Ask a fan of science fiction (as defined as someone who reads science fiction) what they would like to see more of in the genre and one popular answer might be more quality SF on television. There is a limit to how often a person can rewatch the same few shows like Firefly, Stargate, and Twilight Zone to satisfy the urge to watch something SF. And heaven forbid if an American SF fan wanted to see realistic cutting edge technology like Augmented Reality or a show that remembered that space is a vacuum.

When I became an anime fan I wasn’t expecting to find shows that where both good anime and good SF but I’ve come across a number of shows that do both. So in the interest of helping non-anime science fiction fans, I thought I’d point out some of the best titles. For each listing I’ll list what type of SF it is, a fairly spoiler free synopsis of the show, and the show’s availability in America.

A final word before moving onto the list. One of the big differences between anime and most American shows – if you’re not familiar with anime - is that in anime, just because the characters are school age, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the show is any less complex then if it had only adults. Granted, in many instances anime can be juvenile but that’s the same as with science fiction – not all of it’s mature but some of it is.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Movie
Type of science fiction – Time travel
Available on DVD – English dub and subtitles

This movie is about a normal high school girl when she suddenly gains the power to travel to the recent past but this isn’t a story about how she saves the world. Instead, this is a story about how she uses this power to improve her life and the consequences of her actions. It starts off good; she uses the power to eat the pudding cup that her sister stole, she goes back to ace a recent quiz and she switches what food she makes during cooking class to name just a few. As time moves forward, though, she sees what the unintended consequences are to her actions and must try to fix what she’s done.

This type of story is by no means unique but what sets this movie apart is the characters are given abundant depth so you sympathize and like them immensely. Also to the movie’s credit, it never gets that contrived and arbitrary feeling many time travel stories get. It somewhat reminds me of a Connie Willis time travel story in that the focus is on the characters and the time travel is just a means to the end.

Dennou Coil

Television Series, 26 Episodes
Type of science fiction – Augmented Reality
Unlicensed * – English subtitles only

Earlier this year I wrote of this show, “Imagine a show that deals of the same cutting edge technology that’s found in works by Charles Stross and Vernor Vinge. Imagine this show centers around characters still in elementary school. Finally, imagine this show running on the Japanese equivalent of America’s PBS station. If you could imagine a show like this then you’ve probably already watched Dennou Coil.” It was hard to imagine that a show with this type of background would ever see the light of day but it did and it was a winner.

The show knows how to balance the light-hearted antics of the kids with the more serious story of one tranfer student’s effort to figure out what happened to her older brother who disappeared while using his AR glasses. This show also did a good job in imagining how AR operate and what new problems would need to be addressed. One of my favorite touches was the mobile anti-virus program that went around the city searching for irregularities in the system and fixing them. Since all the kids hacked their AR glasses to do more, they had to keep away from these programs or else their glasses would get fried and they’d have to get a new pair of glasses.

Kaiba

Television Series, 12 Episodes
Type of science fiction – Total mind and selective memory uploading and transference
Unlicensed * – English subtitles only

Kaiba wakes up at the beginning of episode 1 without any memories. A scan of his mind reveals that his mind literally contains no memories. So he does the logical thing and goes on a quest to figure out who or what he is. Along the way he loses his original body, gains two new ones, sees first hand how mind uploading and transference has altered society and finds out that he’s lost someone that’s important to him.

For all it’s focus on the technology that’s made this society possible, it doesn’t forget that to make a good show one needs characters and a story to tell. It was advertised as a SF/Love story and succeeds on both fronts. So don’t let the odd animation style stop you from watching this exceptional SF show.

Planetes

Television Series, 26 episodes
Type of science fiction – nuclear fusion, moon colonies and mining
Available on DVD – English dub and subtitles

The year is 2075 and space has become dangerously full of space junk. To contend with this problem, governments offer bounties to companies for the removal of debris that would threaten the human activities in space. As you might guess, even governmental bounties do not make this profitable for companies so these companies run their Debris Sections on a shoe-string and duck tape budget. Planetes focuses on one company’s Debris Section and their adventures.

A series about space garbagemen might not sound interesting but it turns out that this series is anything but boring. Some episodes focus on what happens when the space junk turns out to not be junk; for example, in one episode it’s a secret military satellite and in another, it’s the coffin of someone buried in space. Other episodes take place on the moon bases and we get the chance to meet one of the first persons to be born on the moon and see how that affects her outlook on life. Other episodes deal with a terrorist group from the have-not nations that can’t take advantage of nuclear fusion because they can’t afford to mine the moon for fuel like the rich countries and how the paths of our Debris Section and them cross.

And if you still need a reason to watch this show, then let me say that this show remembers that space is a vacuum and sound doesn’t carry.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Television Series, 52 episodes
Type of science fiction – A.I., prosthetic bodies, mind uploading
Available on DVD – English dub and subtitles

Don’t confuse the television series with the pair of movies – they’re the same franchise but unconnected to each other. I listed the series over the movies because the series has more action, lacks much of snobby philosophizing of the movie, and has the time to better explore it’s futuristic world and the ramifications of it’s advanced technology.

GitS:SAC, as it’s abbreviated, takes place in the near future where mind uploading and entire prosthetic bodies are a reality and almost commonplace. To further blur the line between man and machine, A.I. development has come a long way in creating A.I. that is very humanlike. In this hyperconnected, digital future society it becomes imperative for a government to have crack professionals that can keep it’s citizens safe from the profuse types of cybercrimes of the future. This is where Section 9 - a mix of ex-mercenaries, hackers, and intelligent cops - of the Japanese government comes in.

One of my favorite episodes involves the uploaded brain of a film maker. In physical life, he found it nearly impossible to find the funding to make his movies. To remedy this, he uploaded his mind into a digital braincase where he could create the movie and people could jack in and watch his movies in a virtual movie theater. The problem for Section 9 is that his movies where so good that almost no one wanted to leave – even if that meant their physical bodies died.

So, if you’re looking for a show that is one of best examples of how SF can be entertaining, action-packed, and still intelligent – check out Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Freedom

OVA Series, 7 episodes
Type of science fiction – moon civilization, massive environment cataclysm on Earth
Available on DVD, Blu-Ray – English dub and subtitles

It’s the dawn of the 23^rd century and it’s been a hundred years since a human-triggered environmental cataclysm has supposedly rendered Earth uninhabitable. This has left the couple million inhabitants of the Moon City Eden as the last outpost for humanity. A strictly controlled society is necessary for Eden to survive but the teens of Eden don’t like it and this causes them to frequently get punished. It happens that while inspecting conduits outside as punishment, one of these teens, Takeru, witnesses an object crashing into the Moon’s surface. He rushes over to examine the crash site and his life will be altered forever after he discovers what this object’s cargo was.

This was a fun title to watch and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. One caveat with this title is that originally this was only 6 episodes long and when you watch it, you’ll see how the ending of episode 6 was a natural ending point. Episode 7 was added later on and while it was good to see what happens next, they tried to cover to much in one episode so it felt very rushed. Just a heads-up, this is still a very good show to watch – especially if you like the type of SF where humans overcome adversity in the face of danger.

The next two anime shows might not be science fiction per say but are definitely SF-related and almost guaranteed to be liked by a SF fan.

Kino’s Journey

TV Series, 13 episodes + 2 Stand-alone short movies
TV Series is available on DVD with English dub and subtitles but the short movies remain unlicensed

Kino is a traveler. Travelers spend their life traveling to the many different small city-states that dot the landscape of this earthlike world. For the most part these city-states leave each other alone which has allowed many different types of cities to develop. Some are high-tech, some are decidedly low-tech, and most fall somewhere in the middle. Kino spends only 3 days in any one city, just long enough to get a taste of what makes the city tick but not long enough to want to stay.

This type of set up allows Kino to be presented with many different scenarios that are designed to make the viewer think. For example, in one episode she visits a city that had been locked in a century long war with a neighboring city but fifteen years ago peace was achieved. The citizens are very proud at being able to finally end this war so Kino checks out the History museum. The curator of the museum, a mother who lost her husband and sons to the war, was instrumental – along with a mother on the other side – in ending the war. Their solution involves a yearly contest between the two sides, with a set number of combatants and automatic rifles, in how many people they can kill in a nearby underdeveloped city. The side that kills the most, is that year’s winner. Sounds horrible but as the curator points out, overall the number of people dieing is less and the standard of living in both cities have increased immensely now that the expensive weapons of war no longer have to be made.

Not every episode has a scenario this extreme or depressing but the series will make you think, much like good science fiction. I highly recommend this title.

Millenium Actress

Movie
Available on DVD – English subtitles only

Millenium Actress is one of those titles that are hard to adequately explain. The frame of the movie follows a documentary maker as he interviews an aging film actress about her life. We discover, from the moment she bumps into a fleeing artist/anti-government protestor in the early 1930’s and falls in love with him, that her life has echoed many parts that she played in the movies. This fact might help to explain how during the course of the interview, her recollections seem to bleed into real-life and the documentarian and cameraman find themselves physically watching parts of her life and finding themselves in the movies that she was in.

This might sound a little odd but it makes for a very riveting movie. In fact, as I was writing this I got the urge to watch it again and did so. The reason for it’s inclusion on this list comes from the actress being in SF movies and the use of one of these movies as a metaphor for something I won’t spoil here.

That’s it for the list now. I plan on adding onto this list in the future as I watch other worthy titles so I’ll be giving this post it’s own easily findable page up above.

*It’s relatively easy to find and download unlicensed anime on the internet, subtitled in whatever language you want. I don’t have the space here or desire to argue about fansubs so I will leave it at this. If the show is unlicensed, the only way to get it licensed is if American companies think they can sell enough DVDs so the more people that have seen these unlicensed shows and are talking about them – the greater chance that it’ll get licensed. And if the show is available on DVD and you liked it – buy it so more shows of this type are made. And if you’re unsure about a show and don’t want to spend money on a DVD you won’t like, remember that it’s rentable through a service like Netflix.

Posted in anime, anime rants/views, general anime interst, science fiction      

I’ve been seeing various other bloggers doing this lately and I was bored so I thought I’d see what type of list I would create. I knew a few of these titles belonged on this list before I started but I went over every series I have and asked myself if this title influenced me or not. One of the things I discovered was that nothing from the last 2 years influenced me enough to warrant being on this list. The other thing was that a couple of the shows that made it on the list aren’t shows that I expected to be on.

Before I begin, remember as you’re reading this, the list isn’t my top anime list but a list of those anime titles that have influenced me as an anime watcher. Also, you won’t see several titles that you might expect on a list like this, no Dragon Ball, Pokemon, Sailor Moon, or even Cardcaptors Sakura because I’ve never watched any of these. And finally, this list is roughly in chronological order.

1. Rurouni Kenshin

The first anime, Rurouni Kenshin, is the very first anime that I watched, knowing it was an anime and it was quite by accident that I did. Living in a big family, by today’s standards, means I was always more aware of what my younger siblings where doing, especially what was on the television, because there wasn’t enough room to be separate. My one younger sister started watching Yu Yu Hakusho and Rurouni Kenshin when it was on daily on Toonami and I would be in the room doing homework. Slowly, I realized these shows where different from most cartoons I’ve seen and slowly I started watching these two shows. I favored Kenshin and my sister favored Yu Yu Hakusho.

Several aspects of Kenshin entranced me. The first was the idea of a story arc that lasted dozens of episodes. This allowed a show to tell stories that were too complex to fit into a single episode. I’d given up on network television, watching only channels like the History or Discovery Channels, but this was just what I was looking for in a television show. The next aspect was the depth to the characters. Even though they where 2-D animated people, they felt like real people; they had a past and they had hopes and dreams for the future. It was easy to care what happened to them and wish for their happiness.

Another aspect was “good” and “evil” still existed and those that were good needed to battle evil. I know not everyone that’s called evil is truly evil but there is true evil out there and it seems to me that in America we like to pretend there’s no one truly evil. So when Kenshin is asked to kill Shishio to save Japan, that part of me that wants to see good triumph over evil became excited over the chance to see that happen. And lastly, because we had real characters and a complex story, there was opportunities for real moral dilemmas that the characters where faced with. These dilemmas wheren’t silly ones like – I found a wallet, should I keep the money or should I return it. In Kenshin’s case, he had taken a solemn vow not to kill anymore, so how was he going to be able to kill Shishio and not break his vow?

So for introducing me to anime, showing that animated shows could have complex stories and characters, reminding me of the fight between good and evil and how moral dilemmas develop even when making seemingly easy moral choices – Rurouni Kenshin easily earns a spot among the most influential animes for me.

2. Witch Hunter Robin

The next show, Witch Hunter Robin, won’t make it on my favorites list but I can’t deny it’s influence on me.

After Kenshin and Yu Yu Hakusho, I was wanting to see what else anime had to offer so when I happened to see IGN positively review Witch Hunter Robin, I figured I trust their word and purchased the first volume. The first thing that I noticed was the huge bump in animation quality over Kenshin. This show looked good and I liked the Gothic styling but that’s not the reason for it’s inclusion here. The show established itself as the good witch-hunters protecting society from witches that wished to do evil. And for the first dozen or so episodes, it stuck to this formula but then something very unexpected happened. Suddenly, the organization that ran the anti-witch effort and was supposedly good went after one of it’s own and the show went into a totally different direction then I expected, it even included a surprise twist or three.

This showed me that an anime had the ability to be more then what it initially appears to be as well as allowing characters to drastically change throughout the course of the show.

3. Evangelion

The next show, Neon Genesis Evangelion, is a show that can be expected to be on a list like this but for me it’s on for a reason that’s probably different from most others.

Around the time of watching Witch Hunter Robin, I was looking for more shows that I, as an new anime fan, should watch. I saw this series get mentioned by many people as one of the greatest series ever and one that all anime fan needs to watch. So, I decided to give it a go and see what the fuss was about.

I found Shinji to be really annoying but the odd, interesting story and great action scenes were more then enough to make me enjoy the show. Therefore, I was caught off-guard when Gainax bungled the ending. This was incomprensible to me, didn’t they iron out the story before they started the series? I look at my DVDs of the series, unwatched since that first time, and can’t help but feeling duped.

So, for teaching me that it’s important to make my own decisions about a show – regardless of what fandom might say – and learning that how an anime ends is vital in determining the show’s worth, Neon Gensis Evangelion earns a spot on this list.

4. Kino’s Journey

The fourth anime, Kino’s Journey, marked the first time I really strayed from shounen/action titles and I was a bit apprehensive.

It was very different from what I had come to expect, there was no overarching story arc or even much linkage between episodes; however, I quickly realized I liked this show a great deal. Each episode presented at least one question, mainly ethical or moral, to ponder and it was presented in such a way that often it was difficult to come up with a quick or easy answer. For example, in one episode two city-states had been locked in constant war for almost 200 years until a mother on each side decided something needed to be done to end the bloodshed. Their solution was once a year each side would compete in a contest to determine that year’s winner. Sounds good but the competition involved a third city-state that was very technologically inferior – the two sides would attack the third one and the side that tallied the most kills was the winner for the year. Peace between the two nations was achieved and has held for 15 years and the overall body count has greatly diminished because neither side wants to eradicate the third.

The show also didn’t have a real ending to it (not that it really could) which fit the show and later I learned was a characteristic of slice-of-life shows. Therefore, for making me a fan of the slice-of-life genre as well as showing that it was possible to make me think and be entertaining at the same time, Kino’s Journey takes it’s place on this list.

5. Spirited Away

Fifth on the list, Spirited Away, happens to be the sole movie to make the list. I wanted to put Millennium Actress on the list but was unable to point to how it significantly influenced me as an anime fan.

I still remember surfing on Aintitcoolnews.com and seeing a headline that pointed to the trailer for an animated film called Spirited Away. The writer seemed excited so I watched the trailer and was likewise blown away. I wanted to see it so badly but realized the chances of it playing anywhere near my house was very remote. However, a couple of months later, a local theater did advertise they were going show it and after convincing one of my sisters to go with me, I got my chance to watch Spirited Away on the big screen.

And let me tell you, it was a real treat to have the chance. There are many reasons to like this movie but the reason why it has influenced me was that it showed that anime was capable of producing a reaction called ‘sense of wonder’ in the viewer. This can be thought as when your jaw drops because you’ve encountered something new and so amazing that it makes you think of the world differently. This reaction is discussed pretty frequently in print SF circles because this was something that many feel that written SF of the last couple of decades lacks when compared to earlier SF. One moment that particularly sticks out in my mind was when Chihiro was running on a very narrow pathway trying to fit in-between bushes that were covered in a profuse amount of flowers. My jaw dropped at the beauty of the scene and how Miyazaki was able to turn flower bushes into something amazing - it really changed how I looked at the world around me.

I’m going to cut this into two parts so you won’t have to scroll through a behemoth of a post. Part 2 should be up within a day.

Posted in anime, anime rants/views