chung, and is a sci-fi retelling (reinterpreting) of the Alexander the Great story.

Also, there's always Cowboy Bebop, which has space ships. (link to first of six DVDs, plus there's a movie which you should not watch first).
posted by Caviar at 8:28 AM on January 17, 2005

I have a list of favorite anime movies, but it needs to be updated, especially since more Miyazaki is available in the US now. If you haven't seen Spirited Away, it's outstanding.
posted by muckster at 8:29 AM on January 17, 2005

Response by poster: Gen: sounds interesting. I will track that down.

Ursus_comiter: Traditional as if the movie were filmed in traditional Japanese culture in the years before 1900 (but in anime form of course).

Caviar: Reign sounds great. I will track that down too.

Muckster: Thank you for pointing out that list!
posted by jasonspaceman at 8:32 AM on January 17, 2005

Grave of the Fireflies is one of the very, very few anime works I like.
posted by Gyan at 8:32 AM on January 17, 2005

More or less traditional: Samurai Champloo.
posted by Skyanth at 8:36 AM on January 17, 2005

My favorite is Serial Experiments Lain.
posted by amandaudoff at 8:42 AM on January 17, 2005

Bubblegum Crisis: 2040. A renegade band of female mercenaries in a devastated future Tokyo.
posted by veedubya at 8:43 AM on January 17, 2005

Cowboy Bebop, Lain, and GITS: SAC are all series whose recommendations I wholeheartedly second.

And of course there's always Evangelion.
posted by ruddhist at 8:49 AM on January 17, 2005

NeiA_7 is an oddball comedy with sci-fi elements that deals wistfully with change in modern Japan. It evokes a sense of mono no aware that even a Westerner can understand.
posted by SPrintF at 8:51 AM on January 17, 2005

Is Metropolis one of the blockbusters you've seen? Its also outstanding.
I also quite liked Gasaraki. Its a sort of geopolitical thriller with mecha.
posted by Zetetics at 8:53 AM on January 17, 2005

I'll third the motion for Cowboy Bebop. The story rocks, the setting rocks, the characters rock, and the music rocks the hardest of them all.
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:02 AM on January 17, 2005

Cowboy Bebop is nice. The Ghost in the Shell series is being aired by Cartoon Network nowadays (albeit in dubbed format of course).
posted by neckro23 at 9:24 AM on January 17, 2005

Totally seconding Grave of the Fireflies. No renegade mercenaries, no giant robots, and no devastated future Tokyo, just a compelling story and beautiful animation.
posted by jjg at 9:42 AM on January 17, 2005

Also, the second Ghost in the Shell movie, Innocence, is absolutely stunning. I have no clue what happens, but it's gorgeous.
posted by muckster at 9:46 AM on January 17, 2005

Third: Cowboy Bebop.

Second: NeiA_7.

Second: Samurai Champloo.

Also: Paranoia Agent is awesome. Really, anything by Satoshi Kon is awesome.
posted by selfnoise at 10:04 AM on January 17, 2005

Last Exile is great sci fi with a bit of a steam punk vibe.
posted by gnat at 10:13 AM on January 17, 2005

Samurai Champloo is great but the opening song drives me nuts. For Sci-Fi I’d also recommend Last Exile.
posted by Tenuki at 10:14 AM on January 17, 2005

champloo is good stuff. for more decent historical fiction around bakumatsu period, peacemaker kurogane is great. miburoh/shinsen gumi etc. hundred stories also set in this period and a great show. rurouni kenshin, of course. samurai 7 is a cheesy production of a cheesy game based on the original kurosawa film; strangely enough it's not bad.

bebop is classic.

last exile and planetes also quite excellent.

mars daybreak was pretty good. gto, another classic. bleach is decent.

those are probably the better shows out of everything I've been watching for the last few years. sure I'm forgetting some, but it's a good start...
posted by dorian at 10:15 AM on January 17, 2005

oh yeah, monster is quite compelling.
posted by dorian at 10:17 AM on January 17, 2005

Bebop totally, absolutely, rocks. It's also being shown on Cartoon Network (Saturday nights, I think).
posted by casarkos at 10:27 AM on January 17, 2005

I'd add Otogizoushi and Shura no Toki to the 'traditional series' pile. Otogizoushi is set in the Heian era (794-1192) and Shura no Toki ranges from the 1600s to the mid-1800s.
posted by sysinfo at 10:35 AM on January 17, 2005

Patlabor is a near-future ensemble-cast cop story with giant robots. It's more down to earth than it is sci-fi, since it's more about the cops than it is about the robots, but the blending of both elements is remarkably well done. If you like sci-fi, and don't mind a bit of political drama along with it, the Patlabor movies are some of the best anime movies ever made. The TV series and OVAs are also excellent, if not as overwhelmingly serious.

Millennium Actress is a film that moves through about 1000 years of Japan's history, as seen through the lens of roughly seventy years in the history of Japanese cinema. It's also at least two different love stories, a successful experiment in non-linear storytelling, and a hell of a drama. I think it's Satoshi Kon's best film so far, by a long shot.
posted by vorfeed at 11:21 AM on January 17, 2005

Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, FLCL, Full Metal Alchemist... check those out...

I was a bit disappointed by the Ghost in the Shell: SAC series.. the quality of it just wasn't what I was expecting.

Now the new movie.. that's good stuff.
posted by jackofsaxons at 11:23 AM on January 17, 2005

I'll second the gorgeous Last Exile, Lain, Cowboy Bebop (of course), both Ghost in the Shell movies, anything by Miyazaki (e.g.). You'll develop a love/hate relationship with Evangelion.

I don't think anyone has mentioned Now and Then, Here and There. This series is short, beautifully done, and somewhat hard to watch only because of its intensity. For something a little different, try Tokyo Godfathers which is an amazing movie and sort of a remake of the American Three Godfathers or even Three Men and a Baby.

Also, don't miss Memories, a collection of three shorts put together by Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame. If you liked the Matrix movies, or at least the first one, The Animatrix , another series of shorts, is worth a rent (one short done by Koji Morimoto is a breathtaking shoutout to Tarkovsky).
posted by fatllama at 11:28 AM on January 17, 2005

Just don't watch Cowboy Bebop if you're trying to quit smoking.
posted by scarabic at 11:45 AM on January 17, 2005

Don't bother with the version of Appleseed that just came out. I just saw it a couple of hours ago and I still want to cry, it was so bad.
posted by jennyjenny at 12:16 PM on January 17, 2005

Don't bother with the version of Appleseed that just came out.

Or the short one from the 80s. Beautiful design, terrible plot. Supposedly the comic is quite good, though.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:40 PM on January 17, 2005

I burnt out on anime in the late 90s, but the show that brought me back was FLCL. It's just six episodes, and it's sort of a psychotic response to Evangelion. I love it.
posted by symbebekos at 3:03 PM on January 17, 2005

Just about anything by Studio Ghibli (including the aforementioned Spirited Away and Grave of the Fireflies) will be extremely good - some are productions more on the young side, some (like Princess Mononoke or Grave of the Fireflies) are very serious and powerful films - most are fantasy or science fiction; in terms of Japanese culture, Grave of the Fireflies is a historical film about WWII, and several of the other films (such as Spirited Away, Mononoke) include traditional myths and imagery along with original fantasy ideas. Nausicaa.net has good descriptions of the different films, so that you can see which would interest you. I've just watched My Neigbour Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind this week - all are very different films, but stunning in their own ways.
posted by jb at 4:33 PM on January 17, 2005

Response by poster: Thank you everyone for the overwhelming response. The wife and I thank you all tremendously!
posted by jasonspaceman at 8:08 PM on January 17, 2005