Forum - View topicWhere has the darkness trend gone?
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Unicorn_Blade
 Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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Hope the title is not too vague, but here we are.
I first got into anime x years ago. One of the main reasons why, was that I found in the medium something I thoroughly lacked in cinema. Often dark, sometimes post apocalyptic landscapes, sadness, bittersweet stories about the end, fall (and sometimes rebirth) of the humankind. Wolf's Rain, Texhnolyze, Rahxephon, Cowboy Bebop, Haibane Renmei, Ergo Proxy, just to throw in a few titles. For a long time it was relatively easy to find new titles that kept me interested. There has been many many great other titles along the way, but not many in the genres I find particularly addictive. Out of interest I did browse for 'similar titles by gendre' and have found nothing I would not have seen, a long time ago. I think one of the most recent titles suggested came from 2012... Hardly new. Looking back, I sort of wonder whether it was just a sort of a phase, like a fashion, to focus on dark futures, or whether there was something going on at that time that made production studior and/or audiences more open/interested into certain themes, and why the source has dried up. Or maybe I'm super wrong and somewhere out there there have been great darker, more mature shows being made, but having lost touch with the base, I just have not found about them? Last edited by Unicorn_Blade on Sun Jun 27, 2021 2:08 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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EmbraceMe
 Posts: 2015 Location: Growing old and jaded. |
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There are several shows that come to mind but they're definitely not as abundant as they seemed to be in the past.
I have not watched it but, Made in Abyss (2017), is something I've heard that contains mature themes. Perhaps someone else can elaborate on it without spoilers. Regarding post apocalyptic series, planetarian (2016) is something I'd highly recommend. In spite of its post apocalyptic world, by the end of the series, there's a much brighter and hopeful world -- a bit of a rebuild humanity story. I also recommend WorldEnd (2017), fully known as What do you do at the end of the world? Are you busy? Will you save us? (SukaSuka in Japanese). It's a bit difficult for me to describe without spoiling things but it has a lot of the stuff you may be looking for. They're not grimdark but they have mature themes and you may feel some despondency after viewing. |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3657 |
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There are shows like Girl's Last Tour (2017) and Kemurikusa (2019) which are certainly melancholy post-apocalyptic shows about decline, etc., though they aren't necessarily huge downers, and I don't think they'd register as particularly mature, if that's what you're looking for specifically. Fafner's still floating around, too.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4654 |
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I fell in love with most of those series very early in my anime fandom too, and I agree that whether by a lack of more recent examples or just exhausting what's come before, it feels very difficult to find series that recapture that mood. I'll second Yttrbio in calling out Girls' Last Tour. It's not quite as bleak as most of the examples you gave, and much of it revolves around the (often hilarious) relationship between its two leads, but it also heavily focuses on a journey through a post-apocalyptic crumbling industrial cityscape, with the lead characters interacting with its remnants and questioning what their purpose was. It's a great little show.
Made in Abyss isn't post-apocalyptic per se, as its main characters are exploring a mysterious and dangerous mostly-natural landscape, but there are many moments where it does capture that sense of dire hopelessness, albeit in a more tempered sense. It's about a girl and a mysterious cyborg boy on a quest into a massive and alien chasm in the ground called the Abyss. Be forewarned that it can be an incredibly brutal watch at times. What else...oh right, you should definitely give Land of the Lustrous a look. It's a fascinating series about a world populated by what are essentially sentient gemstones and minerals, where humanity has long since vanished. This one's most notable for its look, as it's easily one of the most impressive all-CG anime series, and I honestly don't think its style could have been pulled off by traditional 2D animation. Frustratingly, it's only received a single season, but I keep holding out hope that Studio Orange will work on more of it someday. This is more in your original timeframe, but Noein was a fun mindscrew about some modern kids interacting with the inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic hellscape who traveled to our time/dimension/? to fight otherworldly entities. It has a unique look and is jam-packed with some of the more out-there philosophical ideas relating to quantum mechanics. The theme of rebirth and regaining hope definitely runs strongly in this one. Another somewhat-older one to throw out there in case you haven't seen it is Kino's Journey. I can't speak for the newer version, but the original early 2000s anime adaptation was a fantastic anthology series which featured the main character visiting multiple lands and societies, often discovering that they had some sort of sinister underlying element. Again, this isn't strictly post-apocalyptic per se, but it does a great job of establishing a melancholy solitary mood, and frequently plays around with dark themes. And I'm ashamed I almost left this one off entirely, but From the New World is an absolute gem that probably captures the mood you're looking for better than anything else I've mentioned. It's hard to go into details on this one without spoiling too much of where the plot goes, but it's centered around a group of children in a seemingly-utopian society whose members manifest various telekinetic abilities, and their journey towards discovering the horrifying truths that underlie it. I can't recommend this one enough. Oh, and if you want something also post-apocalyptic but completely different in tone, Humanity Has Declined is what happens when you take the "fading humanity" trope and inject it with a massive dose of crack. I'm not sure I have the linguistic skills to adequately describe it. 
Not all of these fit very neatly into the "dark future" box, but all of them contain certain elements that the series you mentioned in your original post reminded me of in some way. Hopefully you can find one or two potential watches in here. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 4961 |
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I think a lot of it has to do with the times we live in where there's been a lot of political turmoil in the past decade and now we have the coronavirus and people are looking to entertainment as an escape from the darkness of reality rather than overly harsh and brutal titles. I think it's also partly why the DCEU with it's dark and edgy vibe has struggled to catch on with their films but people love the MCU with it's lighter popcorn fair.
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Unicorn_Blade
Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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Thank you all, I have noted some new titles to eye.
Some I have already seen, and lved. Made in Abyss was amazing, I still need to catch up on the films. It had the mood I love, although I would love to see something like this with older characters. Definitely a step in the right direction for me. It made me think of Now and then, Here and There, in a way it looks like something aimed at much younger audience, and then it hits you... Noein was another one I have seen, I think sort of when it came out. It was really enjoyable, although also really sad. There is a scene in it that just makes me a bit depressed every time I rewatch it, although it lasts only a few seconds. Would also love to see more of things like From the New World- not only visually gorgeous, but also well written and very smart. It starts off and you think, this is quite fun, right? And then the mystery creeps in, the uneasiness, the plot unravels. I sort of get that the political times are such and not other, but also, not that beginning of XXI century was all fun and roses. There must have been somethin else that caused a shoft from the themes onto something else, or maybe it just pays off more to make series about teenagers falling in love or awkward guys landing a date with a hot zombie, because the audience is bigger- I think even back in the day, the post apocaliptic shows were more niche. I don't expect studios to churn out three Cowboy Bebop type shows a season, but if any anime director is reading this, at least one every once and so often, por favor? It's one of the two genres I would love to see more (the other being big, fun adventures along the lines of FMA or Eureka 7, which again, sort of disappeared off the face of anime world). |
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Spawn29
Posts: 551 |
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I don't think that's true because TV shows such as Invincible, Primal, and The Boys did well. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16941 |
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Yes they have, but they are also outliers and not the norm. They also came with fanbases already in place from their source material which does help. I do think on the whole anime has steered away from the more darker and gritty tones. At least on average compared to how often they used to be used. I think those more dark and brooding, or visceral, titles tones were in a cycle. Anime has since moved on to other cycles. Much as how it moved on past the more hyperviolent and graphic titles of the 80's and early 90's. Those were both phases. We've, mostly, moved past the moe craze phase, as well as the plethora of shonen titles everywhere you look. Now we're square in the middle of the isekai phase. I think there are still darker, more visceral, violent, bittersweet, and generally more somber atmospheric titles out there. They certainly are in the minority each season now as other genres have taken the forefront. They are still there, but not in the numbers/percentages of days gone by. Personally I miss such titles myself. Sometimes I just want a more somber, melancholic, or atmospheric title and not something super bright, flashy, fantasy, or upbeat. Sometimes I just want a nice brooding title. |
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Unicorn_Blade
Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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It was a pretty long phase, as it stretched from end of the 90s all the way to something like 2012/14. I must say I have not seen anything that really fit the theme since then- there were a few things close, but nothing that close. I have not really looked how many of these were original scripts, and how many based on mangas/visual novels. Would be interesting to know if the source has dried up because of lack of source material as well. There are titles that are definitely gory/adult (the amount of serial killers etc I have seen while reading plots of new stuff is pretty impressive), but it seems the attention of more grown up series has shifted onto depicting intricate ways how to kill someone. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 4961 |
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I also think in some cases the people who made those dark brooding titles just aren't as involved in the anime industry as much anymore these days. In the case of titles like Lain and Texhnolyze, Yoshitoshi Abe's last title was RErideD and that was a flop but Abe was only just doing character design work on that one. Chiaki J Konaka hasn't done anything in anime in about two decades aside from the recent Digimon Tamers audio drama CD. Bones is pretty much the My Hero Academia studio nowadays.
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Saeryen
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Personally I think the hopeful and happy titles need more love, especially since they can really help people. Cardcaptor Sakura, Natsume Yuujinchou, Pretty Cure and Fruits Basket are four titles I can think of that have emotionally healed me. I think if more people watched those sorts of titles, we have a much kinder, better world.
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Spawn29
Posts: 551 |
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Don't forget Yoshiaki Kawajiri as well. I notice the same with Hollywood as well with many directors that made dark and edgy movies don't seem to be doing movies as much as they used too. Look at David Lynch, John Carpenter, Frank Henenlotter, Terry Gilliam, Dario Argento, and David Cronenberg. They were big directors that people love and geek out over the years, but they don't make movies like they used too. |
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