10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime We’d Never Like To Visit

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From Neon Genesis Evangelion to Attack On Titan, anime has provided some of the most memorable worlds and some of the bleakest.

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10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

Anime is known for providing escapist fantasies and taking viewers to worlds completely unlike our own, for better or worse. Some of the most memorable moments in anime come from characters overcoming the adversity presented by the terrible realm they find themselves in.

Although watching characters overcome the troubles presented by a broken or joyless setting can be inspiring, a lot of these worlds provide no room for comfort or hope for an ordinary person. Unfortunately for those characters, these places are much better enjoyed from behind a screen.

Attack On Titan

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

With the second part of the final season due to air at the start of next year, it has been quite a while since viewers were thrust into one of the darkest settings in anime. Taking place over a hundred years since humanity was almost driven to extinction by the apparently insurmountable threat of the titans, Attack on Titan shows a remnant of humankind still on the verge of being wiped out completely.

Already in a fragile position and trapped within the walls designed to keep them safe, the appearance of two new titans who are able to breach the outer walls and wreak havoc serves as a reminder of how vulnerable the citizens continue to be. Facing tragedies compounded by a class divide, deep conspiracies, and cultish elements, even the members of the Survey Corps in charge of the fight against the titans seem tentative to ever hope of overcoming their circumstances.

Parasyte: The Maxim

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

Opening with the gruesome scene of a husband’s face contorting and becoming something monstrous before killing and eating his own wife, Parasyte is not a show that holds back when it comes to depicting the horrors of a world being invaded by a parasitic alien species. Being able to almost seamlessly disguise themselves as humans if they successfully take one over during their larval stage, Parasyte is a show that poses the question of who can be trusted in a world where anyone could now be an alien in disguise.

Worse, these aliens can be vicious killers, far stronger and able to manipulate their bodies with little limitations. Able to fight back by cooperating with a parasite that couldn’t successfully take over more than his right hand, even Shinichi Izumi struggles to protect the ones he loves from this threat. Without even that, almost anyone else would be helpless to do much in such a world.

Akira

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

Hailed as one of the greatest anime films of all time and set in the fictional dystopian future of 2019, Akira imagines a setting that was ravaged by a third world war that began with the destruction of Tokyo in 1988. Whilst Tokyo has been rebuilt, it is now a city rife with gang violence, terrorism, and the influence of a corrupt and incompetent government.

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These problems are only compounded by the discovery of Tetsuo Shima’s psychic powers, which resemble those of Akira, the individual responsible for the event which destroyed Tokyo in the past. With a government eager to experiment and inadvertently provoking Tetsuo, cultish elements hailing the second coming of Akira, and the power-hungry Colonel Shikishima ready to take over from the useless government, the city comes to a boiling point where it seems as though things can only get worse.

Noragami

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

Some of the bleakest settings in anime are those where the threat is all but invisible, at least to the eyes of an ordinary human. Such is the case in Noragami, where Phantoms from the Far Shore, a plane of existence beyond the human world, have a tendency to invisibly influence humans.

These phantoms use their power to corrupt humans, feeding and adding to the negative feelings a person possesses. Without the help of a god, it seems as though most ordinary humans are helpless in the face of this threat. They are even more dangerous to humans who die while wanting to live and become stray spirits, as they prey on spirits and turn them into phantoms. Although a world where a god who has fallen out of favor is forced to grant small wishes to strangers in the hope of any form of belief or worship is an intriguing concept, this is not a place where most ordinary people could thrive.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

There is something incredibly oppressive about the world of Evangelion. Even in the futuristic city of Tokyo-3, designed with buildings that retract into the ground to protect them, it seems as though the threat of the terrifying creatures known as Angels can only temporarily be held at bay.

As the angels only seem to get stronger with each attack, humanity relies on the giant mecha Evangelion machines to stop them while barely seeming to understand the technology themselves. It gets worse when Shinji Ikari, a pilot of one of the machines, slowly finds out that not everything is what it seems in this realm, which seems inevitably headed towards a final apocalyptic event.

Tokyo Ghoul

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

Set in an alternate reality similar to our own, Tokyo Ghoul establishes a terrifying ever-present threat to humanity in the form of the titular monsters. Ghouls are creatures that appear as ordinary humans but possess incredible strength and durability, and need to eat humans to survive.

For a normal person living in this world, someone turning out to be a ghoul in disguise could easily turn out to be deadly. While it is possible to spot a ghoul, as their eyes turn a distinctive black and red when hungry, there isn’t much anyone could do in the face of an attack, making for an extremely tense and eerie existence.

Death Note

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

Whilst the world of Death Note may be very similar to the real world initially, the changes that the reign of Kira inflicts on the world make it a very different place as the series continues.

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Using the Death Note to remotely kill criminals and anyone else who gets in the way of his goal of a perfect world, Kira, the pseudonym adopted by the protagonist Light Kagami, has no qualms about making full use of its power. It might seem as though an ordinary person would be safe in this world provided they never tried too hard to work out Kira’s identity. However, for the people of this realm, the prospect of anyone dropping dead on the street without a fair trial is enough to render it a frightening reality in which to live.

Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

Rather than the threat coming from outside the Earth in one of Hayao Miyazaki’s first animated films, the central threat is the earth. More specifically, the threat comes from spores which are deadly to humans covering large swathes of the earth, teeming with what appear to be large insect-like creatures.

Protected by the strong wind that keeps the spores from blowing down to the valley, Nausicaa’s world is nevertheless shown to be fragile and bleak, as countries that continue to wage bitter wars despite the state of the earth harm the vulnerable peace of their home. As spores start to appear and the people in the valley panic, it seems as though one of the last places humans can live comfortably may be lost forever too.

Sword Art Online

10 Bleak Worlds In Anime Wed Never Like To Visit

For people who enjoy a challenge, the prospect of being trapped inside a video game and told the only way to escape is to beat it may not seem so bad. However, in Sword Art Online, the reality that dying in the game or even attempting to remove the VR NerveGear technology used to play it would mean dying in the real world might hinder anyone’s enjoyment of the situation.

The challenge of the video game itself is also an intimidating one. In order to escape, a player would have to clear all 100 floors of Aincrad, an imposing steel castle. Whilst the protagonist, known as Kirito, was able to use his knowledge of the game’s beta to help him attempt to clear the game, for most players this would be an almost impossible task, and a hopeless world to be placed in.

Demon Slayer

With the currently airing recap series of the Mugen Train arc, and season 2 due to start airing in December, fans are currently spoiled for opportunities to enjoy the bleakness of the world that Tanjiro and his sister Nezuko inhabit. Whilst it is set in Taisho era Japan, Demon Slayer imagines a war between demons that eat humans to gain strength, and the demon slayers attempting to stop them at all costs.

As shown in the brutal opening to the first season, even in the remotest parts of Japan, no one is safe from the growing threat that the demons pose. With more and more powerful demons appearing, the people in this world are rarely safe even when they seem to be.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/dark-bleak-dystopian-worlds-anime-settings-never-want-to-visit/

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