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Monster
MONSTER
2004 · TV series · 24 min episodes · 1 season
Kenzou Tenma, a Japanese brain surgeon in Germany, finds his life in utter turmoil after getting involved with a psychopath that was once a former patient.
6 positive1 mixedfrom 7 commenters
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8 comments on Hacker News
Some good examples, but much of their true crime don't fit in that list. The Monster series is pretty good, but most other true crime show are extremely repetitive and spend 4 episodes telling a story that could've been a single episode.
To be fair, Gravity Falls is also aimed at children but is still fun for adults.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Falls
Back to the seinen anime, Monster fits into the category of mystery/thriller. For science fiction/horror see Parasyte -the maxim- and for dark fantasy see Berserk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasyte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserk_(manga)
Berserk in particular is a staple. It has influenced lots of other work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserk_(manga)#Legacy
Be sure to not watch the 2016 anime series, as it is reviled for its poor animation. The 1997 anime series or the film trilogy from 2012 are a better use of your time. Both cover the same section of the story. However, be forewarned the part they adapt is a specific arc of the story near the beginning and is thus unfinished. Still worth it.
But I’d still recommend you start with Monster if you’re looking for something closer to live-action shows.
Here's a list of some old and new ones, that an old fart might enjoy
Monster (Chasing a serial killer)
Ergo Proxy (Can't describe it)
Samurai 7 (Sci-fi variant off 7 samurai)
Last Exile (Post appocapltic world with lots of flying machines)
Kino's Journey
Mushishi
Time of Eve
Gargantia
Baccano
Durarara
Psycho Pass
Arslan Senki
Sunaboju (Desert Punk)
Witch Hunter Robin
Hunter x Hunter (old not new)
Texnolyze
Darker than Black
Black Lagoon
Great Teach Onizuka (One of the old and best)
Gintama (Comedy, It's at the level One Piece and Naruto disgusing as Comedy, you have to get past 30 episodes)
Kabaneri of Iron Fortress (Just for animation quality)
Beck (Music career)
Golden Kamui
Terror in Resonance
Ping Pong Animation (Don't let the animation fool you, it's one of the best stories)
Area 88 (Story ends abruptly, watch at your own risk)
Ashita no Joe (Old anime, boxing genre)
Valkyria Chronicles (War story)
Scissor Seven (Comedy, Chinese, assassin, in a strange world)
Shura no Toki (Martial arts, 3 generations)
A Record of Mortal's Journey to Immortality (Chinese cultivation genre, 3D good animation, faithful adaptation of one of the good novels in this genre)
Swallowed Star (Chinese cultivation genre Sci-fi variant, great 3D animation)
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
Your Name
Violet Evergarden
Perfect Blue
Paprika
Metropolis
There's a bunch of great animated movies.
If you're referring to series then among the best Seinen classics are shows like:
Berzerk (1997)
Monster (2004) [My personal favorite]
Cowboy Bebop
Steins:Gate
Vinland Saga (newer)
Frieren (newer)
There's a lot of Shounen classics as well, my favorite probably being
Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
granted there's several tropes in it that aren't going to be as enjoyable to watch on repeat for older folks. But the storytelling and plot is practically like Breaking Bad but in anime form.
There's a manga called Monster by Naoki Urasawa. It's considered one of the best ever written both in and outside of Japan. Guillermo del Toro at one point tried to produce a film for it. It's a post-Cold War psychological thriller set in Germany and Czechoslovakia. It tackles quite a number of questions regarding the nature of evil. I believe it has a full English translation. If not, there's probably a comparable scanlation for it using some Google-fu.
There's a light novel series by the name of Spice and Wolf. It's fully translated in English. It's about a trader, a wolf goddess, and their adventures in capitalism-related escapades as they make their way across medieval Europe.
Both of them also have anime adaptations that are close to its source material in case your kids get bored (although Spice and Wolf's is incomplete).
And, while it's not a comic book, Anthem is a novella by Ayn Rand that depicts a world set in the future without the word "I" and how , in spite of this, one man rediscovers individuality.
The subject matter for all three of these works is thought-provoking enough and appropriately challenging for 13 year-olds
(To be clear where I'm coming from: I'm not what you'd call an otaku, haven't watched many things of this kind. I really detest over-the-top stuff. I prefer realism to fantasy but can enoy it if it helps with the plot. I've watched and enjoyed Evangelion (wasn't enjoying it at all in the beginning but when it started getting "psychological" I loved it) and Ghost In The Shell, still haven't but want to watch the others you mentioned. I also watched Stein's Gate and felt exactly the way you did.)
Death Note is awesome, especially the first half. There's a bit of cringy overconfident adolescent personality going on, but I think it's all for the best considering the plot.
Monster is one I'm torn about. The themes it touches on are just perfect for a great dark story, but I feel like it under-delivers by always making it sound like it's gonna get really dark but never making it so. There's quite a bit of "semi-filler" episodes. Thought-provoking but never goes as deep as I'd like.
One movie I'd recommend is Perfect Blue. Realistic psychological suspense/horror with great animation.
Not at all the same genre, but Welcome To The NHK is pretty nice if you want some realistic "light-hearted dark humor" (if there's such a thing), but maybe not if you don't relate to being a hikikomori (or social recluse in general). There's over-the-top characteristics, especially in the first episodes, but it gets better. Watch, say, 10 episodes; if you don't love it by then, it may not be for you.
EDIT: Oh, I also watched Ergo Proxy in an overnight binge so I honestly can't remember much about it. A lot of people like it, I found it really boring and felt too grandiose for what actually happened in the end. There's an interesting story behind it all, but I had to resort to reading fan theories to get it.
EDIT2: For the sake of completeness, the show I actually love the most is Avatar (The Last Airbender. I'm right now watching the sequel and still making up my mind on it). Possibly because I was a kid when I first watched it, but it still really moves me. And yes, I said before I prefer realistic stuff, but this is one of the greatest exceptions. It's also not dark by any means - it's a kid's show after all -, plenty of light-hearted humor and all, but there are many many things I'd say even an adult can get from watching it.
"Robot" is an awfully broad category; none of my suggestions involve the giant, piloted, super-powered robots. Monster is very good, but at 72 episodes, is unusually long for a mature series. You may want to look at Tokyo Godfathers or Planetes first, to see if your interests match mine.
"xxxHolic" is a weird Japan-glish word; you can read it as "____-aholic". I've not seen the series and can't recommend either way, but from the Wikipedia article it looks like something you'd not enjoy.
Online recommendation engines seem to break when dealing with Japan-related topics; I don't know why, but it could be that some people will watch anything if it's 1) animated 2) from Japan, so the engines build false associations between wildly different works. This happens in music also -- I once listened to an orchestral re-imagining of some soundtrack by the Tokyo Philharmonic, and now Last.FM won't stop recommending awful j-pop.
The problem with forums about anime or manga is that they self-select for people who have been rejected from every other community. A solid science-fiction or horror story can find discussion in the appropriate forums, but nobody normal is interested in some high-school student's harem of magical girls.
Here are some manga / anime recommendations. Some have not been licensed for distribution in the US, or have been only partially released here, so you will need to hunt a bit for fansubs. I watch only the animated adaptations, as they're easier to hide, but feel free to order the original manga versions if you don't feel ashamed about reading comic books. Not all are adaptations -- the movies, and a few television series, are original animations.
- Monster < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_%28manga%29 >
- Planetes < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes >
- Mushishi < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushishi >
- Mononoke < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mononoke_%28TV_series%29 >
- Tokyo Godfathers < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Godfathers >
If you're willing to relax your standards a bit, there are many outstanding series aimed at younger viewers.
- Denno Coil < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil >
- Yokohama Shopping Trip < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Kaidashi_Kik%C5%8D >
- Kino's Journey < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kino%27s_Journey >
- Cromartie High School < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromartie_High_School >
- My Neighbor Totoro < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Neighbor_Totoro > , or almost anything else by Studio Ghibli < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Ghibli >
- The Girl Who Leapt Through Time < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Leapt_Through_Time >
- Yotsuba&! < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yotsuba&! >