Hacker Cinema
PLUTO
2023 · TV series · 1 season
AnimationScience FictionFantasyMysteryCrime
When the world's seven most advanced robots and their human allies are murdered one by one, Inspector Gesicht soon discovers that he's also in danger.
3 positive1 neutralfrom 4 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
You need to see Samurai Champloo if you haven't. It's twenty years old but absolutely timeless.
Reposting my comment from elsewhere here:
For something more fantastical, To Your Eternity, an adventure that makes you feel and hurt. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End for an adventure that's both young and grown-up - it only came out recently, but has instantly been acclaimed as a modern classic.
For something more childlike yet endlessly creative, Delicious in Dungeon or even Ranking of Kings.
For proper literary sci-fi (despite featuring young protagonists), From the New World (Shinsekai Yori).
For true artistic cinema despite a Japanese high-school setting, Ping Pong The Animation.
Other gems mentioned that I second: ODDTAXI (a tightly written mystery-drama despite its art) and Pluto (serious thinking sci-fi with gravitas).
There are always a few upper-tier shows coming out each year that retain an artistic, mature bent. Not very many but at least they're there.
Give Vinland Saga a go, for some gripping historical drama.
Or Bartender: Glass of God (the ongoing 2024 series), for stories in a real-world setting.
For something more fantastical, To Your Eternity, an adventure that makes you feel and hurt. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End for an adventure that's both young and grown-up - it only came out recently, but has instantly been acclaimed as a modern classic.
For something more childlike yet endlessly creative, Delicious in Dungeon or even Ranking of Kings.
For proper literary sci-fi (despite featuring young protagonists), From the New World (Shinsekai Yori).
For true artistic cinema despite a Japanese high-school setting, Ping Pong The Animation.
Other gems mentioned that I second: ODDTAXI (a tightly written mystery-drama despite its art) and Pluto (serious thinking sci-fi with gravitas).
There are always a few upper-tier shows coming out each year that retain an artistic, mature bent. Not very many but at least they're there.
>What am I missing? What should an old fart who's becoming convinced things were better in the old days put myself infront of?
I think no reply are really getting at this question.
If you consider the two latter Miyazaki movies not being included, I think "greats" to you must be something that is "very unique and distinct from the western (animated) movie but also distinct enough from its own (anime) peers".
If you see it that is way, Howl's was not distinct at all (based on a UK book & doing what worked in spirited away) and boy and the heron (essentially reusing expressions from all the works of Miyazaki).
I think you're just looking for that "wow" factor again. Something that put your mind at edge because your brain couldn't predict what will happen next, because they don't follow usual (selling) clichés in story telling or cinematography.
I don't think many anime of today really have that. The only one I can think of is the original Evangelion but that's quite old now too. Maybe Attack of Titan, Pluto, but that's a bit subjective.
I can think of multiple Mangas that would fall in to that. Mangas allow more artistic freedom because it's made by a smaller team, and requires smaller fan base so can be bold in trying new expressions. But might lose its charm when (if) adapted to animation. Ghost in the shell mentioned in the original post too, is Very different from the Manga. (source material) and to people that really got intrigued by the deeper theme about consciousness they might prefer the Manga more.
I haven't watched it myself but maybe the recent adaptation of Junji Itos horror might fall under that "wow" category. His style (in writing) is very unique.
Ha. Stuff like this is entertaining but it is not what I would call good. It’s like the reality tv of anime. Cheap wish fulfillment fan service.
There have been some legit good series recently that play with these fantasy genres, have solid writing and animation.
* Friern: Beyond Journey’s End - an extremely sentimental coming of age tale that explorers children raising parents, loyalty, and platonic love.
* Delicious in Dungeon - a really silly story that subverts the dungeon crawling genre by crossing over with the food/cooking genre and playing with all kinds of genre/tropes.
* Pluto - a classic scifi morality tale on what it means to be human. This series tried really hard to be a modern Ghost in the Shell. It was successful in some ways and fell flat in others. Definitely worth watching though.
There are lots of entertaining anime out now, but so little of it is well made or written. Maybe that’s ok though. I still watch lots of the low quality stuff because it’s like popcorn/candy and is easy to watch.
Your Name (2016, Makoto Shinkai) and Ping Pong the Animation (2014, Masaaki Yuasa) are both IMO top notch (and the creators are active and have extensive oeuvres). The Shape of Voice (2016, Kyoto Animation (RIP)) was also much acclaimed. Of these, I recommend Ping Pong the most (and Yuasa's other works as well).
I suppose for more sci-fi/fantasy, Rebuild of Evangelion (2007-2021) might be interesting, although to me, its popularity in Japan and why the retelling was made is actually more interesting to me than the works themselves. It didn't win any particular awards or acclaim, but I was a fan of the incredibly stylish manga series, and I personally enjoyed the Blame! (2017, Hiroyuki Shesita) CGI anime film for those into the Japanese post-cyber-apocalypse sci-fi aesthetic.
I think these days, the economics of anime has driven more interesting work into series rather than features. Recently some memorable ones I've enjoyed are Steins;Gate (2011-2015, White Fox), Devilman: Crybaby (2018, Studio SARU), Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022, Trigger), Pluto (2023, M2), and Frieren (2023, Madhouse).