9 stories
Kaiji
Japan, February 1996. Three years after graduating from high school and moving to Tokyo to get a job, Kaiji Itō fails to find steady employment due to the country being mired in its first recession since World War II. Depressed, he festers in his apartment, biding his time with cheap pranks, gambling, liquor and cigarettes. Kaiji is always thinking about money and his perpetual poverty frequently brings him to tears. Kaiji's unrelenting misery continues until he is paid an unexpected visit from a loan shark named Yūji Endō, who wants to collect an outstanding debt that Kaiji has carelessly co-signed for his former co-worker. Endō gives Kaiji two options – either spend ten years repaying this outstanding debt, or board the gambling ship Espoir ("hope" in French) for one night to clear the debt. Using a con, Endō pressures Kaiji into accepting the deal, believing he will never come back from the voyage.
Haibane Renmei
The series concerns a group of mysterious children and young adults named the Haibane, who live in a walled city which only has one entrance and which none of its inhabitants are ever allowed to leave. The Haibane differ from the regular human inhabitants of the city in the way they are born (erupting fully-formed from cocoons) and in the fact that they have both halos and wings, just like angels (though the word "Haibane" — "charcoal feather" — comes from the fact their wings are charcoal gray rather than pure white).
Blue Gender
In the year 2009, Yuji Kaido is an average young adult male diagnosed with a serious disease (the "B-cells") and is put into cryogenic stasis until a cure is found. Twenty-two years later, he is awakened in the midst of a raging battle between armored soldiers and insectoid beings called the "Blue" which have overrun the Earth. The soldiers are from an orbiting space colony collectively called Second Earth and were ordered to recover "sleepers" around the Earth. Among them is Marlene Angel, who at first appears to be heartless toward others. On the journey to Second Earth, Yuji meets many of the humans that were left behind during the evacuation due to limited resources. Standing orders for Marlene and the other troops are to consider any human survivors on the surface to be already dead, which greatly troubles Yuji.
Princess tutu
Once there was a writer named Drosselmeyer, who had the power to make his stories come to life. But he died before he could finish his final tale, The Prince and the Raven, leaving the two title characters locked in an eternal battle. After many years, the Raven managed to break free into the real world, and the Prince pursued him. To seal away the Raven's evil, Prince Siegfried shattered his own heart with his sword, causing him to lose all his memories and emotions. Drosselmeyer, now a ghost, decides the story must have an ending. He finds it in the form of a little duck, who has fallen in love with Mytho, the empty remainder of Siegfried. He gives her a magic pendant that can transform her, first into an ordinary human girl, then into the graceful ballerina Princess Tutu, another character in the story. As Tutu, it's Duck's job to find all the scattered shards of Mytho's heart and return them to him.
The Vision of Escaflowne
Gaea is an alternate dimension that was created from the combined wishes of the inhabitants of Atlantis when it started to sink into the ocean. Gaea has 100 countries. On Gaea, Earth is known as the Mystic Moon. Gaea's size, mass, atmospheric composition, temperature belts, and even seasons are the same as Earth’s, although its gravity is lower, as implied by some of the jumps and acrobatic feats of some of the show's characters. The series focuses on Hitomi Kanzaki and her adventures after she is transported to the world of Gaea, a mysterious planet where she can see Earth and its moon in the sky. Hitomi's latent psychic powers are enhanced on Gaea and she quickly becomes embroiled in the conflicts between the Zaibach Empire led by Emperor Isaac Dornkirk and the several peaceful countries that surround it. The conflicts are brought about by the Zaibach Empire's quest to revive the legendary power from the ancient city of Atlantis. As the series progresses, many of the characters' pasts and motivations, as well as the history of Atlantis and the true nature of the planet Gaea, are revealed.
Serial Experiments Lain
Lain Iwakura, a junior high school girl, lives in suburban Japan with her middle-class family, consisting of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her emotionally distant mother, and her computer-obsessed father; Lain herself is somewhat awkward, introverted, and socially isolated from most of her school peers. The status-quo of her life becomes upturned by a series of bizarre incidents that start to take place after she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from a dead student, Chisa Yomoda, and she pulls out her old computer in order to check for the same message. Lain finds Chisa telling her via email that she is not dead but has merely "abandoned her physical self" and is alive deep within the virtual realm of the Wired itself, where she claims she has found "God" there. From this point, Lain is caught up in a series of cryptic and surreal events that see her delving deeper into the mystery of the network in a narrative that explores themes of consciousness, perception, and the nature of reality.
Texhnolyze
Texhnolyze takes place in the city of Lux, a man-made underground city that has crumbled after years of neglect and lack of repairs. Citizens of Lux have come to refer to their home as simply "The City" and treat it as though it has a mind and will of its own. Three major factions battle to control Lux: Organo, a group of "professionals" who collaborate with the criminal underworld that controls Texhnolyze (prosthetics); the Salvation Union, a populist group that seeks to disrupt Organo's business; and Racan, a collection of young individuals with Texhnolyzes that use their abilities for personal gain. Ichise was once an orphan who has made a place for himself in Lux as a prize fighter. One day, a fight promoter grows angry with him and the altercation that follows results in Ichise losing an arm and a leg. Before death can take him, Ichise is found by the scientist Eriko Kamata, who uses him as a test subject for her newly designed Texhnolyze. With these powerful new limbs at his disposal, Ichise begins to work for Oonishi, the leader of Organo. He soon meets a mysterious young girl, Ran, who has the power to see possible futures. Together, they soon realize that Lux is on the brink of war and collapse, and that they may be the only ones who can save The city. Texhnolyze takes the audience into an Wellsian dystopia in which hope is scarce and evil is unbound.
Trigun
In the 32nd century, a man known as "Vash the Stampede" has earned a bounty of $$60 billion ("double dollar") on his head and the nickname "The Humanoid Typhoon" (人間台風) after accidentally destroying a city with his supernatural powers. However, whenever he is attacked, Vash displays a pacifist personality as noted by two Bernardelli Insurance Society employees, Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, who follow him around in order to minimize the damages inevitably caused by his appearance. Most of the damage attributed to Vash is actually caused by bounty hunters in pursuit of the sixty billion double-dollar bounty on Vash's head for the destruction of the city of July. However, he cannot remember the incident due to retrograde amnesia, being able to recall only fragments of the destroyed city and memories of his childhood. Throughout his travels, Vash tries to save lives using non-lethal force. He is occasionally joined by a priest, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, who, like Vash, is a superb gunfighter with a mysterious past. As the series progresses, more about Vash's past and the history of human civilization on the planet Gunsmoke is revealed.
Ever 17 (Netflix)
Ever 17 is the tale of seven individuals who come to be trapped within the underwater marine theme park, LeMU, 51 meters below the surface. During an apparently normal day at the park, an incident occurs, placing almost half of the facility underwater. The path to the surface and the communication lines are cut off. In addition, LeMU is under constant assault by severe water pressure, limiting time to find a means of escape to 119 hours. Escape is not the only concern, however; many questions arise as to the legitimacy of the accident and whether or not those trapped there were brought there for a purpose. As the situation grows more desperate, the people trapped inside LeMU grow closer. They begin to uncover the answers to mysteries about themselves, LeMU, and the situation itself. As the end of LeMU grows nearer, so too do the mysteries and relationships forged by the situation grow deeper. Ultimately, it is up to the characters not only to survive, but to discover the truth behind LeMU and themselves as well.
