While we might not discuss the delight we have for movies like the Day After Tomorrow or 2012, I believe many people have a secret passion for natural disaster movies and media. We probably don’t want it to happen anywhere, or even happen to us, it is easy to love the heroism and sacrifice that can often present itself in such extreme stressful situations.
Like war movies, the safe detachment from an event like a natural disaster that can and does happen all over the actual real world allows us to take inspiration from the struggle that those stories puts on full display.
While there aren’t a ton of anime about natural disasters out there, there are a few. These disaster anime primarily surround earthquakes because Japan has suffered some horrific ones in the past, and it is still extremely likely that worse ones may come in the future. As such, Japan has, on occasion, turned to anime as a coping mechanism to help make sense of the loss and memorialize it.
So if you are thirsting for the heroism rising amidst the panic of a natural disaster, then give these anime recommendations a try.
Natural Disaster Anime
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0
The Disaster: Earthquake
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is easily the most popular natural disaster anime because it is both realistic and so devastatingly tragic.
This series tells the tale of a teen girl and her younger brother that went to Tokyo to go buy a gift for their parents when a huge earthquake rocks the city. Now, what was once a short train ride home becomes a multi-day trek out of a city engulfed in chaos.
Running into a motorcyclist and single mother, the woman vows to help the siblings get back home, and thus you follow a story of the chaos and horrors that often follow earthquakes.
Japan Sinks 2020
The Disaster: Earthquake
Based on a novel, Japan Sinks has had a number of iterations, and this latest one is a TV anime! However, it is a anime that was handed over to the experimental and excellent Masaaki Yuasa, so it is both emotionally evocative and a bit weird.
This series follows a family that struggled to meet in the chaos immediately following an earthquake, and who travel across a disaster-torn Japan as that earthquake causes the island nation to start sinking in the sea.
It goes from pleasant and hopeful to startling and melancholy in the literal blink of the eye and shows just how far morals fall in the face of chaos. This penchant for sudden changes is in welcomed contrast to the ominous build up that normally dominates disaster anime since life often changes suddenly in these situations.
Rescue Wings
The Disaster: Various
Unlike almost every other natural disaster series, Rescue Wings doesn’t follow the victims, but instead follows the rescuers.
Rescue Wings doesn’t focus on many huge disasters, instead it follows a previously ambitious pilot finding his place on the rescue squad. There, you learn how the rescuers that we usually perceive as somehow faceless and emotionless beings really feel about their important jobs.
Firefighter Daigo
The Disaster: Various
Anime often seems more interested in giving firefighters oddly fire-creating superpowers rather than portraying the important and heroic job that they actually do. However, between the original Firefighter Daigo movie and the recent 2023 Firefighter Daigo TV anime, it provides a great spotlight on a number of diverse situations that firefighters face.
While much of Firefighter Daigo is saving people from fire, explosions, and collapsed structures, it does touch on more larger scale natural disasters as well.
Natsunagu
The Disaster: Earthquake
Similar to Japan Sinks or Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Natsunagu details a trek through an earthquake-rattled Japan. The young main character is on a trek of, not survival, but traveling from Tokyo to Kumamoto to try to make contact with her online friend who went dark after an earthquake struck there.
While that set up has the potential to turn heart-wrenching, it ended up to be a rather whimsical and hopeful series displaying some of people’s best aspects in a stressful situation.
Coppelion
The Disaster: Nuclear Meltdown
Like several of the other series out there, Coppelion seems to be inspired by the Fukushima incident in 2011. The series starts with a meltdown in a power plant in Tokyo then officially begins 20 years later.
Due to high levels of radiation, most people have been pushed out of the city, but still a distress signal is received from within the area.
To search for it, a special unit of girls called Coppelion is dispatched to find survivors, but unlike most people, these girls seem somehow immune to radiation.
The Orphans of Simitra
The Disaster: Earthquake
This series follows a pair of siblings that live with their family in the fictional countryside. They are all happy and healthy until an earthquake comes and destroys their lives.
Now, with his parents dead, the older brother Porfy must find his little sister Mina that was separated from him during the panic.
While this series is separated from reality by an air of fiction, it has many parallels to the devastating earthquakes of Japan’s past, and thus, despite the fiction, has an air of realism to the disaster.
OVA / Movies
It is extremely likely that because it is more difficult to frame a natural disaster story in a way that is emotional and concise for 12 well-paced episodes, this particular genre thrives more in movie and OVA form.
So while pickings for true natural disaster anime that aren’t just post-apocalypse anime instead are slim in TV anime, there is an above-average amount of great movies about the topic.
The Day The Earth Moved
The Disaster: 1995 Kobe Earthquake
Crisis makes kids grow up. That is the lesson taught by The Day The Earth Moved.
This movie follows Tsuyoshi, a kid so focused on studying that he ignores people around him. However, when the Kobe / Hyogoken-Nanbu Earthquake strikes in 1995, killing 6,000 and leaving 300,000 homeless, he learns he has to change.
While dealing with the death of one friend and helping another cope with their own personal loss, you gain a better grasp of the feelings that come with disaster.
A Spirit of the Sun
The Disaster: Mount Fuji Erupting, Earthquakes, Tsunamis
In A Spirit of the Sun, Japan was ravaged by Mt. Fuji’s eruption, resulting in tsunamis and then an earthquake that split the nation in two.
Because a ravaged Japan accepted aid from China and the US, China gained governance of the north and USA took control of the south. Yet, this story actually takes place in Taiwan where Japanese refuges and the Taiwanese government start clashing.
In the midst of all this, a youth that was adopted by Taiwanese parents after losing his parents in Japan tries to foster peace between the two parties.
Gonta: The Story of The Two-Named Dog in The Fukushima Disaster
The Disaster: The Fukushima Reactor Meltdown
With beloved lore like Hachiko, Japan loves a loyal dog story, even – if not, especially – during a disaster.
Gonta was a dog left behind by a family during the Fukushima evacuation. While he is found by a rescue worker who tries to locate his family, Gonta is diagnosed with radioactive-related illnesses and given a limited amount of time to live.
Not everyone has the hardened heart for a sad dog story, but if you can learn anything from natural disaster anime, it is that reality is full of cruel – and hopeful – tales.
The Abandoned House by the Cape
The Disaster: Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami
Unlike other natural disaster anime which often have their plot trajectory diverted by a disaster and then transform into a survival story, The Abandoned House by the Cape uses the natural disaster to kick off the otherwise quite touching plot.
The Abandoned House by the Cape features two girls. One was running away from an abusive family, the other lost her parents in the earthquake and tsunami. They meet at a homeless shelter after the disaster and an elderly women takes to pretending they are her grandchildren, giving them a home.
This movie becomes a story of, not surviving a disaster, but healing from traumatic aftermath.
Do you have more natural disaster anime that tell stories from the chaos? Let fans know in the comments section below.
