Thread: Darkest Anime

You can't read anime (except for the subtitles or on-screen text of course).

Let's start off with Elfen Lied shall we? Young girls being abused, heavy doses of both physical and mental anguish. Girls abused by their parents. Cold scientists who test special abilities by firing metal balls at a girl's face at increased speed.

Good family time.

Barefoot Gen will ALWAYS have this title by the balls. It's the sort of thing that burns itself into your retinas. It's hard to imagine something worse than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima... but Gen manages to make pre-war Japan seem nearly just as hellish (and rightly so).

Grave of the Fireflies is Barefoot Gen for pussies.

Isn't it a lot about POST-war Japan as well?

Originally Posted by Hassun

Isn't it a lot about POST-war Japan as well?

The manga spends a double-volume pre-war (the anime, about 30 minutes), climaxes with the bombing of Hiroshima at the end of the first double-volume... most of the rest of the series deals with the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima (the actual surrender was a week and another bomb coming...)

Yeah I read most of the manga and I own both the anime feature films.
I just remember seeing a lot more on the situation during the war and after the bombing than before it. Which wasn't a bouquet full of fun either of course.
The first Barefoot Gen anime film is important to me as it is the first anime I've ever seen.
Powerful stuff indeed. Though it never hit me all that hard as far as I know (or maybe I just became too twisted from seeing it at a young age ). Even when visiting both Nagasaki and Hiroshima's war memorials and museums.

Ah, both Hassun and Tsurara-san brings up some good titles. Elfen Lied is dark yet there were really funny comical moments that gave you a good feeling. The gap in the two worlds is what makes it good. Barefoot Gen....*shivers* Watched it when I was a kid, I refuse to remember any more. (~_~)

As for me I guess I find "When They Cry" (higurashi no naku koro ni) to be dark. A village that was to be demolished for a dam construction and the mystery of all the workers, etc. gone "missing". As the new kid in the village starts to look into the village's secrets he meets an unfortunate fate...in various ways. Creepy.

Grumble Grumble Grumble

Now if you want a really really dark anime series, then the series called 'Now and Then, Here and There', (Ima, Sokoni Iru Boku) which covers such delightful subjects as the exploitation of children soldiers, child rape and torture, and mob lynchings, would be the top of my 'brutal' anime list. The director Akitaro Daichi (who also did 'Fruits Basket', 'Kodocha', 'Jubei-chan' and 'Animation Runner Kuromi') must have had a big chip on his shoulders to prove to the world that he could direct something that was dark and serious...