Frustrated with her family, middle schooler Mirai Onozawa wishes to tear everything apart. Unfortunately, that wish comes true in an unexpected 8.0 earthquake. Suddenly, she and her younger brother find themselves surrounded by chaos in Odaiba. Single mother and motorcyclist Mari runs into these two scared kids and decides to help them get back home.
Despite Japan’s history with earthquakes, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is really the only standout anime series about them. If you are looking for similar anime recommendations about strife and struggle, then head on down below.
Anime Like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0
For Fans of Disasters
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.
Coppelion shows Japan long after a devastating event, but you can see little signs of the struggle all around the main characters. Both shows have a profound sense of sadness about the worlds they are set in. However, Coppelion tries to bite off more than it can chew with its plot.
Shangri-la
After a series of natural disasters, much of Japan has returned to nature. In Tokyo, a project has been created called Atlas. It is to create a utopia, but only has space for so many. The rest will be left to survive in the harsh remaining landscape. Not chosen for Atlas, a group of renegades decide to make the trek to sneak into the city.
While Shangri-la has a lot of different elements working in it, it is taking place in a disaster-riddled Japan. The landscape is hard and both shows are about people trying to escape that. However, Shangri-la has a lot more intrigue to its plot. Both shows are good, but good in different ways.
Rescue Wings
Kazuhiro Uchida has dreams of becoming a fighter pilot. As a steppingstone to his dream, he takes a job at a small rescue center located in the countryside to hone his flight skills. While he initially finds that work difficult and constantly endures the scolding of his superiors, over the course of his training, the rewarding nature of the work resonates with him.
Tokyo Magnitude focuses on the victims of a disaster while in one. Rescue Wings is the opposite. It focuses on the struggles of a rescue team trying to help people, showing you it is just as hard on them.
For Fans of Tragedy
Anohana
After the death of childhood friend Meiko “Menma” Honma, Jinta Yadomi and his group of friends grew apart, each trying to deal with grief and guilt in their own way. However, when Jinta starts seeing what he believes to be Menma’s ghost, the group of friends are drawn together to help grant her long-desired wish.
While about vastly different things, Anohana hits home the same way the tragedy in Tokyo Magnitude does. They make you love the characters, then they slap you in the face with it. If you love your emotional impact, then these two shows have them in spades.
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.
Clannad doesn’t have the same action and chaos, but it is quite a show about problems and tragedy. If you are in the mood for some crying, then this can have a little gut punch for almost every one emotionally.
Usagi Drop
Daikichi Kawachi is a 30-year-old bachelor with a decent job, but no purpose in his life. When he returns to his family home for his grandfather’s funeral, he finds out that the old man had an illegitimate daughter. With his other relatives not wanting to take in such a child, Daikichi steps up and takes her home. From that day onwards, his hard new life as a parent begins.
Immediately, you have a person caring for children not their own in common between these two series. However, what really creates a similarity is the fact that young children have to deal with death. It is a little less chaotically done in Usagi Drop.
For Fans of Protective Parental Figures
Moribito
It is said that a widespread drought is coming to the Shin Yogo Empire, and in order to avoid famine, the reincarnation of the water spirit must be sacrificed in order to prevent it. However, the water spirit is the emperor’s own son. In effort to save his life, the prince’s mother spirits the boy away with a mysterious female mercenary to protect him until the Emperor reconsiders.
You like somewhat emotionally closed off mother figures that find themselves caring for children not their own? Well then, this is the show for you. Both female figures are not necessarily mean, but not exactly nice either. While not set in a natural disaster, Moribito also has a rich and interesting world to work with.
Michiko and Hatchin
For the fourth time, hardened criminal Michiko breaks out of a South American prison in order to search for a man from her past. This search leads her to the young Hana, a girl trapped under the thumb of her abusive foster family and daughter of the man Michiko is looking for. Breaking her out to lure out her father, the unlikely pair set off on their search, only to be embroiled in everything from betrayal to gang warfare.
Both series feature children under the care of a woman that is not their mother, and it kind of a hard as nails badass in some ways. The difference is that Michiko is…less nice to her young ward. Despite this, both series have the children and the lady bonding through shared ordeals.
Kurenai
After losing his parents to a terrorist attack, Shinkurou Kurenai swore to stay strong. Now a high school student, he lives with the Houzuki family, mastering their style of martial arts. One day, a member of the family brings home a young child from a wealthy family and asks Kurenai to guard her.
While there is no external disaster like an earthquake, Kurenai features a guy charged with protecting a young child. In the same way as in Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, the children and person bond in a crisis, which makes some tragedies a little harder to swallow.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0? Let fans know in the comments section below.
