There are a lot of anime out there that accurately predicted the future, and that fact is always astonishing. It is a medium of fiction that is always appreciated for its deep and thought-provoking storytelling, which more people in the world need to experience.
In the list below, we shall be going over a few of the shows throughout the history of anime that have been significant in depicting future possibilities.
Future That Was Accurately Predicted By Anime
Serial Experiments Lain
Serial Experiments Lain has to be the most influential anime of all time that has been brought up in several discussions relating to this particular topic. It is THE anime that is known to have predicted a lot of aspects of the future, such as humans becoming reliant on machines and addiction to the internet.
The show follows the titular young character, Lain Iwakura, who is severely obsessed with everything that is a machine. Through her lens, we experience a surreal world where society has been detached from reality for longer than we can comprehend.
Death Note
Death Note is one of the most well-known shows of the 21st century that is constantly brought up in all kinds of references, including recommendations for new fans of the medium. It is a show that perfectly predicted the toxic cancel culture that we presently see online.
Social media groups constantly band together to bring down each other in the name of mob justice. It is exactly similar to the path that Kira in Death Note had been walking down.
Employing his own form of deadly justice on vile criminals, and slowly twisting it to put down anyone who disagreed with him.
Akira
Before we get to the part about how well this film predicted the future, we need to mention that Akira is one of the most influential anime ever, both in terms of animation and cyberpunk media. It came from the beautiful mind of Katsuhiro Otomo and is constantly referenced in pop culture.
Akira drops us in the epicenter of a dystopia that is about to explode very soon. It depicted a society that has perfectly blended religious fanaticism and science fiction, which is similar to modern real-world society.
Bringing about unrest by driving false narratives of religious conflict through the medium of online social media and gaining political ground is rampant in modern-day society. This is something we also get to see followers of Akira employ to get their way around in the film as well.
Cowboy Bebop
Director Shinichiro Watanabe is known all over the world for creating one of the most influential anime of all time. Something that he is still struggling to surpass with his own newer works. Perhaps Samurai Champloo is something that came the closest.
Cowboy Bebop is a show from the 90s that depicts bounty hunting in a fictional future setting, where science has advanced far enough for interstellar travel.
While not responsible for anything dystopic, this anime perfectly predicted the future of privatized gig work and freelancing, as well as digital currency transactions surpassing regular physical money.
Ghost in the Shell
Akira is not the only anime film from the 90s that was extremely influential on modern cyberpunk media. Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell was something that was able to inspire several other forms of media, including Hollywood’s Matrix, and later got a live-action adaptation of its own.
Ghost in the Shell is a film that is all about the horrors of sentient AI that has gone rogue. This is not to say that it is the only piece of fiction that has a narrative surrounding cyber terrorism or AI.
But it was pretty much one of the major ones to apply that kind of narrative in the anime medium back in the day. Ghost in the Shell perfectly predicted the buzz of AI that has been so rampant in our digital lives.
Paranoia Agent
The passing of director Satoshi Kon has been a great loss that echoed beyond the medium of anime. His works, such as Perfect Blue and Paprika, were incredibly influential in inspiring Western directors such as Darren Aronofsky and Guillermo del Toro.
But we are not here to talk about one of his films, rather his work for the popular anime series that goes by the title ‘Paranoia Agent‘. The plot of the show depicts a modern society that has been infected with mass hysteria following the terror of juvinille serial killer.
It is sufficient to say that right before the internet boom, this anime accurately predicted the mass hysteria that fake news on the internet can cause. We constantly see fabricated agendas having a dominating online presence in the modern day.
eX-Driver
We have been rambling over some really well-known shows for a while, now it’s time to talk about an anime that was mostly popular among the niche fanbases, but it did enough to predict a possible future tech. We are, of course, talking about Jun Kawagoe’s ex-Driver.
It is a show set in a fictional future society where self-driving cars dominate daily lives. This is something that is slowly becoming very prevalent in our real lives with companies such as Tesla improving on AI engineered veichle automation.
Megazone 23
Virtual music groups and idols are something that have been up and coming in recent decades. The most prevalent example has to be of the music group: Vocaloid. They have become a worldwide phenomenon with mascot idol Hatsune Miku dominating pop culture.
But did you know that virtual idols were accurately predicted by an anime series long before? And we are not talking about the Macross series. Megazone 23 is a popular mecha anime from 1985, where the idea of a virtual idol dominating future society was extensively explored.
Chobits
Sometimes it can be the most unlikely pieces of fiction that perfectly predict some important future technology. Chobits is an anime that exactly does that, as from the exterior, one may find it an uneventful show.
But Chobits depicts a fictional society where humans have become reliant on robots and androids. Something that is very relatable to what the current society is trying to achieve with available technology.
Some countries have already explored the market surrounding a non-living, digital companion with varying degrees of success. It has been joked about on the internet for years, but it is still something that can easily reel in larger parts of modern society.
Planetes
Planetes is not a show that is as recognized as some names on this list, but it is the only one here that predicted something that should start becoming a major concern for humanity’s future.
A large portion of modern society may not be concerned about this, but space debris is slowly starting to become a problem for further space science research.
Planetes is a beautiful hard sci-fi show from the mind of Makoto Yukimura that depicts a society where actual humans are employed to tackle the problem. Shows like these are a necessity in the medium of anime, and hopefully, they will become influential enough to inspire society.
