List of SciFi Anime

[AndroAsc]

Let's all check in to see if there has been any scifi anime that we might have missed. With the dearth of scifi TV, I think I'm taking a look back to anime.

Off the top of my head, in no particular order
1) Legend of the Galactic Heroes - Great space opera, probably the largest space battle scenes in sci-fi anime, great stuff in general.
2) Robotech - Another good space opera with huge battles. My preference for the 1st and 3rd season.
3) Macross, Macross 7, etc - Basically what Robotech ripped off their 1st season from. I didn't really like Macross 7, as they took the entire music bullshit too far. There's a few other anime OVAs based on the classic macross era.
4) Macross Zero, Macross Frontier - More recent macross anime. Zero had only a few OVAs, Frontier lasted only one season only. Watchable.
5) Gundam (the older ones) - Tried watching the first gundam and it was kind of cheesy. There's a few newer gundam anime that seems to be centered around some gladiator-style duel... which did not catch my interest.
6) Gundam SEED, Gundam SEED Destiny - More recent gundam anime. Despite taking place only in the solar system, it's a pretty good watch with some nice space battles.
7) Ghost in the Shell - Cyberpunk genre. The anime movies were good, the anime series were even better. No space opera but definitely futuristic.
EXO Squad - America's answer to sci-fi Japanese anime space opera, and a good one at that. Lasted only two seasons sadly.

Did I miss out anything?

[Ford Prefect]

Did I miss out anything?

Yes.

[Kingmaker]

I think you missed most of them.

If you want something specific, Cowboy Bebop, TTGL, NGE, Birdy the Mighty, Space Battleship Yamato, and Serial Experiments Lain are all fairly notable ones that occur to me off the top of my head. I can't attest to their quality in all cases, though.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

These are kinda obvious, I thought: Akira, Appleseed, FLCL, and Outlaw Star. I was going to mention Ghost in the Shell, but then I re-read your post and saw that I had missed it.

Hell, most of the anime that I can think of is sci-fi in one way or another.

[Formless]

That's because a lot of the anime that are popular outside of Japan have some kind of sci-fi or fantasy elements in them (or both at once). Not all, but a disproportionate number of them. There are still more romantic and comedic anime in existence than you can shake a stick at, its just that as a rule they aren't skull-numbingly famous like Dragonball Z or Poke`mon. Granted, I'm not sure what genre that second one belongs to...

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

^ I don't doubt it, there's probably some selection bias on my end, too, as I tend to notice sci-fi more than other genres.

[lordofchange13]

That's because a lot of the anime that are popular outside of Japan have some kind of sci-fi or fantasy elements in them (or both at once). Not all, but a disproportionate number of them. There are still more romantic and comedic anime in existence than you can shake a stick at, its just that as a rule they aren't skull-numbingly famous like Dragonball Z or Poke`mon. Granted, I'm not sure what genre that second one belongs to...

Pokemon seems to fit more in to science fantasy then anything else.

[Swindle1984]

My favorites (most or all have already been mentioned):

Cowboy Bebop
Trigun
Outlaw Star
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (haven't seen the second series or the movies yet)
Akira
Macross and Macross Zero (haven't seen the other series)
Mobile Suit Gundam, 08th MS Team, War in the Pocket, Char's Counterattack (the Universal Century universe is the best; all the Gundam series set in alternate universes like Wing, SEED, etc. just suck for some reason.)
Neon Genesis Evangelion (good for a mindfuck, especially once the budget and the director's meds run out; originally a fantastic deconstruction of the giant robot genre, but now so many shows imitate it that it's lost what made it unique)
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (don't laugh, it really is a sci-fi series; particularly in the light novels where it delves into obscure scientific theories, philosophical concepts, etc. Kion insists that he's just an average student, has no romantic interest in Haruhi, and gave up his desire for sci-fi/fantasy adventure, but he's obviously an example of the Unreliable Narrator.)

[Sriad]

There seems to be a tendency to "this anime I like is SF instead of F because they throw technobabble in with their magic" present. I like TTGL and Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (almost) as much as the next guy, but if those are Science Fiction than so are the Young Wizards books and X-men comics.

Maybe my border between Science Fiction and Fantasy is a bit arbitrary (what makes those F and Akira or NGE SF? Hard to put my finger on it other than tone), but that line always is.

[Ahriman238]

How is it, on this board, no one has mentioned Space Battleship Yamato yet? Or does anyone want to dispute it being SF?

There was another, I really liked it but I'm stumped remembering the name. A planetary government was destroyed, and that was left was a ship full of cadets, who fight a one-ship war getting their resources from a private company, in return for airing their battles as a reality show. Does anyone else remember this?

[Simon_Jester]

How is it, on this board, no one has mentioned Space Battleship Yamato yet? Or does anyone want to dispute it being SF?

I think you missed most of them.

If you want something specific, Cowboy Bebop, TTGL, NGE, Birdy the Mighty, Space Battleship Yamato, and Serial Experiments Lain are all fairly notable ones that occur to me off the top of my head. I can't attest to their quality in all cases, though.

Don't ask me...

[Stark]

Wasn't this thread made redundant by the first and second replies? What's the point of adding 'lists of anime I like, regardless of whether its already been mentioned' when there are two giant lists of huge scope already in the thread?

It's hilarious that nerds are saying Pokemon is 'fantasy' instead of 'scifi' when it has portable pocket universe machines and dedicated scientific investigation throughout. Has dragon = is fantasy?

[Vendetta]

Has dragon = is fantasy?

ZOMG Dragginz = fantasy
ZOMG Spaceships = Sci-fi
Both = ZOMG genre busting.


Now you know.

[Stark]

What about demons? Heaps of anime has demons, and demons are 'fantastic' things. What about shit like Carnaki where guys use 'scientific' occultism or mythologised shit that is treated in a scientific way?

But 40K is full of demons!

[Ahriman238]

How is it, on this board, no one has mentioned Space Battleship Yamato yet? Or does anyone want to dispute it being SF?

I think you missed most of them.

If you want something specific, Cowboy Bebop, TTGL, NGE, Birdy the Mighty, Space Battleship Yamato, and Serial Experiments Lain are all fairly notable ones that occur to me off the top of my head. I can't attest to their quality in all cases, though.

Don't ask me...

Whoops. Was sure I hadn't seen it, even checked so I didn't make an idiot of myself. DOn't know how I missed it twice over. Sorry.

So, any idea about the other show I mentioned? It's driving me a bit nuts.

[Nanaki]

No love for PLANETES?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

There seems to be a tendency to "this anime I like is SF instead of F because they throw technobabble in with their magic" present. I like TTGL and Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (almost) as much as the next guy, but if those are Science Fiction than so are the Young Wizards books and X-men comics.

The Random Noun of Haruhi Suzumiya is pretty hard sci-fi for a magical anti-girlfriend show; if you assume that the entire universe is the "Data Entity's" version of Dwarf Fortress (if DF were written by IE6 programmers) . . . only some faction of dwarves have spontaneously built a fine-grained simulation of the fine-grained simulation they live in (somehow allowing them access to the history of the simulation,) and one of the dwarves has somehow completely circumvented the underlying operating system's memory access protection scheme, has modified the game during run-time, and managed to make a great big mess of things.

That's not even getting into the causality headaches induced by all the time travel that goes on . . .

[Broken]

Couple other series for you:

Crest/Banner of the Stars - For all your non-Macross space weapon spam, look no further.
Scrapped Princess - Sci-fi masquerading as fantasy (although the execution is like fantasy, the Sci-fi elements are background for the most part. The entire plot could have easily been pure fantasy with a few minor tweaks)

[sirocco]

There's also the anime "Wings of Honneamise" which is the space race in an Alternative Earth and "Planetes" which is a little more down to Earth.

[StarSword]

Anyone for Patlabor and Appleseed?

[SylasGaunt]

How is it, on this board, no one has mentioned Space Battleship Yamato yet? Or does anyone want to dispute it being SF?

There was another, I really liked it but I'm stumped remembering the name. A planetary government was destroyed, and that was left was a ship full of cadets, who fight a one-ship war getting their resources from a private company, in return for airing their battles as a reality show. Does anyone else remember this?

Starship Operators is the one you're thinking of. It's also one of those cases where the show is pretty much all BVR combat at multi-light second distances.

[Vendetta]

What about demons? Heaps of anime has demons, and demons are 'fantastic' things. What about shit like Carnaki where guys use 'scientific' occultism or mythologised shit that is treated in a scientific way?

But 40K is full of demons!

Demons in anime?

Hentai.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I was always fond of Appleseed, the dirty pair, black magic m-66, bubblegum crisis, and akira....

[Molyneux]

There seems to be a tendency to "this anime I like is SF instead of F because they throw technobabble in with their magic" present. I like TTGL and Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (almost) as much as the next guy, but if those are Science Fiction than so are the Young Wizards books and X-men comics.

Maybe my border between Science Fiction and Fantasy is a bit arbitrary (what makes those F and Akira or NGE SF? Hard to put my finger on it other than tone), but that line always is.

Young Wizards certainly is science fiction. It has space-ships, alien races, laser cannons, spaceports, strange new worlds...
It's fantasy as well, of course, but that fantasy is handled in a very science fictiony tone - at least after the first book, and there are hints of it even there.

[AndroAsc]

I'll check out some of the other suggestions posted, I did left out a few unintentionally like Crest/Banner of the Stars and Space Battleship Yamato. However, most of the replies are obviously not sci-fi. Maybe you guys have a more lenient interpretation, but for me sci-fi means primarily space opera. There are exceptions to the rule like Ghost in the Shell.

Wikipedia's list of sci-fi anime is most definitely crap. Here's my general rules of defining sci-fi:
1) Anything involving fantasy elements (magic, religion, mysticism, dragons, vampires, Pokemon, etc...) is NOT sci-fi. Ever. Period! The genre of "science fiction fantasy" as some would call it is an abomination. I have never seen any good come from that... Example of this crap would be stuff like Lord of the Rings and even stuff like Warehouse 13 and Sanctuary that while primarily modern day setting is still polluted by non-science crap and so are not considered as sci-fi.
2) Anything that is classified as space opera is sci-fi, and most of the anime on the initial list fall under this category. Examples would be like Trek and Wars.
3) Anything that has a sufficiently futuristic setting (e.g. cyberpunk, mission to mars, etc.) may be considered as sci-fi. However, I do consider this sub-genre as "2nd-rate" sci-fi. Examples would be your typical hollywood "sci-fi" movies like Mission to Mars.
4) Anything that uses advanced technology but is not set primarily in a futuristic setting (e.g. time travel, parallel dimension) are usually NOT considered as sci-fi. Examples would be superhero movies, Sliders TV series, Doctor Who. FYI, Doctor Who barely makes it to my definition of sci-fi as only 50% of it takes place in the future setting, and the saving grace is that there is no fantasy bullshit involved.
5) Anything that has a modern world setting or near futuristic setting is not sci-fi. This would be your typically hollywood action movie.