Many countries around the world have now implemented some sort of lockdown due to Coronavirus (Covid-19). South Africa, as of Thursday night at midnight went on a nationwide lockdown.
What is a person to do? Whether you are a die-hard fan, just discovering or merely curious or just want something to watch, below are 21 anime that are considered classics within the anime community.
5 Classic Anime Movies
Spirited Away
Chihiro Ogino, 10-years-old, is unhappy that she has had to leave her friends behind and move to a new town with her mother and father. While on the way to their new house, they got lost and discovered an abandoned amusement park.
Chihiro quickly realises that the park is not quite what it seems to be, and they have unknowingly crossed into the spirit world. Her parents get turned into pigs and she needs to find a way to survive in her new world, find a way to rescue her parents and finally return home.
Akira
In 1988World War III starts as a result of an explosion in Japan. The explosion had been caused by a young boy with psychic powers. He gets captured in order not to cause any more damage.
In 2019, the renovated city, Neo-Tokyo is a city rife with gang violence and terrorism against the current government. Shoutarou Kaneda leads “the Capsules,” a group of misfits known for riding large, custom motorcycles and being in constant conflict with their rivals “the Clowns.”
During one of these battles, Shoutarou’s best friend Tetsuo Shima is caught up in an accident with an esper who finds himself in the streets of Tokyo after escaping confinement from a government institution. Through this encounter, Tetsuo begins to develop his mysterious abilities, as the government seeks to quarantine this latest psychic in a desperate attempt to prevent him from unleashing the destructive power that could once again bring the city to its knees.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Makoto Konno is in her last year of high school but is having a hard time deciding what to do with her future. In between enduring the pressure of her teachers and killing time with her best friends, Makoto’s life suddenly changes when she accidentally discovers that she is capable of literally leaping through time.
Toki Wo Kakeru Shoujo follows Makoto as she plays around with her newfound power. However, she soon learns the hard way that every choice has a consequence, and time is a lot more complicated than it may seem.
Wolf Children
Hana is a hard-working college student. She falls in love with a mysterious man who attends one of her classes though he is not an actual student. He is not truly human either. On a full moon night, he transforms, revealing that he is the last werewolf alive. Despite this, Hana’s love remains strong, and the two ultimately decide to start a family. Hana gives birth to two healthy children—Ame and Yuki. Both possess the ability to turn into wolves. The sudden death of her lover devastates Hana’s life, leaving her to raise a peculiar family completely on her own. The stress of raising her wild-natured children in a densely populated city, all while keeping their identity a secret, culminates in a decision to move to the countryside, where she hopes Ame and Yuki can live a life free from the judgments of society.
Ghost in the Shell
In the year 2029, Niihama City has become a technologically advanced metropolis. Due to great improvements in cybernetics, its citizens can replace their limbs with robotic parts. The world is now more interconnected than ever before, and the city’s Public Security Section 9 is responsible for combating corruption, terrorism, and other dangerous threats following this shift towards globalization. The strong-willed Major Motoko Kusanagi of Section 9 spearheads a case involving a mysterious hacker known only as of the “Puppet Master,” who leaves a trail of victims stripped of their memories. As Motoko and her subordinates follow the enigmatic criminal’s trail, other parties start to get involved, forcing her to confront the extremely complicated nature of the case. Pondering about various philosophical questions, such as her own life’s meaning, Motoko realises that the one who will provide these answers is none other than the Puppet Master themself.
5 Short Series
Death Note
- Episodes: 37
- Status: Completed
A shinigami, as a god of death, can kill any person—provided they see their victim’s face and write their victim’s name in a notebook called a Death Note. One day, Ryuk, bored by the shinigami lifestyle and interested in seeing how a human would use a Death Note, drops one into the human realm.
High school student and prodigy Light Yagami stumbles upon the Death Note and—since he deplores the state of the world—tests the deadly notebook by writing a criminal’s name in it. When the criminal dies immediately following his experiment with the Death Note, Light is greatly surprised and quickly recognizes how devastating the power that has fallen into his hands could be.
With this divine capability, Light decides to extinguish all criminals to build a new world where crime does not exist and people worship him as a god. Police, however, quickly discover that a serial killer is targeting criminals and, consequently, try to apprehend the culprit. To do this, the Japanese investigators count on the assistance of the best detective in the world: a young and eccentric man known only by the name of L.
Steins;Gate
- Episodes: 24
- Status: Completed
The self-proclaimed mad scientist Rintarou Okabe rents out a room in a rickety old building in Akihabara, where he indulges himself in his hobby of inventing prospective “future gadgets” with fellow lab members: Mayuri Shiina, his air-headed childhood friend, and Hashida Itaru, a perverted hacker nicknamed “Daru.” The three pass the time by tinkering with their most promising contraption yet, a machine dubbed the “Phone Microwave,” which performs the strange function of morphing bananas into piles of green gel.
Though miraculous in itself, the phenomenon doesn’t provide anything concrete in Okabe’s search for a scientific breakthrough; that is, until the lab members are spurred into action by a string of mysterious happenings before stumbling upon an unexpected success—the Phone Microwave can send emails to the past, altering the flow of history.
Adapted from the critically acclaimed visual novel by 5pb. and Nitroplus, Steins;Gate takes Okabe through the depths of scientific theory and practicality. Forced across the diverging threads of past and present, Okabe must shoulder the burdens that come with holding the key to the realm of time.
Angel Beats
- Episodes: 13
- Status: Completed
Otonashi awakens only to learn he is dead. A rifle-toting girl named Yuri explains that they are in the afterlife, and Otonashi realizes the only thing he can remember about himself is his name. Yuri tells him that she leads the Shinda Sekai Sensen (Afterlife Battlefront) and wages war against a girl named Tenshi. Unable to believe Yuri’s claims that Tenshi is evil, Otonashi attempts to speak with her, but the encounter doesn’t go as he intended.
Otonashi decides to join the SSS and battle Tenshi, but he finds himself oddly drawn to her. While trying to regain his memories and understand Tenshi, he gradually unravels the mysteries of the afterlife.
Charlotte
- Episodes: 13
- Status: Completed
While on the surface Yuu Otosaka appears to be just another charming and intelligent teenager, he has a secret—he has the ability to slip into people’s minds and fully control their body for five seconds at a time. Yuu has been using this skill for years to gain the highest grades, which allowed him to enter a prestigious high school.
When the enigmatic Nao Tomori catches Yuu using his power, she coerces him and his sister Ayumi into transferring to Hoshinoumi Academy, a school for students with supernatural abilities. The student council of the school, led by Nao, is tasked with secretly tracking down adolescents who abuse their powers. Yuu is forced to join the student council and together, they face formidable challenges that bring him closer to the shocking truth that his own, seemingly incomplete ability, might be more powerful than he could have ever imagined.
An original story from Jun Maeda, creator of Angel Beats and Clannad, Charlotte explores the supernatural lives of these teenagers and the price they must pay for being special.
Cowboy Bebop
- Episodes: 26
- Status: Completed
In the year 2071, humanity has colonized several of the planets and moons of the solar system leaving the now uninhabitable surface of planet Earth behind. The Inter Solar System Police attempts to keep peace in the galaxy, aided in part by outlaw bounty hunters, referred to as “Cowboys.” The ragtag team aboard the spaceship Bebop are two such individuals.
Mellow and carefree Spike Spiegel is balanced by his boisterous, pragmatic partner Jet Black as the pair makes a living chasing bounties and collecting rewards. Thrown off course by the addition of new members that they meet in their travels—Ein, a genetically engineered, highly intelligent Welsh Corgi; femme fatale Faye Valentine, an enigmatic trickster with memory loss; and the strange computer whiz kid Edward Wong—the crew embarks on thrilling adventures that unravel each member’s dark and mysterious past little by little.
Well-balanced with high-density action and light-hearted comedy, Cowboy Bebop is a space Western classic and a homage to the smooth and improvised music it is named after.
5 Medium Length Anime
Rurouni Kenshin
- Episodes: 94
- Status: Completed
In the final years of the Bakumatsu era lived a legendary assassin known as Hitokiri Battousai. Feared as a merciless killer, he was unmatched throughout the country but mysteriously disappeared at the peak of the Japanese Revolution. It has been ten peaceful years since then, but the very mention of Battousai still strikes terror into the hearts of war veterans.
Unbeknownst to them, Battousai has abandoned his bloodstained lifestyle in an effort to repent for his sins, now living as Kenshin Himura, a wandering swordsman with a cheerful attitude and a strong will. Vowing never to kill again, Kenshin dedicates himself to protecting the weak. One day, he stumbles across Kaoru Kamiya at her kendo dojo, which is being threatened by an impostor claiming to be Battousai. After receiving help from Kenshin, Kaoru allows him to stay at the dojo, and so the former assassin temporarily ceases his travels.
Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan tells the story of Kenshin as he strives to save those in need of saving. However, as enemies from both past and present begin to emerge, will the reformed killer be able to uphold his new ideals?
Monster
- Episodes: 74
- Status: Completed
Dr Kenzou Tenma, an elite neurosurgeon recently engaged to his hospital director’s daughter, is well on his way to ascending the hospital hierarchy. That is until one night, a seemingly small event changes Dr Tenma’s life forever. While preparing to perform surgery on someone, he gets a call from the hospital director telling him to switch patients and instead perform life-saving brain surgery on a famous performer. His fellow doctors, fiancée, and the hospital director applaud his accomplishment; but because of the switch, a poor immigrant worker is dead, causing Dr Tenma to have a crisis of conscience.
So when a similar situation arises, Dr Tenma stands his ground and chooses to perform surgery on the young boy Johan Liebert instead of the town’s mayor. Unfortunately, this choice leads to serious ramifications for Dr Tenma—losing his social standing being one of them. However, with the mysterious death of the director and two other doctors, Dr Tenma’s position is restored. With no evidence to convict him, he is released and goes on to attain the position of the hospital director.
Nine years later when Dr Tenma saves the life of a criminal, his past comes back to haunt him—once again, he comes face to face with the monster he operated on. He must now embark on a quest of pursuit to make amends for the havoc spread by the one he saved.
Soul Eater
- Episodes: 51
- Status: Completed
Death City is home to the famous Death Weapon Meister Academy, a technical academy headed by the Shinigami—Lord Death himself. Its mission: to raise “Death Scythes” for the Shinigami to wield against the many evils of their fantastical world. These Death Scythes, however, are not made from physical weapons; rather, they are born from human hybrids who have the ability to transform their bodies into Demon Weapons, and only after they have consumed the souls of 99 evil beings and one witch’s soul.
Soul Eater Evans, a Demon Scythe who only seems to care about what’s cool, aims to become a Death Scythe with the help of his straight-laced wielder, or meister, Maka Albarn. The contrasting duo work and study alongside the hot-headed Black☆Star and his caring weapon Tsubaki, as well as the Shinigami’s own son, Death the Kid, an obsessive-compulsive dual wielder of twin pistols Patty and Liz.
Soul Eater follows these students of Shibusen as they take on missions to collect souls and protect the city from the world’s threats while working together under the snickering sun to become sounder in mind, body, and soul.
Full Metal Alchemist / Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood
- Episodes: FMA (51) + FMAB (64) = 115
- Status: Completed (but not really)
Edward Elric, a young, brilliant alchemist, has lost much in his twelve-year life: when he and his brother Alphonse try to resurrect their dead mother through the forbidden act of human transmutation, Edward loses his brother as well as two of his limbs. With his supreme alchemy skills, Edward binds Alphonse’s soul to a large suit of armour.
A year later, Edward, now promoted to the Full Metal alchemist of the state, embarks on a journey with his younger brother to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone. The fabled mythical object is rumoured to be capable of amplifying an alchemist’s abilities by leaps and bounds, thus allowing them to override the fundamental law of alchemy: to gain something, an alchemist must sacrifice something of equal value. Edward hopes to draw into the military’s resources to find the fabled stone and restore his and Alphonse’s bodies to normal. However, the Elric brothers soon discover that there is more to the legendary stone than meets the eye, as they are led to the epicentre of a far darker battle than they could have ever imagined.
Assassination Classroom
- Episodes: 71
- Status: Completed
When a mysterious creature chops the moon down to a permanent crescent, the students of class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Middle School find themselves confronted with an enormous task: assassinate the creature responsible for the disaster before Earth suffers a similar fate. However, the monster, dubbed Koro-sensei (the indestructible teacher), is able to fly at speeds of up to Mach 20, which he demonstrates freely, leaving any attempt to subdue him in his extraterrestrial dust. Furthermore, the misfits of 3-E soon find that the strange, tentacled beast is more than just indomitable—he is the best teacher they have ever had!
Adapted from the humorous hit manga by Yuusei Matsui, Ansatsu Kyoushitsu tells the story of these junior high pupils as they polish their assassination skills and grow in order to stand strong against the oppressive school system, their own life problems, and one day, Koro-sensei.
6 Long-Running Anime
Gintama
- Episodes: 367
- Status: Complete
The Amanto, aliens from outer space, have invaded Earth and taken over feudal Japan. As a result, a prohibition on swords has been established, and the samurai of Japan are treated with disregard as a consequence.
However one man, Gintoki Sakata, still possesses the heart of the samurai, although, from his love of sweets and work as a yorozuya, one might not expect it. Accompanying him in his jack-of-all-trades line of work are Shinpachi Shimura, a boy with glasses and a strong heart, Kagura with her umbrella and seemingly bottomless stomach, as well as Sadaharu, their oversized pet dog. Of course, these odd jobs are not always simple, as they frequently have run-ins with the police, ragtag rebels, and assassins, oftentimes leading to humorous but unfortunate consequences.
Who said life as an errand boy was easy?
Naruto & Naruto Shippuden
- Episodes: Naruto (220) + Naruto Shippuden (500) = 720
- Status: Completed
Moments prior to Naruto Uzumaki’s birth, a huge demon is known as the Kyuubi, the Nine-Tailed Fox, attacked Konohagakure, the Hidden Leaf Village, and wreaked havoc. In order to put an end to the Kyuubi’s rampage, the leader of the village, the Fourth Hokage, sacrificed his life and sealed the monstrous beast inside the newborn Naruto.
Now, Naruto is a hyperactive and knuckle-headed ninja still living in Konohagakure. Shunned because of the Kyuubi inside him, Naruto struggles to find his place in the village, while his burning desire to become the Hokage of Konohagakure leads him not only to some great new friends but also some deadly foes.
Bleach
- Episodes: 366
- Status: Was complete but now getting another season in 2021!
Ichigo Kurosaki is an ordinary high schooler—until his family is attacked by a Hollow, a corrupt spirit that seeks to devour human souls. It is then that he meets a Soul Reaper named Rukia Kuchiki, who gets injured while protecting Ichigo’s family from the assailant. To save his family, Ichigo accepts Rukia’s offer of taking her powers and becomes a Soul Reaper as a result.
However, as Rukia is unable to regain her powers, Ichigo is given the daunting task of hunting down the Hollows that plague their town. However, he is not alone in his fight, as he is later joined by his friends—classmates Orihime Inoue, Yasutora Sado, and Uryuu Ishida—who each have their own unique abilities. As Ichigo and his comrades get used to their new duties and support each other on and off the battlefield, the young Soul Reaper soon learns that the Hollows are not the only real threat to the human world.
One Piece
- Episodes: 925
- Status: Ongoing (honestly wondering if the end is somewhat in sight now)
Gol D. Roger was known as the “Pirate King,” the strongest and most infamous being to have sailed the Grand Line. The capture and execution of Roger by the World Government brought a change throughout the world. His last words before his death revealed the existence of the greatest treasure in the world, One Piece. It was this revelation that brought about the Grand Age of Pirates, men who dreamed of finding One Piece—which promises an unlimited amount of riches and fame—and quite possibly the pinnacle of glory and the title of the Pirate King.
Enter Monkey D. Luffy, a 17-year-old boy who defies your standard definition of a pirate. Rather than the popular persona of a wicked, hardened, toothless pirate ransacking villages for fun, Luffy’s reason for being a pirate is one of pure wonder: the thought of an exciting adventure that leads him to intriguing people and ultimately, the promised treasure. Following in the footsteps of his childhood hero, Luffy and his crew travel across the Grand Line, experiencing crazy adventures, unveiling dark mysteries and battling strong enemies, all in order to reach the most coveted of all fortunes—One Piece.
Case Closed (Detective Conan)
- Episodes: 974
- Status: Ongoing (Will probably never end)
Shinichi Kudou, a high school student of astounding talent in detective work, is well known for having solved several challenging cases. One day, when Shinichi spots two suspicious men and decides to follow them, he inadvertently becomes witness to a disturbing illegal activity. Unfortunately, he is caught in the act, so the men dose him with an experimental drug formulated by their criminal organization, leaving him to his death. However, to his own astonishment, Shinichi lives to see another day, but now in the body of a seven-year-old child.
Perfectly preserving his original intelligence, he hides his real identity from everyone, including his childhood friend Ran Mouri and her father, private detective Kogorou Mouri. To this end, he takes on the alias of Conan Edogawa, inspired by the mystery writers Arthur Conan Doyle and Ranpo Edogawa.
Detective Conan follows Shinichi who, as Conan, starts secretly solving the senior Mouri’s cases from behind the scenes with his still exceptional sleuthing skills, while covertly investigating the organization responsible for his current state, hoping to reverse the drug’s effects someday.
Pokemon
- Episodes: 1107
- Status: Ongoing (This too will probably never end)
Pokemon are creatures with an array of different abilities and appearances. Pokemon trainers, capture and train them, often with the intent of battling others. Ash Ketchum’s dream is to become a Pokemon Master. On his 10th birthday, he finally has a chance to make that dream a reality. Unfortunately for him, all three Pokemon available to beginning trainers have already been claimed and only Pikachu, a rebellious Electric-type Pokemon, remains. However, this chance encounter would mark the start of a lifelong friendship and an epic adventure!
Setting off on a journey to become the very best, Ash and Pikachu travel across beautiful, sprawling regions with their friends Misty, a Water-type trainer, and Brok, a Rock-type trainer. But danger lurks around every corner. The infamous Team Rocket is always nearby, seeking to steal powerful Pokemon through nefarious schemes. It’ll be up to Ash and his friends to thwart their efforts as he also strives to earn the eight Pokemon Gym Badges he’ll need to challenge the Pokemon League, and eventually claim the title of Pokemon Master.
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