These mind boggling anime will f up your mind!
A well-defined psychological anime will feature mind games, psychological savvy, bizarre twists and turns, the human psyche, and everything involving the mind. It doesn’t stop there! This genre includes highly entertaining and intense shows that can leave viewers with a lasting impression. So, without further ado, here are the 10 Best 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 Chisa Yomoda, a committed student. Lain has neither the desire nor the experience to deal 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 is confronted with one perplexing mystery after another. Strange strangers known as the Men in Black begin to appear everywhere she goes, 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.
Other works by Chiaki J. Konaka include Texhnolyze and Serial Experiments. Lain is an avant-garde psychological mystery series that follows Lain as she makes life-changing decisions in both the real world and the Wired. Only Lain will comprehend the significance of their presence as one world collapses and another emerges.
9. Now and Then, Here and There
Shuuzou “Shuu” Matsutani goes about his daily life in peace. He has friends, a crush, and is obsessed with kendo. Shuu, depressed after losing in kendo, climbs a smokestack to watch the sunset, where he meets Lala-Ru, a peaceful, blue-haired girl wearing an unusual pendant. Shuu attempts to befriend her despite her indifferent, lacklustre responses.
His hopes are dashed, however, when a woman and two serpentine machines appear out of nowhere, intent on capturing Lala-Ru. Shuu, ever the braggart, attempts to rescue his new companion from her kidnappers and is transported to a desert realm unlike any he has ever seen. Regardless of the circumstances, Shuu is only interested in saving Lala-Ru until he is severely beaten by the troops. Lala-Ru has the ability to manipulate water, as he quickly discovers, and her pendant is the source from which she can summon the liquid, a scarce item in his new world. The pendant, however, has gone missing, and Shuu is the prime suspect.
Now and Then, Here and There tells the heartbreaking story of a dystopian society and Shuu, who must endure torture, hunger, and the horrors of war in order 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 keeps a digital diary of his daily activities by taking notes on his phone. Yukiteru is frequently seen conversing with his ostensibly fictitious companions Deus Ex Machina, the deity of time and space, and Deus’ servant, Mur Mur, despite the fact that he has no classmates.
Yukiteru awakens one day to find that certain events from his day have been preemptively displayed on his cellphone. While he initially dismisses it as a coincidence, he gradually realises that the events recorded on his phone will take place in the near future. After spending the day utilising this new asset, Yukiteru discovers that his classmate Yuno Gasai has a similar diary.
Deus Ex Machina explains that they, along with ten other participants, 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. Yukiteru and Yuno have no choice but to rely on their cellphones, now dubbed “Future Diaries,” to survive this merciless battle royale.
7. Ghost In The Shell
Humanity will have advanced to the point where complete body transplants from flesh to machine will be possible in the not-too-distant future. This allows for significant improvements in both physical and cybernetic capabilities, blurring the line between the two. Criminals, on the other hand, can fully exploit such technology, resulting in new and often extremely dangerous crimes. In response to such innovative new tactics, the Japanese government established Section 9, a self-contained police unit that handles such sensitive offences.
Section 9, led by Daisuke Aramaki and Motoko Kusanagi, deals with such crimes on a wide range of social levels, with varying degrees of success. When confronted with a new A-level hacker dubbed “The Laughing Man,” the team is forced to engage in a dangerous cat and mouse game, following the hacker’s trail as it leaves its imprint on Japan.
6. Terror in Resonance
After a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility in Japan, all that remains is the word “VON” in red. The administration has been shattered by their inaction, and the police are desperately looking for ways to punish the offenders. The general public is unaware—until six months later, when a strange video appears on the internet. In it, two teenage boys known only as “Sphinx” confront the cops, threatening to wreak havoc and mayhem across Tokyo. The police struggle to act effectively against these terrorists, unable to stop the growing panic in the city and eager for any leads in their investigation, with Detective Kenjirou Shibazaki caught in the middle of it all.
Terror in Resonance tells the story of Nine and Twelve, the two young men behind Sphinx’s masked figures. They shouldn’t exist, but they do, causing the city to crumble around them in the hopes of burying their own terrible truth.
5. Death Note
Heinous murders, petty thefts, and senseless violence pollute the human world. In contrast, the world of death gods is a mundane, unchanging gambling den. Light Yagami, a brilliant 17-year-old Japanese student, and Ryuk, the sadistic god of death, both believe in the same thing: their worlds are rotten.
Ryuk sends his “Death Note” into the human world for his own pleasure. Light shines through it, mocking the first of its rules: the human whose name is written in this letter will perish. Light investigates the temptation by writing a felon’s name, which terrifyingly reenacts his first murder.
Aware of his terrifying godlike power, Light—dubbed “Kira”—follows his cruel sense of justice with the ultimate goal of purging the planet of all evildoers. The meticulous brilliant detective L is already on his tail, but as Light’s intelligence rivals L’s, the epic chase for Kira turns into 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, not expecting to be ripped from his normal life and thrust into a dream realm. Things aren’t looking good for the befuddled kid, who is ambushed by a gang of goons not long after he arrives. He’s being beaten to a pulp with only a bag of groceries and a now-ineffective cell phone. Fortunately, Subaru is rescued by Satella, a mysterious beauty on the hunt for the person who stole her insignia. Subaru offers to help her in her search to reward the honest and kindhearted girl, and later that night, he discovers 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, meaning she was born with a short set of horns and invisible telekinetic hands, making her a victim of the government’s harsh scientific testing. When a chance to escape presents itself, Lucy, corrupted by incarceration and torment, unleashes a torrent of carnage as she flees her captors.
She suffers a catastrophic brain injury during her breakout, leaving her with a split personality: a harmless child with limited speaking ability. In this situation, she meets two college students, Kouta and his cousin Yuka, who take in an injured fugitive by mistake, unaware of her violent intentions. This act of kindness will change their lives forever, as they are soon drawn into the mysterious world of government secrecy and intrigue.
2. Neon Genesis Evangelion
The planet faces a new threat fifteen years after the Second Impact: terrible celestial entities known as “Angels” invade Tokyo-3 one by one. Despite using cutting-edge weaponry and military strategies, humanity is unable to repel the Angels. The only hope for human rescue is NERV, a mysterious organisation led by the icy Gendou Ikari. NERV uses massive humanoid robots known as “Evangelions” to confront the Angels with advanced weaponry and Absolute Terror Fields.
Shinji Ikari, Gendou’s 14-year-old son, arrives in Tokyo-3 after being abandoned by his father for years. Shinji is fighting an internal war against the deeply hidden trauma caused by his mother’s death and his father’s emotional neglect. Shinji’s life is drastically altered after meeting Misato Katsuragi, a 29-year-old NERV officer who offers him a free-spirited mother with tenderness he has never known.
Shinji is compelled to act following a deadly Angel attack, 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 uses his biometrics to communicate. Despite the horrific psychological trauma caused by piloting an Evangelion, Shinji protects Tokyo-3 from the heavenly threat, completely unaware of his father’s evil plans.
1. Steins Gate
Rintarou Okabe is an eccentric scientist with an insatiable thirst for scientific knowledge. Rintarou co-founds the Future Gadget Laboratory with his brash but well-meaning friend Mayuri Shiina and his roommate Itaru Hashida, with the goal of inventing technological advances that baffle the human mind. Despite its lofty claims, the trio’s most well-known “gadget” is a microwave that has the mysterious ability to turn bananas into green slime.
When Rintarou decides to attend neuroscientist Kurisu Makise’s time travel conference, he encounters a series of strange events that lead him to believe that the “Phone Microwave” gadget 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,” earning the ire and attention of the enigmatic organisation SERN.
The unique discovery puts Rintarou and his friends in constant danger. He is fighting not only to save his loved ones, but also to keep his sanity as he attempts to repair the damage his invention has caused to the timeline.
You might also like:
