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Anime offers a dazzling array of worlds that many fans would jump at the chance to visit. From breathtaking futuristic metropolises to fantastical realms filled with magic, and even serene, idyllic versions of our own reality, these anime settings promise a life of adventure or peace without the everyday worries we face.
However, anime also delves into the darker side of world-building, crafting some of the most chilling dystopian landscapes imaginable. These are places where oppressive regimes crush the human spirit or where apocalyptic events have left the world in ruins. While these settings can be fascinating to explore in fiction, living in them would undoubtedly be a harrowing experience.
Among the new wave of shonen anime, the universe of Chainsaw Man stands out as particularly terrifying. The more people fear in this world, the more dangerous it becomes. It’s a place overrun by Devils, creatures that personify humanity’s fears—ranging from the trivial, like tomatoes, to the deeply primal, such as fire and darkness. Despite the efforts of Devil Hunters, who bravely confront these monsters, the threat of death and destruction looms constantly, making survival in such an environment a relentless struggle.
People’s Own Fears Hunt Them Down in Chainsaw Man
In all of new-gen shonen anime, Chainsaw Man’s world is, perhaps, the most frightening, and the more people fear living in it, the more perilous it becomes. Devils – monsters who embody everything humanity fears, from ridiculous things like tomatoes to primal terrors like fire and darkness – run rampant in this barbarous world, and even efforts of the Devil Hunters rarely manage to prevent casualties.
On a deeper level, Chainsaw Man’s society is a dystopia where institutions put in place to protect civilians often chasetheir own goals over protecting innocent lives. And many Devil Hunters, even those who enter the system with righteous goals, are doomed to perish in this unfair, cruel world.
Now and Then, Here and There Isn’t Your Typical Isekai Anime Power Fantasy
The isekai genre is dominated by indulgent power fantasies, where even dangerous worlds turn into a playground of adventure for protagonists. Now and Then, Here and There, nonetheless, doesn’t strive to satisfy its audience’s yearning for gallant heroism. Instead of a marvelous fantasyland, the main character of this series, Shu, gets transported to a chillingly brutal dystopia torn by war and tyranny.
Shu’s journey begins not with him becoming the chosen hero, but with torture and the fate of a helpless child soldier, forced to witness the depravity of Now and Then, Here and There’s dejected societal despotism firsthand. Yet, for being so grim and seemingly demoralizing, the series manages to have a hopeful message.
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade Shows an Alternate History Much Darker Than Reality
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Some of the best dystopian fiction across mediums aims to explore fictional oppressive societies that serve as a more severe reflection of reality. Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade does so by retracing history back to the World War II period and fabricating a world where, after Nazi Germany’s victory, Japan turns into an authoritarian state plagued by societal unrest.
The story unfolds from the perspective of an elite counterterrorist unit member, Fuse, who has to confront turbulent moral dilemmas after coming face-to-face with the system’s brokenness. The atmosphere of Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is oppressive and eerie in how the film depicts its crumbling, fear-stricken society locked in a perpetual state of civil turmoil.
Attack on Titan Showcases Two Equally Disturbing Dystopian Worlds
The initial setting of Attack on Titan is a truly merciless, enchantingly mysterious world where humans are forced to hide behind giant Walls in order not to be eaten alive. Outside of their limited settlements, everything is infested by Titans, and only the bravest (or the most reckless) fighters for freedom dare to leave the fragile safe haven to oppose them.
Even after the people of Paradis learn about the world beyond their Walls, what they discover hardly resembles a utopia. However, the perpetual warfare and cruel discrimination tearing the rest of Attack on Titan’s world apart hit much closer to home than the fantastical dystopia of the series’ first part.
Dorohedoro’s World Is Filled to the Brim With Lawless Violence
While, as a series, Dorohedoro is morbidly entertaining and hilarious, hardly any fan would actually want to live in its world. Dorohedoro’s setting is primarily separated into two dimensions – the lavish Magic Realm governed by Sorcerers and the lawless, anarchic slums of the Hole.
Being a human in the world of Dorohedoro is a hopeless, desperate fate, as the Sorcerers commonly use the inhabitants of the Hole as guinea pigs for their magical experiments. Yet, surviving the Hole’s decaying, violent streets is hard enough even without the Sorcerers’ direct intervention.
Sunday Without God Takes Place in a World Refused the Closure of Death
Not every dystopia has to feature monsters or oppressive forces that make these worlds impossible to survive in. In fact, one of the most horrifying dystopias in anime, Sunday Without God, takes place in a world where people are denied death, and no new humans can be born, forcing them to live in a perpetual, meaningless dystopia.
A world abandoned by its god where everyone endures a grim, decaying eternity, Sunday Without God is a surprisingly macabre yet thought-provoking dystopian series. The only people capable of lifting the curse of the undead are the enigmatic gravekeepers – the departed god’s last gift to his forsaken creations.
From the New World Gets Darker with Every Episode
Some of the darkest dystopias in fiction effectively masquerade as utopias at first glance, and that’s precisely the case for From the New World. Even its heroes, a group of kids with psychic powers who attend the special Sage Academy, mistake their futuristic society for a peaceful, untroubled haven.
However, the facade of From the New World’s setting begins to break once the protagonists start to discover the horrifying truths about their society’s past and present. In essence, From the New World is far from idyllic, and people in power are willing to commit depraved things to keep people blind to the truth.
Ergo Proxy Takes Time Making a Disturbing Setting Even More Horrifying
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An anime revered for its thematic depth and riveting psychological thriller plot, Ergo Proxy takes place in a world that barely survived a horrible ecological disaster. In its wake, the remains of humanity were forced to live in domed cities, where people coexist with obedient androids – until an enigmatic virus forces the robots to become self-aware, leading to a string of murders.
The initial conditions of life in Ergo Proxy are already quite dystopian. Yet, while Inspector Re-l Mayer investigates the cases of AutoReivs turning on their masters, more sinister truths about how the society in the domed cities operates and continues to prosper come to light, making Ergo Proxy’s setting feel infinitely more unsettling.
Surviving the World of Heavenly Delusion Is a Constant Struggle
A curious post-apocalyptic mystery, Heavenly Delusion separates its narrative into two distinct parts. One takes place in an isolated Takahara Academy for kids with supernatural powers – a Heaven the children can never leave, led to believe that hell awaits them beyond the school walls.
Parallel to the eerie Takahara Academy plotline, fans get to witness a much more openly terrifying story of Maru and Kiruko, two teenagers who travel the shattered, post-apocalyptic ruins of Japan while trying to survive persistent attack from monstrous Man-Eaters. While one part of the series might seem significantly more optimistic than the other, their slowly unraveling connections raise questions about that initial assumption.
Texhnolyze Is One of the Most Hopeless Anime Ever Made
When it comes to oppressive, wretched settings void of any hope, no anime holds a candle to Texhnolyze’s underground city, Lux. Slums filled with nothing but cruelty and disputes of warring gangs tearing the already broken town to shreds, Lux is a dystopia where technological advancements only accelerate the inevitable destruction.
The city’s chaotic, disquieting annihilation is largely perceived through the eyes of Ichise, an underground fighter who becomes a guinea pig to test experimental prosthetics technology and, as a result, gets caught in the whirlpool of Lux’s collapse. A painfully slow, dejecting series notorious for its soul-crushing atmosphere, Texhnolyze is a kind of series few could endure watching, let alone live through.
