When we die, what happens? It is one of those big questions in life. For some, it consumes them so much that, oops, they forgot to live. As one of those big questions, naturally you can expect more than a few anime series that try to tackle that question. So, according to anime, what can we expect after life?
Life After Death Anime
Angel Beats – We Go Back to High School
If you believe Angel Beats, you are sent to high school in the afterlife where you can live out the best of times in your youth. However, the catch is, this isn’t for everyone. It is just for those that didn’t get to experience their best years in their youth. Maybe they died young. Maybe they underwent a huge trauma. Maybe weren’t physically able to live a normal life. It is a kind deity to let them experience this.
Bleach – Hang Out Until You Reincarnate
In Bleach, the souls of the living go to soul society where you basically hang out in Feudal Japan until it is your turn to reincarnate. As this could take awhile, you live long and never feel hungry. Soul Society is also home to the Shinigami who are responsible for seeing the soul through safe passage and defends them from Hollows the seek to devour them.
Hell Girl – Vengeance in Equal Exchange
Hell Girl doesn’t deal much with what happens to good souls, but it does suggest that where you go is partially in human hands. In this series, a human can log onto a special website and request that their enemies get sent to hell. In exchange, their own souls must be damned as well.
Death Parade – Play a Game to Decide Your Fate
In Death Parade, humans are brought into a space to play a game to decide their whether they reincarnate or not. These games are designed to put humans in distress in order to see, what they believe, is their true nature. However, the show also examines if this system is indeed a fair one or if it creates bad traits instead.
Gantz – Fight for Your Life Against Aliens
Unfortunately for some, at the moment of death, they are made into an exact copy and sent to a small room with a big black ball. They are given sci-fi weapons and skin-tights suits, then told to go kill alien invaders. Try to leave the area and they are dead again, but even playing the game puts them at high risk of brutal death. Yet, if you can get 100 points, you are given the option to be free and go about your life.
Konosuba – Reincarnate into a Fantasy World
A lot of isekai series see character reborn in a fantasy world after their death. In Konosuba, the main character suffers from an untimely, ultimately pointless death, and is offered a chance to go to heaven or reincarnate into a fantasy world. Since most people from that harsh world are choosing to just move on instead of reincarnate, the offer is now extended to those from other worlds like him. Being a weeb, of course he thinks it sounds like fun.
Haibane Renmei – Transform
In order to fully explain the afterlife in this series, it would spoil some of the finer points of this series. Instead, let’s just say that it makes it very clear that those who emerge from the cocoons with no memories are in the afterlife. You watch them go through the painful process of sprouting wings and undergo trials so they can move on.
Hozuki’s Coolheadedness – Suffer Bureaucratically
With so many damned souls, hell needs to have the infrastructure to keep them all in line. This is a story about the bureaucracy of hell. Of course, this is Shinto hell so its not all fire and brimstone.
High School of the Dead – Become a Zombie
In a zombie apocalypse, what comes after becomes a more pressing question, but not one you have the time to ponder. Every day your life is on the line, and some people don’t make it. However, their bodies aren’t still once they die as they become zombies. Yet, is there someone still left in there?
Zombieland Saga – Become a Zombie Then a Pop Star
Not all zombie outbreaks are apocalyptic, just like not all idol groups are outbreaks! In this series, several girls from throughout the different eras of Japanese history are revived as zombies and told they will be forming an idol group to promote Saga province.
Got any more anime series with a unique take on the afterlife? Let …uh…Fans(?) know in the comments section below.
