The nuclear winter has wreaked havoc throughout the planet. No one has the power to alter the trajectory of the planet, and fresh disasters keep appearing. We fortify our strongholds with ever-greater defenses because we feel unsafe in the wider world. These refugees have collected here as a final option before making an assault on a fortress.
The protagonist, Ren Xiaosu, is one of these characters. Ren Xiaosu and Yan Liuyuan want to live so much that they are willing to give up all they own to make it happen. As their positive energy intake increases, they develop and become agents of world transformation. Collaboration between Tencent Animation & Comics, China Literature, and Bilibili led to the creation of this show.
There are a total of 16 episodes, and each one is 20 minutes long. It might be categorized as an action movie, an adventure movie, or a fantasy movie. Audiences may get a sneak peek at the stunning graphics that will be included in “The First Order” by watching a trailer. This interesting clip features some exciting animation and violent action sequences from the flick.
The most impressive aspect of this adaptation of the Donghua book is the stunning graphics, especially those of “The First Order” and other moments. It is an intriguing book because of its post-apocalyptic setting, unique characters, and determined protagonist.
1. Barefoot Gen
In the actual story of Barefoot Gen, a little boy called Gen escapes the atomic explosions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Gen, our protagonist, and the other survivors he comes across in the aftermath of the calamity are the story’s main focal points.
The original manga series that evolved into Barefoot Gen was written by six-year-old Keiji Nakazawa, who lived through and saw the disaster. Hiroshima’s survivors are seen in the first episode as they struggle to go on with their lives, forget, and forgive.
Several media have been inspired by the comic book, which ran from 1973 to 1985 in Weekly Shonen Jump. The most current English edition of Barefoot Gen has an introduction by Art Spiegelman, creator of the seminal Holocaust graphic book Maus.
Instead of offering a first-person account of the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Barefoot Gen focuses on informing the reader about the impacts of nuclear radiation via tiny glances into the lives of others.
Katsuko, somebody who survived but has become so damaged and disfigured due to the radiation that she is unable to function normally in society, is just one of the many characters in the anime.
Barefoot Gen is not a first-person narrative of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but rather a collection of brief glimpses into the lives of those affected by nuclear radiation. One of the numerous characters in the anime is Katsuko, a survivor who was so severely wounded and deformed by the radiation that she is unable to return to regular life in society.
2. Grave of the Fireflies
In Grave of the Fireflies, we follow the afterlife of a young man called Seita. The narrative takes place in Kobe, Japan, in the 1940s. The aftermath of World War II is being felt throughout the nation. People are destitute, food is rationed, and air raid sirens go off constantly. When American bomber aircraft lay fire to Kobe, Seita, his mother, and his younger sister Setsuko, age four, are forced to flee their house.
The city burns to the ground, many homes are demolished, and many people, including Seita and Setsuko’s mother, perish in the blaze. These children of the firestorm must endure war-torn Japan while living with their aunt, who treats them quite coldly.
You may feel like you are transported back in time to 1940s Japan because of the wealth of information provided, both historical context and gory specifics like how bombs and smoke can turn a blue sky black in a matter of minutes.
Seita is a young man whose hopefulness has been dampened by the wartime realities that everyone in Japan must now face. He cares for his young sister and himself and would do everything to keep them alive, but he has a pride problem and occasionally steals to feed them. Setsuko is a curious little girl, but she is much too little to understand the scope of the evil surrounding her.
She also has fits of pique for illogical reasons, such as not being able to visit her deceased mother or eating sashimi sushi when there is none to be had. There’s that one aunt who’s much too icy to be a positive influence on anybody. At first glance, she seems like she’d be a kind person, but this quickly turns out to be untrue.
3. Now and Then, Here and There
Nabuca, a highly placed soldier in Hamdo’s army, grows to despise the little crap who has been assigned to his squad. He despises Shu’s positivity and thinks the latter is just a naive dummy out to sabotage Nabuca’s plans. Nabuca had seen death firsthand. When Nabuca’s friends tried to flee, he watched as they were subsequently killed.
Nabuca knows that he and his squad must make the most of a bad circumstance in order to survive. He is very protective of Bool, the youngest soldier, and does all he can to keep him safe. But he realizes there’s nothing more he can do, so in his wrath at this spoiled child for thinking otherwise, and he knocks Shu senseless with logic and fists.
Once Shu is locked up once again, he has time to talk to the girl in the next cell. The ‘water witch’ that Shu first encountered is said to be closely linked to Sarah, who is also from the distant past like him. Insanity in this world has prevented her from saying no, even though she knows she shouldn’t. Shu’s disorganized plan succeeds as he and Sarah make their way to safety.
Sarah, however, walks slowly in his wake. She desperately wants to flee the agony, but at this point, she no longer cares. She is unable to express emotion because she has given up hope that things will improve. She tries to abort the baby brutally and drown herself, but Shu rescues her and tells her things will only get better.
This is one of the best sequences in Now and Then, Here and There. Sarah shouts at him with all the strength this exhausted young woman has retained since the pilot episode. She’s clearly fuming right now. When Shu doesn’t know what she’s been through for so long, he has no business assuming that things will get better.
The show shows that she will never, ever get over this, and he has no idea what type of scars she’s carrying on the inside. To think that things may improve is an insult to his intellect.
4. The Dog of Flanders
The story of a young boy and his devoted dog has been the subject of numerous live-action adaptations, and Belgium’s government has memorialized the tale itself. But why is it so unknown here in the States? Simply put, it’s a grim catastrophe that would be difficult to sell to local parents of small children.
Stories like these, which have ominous overtones and a surprising twist, influenced Mother Goose’s rhymes. Nello is an aspiring painter who hopes to one day achieve the fame and fortune of Peter Paul Rubens. Alois, his closest buddy, is a member of the wealthy Flemish elite and has a comfortable lifestyle.
Since Nello is a poor child who lives with his grandpa and barely makes a livelihood by carrying milk across town, her father rejects their connection. Soulmates that they are, Nello and Alois, nevertheless manage to spend time together despite the objections of Alois’s father.
Nello’s loyal dog, Patrash, whom he and his grandpa saved from the brink of death, is his third-best buddy. But around the next turn is the brutal reality of life. After a prank shows Patrash’s previous owner to be a harsh taskmaster, the latter demands a large portion of Grandpa’s money in return for the dog’s freedom.
From then on, disasters pile up, and Nello’s only chance of keeping himself and his grandfather afloat is to win a local painting contest. However, tragic events still occur. As hopelessness grows, Nello will have just his furry friend for company as he struggles to make it through the cruelty of life on the margins of society.
Even though the characters appear like they belong in a children’s show, which may turn off some modern anime lovers at first, the program’s exceptional plot will rapidly win them over. Despite the film’s acceptable animation and lovely soundtrack, it was the people and plot that interested me.
5. Erin
Erin wasn’t raised like other girls since her mother is a beast healer and comes from a different clan. Erin is happy regardless of how she is treated. Her interest is in deducing the reasoning underlying natural phenomena. But she soon discovers that things aren’t quite as ideal as she had thought.
When several of the most powerful Touda die in Erin’s mother’s care, she witnesses firsthand the brutality of the community in which she lives. However, Erin can’t do anything to stop her mother’s fall into an abyss that guarantees she will never recover. Erin is a strong protagonist, yet her stubbornness frequently creates complications for herself and others around her.
At first, there wasn’t a lot of bloodshed on this program. There is little gore, and the scenes of the Touda going insane and assaulting troops are drawn in a retro style, so there are no finer details to view. Later in the series, however, there is a lot more gore. Ohjus attack humans and Toudas with brutality.
Besides sword fighting and poisoning, there’s also political warfare. This is not a good choice for kids. The presence of many Korean names in the cast suggests that a Korean studio either created the program or had a significant influence on it. Nonetheless, viewers should be aware that around half of each episode consists of recycled material.
It was the show’s worst flaw for me. Because of this, the required recap episode was completely unnecessary since viewers could never have forgotten what had happened. However, you will love this show.
6. Macross Frontier
The Zentraedi are a species of aliens that are the main adversaries of Macross. They have superhuman fighting powers. Hikaru Ichijou, our protagonist, is a young man who is both a competent pilot and a fairly typical member of society. Hikaru must enlist in the military to resist the invading Zentraedi.
Around this time, he meets Lynn Minmay, the woman he will eventually fall in love with. The fact that Minmay has become a famous singer after coming from humble origins only helps to accentuate the gap between her and Hikaru. The tale of Macross is filled with high drama, including a hazardous conflict and complex love triangles.
There’s little doubt that Macross has impacted other series with similarly intricate plots and a wide range of inspirations. The story’s combination of thrilling space battles and tender moments between the protagonists is fantastic. However, Macross has a dull and uninspired plot.
Macross is mostly a love triangle set in space, with some simple space combat thrown in for good measure. Others who love these sorts of shows will appreciate Macross, but others who want greater story depth may be disappointed. The topics that Macross explores are much more important than the story itself, which is choppy and sluggish.
The value of cultural traditions is an underlying theme that emerges throughout Macross. When it comes to the far-reaching consequences of culture, namely music, Macross is one of the few programs I’ve seen that does it directly. The show’s explanation of Zentraedi’s origin and way of life is one of its most intriguing aspects.
7. Zipang
Beginning from Yokohoma Base, more than 200 members of the Japanese Self-Defense Force set sail toward Pearl Harbor aboard the modified Kongou class ballistic cruiser Mirai. But something unexpected happens on the route to Pearl Harbor, and the crew is surprised to encounter Yamato.
The greatest ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II, among other ships from that conflict, such as Nagato, Akagi, and others. They find themselves in 1942, in the midst of the Battle of Midway, and they quickly come to terms with the fact that they have no longer arrived in Japan after the war of the 21st century.
Their effort to adapt to a new time and place has officially begun. Zipang’s narrative is its greatest asset. It’s fascinating in its own special way. Zipang is not the anime for you if you’re hoping to see fight scenes and gore. The Mirai’s crew is trying to find a means to escape this time period without interfering with the battle in order to prevent changing the past.
However, it is obviously impossible for them to live without supplies and fuel for their ship and not be discovered as a peculiar ship that had no business during World War II. The officers aboard the Mirai serve in the Self-Defense Force; therefore, they have never been to war and have never had to murder anybody.
They went to school to learn how to save lives, not take them. They attempt frantically to execute the job they were educated for, even while they worry that their efforts could alter the future and render the future from which they came impossible.
8. Knights Of Sidonia
The events of Knights of Sidonia take place aboard the human “seed ship,” or Sidonia. In search of a new home, after the terrifying Gauna had engulfed the planet, the human race used these seed ships to leave Earth. Despite the length of time that may have passed since the gauna’s previous attack, the crew and warriors of Sidonia must always remain on high alert.
Nagate Tanikaze, our protagonist, is a young man who has spent all of his existence living under the abandoned tunnels of a nuclear power plant. He spends much of his time hooked up to a simulator of a garden, a mecha designed for fighting Gauna.
Grandpa dies before the story starts, prompting him to go to the surface in search of food, where he soon gets entangled in the political and military machinations of Sidonia.
He joins the Garde squadron to help protect the colony when the commander asks him to. With just one vintage Tsugumori still in existence, Nagate has been entrusted with its controls. This lack of societal comprehension on Nagate’s part is reasonable, given that he spent so much of his infancy secluded from the rest of society.
Izana Shinatose, one of Nagate’s first acquaintances on the surface, is physiologically bi-gendered, which causes a great deal of friction between their emotions for Tanikaze, along with how he views them, and their attraction for Nagate and Shizuka Hoshijiro, a courteous and gentle female pilot.
The other main character is Norio Kunato, an expert pilot who is bitter about Nagate’s possession of the Tsugumori. Kunato causes Nagate a great deal of grief as he tries to establish himself in Sidonia.
9. Altair: A Record Of Battles
Tughril Mahmut, commonly known as The Golden Eagle General, is a 17-year-old protagonist. His people were wiped off in the Balt-Rhein Empire’s unexpected onslaught on Torqye. Sehir Halil, a Pasha of Torqye, took him in as the lone survivor. He found it difficult to do nothing, so he became a Pasha and worked tirelessly to end pointless conflicts.
In spite of the fact that he had finished the course and ended up being the youngest Pasha in history, he knew nothing about politics and believed that friendly conversation could end a conflict between nations. Although he showed promise in his early days on the job, he was ultimately demoted because he failed to live up to the expectations of his position as Pasha.
Now begins the difficult part of the story, in which he travels to other lands to learn about the wider world and figure out how he may assist its inhabitants to avoid the fate of his tribe. To get a deeper understanding of the role politics plays in turning a conflict on its head, our young hero now travels across other nations.
He encountered numerous different locations and individuals, all of whom he hoped to impress favorably so that he might remain on good terms with them and eventually win their friendship.
Since he was the sort to go headfirst into new situations, he needed to practice relying on people and learning to operate in a group. Mahmut could not sit idly by while the commander of the Balt-Rhein empire attempted to manipulate every move in order to ignite a conflict between these two kingdoms.
10. The Heroic Legend Of Arslan
At the young age of fourteen, Arslan, son of King Andragoras III of Pars, engages in his first conflict with the neighboring kingdom of Lusitania and is soundly defeated. When the Lusitanian invaders outwit and outgun the powerful Parsian army, they conquer Arslan’s once-great realm.
He and his loyal servant Daryun have been driven from their homes and friends by Arslan’s rule, so they leave the fighting in search of brave men to join their cause and help them retake Ecbatana and the kingdom.
Arslan Senki follows the traditional formula of historical dramas by presenting a huge cast of characters, with as many as seven different people making up Arslan’s own company, from a skilled strategist in Narsus to a priestess of Misra in Farangis.
However, the show’s main emphasis is on Arslan since the plot centers on his development as a person and a leader; the show’s other characters, both those close to him and those he meets along the way, are given less screen time.
Characters like Narsus and Daryun, who are intriguing because of their rational reasoning and overpowering strength, respectively, are each introduced with a sufficient enticing pattern for them to get by inside the plot. Arslan’s character development has a lot of potential, but the program has made numerous mistakes that have devalued it.
At the start of the program, we meet a young prince who, despite his good nature and eagerness to learn, knows very little about the world outside the borders of the kingdom of Pars. Overall, he provides an enormous chance, if maybe a bit too plainly so, to develop as a character since he is useless with a weapon on the battlefield and lacks trust in himself.
11. The Saga Of Tanya The Evil
Many cultures place a girl’s value beyond that of any other species. Almost often, magic weapons are used in combat between characters in games like Touhou Project. Based on the light novel series of the same name, the 2017 anime Youjo Senki: The Saga of Tanya the Evil only aired for a total of 12 episodes.
But she isn’t your average kid, either. A modern Tokyo salaryman’s ghost occupies Tanya’s body; he is killed by being pushed in front of a train for his callousness toward employees. But just before he passes away, time stands still, and he has a short exchange with God.
Mr. Salaryman, although seeing a miracle, does not believe in the deity and refuses to acknowledge him, instead calling this “Being X” and criticizing it for failing to live up to its role as a deity.
This ambitious young lady plans to exploit her insider knowledge of the salaryman world to enter the military at a young age, rise through the ranks to officer, and eventually settle into a cushy post in the nation’s capital, far from the conflict. However, God will not tolerate this. It seems his objective is to make Tanya acknowledge his superiority and surrender to him.
To this end, he manipulates circumstances so that, after Tanya completes her military training, she is redeployed to the front lines, this time with a divine advantage: whenever she prays, she gains superpowers that allow her to fly much higher, faster, and shoot more powerful lasers than other mages, quickly becoming a legend on the front lines and also among the highest levels of authority.
12. Vinland Saga
Our story mostly occurs during the 1013 Viking invasion of England. Historians see the moment as the beginning of Cnut the Great’s ascension to power. Thorfinn, son of Thors, is our primary protagonist. He is a teenager who decides to join the mercenary Askeladd and his gang in order to one day avenge his father.
The story’s main flaw, in my opinion, is that it has too many subplots that don’t amount to anything. If we give them the benefit of the doubt, they are ready for the next installment. After all, there’s still more manga to read. Given that the manga has been running for over two decades, it’s quite probable that something takes place with those stories.
This is a very fictionalized account of those times, so keep that in mind as well. Therefore, it might be unsuitable for you if you like historically accurate fiction. The characters in the Vinland Saga are shown to have serious flaws, yet the book nevertheless manages to make readers care about them.
In comparison to series like Versailles no Bara, where the writing is timid, and the heroes aren’t allowed to adopt a historically “bad” viewpoint, I give this one a lot of credit, except for Thors, who has a revelation that makes him want to improve himself and others.
Honorable Mention
Cherry Hunter by Rokkaku Yasosuke
Erosugi chea de isekai harem
Matou Seihai No Slave
