These bizarre anime will blow your mind!
Mind games, psychological savvy, bizarre twists and turns, the human psyche, and everything involving the mind will be featured in a well-defined psychological anime. It does not end there! This genre includes shows that are both entertaining and intense, and can leave viewers with a lasting impression. Without further ado, here are the Top 10 Psychological Anime That Will Blow Your Mind!
10. Serial Experiments Lain
Lain Iwakura, a shy and introverted fourteen-year-old, is one of many girls at her school who received a distressing email from a dedicated student named Chisa Yomoda. Lain has no desire or experience with even basic technology; however, when the technophobe opens the email, she is immediately transported into the Wired, a virtual world of communication networks similar to the internet. Lain’s life is turned upside down as she faces one perplexing mystery after another. Strange strangers known as the Men in Black start following her around, questioning her and knowing more about her than she does. With the boundaries between reality and cyberspace rapidly blurring, Lain is plunged into more surreal and bizarre events where identity, consciousness, and perception are concepts that take on new meanings.
Chiaki J. Konaka’s other works include Texhnolyze and Serial Experiments. Lain is an avant-garde psychological mystery series that follows Lain as she makes life-altering decisions in both the real and Wired worlds. Only Lain will understand the significance of their presence as one world dissolves and another emerges.
9. Now and Then, Here and There
Shuuzou “Shuu” Matsutani goes about his business as usual. He has friends, a crush, and a kendo obsession. After losing in kendo, Shuu climbs a smokestack to watch the sunset, where he meets Lala-Ru, a peaceful, blue-haired girl wearing an unusual pendant. Despite her indifferent, lacklustre responses, Shuu attempts to befriend her.
However, his hopes are dashed when a woman and two serpentine machines appear out of nowhere, intent on capturing Lala-Ru. Shuu, ever the braggart, tries to save his new friend from her kidnappers and is transported to a desert realm unlike any he has ever seen. Whatever the circumstances, Shuu is only concerned with rescuing Lala-Ru until he is severely beaten by the troops. As he soon discovers, Lala-Ru has the ability to manipulate water, and her pendant is the source from which she can summon the liquid, a scarce item in his new world. The pendant, on the other hand, has vanished, and Shuu is the prime suspect.
Now and Then, Here and There is the heartbreaking story of a dystopian society and Shuu, who must endure torture, hunger, and war’s horrors to save the lonely girl he finds perched atop a smokestack.
8. Mirai Nikki (Future Diary)
Yukiteru Amano is a quiet middle school student who uses his phone to keep a digital diary of his daily activities. Despite the fact that he has no classmates, Yukiteru is frequently seen conversing with his ostensibly fictitious companions Deus Ex Machina, the deity of time and space, and Deus’ servant, Mur Mur.
Yukiteru awakens one day to find that certain events from his day have been displayed on his cellphone ahead of time. While he dismisses it at first as a coincidence, he gradually realises that the events recorded on his phone will occur in the near future. Yukiteru discovers that his classmate Yuno Gasai has a diary similar to his after spending the day using this new asset.
According to Deus Ex Machina, they have been dragged into a survival game, the winner of which will become the deity’s successor, as the two work together to fight an unusual pursuer and return to their respective houses. To survive this merciless battle royale, Yukiteru and Yuno must rely on their cellphones, now dubbed “Future Diaries.”
7. Ghost In The Shell
In the not-too-distant future, humanity will have advanced to the point where complete body transplants from flesh to machine will be possible. This enables significant advances in both physical and cybernetic capabilities, blurring the distinction between the two. Criminals, on the other hand, have the ability to fully exploit such technology, resulting in novel and often extremely dangerous crimes. The Japanese government established Section 9, a self-contained police unit that handles such sensitive offenses, in response to such innovative new tactics.
Section 9, led by Daisuke Aramaki and Motoko Kusanagi, investigates such crimes on a variety of social levels, with varying degrees of success. When confronted with a new A-level hacker known as “The Laughing Man,” the team is forced to play a dangerous cat and mouse game, following the hacker’s trail as it leaves its imprint on Japan.
6. Terror in Resonance
All that remains of a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility in Japan is the word “VON” in red. The administration’s inaction has shattered it, and the police are desperately looking for ways to punish the offenders. The general public is unaware—until a strange video appears on the internet six months later. In it, two adolescent boys known only as “Sphinx” confront the cops, threatening to cause havoc and mayhem throughout Tokyo. Detective Kenjirou Shibazaki is caught in the middle of it all as the police struggle to act effectively against these terrorists, unable to stop the city’s growing panic and eager for any leads in their investigation.
The story of Nine and Twelve, the two young men behind Sphinx’s masked figures, is told in Terror in Resonance. They shouldn’t exist, but they do, causing the city to crumble around them in an attempt to conceal their own terrible truth.
5. Death Note
The human world is polluted by heinous murders, petty thefts, and senseless violence. The world of death gods, on the other hand, is a mundane, unchanging gambling den. Both Light Yagami, a brilliant 17-year-old Japanese student, and Ryuk, the sadistic god of death, believe that their worlds are rotten.
Ryuk sends his “Death Note” into the human world just for fun. Light shines through it, mocking the first of its rules: the person whose name appears in this letter will perish. Light investigates the temptation by reenacting his first murder by writing a felon’s name.
Light, who is aware of his terrifying godlike power, follows his cruel sense of justice with the ultimate goal of purging the planet of all evildoers. L, the meticulous brilliant detective, is already on his tail, but as Light’s intelligence rivals L’s, the epic hunt for Kira becomes a frantic battle of wits that can only end when one of them dies.
4. Re: Zero
Subaru Natsuki walks out of the convenience store, unprepared to be plucked from his normal life and thrust into a dream realm. Things aren’t going well for the befuddled kid, who is ambushed by a gang of goons shortly after arriving. He’s being beaten to a pulp with nothing more than a grocery bag and a now-ineffective cell phone. Satella, a mysterious beauty on the hunt for the person who stole her insignia, saves Subaru. Subaru offers to assist her in her quest to reward the honest and kindhearted girl, and later that night, he figures out where she needs to go. But, unbeknownst to them, a much darker force lurks in the shadows, and Subaru and Satella are brutally murdered just minutes after discovering the insignia.
However, the mystery deepens as Subaru awakens to a familiar scene—confronted by the same gang of criminals, meeting Satella all over again—as history strangely repeats itself.
3. Elfen Lied
Lucy is a “Diclonius” human, which means she was born with short horns and invisible telekinetic hands, making her a victim of the government’s rigorous scientific testing. When a chance to flee her captors presents itself, Lucy, corrupted by incarceration and torment, unleashes a torrent of carnage.
During her breakout, she suffers a catastrophic brain injury, leaving her with a split personality: a harmless child with limited speaking ability. In this situation, she meets Kouta and his cousin Yuka, two college students who take in an injured fugitive by mistake, unaware of her violent intentions. This act of kindness will forever alter their lives, drawing them into the mysterious world of government secrecy and intrigue.
2. Neon Genesis Evangelion
Fifteen years after the Second Impact, the planet faces a new threat: terrible celestial entities known as “Angels” invade Tokyo-3 one by one. Humanity is unable to repel the Angels despite using cutting-edge weaponry and military strategies. NERV, a mysterious organisation led by the icy Gendou Ikari, is the only hope for human rescue. NERV confronts the Angels with advanced weaponry and Absolute Terror Fields via massive humanoid robots known as “Evangelions.”
Shinji Ikari, Gendou’s 14-year-old son, arrives in Tokyo-3 after his father abandons him for years. Shinji is fighting an internal battle against the deeply hidden trauma caused by the death of his mother and his father’s emotional neglect. Shinji’s life is forever changed after meeting Misato Katsuragi, a 29-year-old NERV officer who provides him with a free-spirited mother with tenderness he has never known.
Shinji feels compelled to act after being attacked by a deadly Angel, and Gendou reveals the true reason for inviting his son back to Tokyo-3: Shinji is the only child who can pilot Evangelion Unit-01, a new robot that communicates via biometrics. Shinji protects Tokyo-3 from the heavenly threat despite the horrific psychological trauma caused by piloting an Evangelion, completely unaware of his father’s evil plans.
1. Steins Gate
Rintarou Okabe is a quirky scientist with a voracious appetite for scientific knowledge. Rintarou co-founds the Future Gadget Laboratory with his brash but well-intentioned friend Mayuri Shiina and his roommate Itaru Hashida, with the goal of inventing technological advances that confound the human mind. Despite its lofty claims, the trio’s most well-known “gadget” is a microwave with the enigmatic ability to turn bananas into green slime.
When Rintarou decides to attend neuroscientist Kurisu Makise’s time travel conference, a series of strange events occur, leading him to believe that the “Phone Microwave” device is more than meets the eye. Rintarou, who appears to be able to send microwave text messages into the past, experiments with the “time machine,” attracting the ire and attention of the enigmatic SERN.
Rintarou and his friends are constantly in danger as a result of their extraordinary discovery. He is fighting not only to save his loved ones, but also to keep his sanity as he attempts to repair the timeline damage caused by his invention.