You’ve enjoyed post-apocalypse anime focused on what people are doing after the end of the world, but what about just apocalypse anime?
Sometimes the most interesting moments are those leading up to and showing how that particular anime world is ending. It could be some biblical rampage of demons and torrents of blood rain. It could be a sentient self-replicating machine extermination. It could be just people doing what people are good at – killing other people.
If you have had your fill of post-apocalypse anime and want anime recommendations where the apocalypse is already in progress, then head on down below.
Apocalypse Anime About The End Of The World
Wolf’s Rain
When it comes to the end of the world, you think of something grand and devastating. Wolf’s Rain gives you probably the more likely scenario – something bleak and slow.
The world is dying in Wolf’s Rain, but there isn’t much that can be done, and it often feels like most people don’t even acknowledge that it is happening. The only characters trying to do anything at all are the main characters – wolves who are prophecized as the only ones who can find the path to paradise.
So they try to find that path by traveling across the bleak and slowly dying world, eventually encountering humans that want to use them for the prophecy as well.
Devilman Crybaby
If you ascribe to the christian bible, then it says that the world will end with a rain of fire and demons! Devilman Crybaby actually depicts that biblical-style apocalypse.
It starts when the main character investigates a den of debauchery and supposed demon possession with his friend, only to find himself merged with a demon after slaughter breaks out. He uses this new power to help protect humans from other demons. This ultimately ends up with him rallying other human-sympathetic demons to his side as he has his very own standoff with Satan that wants to end the world.
School-Live
Zombie apocalypses are classic apocalypse scenarios, but not actually done all that much in anime when compared to other media.
School-Live takes the Cute Girls Doing Cute Things approach by centering on a group of cute girls who, with the help of a teacher, decide to reinforce and live at their school after the zombie apocalypse starts one day.
While it does have these girls having cute anime girl fun, it also gets surprisingly dark. It doesn’t shy away from making the fear that the characters endure feel very real to the audience. It also features a main character stuck in a happy school life delusion so as to not have to face the horrible reality of their situation.
High School of the Dead
Similar to School-Live, High School of the Dead follows the start of a zombie apocalypse, but makes it sexier.
That’s right, instead of Cute Girls Doing Cute Things in the apocalypse, High School of the Dead adopts an equally beloved anime genre to merge with horror – ecchi.
The series follows a bunch of high schoolers who meet up and move from place to place in their desperate struggle to stay alive in a zombie apocalpyse. However, while it treats dire situations as dangerous, the anime never skips a chance to show off the bodies of its mostly female cast.
It does so to the point where it is often pretty distracting, to be honest. Sometimes not distracting in a sexy way either. Distracting in a comical way.
Zom 100 – Bucket List of the Dead
There are no normal, horrific zombie apocalypse anime out there, but Zom 100 is probably as close as you can get if you don’t like the moe of School-Live or the big ol’ boobs of High School of the Dead. Zom 100 does have 100% more bare man ass, though.
Zom 100 follows the early days of a zombie apocalypse through a main character that most adults can relate to – a guy happy that the zombie apocalypse happened because now he doesn’t have to go to work at his exploitative company!
Instead of making moves to stay alive, Zom 100 is really more about just enjoying absolute freedom. Want to stay in and chug beers all day? He does it. Want to pretend to be a super hero and save lives? He does that too. When society is gone, the possibilities are endless.
Zom 100, while it doesn’t shy away from the horror or gore, does really put an emphasis on enjoying each day, even if the world is ending – or rather, especially if the world is ending.
Berserk
In medieval fantasy setting, you don’t actually see too many apocalypses. Usually there is some magnificent hero to stop the end of the world, but Berserk is one of the very few that actually lets you see the end of the world start. In fact, one of the best arcs of the entire series is the arc displaying life before the apocalypse with the rest of the story taking place after it.
Through much of that “before” arc, Berserk is very much a sort of realistic medieval world. Kingdoms fight wars with soldiers and intrigue with no magic. However, after the apocalypse, Berserk becomes much more of a fantasy series with vicious demons, mages, and magical creatures becoming prominent in the world.
Saikano
Saikano starts off very relatably about a guy getting his first girlfriend, and both of them being pretty awkward about the new relationship. It then escalates significantly with him being caught in a sudden attack on Japan and discovering that his girlfriend was, unbeknownst to her, made into an ultimate weapon by the Japanese Self-Defense Force.
From there, the series covers their relationship as his girlfriend slowly loses her humanity while fighting for Japan in a world war. It is one of those heart-breaking love stories that just so happens to take place with the backdrop as an apocalypse.
86
As 86 follows humanity’s (losing) war against self-replicating machines, you could say 86 is a post-apocalyptic anime, but it is more accurate to say that it is an apocalypse-in-progress anime. Humanity has been greatly pushed back and divided into cut off nations, but they haven’t actually gotten to the “lost and rebuilding” phase of post-apocalyptic anime yet.
86 follows a nation who selected an ethnic district of people from their Republic to use as frontline fodder while everyone else in the Republic lives in safety and comfort. After not even acknowledging them as people, the government can safely say that they are waging war with the machines using unmanned combat vehicles and no human causalities.
The series follows the heart-breaking lives of a squadron of those soldiers from the 86th district and their sympathetic handler inside the Republic.
86 is everything an apocalypse story really should be. It is filled with sacrifice, emotional struggle, and endless loss. If humanity is being wiped off the planet, the story really shouldn’t be so upbeat like many other stories on this list. 86 lets it hurt.
Attack on Titan
Attack on Titan is both a post-apocalypse anime as well as an actual apocalypse anime.
At first, it is distinctly post-apocalyptic in that humanity has been devastated and seemingly pushed back behind a series of walls by man-eating titans. However, society has recovered and they are doing their best.
To explain the subsequent ‘next’ apocalypse for humanity that you see in the series would actually be a pretty major spoiler. So let’s just say that Attack on Titan starts off as post-apocalyptic, but things can always get worse!
Cells at Work: Code Black
Cells at Work is a unique anime about personifying the cells in your body as cute anime characters working hard so you can live! Cells at Work: Black is a more bleak look at that by showing you the cells laboring inside of a worn down, aging, and poorly taken care of body.
It probably isn’t too big of a leap to guess what the “apocalypse” scenario is in this series is. It touches on it, and makes it hurt – perhaps in an effort to get you to take better care of the anime characters in your body.
Humanity Has Declined
Similar to Wolf’s Rain, Humanity Has Declined showcases one of those “quiet apocalypses” where nothing especially dramatic is happening. Mostly it is just humans living out the remainder of their lives peacefully, and somewhat weirdly.
Humanity Has Declined is perhaps not what you think of when it comes to an anime about the end of the world. It features a world where humans are slowly going extinct and they now get much of what they need from quirky fairies, the magical race that will inherit the Earth from them.
The series has a non-linear and rather weird and symbolic story. If you read deeper into the shenanigans, you see the massages it is trying to tell, but the storytelling overall, because of its non-linear nature, can be a bit confusing at first.
Vampire in the Garden
Vampire in the Garden, while not actually about the apocalypse itself, has its story set in one. Vampires rose up and humanity and vampires have been grid-locked in a war ever since. Now human strongholds try to hold on each day while vampires try to feed and subjugate.
Vampire in the Garden’s plot actually follows a romance between a vampire who once loved a human, still grieving her loss, and a human that has an appreciation for music – something that has now become attributed to vampire culture.
As their love is a forbidden one, they flee and try to look for a place where humans and vampires co-exist. This journey to a place of myth leads them across a dying world that feels so empty and barren outside of the strictly regimented stronghold towns.
Bokurano
Certainly the world is imperiled in a lot of mecha anime, but Bokurano really makes you feel the weight of it.
This series features a group of children tricked into piloting a giant robot to fight other giant robots that invade Earth. At first, they find it as fun and exciting as any mecha anime portrays fighting in a giant robot, right up until they realize that the robot’s power source is the pilot’s life. So every battle, win or lose, means at least one dead pilot.
To add on to that even more, they discover that they are fighting for Earth. If they lose, the planet is destroyed.
Bokurano loves showing you the tortured desperation of very young children in a way that is the very antithesis to the passionate and hot-blooded “giant robot” battler sub-set of the mecha genre. It also enjoys showing you that, even though there are some adults that try to help, they are ultimately pretty useless in the situation.
Do you know any more apocalypse anime about the actual ending of the world? Let fans know in the comments section below.
Good recommendation