The pandemic hasn't been easy on anyone, and it's certainly given the modern world some distinctly dystopian vibes. Though not everyone is fortunate enough to have access to resources and privileges that prevent suffering on a daily basis, it's fair to say most people wouldn't want to live in worlds as dark as those often imagined by anime creators.
As bad as the world gets, audiences can only hope it never sinks as low as some of these anime dystopias, even if they make for fantastic entertainment and commentary.
10 Desert Punk Presents A Ruthless, Parched Future
The main protagonist of Desert Punk is hard to love. Foul-mouthed and ruthless, mercenary Kanta Mizuno wanders the apocalyptic desert wasteland that was once Japan with the sole intention of, well, getting laid.
The series is a product of its time and then some, rife with perverse fanservice, needless violence, and bawdy jokes. But then again, Kanta, filthy as he is, is a product of the inhospitable land that raised him, like all the other characters. Standards of human decency hardly seem to matter in a world this brutal, and the Great Kanto Desert looks like hard knocks for sure.
9 Sunday Without God Presents A World Where The Dead Won't Die
Immortality has often been a central theme in fantasy stories and is rarely cast in a positive light. Angelic creatures and gods may be immortal, but so are demons and vampires. Most recently, To Your Eternity has highlighted the pitfalls of living forever while others die around you. The fact is, mortality makes people human and time meaningful.
In Sunday Without God, the gift of death is stolen from humanity, and no one can have any children. The dead carry on despite decay and injury, living until grave keepers can lay them to permanent rest. Humanity has been abandoned by its god, and living in this world would be extremely harrowing.
8 The Abyss Will Give You The Bends and Traumatize You For Good Measure (Made In Abyss)
The world is full of secret, dark places that mankind has no access to. The Mariana Trench is vastly unexplored, and the depths of the ocean are as mysterious as the depths of outer space. Given this knowledge, the central setting in Made In Abyss feels especially poignant. A civilization structured around expeditions into a mysterious, neverending pit full of monsters and secrets is an unsettling place to live.
Even before protagonist Riko dives into the Abyss, the Abyss has claimed her mother and countless others. And with every layer of descent, the abyss becomes less inhabitable. Most terrifying is the fact that once a person has grown accustomed to the depths, leaving again can be fatal.
7 Neo-Tokyo Is A Future Best Avoided (Akira)
Science fiction has long been established as the genre of cautionary tales. While few sci-fi series attempt to accurately depict the future, creators often extrapolate on the present within a sci-fi universe as a form of criticism. Dystopias should be frightening because it's not hard to see how humanity could create them and has created them.
In the case of Akira, Neo-Tokyo is representative of the plight of Japanese citizens in the 20th century. In the wake of the Second World War, Japan became the first nation to deal with catastrophic nuclear fallout. Generations of lives were changed, and society was as well. It's not surprising that in Akira, Akira's explosion is reminiscent of these events. And it's not surprising that society is altered forever after, torn between grief and greed, almost uninhabitable but all too familiar to its citizens.
6 Dorohedoro Is Fun To Watch But Would Be Hell To Live In
There's no doubt that Hole, the primary setting of Dorohedoro, is an excellent backdrop for a post-apocalyptic romp. A city inhabited by human beings who are often experimented on by sorcerors from another realm, Hole is every filthy city street in the world gone haywire. Yes, there's standard grime, but also the debris left behind by violent sorcerors who actively transform human beings into monsters.
Caiman, the lizard-headed main character, works in a hospital alongside a doctor who tries to address the deformed victims of sorcerors. Once a year, the dead rise from the ground thanks to the toxic magic haze in the air, wreaking devastation. And all of this is normal, and, if not accepted, tolerated. And in the sorcerer realm where life is supposedly better? People are just as violent and sometimes turn into mushrooms, so it's hardly an improvement.
5 The Sybil System Is Inherently Broken (Psycho-Pass)
Anyone familiar with the works of seminal sci-fi author Philip K. Dick could tell you: it's not a great idea to build a society on a psychic artificial intelligence system. But in Psycho-Pass, much as in the case of Minority Report, that's exactly what's happened.
In 22nd century Japan, the Sybil System is an AI hivemind that dictates each individual's place in wider society, using precognition to determine future crimes and bad intentions. While the system is objective, it also entirely lacks empathy and determines the fate of citizens without mercy.
4 Grace Field House Is Bad News (The Promised Neverland)
Orphans always have it rough in fiction, but the cast of The Promised Neverland is especially unfortunate. And any viewer with an ounce of sense can tell immediately that Grace Field House, beautiful as it pretends to be, is bad news.
The orphanage is in actuality a plantation, raising children to be devoured by demons who have the run of wider society. There's no easy way to escape Grace Field House or Mama, its sinister caretaker. Perhaps the most upsetting reality of Grace Field House is the way it presents itself as a haven when the truth is despicable.
3 Hey, You Got Dystopia In My Utopia (No. 6)
Shion's life in No. 6 is actually a pretty nice one. He receives all the resources he'd ever need, an education and beautiful surroundings. Built in the wake of an apocalypse, No. 6 was built as one of six utopian sanctuaries.
But as in the real world, the luxuries Shion takes for granted come at the expense of others' suffering. The world beyond the walls of this utopia is a dangerous and fraught one, where humanity lives in poverty and devastation. Once this becomes apparent to Shion, there's no way to live in a utopia without feeling sickened by it.
2 An Empty Battlefield Is No Place To Grow Up (Girls' Last Tour)
Something awful has happened to the world. What, precisely, isn't entirely certain, as Girls' Last Tour explores the wake of a tragedy rather than the tragedy itself. Two girls ride a Kettenkrad tank across the remains of a broken landscape in the snow, scavenging for food and fighting to survive.
But, though the show is beautiful and the girls are admirable, it's hard for an audience not to wonder what they can possibly accomplish, growing up in a world that's vanished. The girls live in the present because the future has been obliterated.
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For many fans of the series, the revelation that the majority of Attack on Titan is actually set on a penal colony was as mindblowing as it was believable. Suddenly, the worldbuilding makes more sense, the origin of titans is explained, and the world is so much vaster than any of the characters or audience truly knew.
In essence, every single person who lives on Paradis Island is an Eldian, a human capable of becoming a titan in a world where few can. Banished and isolated to Paradis Island, newcomers are always felons who've been forcibly transformed into mindless monsters as punishment. As dystopian worlds go, it doesn't get much darker than being raised in a prison.