You know what’s strange? We have never been further along with research into robotics, yet the popularity of intelligent technology anime has fallen off significantly. Finding a good new sci-fi anime is like find a good plot in a harem anime. It’s not impossible, but it is pretty difficult. If you are looking for everything robot, cyborg, and android, we’ve dug up as much as we could in these anime recommendations.
Best Sci-Fi Anime With Intelligent Technology
Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell is considered the pinnacle of sci-fi series surrounding artificial intelligence, and that is both great and sad. It is indeed sad that it has reached such an advanced age and still has yet to be beaten, proving that this is a ripe area for exploration still. What makes Ghost in the Shell so effective is that it is a crime mystery series, which allows them to explore a lot of different short cybercrime stories as well as one overarching one.
Samurai 7
This anime is loosely based off classic Akira Kurosawa samurai film, Seven Samurai. The plot is roughly the same, that of seven ronin guarding a village under threat by bandits, but in this anime series, those seven samurai are all augmented with mechanical enhancements in some way. It allows for the action to be bigger and better than just swordplay.
Saikano
A girl being turned into a human weapon isn’t a particularly new plot in this genre, but they don’t capture, or even try to capture, the melancholy that Saikano does. You watch a girl fight and suffer after being turned into a weapon to fight aliens, and also watch her boyfriend be truly, humanly helpless to ease her burden.
Cyborg 009
While rebooted so many different times, the plot of Cyborg 009 always stays roughly the same. Nine cyborgs were made by an evil organization, but they go rogue and decide to fight that organization instead. The character designs are pretty dated, but it is superhero flair with a technological twist.
Casshern Sins
Casshern Sins ends up at the very end of the technological timeline where humanity has already died out and its is just the robots now. Unfortunately, thanks to the main character for reasons he can’t quite recall, the once immortal robots are now starting to rust away too. It turns out they become very human when faced with mortality.
Inuyashiki
This series isn’t so heavy on the plot, but it presents an interesting short little story. An old man, hated by his family and indeed by life itself, is diagnosed with cancer after a lifetime of toil. He is then abducted and augmented with alien technology, and returned to Earth. He ends up fighting an apathetic teen that was also augmented. One seeks destruction, one seeks to be a hero.
Vivy – Fluorite Eye’s Song
Vivy is what I hope for when it comes to future artificial intelligence series. Well, it doesn’t necessarily need to have such an emphasis on music, but the overall story and the sub-stories within it were truly wonderful. It also stands as the first series to take advantage of the potential immortality of these artificial humans, since Vivy is about an early AI trying to stop the uprising of future AI over the course of a century by changing the outcome of certain important events.
Planetarian
In a world that has essentially ended, all that remains are a few humans eeking out an existence and the technology wearing away. Planetarian isn’t really about all that though. Instead, it is about a scavenger and a customer service android who believes him to be a customer. Planetarian is an adaptation of a Key visual novel, which should tell some all they need to know. It definitely puts more emphasis on emotion and conversation rather than technology, but it is surprisingly full of insight.
Beatless
This series follows a normal human guy who gets pulled into a war between hacked human-like robots and one abnormal human-like robot that is fighting against them. It, to be perfectly honest, squandered a lot of potential it had in lieu of having cute girls that just happen to be robots fighting most of the time. That can be fine, but typically fans of this genre enjoy a bit more depth of plot.
Time of Eve
This very short series puts a unique spotlight on something likely in a technological future – bias. Time of Eve takes place in a world where androids and humans live ruled by the Laws of Robotics. As such, androids are treated as lesser beings. Time of Eve tells the story of a cafe where humans and androids are treated equal to each other.
Chobits
Before moe was as pervasive as it was now, Chobits was combining moe with androids. Persocoms, in this series, are essentially human computers. The main character lands himself with a defective, but cute one that he found. Aside from the whole “being a machine” thing, it is actually a pretty nice, lightly ecchi romantic comedy.
Plastic Memories
Romance with artificial humans are not a new thing, but usually they end up a standard sort of rom-com without really diving into the unique particulars of dating machinery. However, Plastic Memories emotionally dives into that in a world where the companions only live about a decade. It still has cute rom-com moments, but it also acknowledges how sad it is to have a relationship on a time limit.
Ergo Proxy
Series about artificial technology can go a little off the rails with complexity, but Ergo Proxy does that in a unique way. It doesn’t drown itself in the technology of the world, but rather entangles itself in the philosophy of it. Ergo Proxy in the beginning isn’t particularly complex, but over the course of investigating the mystery of artificial beings gaining sentience, it becomes a bit of a thinker.
Real Drive
Unlike many of the other series here, Real Drive isn’t necessarily about androids or robots, but rather about advanced technology in general. In the series, everyone is now connected at a level of consciousness through a network. As with any network, there rose security issues so a data security measure called The Metal was created. Within The Metal, people could release their instincts and they could become aberrations. The plot follows characters who investigate and decipher these aberrations. If you think that it sounds very complicated, you would be right.
The Big O
Don’t be fooled by the sleight of hand that is the titular big robot. I’m talking about the little robot that accompanies the main character and contributes to the snark. Interestingly enough, you don’t see a lot of mecha series that also have androids, but Big O does it and scoops on a noir mystery theme as well. It remains a unique beast, even after its time.
Megalo Box
Why not? Why shouldn’t there be a sports anime about being cybernetically enhanced? I personally welcome more of them. Megalo Box is about boxing, and as such they all have various improvements made to their arms that tells you that it is about to get ridiculous in the best way.
Texhnolyze
If a requirement for your artificial intelligence series is that it needs to be ponderous, philosophical, and somewhat confusing, then Texnholyze was made for you. The series follows a prize fighter that loses his limbs in an altercation and has them replaced with technological ones. Where this could have gone the way of Megalo Box, it instead went the way of Serial Experiments Lain, where it burns slow and often confusingly, but pays off in the end.
Pandora in the Crimson Shell
This series is what Masamune Shirow followed up Ghost in the Shell with. I guess everyone falls into the darkness of lolis doing suggestive shoujo ai things eventually. In a brighter, but equally complicated future, cyborgs and autonomous robots are just starting to appear in more technologically advanced nations. Two cybernetically enhanced individuals find themselves caught up in a plot to keep what is essentially a doomsday device out of the hands of evil. It ends up being a lot of just comical hijinks, but it builds the technology of the world decently.
Steel Angel Kurumi
This late 90’s anime tells the tale of what if Japan made artificial humanoid robots pre-World War II and they were just so anime. This series ends up being a lot like a more action-oriented Chobits, to be honest. A kid finds one of these female humanoids that was being hidden from the army that wants to use it as a weapon. They accidentally kiss while she is deactivated, because of course they do, and she ends up calling him master.
Saber Marionette J
If you haven’t already noticed, a huge theme in so many of these series, especially the romance ones, is subservience of their fembot battle droids. Saber Marionette J is probably the worst of them in this regard. The entire world is based around six guys who crash on a planet, found nations, try cloning, and when all else fails, they just build women to do chores and definitely not for sex. Definitely not. Luckily, the actual story of the series focuses on a young boy who finds battle type robots that are capable or learning emotions.
Do you have more anime series that are about androids, cyborgs, and robots? Let fans know in the comments section below.
