In the distant future, Kouji Aiba and Aoi Housen are training to be astronauts in the Liebe Delta. However, when saboteurs strike the station while the kids are on a dive procedure, the space station plummets into a plasma field linking the planets. With all the adults on board killed, it is up to the young astronauts-in-training to make the journey home and deal with the growing tension between them.
I can’t be alone in the distinct pleasure I get from watching children turn on each other. I know I’m not because its so popular in many anime series. If you enjoy the “Lord of the Flies in Space” plot that is Infinite Ryvius, head on down below.
Anime Like Infinite Ryvius
For Fans of Lord of the Flies Child Groups
Bokurano
During their summer vacation, 15 children are enjoying summer camp together. One day, they decide to go explore a cave by the sea, inside they meet a mysterious man named Kokopelli who is surrounded by high-tech equipment. Kokopelli claims to be a game developer and asks if the children would help him test it. Each child signs a contract, but instead of playing a game, they are actually piloting a giant mech to defend the earth from 15 different alien invasions.
Though about a giant robot and not in space, Bokurano places children in similarly difficult situations that expect them to make the decisions of adults. You want kids to suffer and make bad decisions? Because they both got that in spades.
Uninhabited Planet Survive
In the 22nd century, Earth has become uninhabitable, and humanity has spread out to other planets. While on a school trip through space, a class enters a gravity storm and finds themselves stranded on a seemingly uninhabited planet. However, while they struggle to survive, they don’t know what else is lurking in the shadows.
Uninhabited Planet Survive has the same concept of Infinite Ryvius, but on land. In both shows, the children are left alone without supervision, and as you would expect it does not go well.
Guilty Crown
After being ravaged by the Apocalypse Virus, Japan has fallen under control of the GHQ, an independent military force dedicated to the restoration of order. However, a guerrilla group called Funeral Parlor seeks to put an end to their despotism. After a fateful run in with a key member of Funeral Parlor, weak and anti-social Shuu Ouma finds himself with a powerful new weapon, the ability to pull out manifestations of a person’s personality to wield as weapons. Now he must make use of it in order to free Japan once and for all.
While the similarities to Infinite Ryvius do not run throughout the entirety of Guilty Crown, there is a significant point in which the kids are left on their own to just kind of figure things out. Things progressively roll down hill for their well being from there.
For Fans of Politics Through Young Eyes
Crest of the Stars
The story follows Jinto, whose world was taken over by the largest empire in the galaxy: the Abh. Jinto’s father, the planet’s prime minister, handed their world over to the Abh in exchange for a standing in the Abh Empire. As a result, Jinto became a prince and was shipped off for an Abh Education. There he meets a princess of the Abh Empire, Lafiel, whom he quickly befriends despite her cold exterior.
Crest of the Stars is a journey through the galaxy and the examination of the politics within through a pair of young and culturally different eyes. However, while Infinite Ryvius has less of that focus, a lot of the same themes are displayed throughout, but rather on a political scale as in Crest of the Stars, they are showed through a smaller human scale.
Starship Operators
A class of cadets returning home after a cruise on a new star ship are shocked to find their country at war. However, their country has peacefully surrendered, so these brave young cadets decide to take this new ship and wage their own war, though not without the financial aid of a galactic news network that makes their war into a reality TV show.
The obvious similarity is that a bunch of children that were in training end up taking over a ship. While Starship Operators keeps things lighter, it does focus on realistic considerations like feeding the crew of a star ship. This is something glossed over in Ryvius in lieu of more character drama.
Eureka Seven
Renton Thurston hates his boring life in the backwater town of Bellforest. He wants nothing more than to have an adventure, but his grandfather insists he become a mechanic. However, one day adventure literally falls through his roof in the form of Eureka, the pilot of a Nirvash type Zero and member of mercenary group Gekkostate.
Eureka Seven has its moments, but is a much lighter show compared to Infinite Ryvius. However, like Infinite Ryvius, it takes a young character and basically lifts the veil over his eyes to the way the world is.
For Fans of Psychological Elements
Space Runaway Ideon
Mankind has traveled the stars and discovered numerous alien civilizations, all dead. However, upon discovering more remains on the planet Solo, they discover the Buff Clan, the first ever living alien race. When the daughter of a Buff Clan military leader sets foot on the planet, they launch a brutal assault to retrieve her. After escaping the destruction, several survivors climb aboard three trucks that transform into the giant humanoid robot Ideon. Fleeing further to the stars, they find themselves under constant assault.
If you enjoyed the relative brutality in Infinite Ryvius, then this older mecha is definitely for you. Ideon sounds relatively generic, but it holds nothing back with viciousness. Furthermore, like Ryvius, you always feel that air of desperation in this anime as they try to flee and survive violent pursuers.
Knights of Sidonia
After Earth was destroyed by an alien race known as the Gauna, humanity fled across the galaxy in giant seed ships looking for a new home. In the year 3394, a mysterious man named Nagate Tanikaze surfaced from the bowels of the ship Sidonia and breaks his lifelong seclusion in search of food. After being discovered, he finds himself dragged into the military just in time for a Gauna attack and discovers that he may just be the hero that the Sidonia needs.
In Infinite Ryvius, the children are forced to do everything. In Knights of Sidonia, they kind of expect them to go out there an get killed. What is nice about both series is that it is not just everyone with a hero complex being heroes, but rather runs a gamut of different ways people would react to traumatic situations.
Revisions
Daisuke Toujima was once told as a child that he would save everyone. It just so happens that in his second year of high school, he and his childhood friends time traveled in the middle of Shibuya. This is the tale of them in the Shibuya of 300 years in the future, where wilderness has reclaimed the land and giant metal monsters called Revisions roam unchecked.
While both shows display how children react to traumatic situations, they are both also very interesting examinations. In Revisions, it is an examination between destiny and heroism while in infinite Ryvius, you watch the examination of different government types between the children.
If you have more anime recommendations like Infinite Ryvius, let fans know in the comments section below.
