Are you looking for something challenging? Something cerebral? Something that requires a baseline level of intellectual competency to understand? If you’re trying to prove how smart you are to other people, you’re in luck! The ideas behind these sci-fi anime will offer you a facsimile of intelligence that you can use to impress people at parties! Some MIT grad is having a spirted debate about quantum physics? You know all about that – you’ve seen Steins;Gate. You don’t need some fancy university degree to understand the finer details of science. Anime is your teacher, now prepare to study under the tutelage of the 10 best sci-fi anime series of all time.
Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop does the impossible: it makes science cool. I don’t mean intellectually engaging, I mean stylish and sexy. Set in a post-colonized Solar System, the series follows bounty hunters Spike and Jet as they struggle to make ends meet in an uncaring universe. While the series begins as a “bounty of the week” episodic, the deeper intricacies of the plot are soon revealed. Like any self-respecting Neo-noire heroes, Spike and Jet have complicated pasts – buried dreams, lost loves, bitter failures to be remembered while soundtracked by mournful saxophones. A meditation on memory, Bebop proves that even in an infinitely large universe, there’s one thing you can’t outrun: yourself. A groundbreaking anime often hailed as the all time greatest, Cowboy Bebop‘s reputation quickly evolved from late-night curiosity to an exalted example of sci-fi high art.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Often hailed as the single greatest sci-fi anime of all time, Neon Genesis Evangelion is part Gundam, part Godzilla, part Book of Revelations. The world is being invaded by Angels, unfathomable extraterrestrials whose alien biologies are as equally inscrutable as their motives. Resistant to all forms of conventional weaponry, the Angels have only one weakness: high schoolers. Piloting mech suits made of repurposed Angel-flesh, a cast of 9th grade aged warriors battle against unknowable eldritch horrors, pushing their bodies and minds to the absolute limit. As the angelic assault continues, the teens are guided towards metaphysical truths of existence, and their relationship to reality is forever altered. A giant robot battling coming of age story, Neon Genesis Evangelion provides a glimpse the way the world ends: not with a bang, but with teenage angst.
Gurren Lagan
Despite its gloriously over the top energy, Gurren Lagan is cerebral sci-fi to its core. In a distant future, humanity has been forced underground by mechsuit piloting aliens, but after two brothers discover a long buried mech underground, they’re ready to take the fight above the soil. While the series begins with subterranean dystopian, it soon spirals upward into a universe-straddling narrative about the nature of human evolution. Spearheaded by the efforts of two young men, a woman with railgun, and a genderqueer fashion icon, humanity retakes the surface and then the stars above. Featuring galaxy-sized robots, animalistic extraterrestrials, and an ever evolving post-human genome, Gurren Lagan proves that the only thing limiting mankind is its own imagination – and the series has enough to fill a multiverse.
Steins;Gate
Steins;Gate is the story Rintaro Okabe is a self-proclaimed mad scientist who can travel through time. Well, his cellphone can. After accidentally inadvertently building a time machine out of a microwave oven that can send text messages back into the past, Rintaro attempts to thwart the murder of his colleague/rival Kurisu. As it turns out, the greater scientific community isn’t too keen on the idea of messing with time – and have teams of assassins dedicated to wiping out scientists who get too close to cracking the temporal code. Kurisu has been working her whole life to unravel time’s mysteries, and she’s willing to risk it in order to find the truth. A cerebral cat and mouse between a shadowy organization and a team of renegade geniuses, Steins;Gate is a sci-fi thriller that never lets up.
Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex
First making its stunning feature film anime debut in 1995, the Ghost In The Shell franchise established itself as a leading light in the sci-fi genre. The franchise returned with Stand Alone Complex, a series that tracks counter-cyberterrorism agent Motoko Kusanagi and her top secret team. Officially designated “Section 9” by the Japanese government Captain Kusanagi’s task force protects the nation from cyber-threats domestic and abroad. As head scratching as it is heart pounding, Stand Alone Complex poses philosophical questions to the viewer – asking them to engage intellectually as well as emotionally. What is the nature of consciousness? Does an android have a soul? Does Batou keep his cybernetic eyes in while he sleeps, or does he take them out like contacts at the end of the day? These are the heady quandaries that the series asks its fans to decide for themselves. When you’re dealing with villains that make references to famous literary works, you’ve gotta stay on your mental toes.
Psycho Pass
Psycho Pass is pure sci-fi dystopia, George Orwell would be so proud. Japan has been transformed into a near perfect surveillance state by the Sibyl System – an advanced computer network constantly monitors the populace’s emotional state. Each citizen is graded with a “Crime Coefficient” – a numerical value that determines their statistical likelihood to catch a charge. If a civilian’s Crime Coefficient rises too high due to emotional stress or mental illness, that person is deemed a “latent criminal” and can be arrested or even executed on the spot. Akane Tsunemori is a rookie police officer who responds to latent criminal threats, accompanied by her Enforcer – a person with a high Crime Coefficient officially sanctioned to sniff out other latent criminals. While the draconian Sibyl System is reliable, it isn’t perfect. A killer has arisen with a near-zero Crime Coefficient, totally undetectable, totally ruthless, totally needs to be stopped – and Akane will have to do it the old fashioned way, with good ol’ detective work.
Ergo Proxy
Ergo Proxy is set in a post-apocalyptic future where humans have crowded into domed cities, living alongside robot helpers called AutoReivs. After a mysterious virus causes these non-sentient automatons to become murderously self-aware, inspector Re-l Mayer goes hunting for the answer behind a string of killings. Her quest leads her discover the existence of “Proxies” – godlike humanoid lifeforms that are the result of top secret government experiments. As Re-l and AutoReiv partner Iggy dive deeper down the rabbit hole, she begins to untangle the conspiracy at the heart of the dome-dwelling new world order. Proxies, self-aware androids, the domes themselves, somehow they’re all connected – and Re-l is gonna piece it all together. Sci-fi Neo-noir centered around a gothic style icon? Yes please.
Trigun
Trigun is the story of Vash the Stampede, a feared outlaw with an unfathomably large bounty on his head. Don’t let his fearsome reputation fool you, he’s actually a really nice guy! Called “The Humanoid Typhoon” due to the destroyed towns he inadvertently leaves in his wake, Vash is dogged by two insurance agents looking to mitigate their employers’ risk of property damage. As the story continues, this Neo-western evolves into something more surreal once Vash’s not quite human nature is revealed. What starts as a gunslinging romp soon matures into a sweeping sci-fi with surprising intellectual and emotional depth. Vash may not be fully human, but his engineered heart is bursting with a desire to create a world full of “love and peace” for mankind – it’s his slogan, after all.
Code Geass
Code Geass takes place in Area 11 – formerly known as Japan until it was conquered by the globe-spanning Holy Britannian Empire. Living in dystopian squalor, the citizens of Area 11 are kept in check by the Britannian army’s “Knightmare Frames” – advanced mechs with human pilots. After getting wrapped up in an anti-government terrorist attack, exiled Britannian prince Lelouch is granted the psychic power of Geass – which allows him to plant commands within a person’s mind with direct eye contact. Using his newfound powers of persuasion with his genius level intellect, Lelouch decides to spearhead the rebellion against his own family. But will he become Area 11’s liberator? Or simply the next tyrant? Intellectually and morally complicated, Code Geass the sci-fi cousin of the supernatural thriller Death Note.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
A companion piece to the critically acclaimed video game Cyberpunk 2077, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners takes place in the gritty world of Night City – a dystopian metropolis straight out of a William Gibson novel. The story follows David, a young man struggling to help his single mother make ends meet. While out on the town, David crosses paths with a group of “edgerunners” cybernetically enhanced mercenaries who sell their services to the highest bidder. Strapped for cash, hungry for power, and falling in love with the group’s hacker Lucy, David swandives into the criminal underbelly of his city – with devastating consequences. Part sci-fi triller, part romantic tragedy, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners packs more in 10 episodes than most series do in their entire run.
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