Who doesn’t love a post-apocalyptic world? Seemingly no one. It is a pervasive genre, even winding its way into anime. We, as in humanity, seem to have a bit of an obsession with our own demise. Perhaps because we fear it so much, but more likely we are enthralled by the thought that if society were to die, so, too, would all those rules and routines.
I know. It’s deep, right?
Regardless, storytellers in anime love a post-apocalyptic setting because it allows them to explore the human psyche when stressed in a world that is terrifying, obsessive, or too advanced for its own good. So if you are looking to do a little escaping to the end of the world, give these post-apocalyptic anime recommendations a try.
Best Post-Apocalyptic Anime
Chrome Shelled Regios
The world has ended and is overrun with Filth Monsters. Humanity lives in mobile cities called Regios and use Dite weapons to defend themselves. Layfon is a student hoping to forget a brutal past, but his abilities catch the attention of fellow students and they attempt to recruit him into their battle group.
Mostly, Chrome Shelled Regios is an anime that gets way too caught up in giving everything very stupid “anime” names, like how the monsters are called Filth Monsters and those who fight them are called Heavens-Blade wielders or how every character looks like their name was picked by throwing Scrabble tiles. Yet, if you can look past all that, Chrome Shelled Regios creates a pretty intriguing dead world where humans live in domed cities and are trying to reclaim their land. It is a shame that they don’t focus more it instead of the characters.
Blue Gender
In the distant future, humanity has been replaced on the top of the food chain by a bug-like alien race called Blue that forced them off of their planet. Now operating from a space station, humans strike back at the aliens, but their best hope might just lie on their old home.
Although older, Blue Gender perfectly captures the bleakness of existence that should be present in the post-apocalyptic setting. However, while the thoroughly ravaged Earth is explored, as is Second Earth, the space station where humanity retreated after the giant bugs attacked and pushed humans off the planet, the setting of Blue Gender shines only a fraction as much as its characterization.
If not for its fully fleshed out characters, Blue Gender would be just another story about how one man saved humanity.
Gibiate
In the year 2030, Earth has been overrun by a disease that turns humans into freakish monsters. Joining a small group searching for a cure are a samurai and ninja transported from the Edo period. Their skills in battle turn the tide for this struggling small group.
It was perhaps a bit tone death to air this bad beast in 2020, but I guess pandemic anime in a pandemic seemed like a good idea to someone. Regardless, this is a reverse isekai in which three Edo period warriors are brought to 2030 and end up fighting humans that are turned into monsters by a virus. Plot-wise, it’s not the best series, but it has some solid bits of action.
Humanity Has Declined
After constantly declining birth rates, human civilization is almost extinct. The few humans left now coexist with fairies who have extremely advanced technology and very little regard for humans safety. The story follows a mediator between humans and fairies that tries to make it so both races can live peacefully.
In this world, humanity is running short of supplies so, in their need, they turn to the help of whimsical fairies that are able to make what they need. The fact that they managed to create such an upbeat anime that also features a vaguely bleak dying world is actually really quite praise-worthy.
Wolf’s Rain
In a dying world, there is a legend: when the world ends, the path to paradise will open, but only wolves can find the way. Long thought extinct, wolves live among humans with the the ability to shape-shift into human forms. In Freeze City, several wolves find themselves drawn by a mysterious scent that they believe is the start of their path to paradise.
Wolf’s Rain is a rare breed, mostly because it is about wolves that shape-shift into human. However, it also has a post-apocalyptic setting made all the more depressing by the main character who isn’t exactly a ray of sunshine. Throughout the show, you get to see a fair bit of the world that actually doesn’t look too different from our own. However, it is perhaps the most realistic post-apocalypse world in which everything is slowly dying.
No. 6
After a series of bloody wars, humanity retreated into six city-states. However, while everything seemed peaceful and perfect to the elite of these cities, the poor suffered. One day, Shion, a resident of the elite, encountered Nezumi, a fugitive from outside the utopia. After taking him in, Shion and his family were forced from their home and now learn the ugly side of their society.
In No. 6 you have a world that features both a utopia and a post-apocalyptic wasteland that are ultimately brought together through the two main characters, an elite resident of the utopia city and a fugitive fleeing the wasteland. Essentially you get to see the inevitable dark side of the utopia after events transpire and the elite resident loses his status.
Girls’ Last Tour
With all civilization dead, only Chito and Yuuri remain. Together they decide to hop on their motorbike and wander aimlessly looking for their next meal and fuel. Despite a bleak existence, they remain each other’s light in this dead world.
Now who says the apocalypse has to be unhappy? That’s the stance that Girls’ Last Tour tries to take, but while it is wholesome and cute, there is something pervasively sad about everything in the dead and decaying corpse of the world. It drops tidbits about why the world ended throughout the story instead of one large exposition, which alone makes it interesting to watch and unravel.
Dr. Stone
One day, all of humanity was engulfed in light and mysteriously petrified. After a few millennia, two high schoolers awaken and find themselves in a wild world. These two set out to cure those still frozen and kick start civilization.
This apocalypse came in the form of everyone on Earth getting petrified until one series of natural events happened to line up just perfectly in order to un-petrify one of the smartest young students that was alive. While the world becoming untamed again is interesting, the best part of Dr. Stone is watching human civilization advance through scientific invention.
Desert Punk
The Great Kanto Desert is all the remains of Japan after the apocalypse. While barren and seemingly dead, many carve out a meager life here. One such person is the Desert Punk, a handyman with a legendary reputation for always finishing the job no matter what.
Desert Punk takes place in a futuristic Japan that has turned completely into a desert. Of course, it is more likely most of Japan will be swallowed up by rising seas before it becomes a desert, but this is the setting that we are left with here. This particular series follows a bounty hunter as he goes about his business catching bad guys and chasing skirt. While it tends to focus on comedy much of the time, it is fascinating to see the kind of people that carved out a life in desert Japan.
Coppelion
After a nuclear meltdown creates a catastrophe in Tokyo, the city becomes a ghost town. 20 years later, a distress signal is received from the area despite high levels of radiation. The special unit Coppelion is dispatched, but why can they withstand the radiation without a suit.
Tokyo is a city that attracts great disaster like Godzilla attracts other Kaiju. In Coppelion, you see Tokyo go through yet another meltdown, this time, a nuclear one! Throughout the series you follow three, surprisingly radiation-free cute girls that wander around ravaged Tokyo looking for survivors. There are a few things that could be better in Coppelion, but that post-nuclear scenery is not one of them. It is top-notch.
Now and Then, Here and There
Shu is a typical Japanese boy, but when he sees a mysterious girl atop a smokestack, he follows her and is pulled into a strange desert world. It is here that Shu is forced to discover a world filled with the tragedies of war. Genocide, torture, hunger, and thirst are abound, but Shu is determined to try and save the girl that he saw.
Nothing says the world has declined like child militia! That is just one of the many ways that Now and Then, Here and There shows off how the world of the post-apocalypse can be such a terrible place. This anime takes place in a world where war is not only a near constant event, but the world has turned into a desert and precious water is hard to come by. For the main character, it is a struggle, especially since he is also familiar with a world that has not yet been so devastated.
Ergo Proxy
After the explosion of the methane hydrate layer, humanity was forced into a select few domed cities where society is strictly controlled. To assist humanity, autonomous robots called AutoReivs were spread throughout the cities. Enter Re-L Mayer, granddaughter of the regent, and charged with investigating a series of cases in which the AutoReivs have gone haywire. In her investigation she comes in contact with a mysterious monster called Proxy. After meeting a man called Vincent Law that was blamed for several of the incidents, the pair strike out across the wasteland to unravel the mysteries of the Cogito Virus.
Throughout Ergo Proxy and main character Re-L’s investigation, you see a fair bit of the ravaged world. From the inside of the domed cities to the ruined exterior beyond, much is shown off in Ergo Proxy, but little is explained. While how the world got destroyed is barely touched on, the philosophical concepts explored in the plot can give you a pretty good answer.
Attack on Titan
Facing imminent extinction, humanity retreated behind a series of tall, thick walls to escape their most dangerous threat – massive human-like Titans with a taste for human flesh. With an enemy that eats humanity for fun rather than food, they are constantly threatened. As such, it is the duty of every human to defend the species. Enter Eren Yegaer who, after his village was destroyed by Titans breaching the outer wall, he and his adopted sister Mikasa join the Survey Corps. They are one of three factions of the military that scouts and combats Titans outside the walls. After joining in the brutal war, Eren discovers a secret about himself that could unravel what the world thinks they know about Titans.
A major part of what made Attack on Titan so popular was its world. I mean who couldn’t get behind a world where giant, naked, genital-free humanoids are trying to eat the rest of humanity that has holed up behind a wall? It is a terrifying and original concept as well as one that is well-executed even as it goes a bit off the rails.
Seraph of the End
After a mysterious virus killed every human over 13 years old, the vampires rose up with a promise to protect the survivors. The only thing they asked in return is donations of blood. For Yuuichirou and Mikaela, they have grown tired of being livestock and pose a daring escape plan. It ultimately fails with only Yuuichirou left alive. However, after joining up with a mercenary company, he swears vengeance on the vampires, no matter the cost.
Not unlike Attack on Titan, Seraph of the End presents another interesting world. However, instead of giant cannibals, Seraph of the End uses a monster that is a little more played out – vampires. In this series, all adults over a certain age died from a virus. Afterwards, when the world is only comprised of children, the vampires rise and promise to take care of them in exchange for blood. Naturally, as the children grow and realize their independence, it doesn’t go down so well.
Darling in the Franxx
In the distant future, the land is ruined and humanity now lives in the mobile city, Plantation. Inside, they are defended from massive life forms by children raised from birth to pilot robots called Franxx in boy-girl pairs. This story follows Hiro, once a prodigy, and now a failure. However, just as he was about to be cast aside, he meets a mysterious girl with horns that is a Franxx pilot dubbed The Partner Killer.
While Darling in the Franxx gets a little lost in the plot it seemed to be telling by the end, the beginning focuses on a mobile fortress housing humanity that is, of course, guarded by sacrificial children in mechs. While it has its fair share of expected drama on the subject, it also has a lot of unexpected cute character moments.
Trigun
Vash the Stampede is a heinous criminal with a huge bounty on his head. Known as the “Human Typhoon,” he brings destruction wherever he goes. However, when two insurance agents finally meet him, they find out that Vash is not quite the villain so much as he is a light-hearted buffoon.
The world in Trigun actually isn’t truly a post-apocalyptic world. In this series, humanity left the Earth that it ruined and actually ended up on another planet. So while everything may look ruined and rather run down, it is actually just the slow colonization process of a new planet.
From the New World
After the sudden outbreak of psychokinesis, the .01% of the population that developed it started using their powers for nefarious means. Far into the future, the town of Kamisu 66 is wholly populated by psychics with the young Saki being one of the most recent to awaken her powers. Finally she can join the rest of her friends at the Sage Academy. However, her school days are plagued with questions that threaten to unravel the dark secrets of her idyllic village.
What makes From the New World so special is that it takes place far, far into the future. The apocalypse happened somewhere in between and the remnants of the people that survived have already stabilized their society again. However, the joy of the series is unraveling all the terrible things that happened and continue to happen in the world.
Toppa Tengen Gurren Lagann
Simon and Kamina were living boring lives in their deep underground village when, on an excavation dig, they find a mysterious object that turns out to be the ignition key to an ancient war machine. With their new weapon, the pair are able to fend off an attack from above, but upon catching a glimpse of the sky, they set off on an adventure that will take them out of this universe.
While Toppa Tengen Gurren Lagann tends to focus on other things, like giant robots fighting, there is no denying that the world it is set in is in a bad way. Most normal humans live in underground villages where it is safe from the beastmen that roam the surface. From there, you watch two dudes and a robot take humanity above and beyond.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
The world is on the brink of destruction following the landing of the Angels, massive monsters that want nothing more than to kill and destroy. The only hope lies with the select few that can pilot government agency Nerv’s special Evangelion-type mechs. The pilot must be compatible in order to pilot the Evangelions, and for Nerv leader, Gendo Ikari, one of those compatible few is his son, Shinji. With the fate of mankind on his shoulders and fights that often mean death for the pilots, is 14-year-old Shinji up to the task?
You apparently can’t have giant mechs without a world in deep peril and many, many buildings to destroy. Apparently the future Tokyo in Neon Genesis Evangelion never runs out of buildings to smash or angst to explore.
Fist of the North Star
After being betrayed and left for dead, martial arts master Kenshiro now wanders the post-apocalyptic world looking for his rival Shin, the man that kidnapped his fiancé.
Ah, the original post-apocalypse anime. Fist of the North Star is like Mad Max, but with more exploding heads and Bruce Lee-esque screaming. Fist of the North Star is a long and slightly repetitive series, but it is one that shows you a lot of its world. Not only do you get to see gangs of interesting, terrible people as well as those versed in a variety of martial arts, but it is all set in an utter wasteland. It really is like the Mad Max of Japan.
Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet
In the distant future, humanity has abandoned a ruined Earth and now lives in the furthest reaches of space fighting their eternal enemy, the Hideauze. During one of their massive space battles, a young soldier named Ledo and his mecha Chamber are flung through a warp hole into space. He crash lands on a strange planet that is covered completely in water. To his surprise, he finds that other humans also live there aboard massive fleets of boats. Found by the Gargantia fleet, Ledo must navigate this strange new world.
There are few anime worlds more interesting than Gargantia. First, you are introduced to a universe where humanity is exiled to space and lives in a constant state of war with a particular species of alien life. The only reprieve for soldiers is the dangling carrot of a utopia where they go to relax and breed. However, when the main character is flung out into space, he lands on a planet that is all water and where humans live like Kevin Costner in Waterworld on fleets of boats that take the place of land. On top of that, due to the civilization that came before, there is like another world under the water, too.
It is like a science fiction sightseeing tour.
The Promised Neverland
Grace Fields House is a home for orphans. However, even though they have no blood families, they are all one big family. That is, until the age of twelve when they are adopted out. The kids also know that they are not allowed outside the fenced yard, but one day, two children break that rule. They then discover that the children who are “adopted” are actually subjected to something much darker.
The interesting bit about The Promised Neverland is that you aren’t actually sure the world has ended until after the first season because it takes place in what is essentially a factory farm for humans. However, aside from knowing that humans are no longer the apex predator of the world, you only discover how bad it is as the children make their escape.
Black Bullet
In the year 2021, a parasitic virus has ravaged humanity by turning them into monsters, driving the remaining humans into massive walled cities. However, while a special metal can keep these monsters at bay and fight them, children are already being born with the virus dormant within them. It is decided that these “cursed children” are humanity’s best hope for fighting the virus.
As is tradition in many apocalypse anime, humanity was destroyed by a virus that turned them into monsters. As is also tradition, those monsters are then fought by special hybrids. Black Bullet doesn’t necessarily do anything super innovative with all that, but it fills a hole left by similar series.
God Eater
Humanity has been pushed back to the edge of extinction by the fierce man-eating monster known as Aragami. While they feature immunity to traditional weapons, special cell infused humans called God Eaters have the power to fight them. However, can these fighters beat the monsters before humanity is destroyed?
In the very same vein as Black Bullet, God Eater tells a very familiar story. It has some flashier animation behind it, but if you aren’t a fan of the game it was based on, this can be a bit boring.
Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress
During the industrial revolution of their world, a monster appeared that cannot be killed unless pierced through its iron-protected heart. Those who are bitten by the creature become zombies know as Kabane. On the island of Hinomoto, humanity has built stations to seek refuge from these creatures. Ikoma lives at a station that brings supplies to the island and has created a weapon he believes can fight these creatures. While waiting for a chance to test it, he meets a mysterious girl named Mumei. After following her, he might just get the chance he desires.
You know how Wit Studio made Attack on Titan? Well, this was the second anime they made, and it is very similar to Attack on Titan – the first season, anyways. Beautifully animated and with some interesting action, Kabaneri is actually a little closer to your standard zombie apocalypse story if zombies were a bit sturdier.
Casshern Sins
With the world over and humanity gone, all that is left is sentient robots. They were supposed to live forever, but as they begin to rust and die, a rumor goes around that eating one called Casshern will stop their passing. Casshern, the target of their intentions, knows nothing of his past, but leaves death everywhere he goes as he is constantly hunted.
This Casshern reboot is one of the rare beasts that forces the one who ended the world to deal with the consequences. Casshern is a robot responsible for wiping out humanity and essentially causing the other robots of the world to slowly die. Much of his journey is discovering the why of it all, since he does not remember.
Planetarian
After the Space Colonization Program, Earth has been abandoned and humanity is near extinction. A deadly rain permanently falls on Earth and the only people alive, known as “Junkers”, continuously scavenge the ruins. One Junker sneaks alone into a dangerous part of Sarcophagus City where he meets Yumeni, a robot companion. She mistakes him for a customer in her planetarium and tries to show him the stars, but the projector is broken. Pitying her, he tries to fix it.
On the lighter side of the apocalypse, Planetarian tells you how much of humanity was met with ruin. It then quickly tells you to forget about all that and focus on a customer service robot telling stories to some random scavenger. Surrounded by decay, it is surprisingly light-hearted.
WorldEnd
It has been five hundred years since humanity went extinct at the hands of the mysterious beasts that roam the land. Now the surviving races have retreated to floating islands in the sky out of reach of most of the beasts. However, there are ones nimble enough to put these people in danger. A small group of young girls, a race called the Leprechauns, are now raised as the only ones that can wield ancient weapons to fend off invasion by the beasts, but it often requires them to sacrifice themselves and they don’t often live to see adulthood. Enter Willem, the last surviving human woken from his slumber and sent to watch over these girls, still feeling the sting from the final battle where he lost everything five hundred years ago.
WorldEnd takes place in a fantasy world where humans caused the surface to become unlivable and overrun with giant monsters, so the fantasy races and beast people fled to floating islands and let humanity become functionally extinct. It is cheerier looking than many post-apocalypse series here, but if you enjoy sadness, it has plenty of that.
Deca-Dence
Driven to the point of extinction by creatures known as the Gadoll, humanity now lives out of a large mobile fortress known as Deca-Dence. Inside, the residents are separated into Gears, warriors that fight the Gadoll, and Tankers who maintain the fortress. Natsume, a Tanker, has dreams of becoming a Gear, but is forced into armor repair where she meets a surly senpai named Kaburagi that has more skills than he lets on.
Without spoiling anything, Deca-Dence isn’t how it looks at a glance. It is a post-apocalyptic story about humans in a mobile fortress, but that’s not all there is to it. In its way, it breaths a little new life into this occasionally stale and over-saturated setting.
7 Seeds
With extinction-level meteors heading towards Earth, the government attempted to preserve humanity with the 7 Seeds Program. In this program, several teams of young people were established, frozen, and to be woken up in the future after the planet is livable again. However, the world these children wake up in is wild and dangerous where they appear to be the only humans left.
Many apocalypses (apocalypsi?) on this list are pretty tame. Even if the world is kind of trashed, humans or some kind of creature still live and form some sort of society. 7 Seeds is less kind. There are less than 30 humans left in all of Japan, they woke them all up at different times to make it hard mode, and they are all spread out in a world dead for hundreds of years that has reverted into an unfriendly pre-historic state.
Do you know more anime recommendations that take place in the post-apocalypse? Let fans know in the comments section below.
