Allow me to be extremely pretentious for a moment and say that it was Kierkegaard who said, “the most common form of despair is not being who you are.” And it is deep thoughts like that which you expect from Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, though it does perfectly encapsulate the basic philosophy of it.
Existentialism is the examination of the existence of an individual and a philosophical belief that we are responsible for finding the meaning of our own lives. Existentialism is part of humanity’s never-ending need to find meaning in all we do, and a way to justify not having such a grand meaning for humanity as a whole.
Like many philosophies, existentialism is pretty popular in anime. There is nothing more human than to question why we exist, and that is a way to make a fictional character appear more human.
Whether you are a student of philosophy or just wish to put an entertaining salve on your own existential crisis in progress, then give these wonderful existential anime recommendations a try.
Best Existential Anime
Vinland Saga
Vinland Saga is a rare Viking-focused anime following Thorfinn, a boy from Iceland who snuck onto his father’s boat when he was called to war in order to go to war with him. When his father is murdered before even reaching his destination, Thorfinn vows to kill the man that killed him.
The first season of Vinland Saga isn’t particularly existential. In fact, the entire first season of Vinland Saga is considered a prologue for the main character. You watch him be filled up with rage and driven by a desire for revenge after the death of his father, then commence following him around, thoughtlessly killing those he is ordered to kill in order to have a shot at achieving his vengeance. Thorfinn is barely a character in his own anime series.
Then something happens at the end of the first season that completely removed everything that once drove him and defined him. Now, Thorfinn is left empty, adrift, and without purpose. The actual charm is watching how he “fills himself back up again” as a person by finding a purpose for himself again.
There are tons of anime about revenge, but the “revenge” is considered the interesting part of the story. As such, profoundly few anime ever think to tell the tale of what happens to the characters after that goal driving them so fiercely is actually reached.
Serial Experiments Lain
Even near 30 years after its release, Serial Experiments Lain provides a darker look into our relationship with the internet. The series follows the titular Lain as she receives an e-mail from a classmate that previously killed herself claiming she lives on in “the Wired,” or the internet.
Lain, a girl previously averse to technology, embraces and slowly becomes entangled in the Wired. She becomes so entangled in it that eventually she seems to split into two – the quiet and evasive Lain in real life, her eyes constantly reflecting the light of a screen, and the antagonistic and aggressive Lain in the Wired. Once this happens, you watch her try to reconcile herself in reality with the person she appears to be online.
If nothing else, Serial Experiments Lain is an interesting watch to see how an anime from the late 90’s was so prescient about how the internet would effect us now.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Neon Genesis Evangelion has long been noted as a personal psychoanalysis of the then-deeply depressed director Hideki Anno, and it definitely shows in the later half of the original series as the main character dives into one of the best portrayals of an existential crisis in anime.
Neon Genesis Evangelion follows Shinji, a teenage boy who alongside a small handful of other teens must pilot a giant mech in order to save the Earth from destruction. This is the basic description of three-fourths of the mecha genre, but unlike the hot-blooded heroes beloved by the genre, Shinji is reluctant and unsure. This compounds further as he learns a series of devastating truths about his family, the project he is engaged in, and the world around him.
As learning uncomfortable truths often does, this sends his teenage self spirally as he begins to question everything he knew. As he was a teen who was unsure of what his found meaning in the world even was in the first place and was often force to act inauthentically by his father, this causes him to quickly crumble.
In short, Neon Genesis Evangelion is the type of anime that people can (and have) written papers on when it comes to its relationship with existentialism, nihilism, and psychoanalysis.
Casshern Sins
Casshern Sins is a reboot of a much older series that was originally about a robot built to fight out-of-control robots in a very ‘Astro Boy’ sort of story. The reboot took the general heroism out of that and replaced it with a robot apocalypse and a huge dollop of existentialism to go with that.
In Casshern Sins, the world is inhabited solely by robots. Previously, they were immortal, but have now started to rust and die. The titular Casshern is a robot without his memories, but supposedly responsible for the newfound mortality of everyone. Furthermore, there is now a rumor that eating him will stop their death, thus painting a constant target on his back.
The existentialism comes from beings now faced with their own impending death. What did it mean for them to live and why do they so desperately now wish to remain alive? Of course, the main character also has his own existential pondering going on, mostly springing from his own lack of memories and clears up once he regains them.
Land of the Lustrous
While not on the same level of academic fascination as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Land of the Lustrous has been a more recent topic of scholarly pondering, this time more for its Buddhist philosophies, but there is definitely some existentialism in there too.
Land of the Lustrous follows the lives of anthropomorphic gems in the shape of anime girls. They live mostly peaceful lives except for the imminent threat that eventually they will be attacked by beings from the skies called Lunarians that seek to break them and use the glistening gem shards of their broken flesh to decorate themselves.
The hardest among them fight off these invaders, and the wounded, if enough pieces remain, can be put back together.
The series touches on a number of intriguing topics, including the meaning of these never-aging, near-immortal beings, the purpose of those who cannot fight, and if them being immortal makes their lives worthless.
Texhnolyze
Texhnolyze is most beloved for being a superb exploration of nihilism, but what is nihilism if not something so often interchangeably explored with existentialism?
In Texhnolyze, humanity has separated itself. After a massive population cull, the elite of humanity live above ground in a utopia while those deemed too violent or otherwise undesirable are forced into an underground city of Hell-like chaos and violent crime.
The story follows a main character struggling to find a reason to live as he gets mixed up in a series of mafia dealings below ground. These events eventually lead him to the “utopia” above their heads where humanity, without anything to work towards, has given into apathy and simply passes each day waiting to die.
Throughout the series, you watch multiple characters reach their own conclusions on why they are alive and what they think humanity needs, explored to often bleak results. A theme throughout the series is the characters, the antagonists in particular, reaching their own existential purpose in a purpose-less world.
Haibane Renmei
There is really no more existential exploration than an anime series exploring life after death. It is what comes next. It is where the sum of our lives is calculated. It is where the meaning is supposed to be revealed. Of course, existentialism is about how we must find meaning ourselves, and Haibane Renmei stays in line with that by letting you make your own inferences to what it presents.
Haibane Renmei follows a series of girls that live on the outskirts of a small town. They emerge from cocoons with small wings, halos, and exist for, well, the reason for why they exist is kind of the entire plot of the Haibane Renmei.
Why are they there? Where did they come from? What are they meant to do? All good questions, and all questions Haibane Renmei explores in a ponderous way.
Kino’s Journey
Kino’s Journey is actually probably one of the most accessible philosophical anime series out there because it has an easily grasped, non-obscure plot that allows it to explore varied situations.
In Kino’s Journey, it follows Kino, a girl who travels with her talking motorcycle and only stays in a location for just a few days before moving on. On her travels, as you experience a number of situations – some good and some terrible – you are treated to the persistent message of, “ the world is not beautiful, therefore it is.”
This can be interpreted as without ugliness in the world, there can be no moments of beauty. It is through these two sides of the spectrum that the world has more purpose and is not just simply continuing from one same instance to the next.
Kino’s Journey is not a reflection of existentialism alone. Instead, throughout each short arc you see a great number of philosophical concepts at work.
Ghost in the Shell
Philosophy and science fiction are occasionally hand-holding cousins in anime, but no sci-fi anime holds a tighter hand with philosophy than Ghost in the Shell.
This series follows a cybernetically enhanced detective as she investigates a series of cases in her technologically advanced world. However, it is the world and the state of humanity where the existentialism lies.
In this future, humanity can fully replace their organic brain with cybernetics, but so long as their soul, or “ghost” is still encased in that shell of cybernetics, they are still considered human. The series examines this from all sides. From the main characters whose body is all cybernetics and whose little whisper of a soul is fading to beings that were fully built, indistinguishable from humans, who never had that whisper. This ultimately leads to pondering as to if that ghost can be manufactured and if the ghost in people is even their original human self.
Kaiba
You can always count on Masaaki Yuasa to bring some philosophical topics to ponder with his various anime. And if you think his trademark unique art style is particularly ugly in Kaiba, then good news! Kaiba is often about the ugliness of human nature and the childish art style is meant to accentuate it.
Kaiba takes place in a world where the human body may die, but your memories can be digitized and implanted in another. This means that stealing memories as well as altering them is commonplace.
The series itself follows the titular character as he recovers his memories and in doing so perhaps dooms the world another apocalyptic fate while discovering who he is or was.
The series often proposes that the answer to the age-old question of “what makes us human?” is memories, which makes the situation of the world quite the existential conundrum. It explores that well, but this is a series that is definitely for the more attentive watcher who really wants to reflect on what they are watching.
Mawaru Penguindrum
Even for ponderous as existential anime often is, Mawaru Penguindrum is… A lot. There are a number concepts, themes, and an intense amount of symbolism used throughout the series, some of which is speaking more to Japanese audiences about their society in particular than a global audience.
Even explaining what Mawaru Penguindrum is about is rather difficult because it sounds pretty absurd, which, as a finer point of existential philosophy, probably was on purpose.
In its most basic plot, Mawaru Penguindrum follows two brothers who, after taking their terminally ill sister out for some fun, watching her die, and seeing her revived by a spirit residing in a penguin hat, are tasked with finding a mysterious item known as a penguindrum.
Throughout the series, you watch the characters in it try to reconcile their actions against predetermined fate. It is an examination of egoism fostered by society depriving humanity of their true identities, but ultimately ends up offering that giving the gift of love gives meaning to our otherwise empty lives. So… There’s that.
Existential anime, or philosophy in general, doesn’t usually give answers. It often poses questions, so it is nice that Mawaru Penguindrum does actually try to give an answer that they reached.
Flowers of Evil
Flowers of Evil is tangled up in the interwoven tendrils between nihilism and existentialism, but it is a coming-of-age tale detailing the existentialist dread innately home to puberty, so it merits consideration.
Flowers of Evil is most famous for its controversial use of rotoscoping as an art style to make you as uncomfortable in the uncanny valley as possible. However, that discomfort serves a purpose to further emphasis the ugliness of the characters whose actions will further show you how ugly they are.
This series tells the tale of a teenage boy who is probably not unlike many other teenagers you may have met. He read the obscure works of French poet Charles Baudelaire and thinks himself better and deeper than his peers because he understands Baudelaire and they do not.
However, you see this upcoming snooty academic elitist brought low when he is caught stealing the gym uniform of his crush by an outcast girl whose actions direct his gaze on just how pathetic he is.
In these interactions between two people who no one understands, they begin to understand each other and accept each other and themselves. To accept and acknowledge your own ugliness is, in fact, the only way to overcome it, after all.
Flowers of Evil is as ponderous as the best of them, but unfortunately due to its wild unpopularity at the time, it never got the subsequent seasons that it needed to further explain why it is indeed a positive coming-of-age tale and not the uncomfortable outburst of teenage existential angst that it remains. I’d say you’d have to read the manga for that, but I would also add the caveat that part of the reason it was unpopular is because it dramatically altered the story of the manga alongside the rotoscoping thing.
Ergo Proxy
You will find a lot of existentialist themes in all the anime here, but I feel there is really no more existential anime than Ergo Proxy.
Ergo Proxy follows two main characters in its dystopian ruined world where humanity has retreated into a series of domes. The first you follow is a bored investigator named Re-L looking into a series of murders that often result from AutoRievs, androids created to serve humanity, gaining existential sentience. The second main character is Vincent, an immigrant to the city with no standing, no memory of his past, and no future.
Vincent soon discovers that he is also a Proxy, a being responsible for causing the AutoReiv murders. His path crosses with Re-L’s and they journey to discover the purpose of the Proxies.
“Purpose” and raison d’etre is the central theme of Ergo Proxy as everyone is motivated to find their reason for being, a reason why both humans and Proxies exist. However, unlike many anime series that leave the answers to their existential questions purposefully vague, Ergo Proxy actually provides you with an answer for why these human and Proxies do actually exist, and it is a pretty unhappy one.
My grasp on existentialism, especially the finer points of it, is fundamental. However, I did my best to provide existential anime recommendations. Do you have more existential anime that you think might be of interest to fans of philosophical anime? Let them know in the comments section below.
