Disaster movies and TV series are always fun to watch from the perspective of the events not actually being something that affects the audience. Even the disasters that feel possible, like earthquakes, floods, fires, etc., feel a degree or two removed by the fact that it’s on a screen.
Two anime have played with the same kind of disasters in Japan Sinks 2020 and Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, with a devastating earthquake happening in each one. The characters are put in horrible situations as they try to survive following the horrors of the quake. While Japan Sinks 2020 has a lot of strong points, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 handles some of the subject matter even better.
10 Japan Sinks 2020: The Score
The music in Japan Sinks 2020 does a lot to set the mood of the series. It’s sometimes eerily perky, particularly with scenes of the family together, being happy to see each other and that everyone’s alive and okay.
The often chipper tone to the score juxtaposed against the carnage and devastation visually seen in the series does a lot to make the world seem off-kilter, which is a perfect tone for a country trying to make sense of their entire world literally being turned upside-down.
9 Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Pacing
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 does some really interesting things with the pacing of the series. After the initial earthquake, which levels parts of the city and causes mass devastation and death, it’s actually a pretty quiet show.
The pacing is very methodical and slow, and it doesn’t seem to be rushing anywhere, as it considers the very real tedium that would probably be involved with trying to find survivors and safety after a natural disaster. This slow pace also means that the ramp-up of activity at the end of the series feels even more exciting and heart-pounding since it’s so much different from the rest of the show.
8 Japan Sinks 2020: Topical
With everything going on in the world, it’s difficult to think of a series about a disaster that kills a lot of people being something that anyone would want to watch. But it’s also sort of comforting because of that.
While the series was certainly in production before the world shut down, the fact that the family in it comes together to support each other and take care of each other is strangely touching, even amidst all of the devastation. And for a series that’s based on a novel from the '70s, it’s even more impressive that it has managed to seem so topical.
7 Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Realistic
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 has very carefully researched exactly what would happen if a huge earthquake hit Tokyo. The series even acknowledges in the episodes that the production team looked at the research that makes guesses at how things might go down.
This realism lends a lot to the sense of terror and apprehension in the anime, since this information allows the audience to really look at what could happen if this earthquake were a reality.
6 Japan Sinks 2020: Animation
The animation in Japan Sinks is incredible. The series doesn’t veer away from the violence and carnage that can happen in an earthquake of this magnitude, and there are definitely a lot of really horrifying images.
But the animation of the characters as they move and run has a lot in common with other Masaaki Yuasa works, particularly Devilman Crybaby, which features the same kind of kinetic, wild animation style.
5 Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Good Use Of CGI
CGI is very often not very good-looking in anime series, and it’s regularly criticized for not coming out very well. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 doesn’t use it for the entirety of the series, and instead picks and chooses when the storytelling is best suited for it.
This careful decision-making allows for the CGI to be especially well-done as well, since there can be more focus on it being done well. And it accents the animation of the rest of the series, instead of overpowering or distracting from it.
4 Japan Sinks 2020: Emotional Impact
Japan Sinks 2020 spends a lot of time building the relationships between the main characters, who are a family of four working together to stay alive and find other survivors. Even in the very first episode, there’s a ton of emotional resonance as the family reunites, having been separated for school and work when the earthquake first hit.
These relationships carry through the series and make the devastation and death around them even more impactful and heartbreaking.
3 Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Great Ending
The ending of Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is incredibly powerful. The series has a slow build, as previously mentioned, so the sudden impact and excitement of the last few episodes are overwhelming and intense.
It’s a great ending to a series about a natural disaster, which is characterized by a lot of time being quiet and then suddenly having to react to something awful happening. The slow pace of the show really makes the ending more powerful and emotional as well.
2 Japan Sinks 2020: Masaaki Yuasa
Masaaki Yuasa is one of the best-known and renowned anime directors out there right now, and for good reason. He’s best known for his work on series like Devilman Crybaby, Samurai Champloo, The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl, and he even worked as an animator on the Studio Ghibli film My Neighbors the Yamadas and directed an episode of Adventure Time.
Yuasa’s particular eye for kinetic motion and often horrifying visuals make him a standout choice in just about all of his work, and Japan Sinks 2020 definitely benefits from his vision.
1 Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Endearing Characters
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 has a regularly occurring trope in disaster movies in which kids get paired up with an adult who is not their parent. In this case, the two main characters, Mirai and Yuuki, end up in the guardianship of a motorcycle delivery girl named Mari.
Mirai is a pessimist who thinks that all of this has happened because of her bad luck, while her brother Yuuki is her foil, a hopeless optimist who knows that they’re going to be okay. Marai serves as a perfect guardian for the two, remaining levelheaded despite the circumstances. Marai is one of many characters viewers find themselves rooting for in this disaster anime.