In the near-future, rising seas have left much of human civilization underwater. For Ikaruga Natsuki, who lost his leg in an accident some years prior, he lives his disillusioned life on a almost completely abandoned island that is slowly crumbling into the sea. With no family left, he lives on his ship that his oceanologist grandmother left him and helps the small handful of children who still live on the island.
While exploring his grandmother’s now-sunken laboratory in the small submersible she left on her boat, he discovers a girl lying asleep in a coffin under the water.
When he brings her up to land, he learns that she is a robot named Atri. She also brazenly declares that she must fulfill her master’s final order. As to what that is, neither of them know.
There isn’t a lot that I would call interesting going on in this series, but still finds a way to be strangely captivating. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Atri – My Dear Memories, head on down below.
Anime Like Atri – My Dear Moments
For Fans of Slowly Falling for an Android
Plastic Memories
Tsukasa Mizugaki has failed his college entrance exams, but he manages to land a job at the Sion Artificial Intelligence Corporation.
This corporation is responsible for the creation of Giftias, or highly advanced androids which are almost indiscernible from normal humans. However, unlike humans, Giftias have a maximum lifespan of around nine years and four months.
Terminal Service One, the station Tsukasa was assigned to, is responsible for collecting Giftias that have met their expiration date, before they lose their memories and become hostile.
Similarities Between Atri and Plastic Memories
- Man meets android and slowly gets to know her as they get involved in other people’s lives
- Man slowly falls in love with android
- Something threatens to tear them apart
- Emotionally-charged stories involving loss and grief
- Slice of life and romance in a lightly sci-fi world that frequently returns to melancholy
Differences Between Atri and Plastic Memories
- Plastic Memories progresses the romance faster and further
- Plastic Memories is about a romance between a new employee and his android co-worker, so it is more workplace-focused.
- Atri is most focused on Natsuki’s sad story, Plastic Memories is more focused on the sad stories of others.
- Atri is post-apocalyptic if not a slow apocalypse-in-progress in its slowly decaying island setting, Plastic Memories is a still functioning near-future setting.
Chobits
Poor student Hideki Motosuwa can barely afford living expenses, let alone the new fad that is Persocoms. These Persocoms are computers that look exactly like humans, and are supposed to be the ultimate assistant to humanity.
One day on the way home, he finds a a defective Persocom in the trash that he takes home, activates, and ends up calling Chii. Unlike normally working models, Chii cannot download information, so Hideki teaches her the old-fashioned way.
Similarities Between Atri and Chobits
- Man finds an android in trash/under the sea in ruins
- Man brings android home, romance slowly blooms
- Androids’ mysterious origins are explored
Differences Between Atri and Chobits
- Atri lives in melancholy, Chobits is often much lighter with only moments of melancholy.
- Romance moves faster and further in Chobits
- There are less “dark secrets” in the world of Chobits
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.
Similarities Between Atri and Planetarian
- Man meets android in a ruin in the post-apocalypse
- Man and android spend more time together, forming a bond
- The world is in a sorry state and the android has a looming problem (age/imminent malfunction/battery life, being recalled by that guy with the shock hand)
Differences Between Atri and Planetarian
- Planetarian has two parts to its story, the first meeting and then picking up several decades later)
- Planetarian is a far more bleak post-apocalyptic world. In Atri, most people, presumably, moved elsewhere.
- Planetarian has, not “no romance,” but less focus on romance.
For Fans of Unraveling Girl-based Mysteries
The Day I Became A God
During his last summer of high school, Yota is furiously studying for his entrance exams in order to go to the same college as his crush. However, one day he meets a small girl who calls herself the god Odin.
She proclaims herself the god of omniscience and says the world will end in 30 days. After witnessing her powers, she moves into his home and upends his last summer.
Similarities Between Atri and The Day I Became A God
- Male main character has a clandestine meeting with a special girl.
- That energetic girl leads him into a bunch of other smaller stories
- The “main plot” of each series surrounds the actual dark secret about the heroine/love interest
- Stories start off cheerful and rather uplifting slice of life, then reveal dark truths later
Differences Between Atri and The Day I Became A God
- The Day I Became a God is not as sci-fi
- The Day I Became a God gets a bit more emotionally painful for the characters, or at least is aiming to be.
- The Day I Became a God is a normal rural town, not a slowly decaying island setting like Atri.
Clannad
Tomoya Okazaki is a delinquent who finds everything dull and believes he will never amount to anything. That is, until a girl named Nagisa catches his eye one day on his way to school. Suddenly, Tomoya begins to notice Nagisa more and more.
She is sickly and weak, but she always tries her best in order to follow her dream of reviving the school’s drama club. Claiming he has nothing better to do, he decides to help Nagisa, and along the way ends up helping several other girls and potential drama club members.
However, as he learns more about the girls and helps them overcome their problems, he might just be able to overcome his own as well.
Similarities Between Atri and Clannad
- Man has a clandestine meeting with at least one girl
- Male main character helps everyone else with their problems while willfully ignoring his own emotional damage.
- Romantic elements, but mostly melancholy or slice of life
- Seemingly realistic setting with aspects that are definitely sci-fi (in Atri) or supernatural (in Clannad)
- Both are based on visual novel games, so you get a small chunk of a larger story
Differences Between Atri and Clannad
- Clannad is a singular romance (with harem elements) that progresses faster and further
- In truth, Atri’s story is very similar to only one arc in Clannad (Fuuko’s story arc), but it is sci-fi instead of supernatural.
- You get more diverse melancholy stories in Clannad as each girl gets her own arc.
Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl
As if to grade his own life, Makoto Niwa constantly tallies the amount of negative and positive experiences he has. When his parents move overseas and he moves in with his aunt, he looks forward to the fresh start.
Once he arrives at his aunt’s house, he discovers, to his surprise, that he has a cousin that he never heard about – Erio. While he is a normal boy by all accounts, she claims to be an alien, and throws his normal life into chaos.
Similarities Between Atri and Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl
- Male has a clandestine meeting with a quirky girl with sci-fi origins
- They become closer as they meet and befriend other people around their small seaside town
- You explore the girls origins/trauma as the plot goes on
- Emotional stories about people that need to address their trauma
Differences Between Atri and Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl
- Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl is less sci-fi than it leads you to believe.
- Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl loves far more eccentric characters.
- As the main characters are cousins, Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl is thankfully not a romance.
Takt Op. Destiny
After a meteor fell to Earth, the D2s invaded a large portion of the United States. In order to prevent angering the D2s who hate music, all music was banned.
Despite this, D2 attacks aren’t uncommon. The only defense against them remains Musicarts and their Conductor companions.
Takt, a piano prodigy, finds himself transformed into a Conductor after his friend Cosette is killed and transformed into his Musicart named Destiny. Together with Cosette’s sister Anna, they travel to New York City in hopes of stabilizing their pact.
Similarities Between Atri and Takt Op Destiny
- Male main character gains a female companion who loves him, and who is capable of easily killing him.
- Male main character has emotional past trauma they are working through, and their new female companion is helping them work through it to varying degrees.
- The world of both Atri and Takt Op Destiny are in a “post-apocalyptic, but still functional” state.
- While the male main character likes his female companion, her presence induces melancholy thoughts.
Differences Between Atri and Takt Op Destiny
- Takt Op Destiny does its own original fictional sci-fi thing, it is not androids like Atri.
- Takt Op Destiny has more moments of action
- Atri is set on a decaying island, Takt Op Destiny is, primarily, a road trip through a more desolate America.
For Fans of Melancholy Oceanside Stories
Island
On the island of Urashima, the three major families once suffered misfortune. Afterwards, the island was cut off contact from the mainland and began a decline. The key to fixing this island lies with the three girls of the major families, but they are bound by tradition.
However, when a lone man washes up on the island, claiming to be from the future, could their fortunes turn?
Similarities Between Atri and Island
- Set on an island full of melancholy and people with emotional problems.
- The main character has memory issues and meets girls they may or may not already know
- Both are visual novel game adaptations, so you are getting one chunk of a larger story
- Women on the island all have emotional problems to work through
Differences Between Atri and Island
- Island is sci-fi, but in a spoilery to explain, not androids sort of way.
- The island in Island is normal functioning, and not decaying like it is in Atri.
- Island features more intense emotional drama and explores it for more characters than Atri does.
A Lull in the Sea
Long ago, all of humanity lived underwater. However, a portion of them soon left to live on the surface, losing the ability to breath underwater. With this gap between them, the two societies grew apart.
After their small school underwater closes down, Hikari Sakishima and his childhood friends are forced to attend school above the water where they come to terms with themselves and the discrimination against them.
Similarities Between Atri and A Lull in the Sea
- Seaside melancholy, at all times
- Young children by the sea sort through their emotional problems
- Complicated romantic relationships
- Worlds that seem close to ours, but with something distinctly sci-fi or supernatural
Differences Between Atri and A Lull in the Sea
- A Lull in the Sea is more supernatural in that some of the characters are from a race of humans that live underwater, but can also live on land.
- A Lull in the Sea is very much a large love triangle where everyone loves someone who loves someone else.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Atri – My Dear Moments? Let fans know in the comments section below.