Cover: Saga about Vinland
“Blade cutting demons” (Kimetsu no yaiba), 2019 – ..
Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Action
Studio: Ufotable
Director: Haruo Sotodzaki
Rumor has it that once in the forests, love demons inhabited, who made their way into the houses of victims at night. However, for many years, hunters for demons remained without work – terrible creatures retreated, and awe in front of them carefully sealed in the terrible legends told by the children at night. But one day, the past became reality. An unbeliever in Tanziro Kamado's fairy tales returns home in the morning and discovers his entire big family with a torn rampant. Only the youngest sister Nadzuko remained alive, but now demonic blood flows in her veins, and the mind is gradually collapsing under the influence of the curse. The young man immediately decides to find an antidote and rushes with Nezuko through snowy forests, where he meets a hunter Gia Tomioku, and then joins the ranks of demon fighters.
Tanziriro hopes to find the very monster that killed his family, but the path requires great feats from him – dangerous battles with demons are waiting for him at every step. The narrative follows the strategy of the genre Sönen – the protagonist is growing up in continuous overcoming his borders and mastering new experience. But, interestingly, the characters here are not divided into “good” and “evil” – each of the heroes has a dual nature, even demons have a sad background of their cruelty, and hunters have weaknesses. “Blade” is one of the best modern anime of the series, which is impressive with subtle work with characters, talented animation and bright choreography of battles created using CGI graphics.
“Prince Dragon Prince”, 2018-..
Genre: Fantasy, Drama
Studio: Netflix
Director: Justin Richmond and Aaron Ekhaz
Fantasy The series from the creators of Avatar: the Legend of Aang shows the political feuds of the magical world. In the old days, elves, dragons and people lived in harmony, but everything changed when people mastered dark magic and began to sacrifice magical creatures. Then the fabulous inhabitants had to isolate people on the border of the world map. For hundreds of years spent in disgrace, people learned dark art and killed the king of dragons with the help of magic. The narrative of the series finds the kingdom of the people of Catholis on the threshold of the war with the elven country Zeidia. The elf Rail on behalf of his people decides to take revenge on the extermination of the Dragon dynasty and makes his way to the Catholis castle. Inside the palace, she meets two children, the princes of Callum and Ezran, who on the eve of found a dragon, not even suspecting what a story is behind an artifact. Uniting with Rhila, the heroes go to Zeidia to return the egg to the legal owners and restore the world. Will they be able to prevent the war between the elves and people – the main intrigue of the narrative.
The project received ambiguous reviews of critics: some praise the scriptwriters for creating a worthy successor “Legends about Aang”, others scold for secondaryness and uneven animation. Although all the shortcomings are easy to wrap in dignity. Drawing in the style of villages, imitating 2D animation, sets the show for the texture of classic animated fantasy, and the plot reminiscent of other samples of the genre easily captivates the viewer due to recognizable fantasy elements and cozy setting.
“Steel Alchemist” (Fullmetal Alchemist), 2003-2004
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Drama
Studio: Bones
Director: Seiji Mizushima
Brothers Edward and Alphonse Elriki study alchemy on diary records of the lost father. The fascination with science, in which chemistry and physics are intertwined with magic, leads the brothers to dangerous experiments with life and death. The brothers decide to resurrect their mother, but according to the law of alchemy, the fulfillment of desire requires equivalent victims. During the unsuccessful revival procedure, Edward loses his leg, and Alfonso – his body, turning into a ghost. But even the absence of an Elrika’s bodily shell can correct with the help of esoteric science: Edward connects his brother’s soul to the armor of the knight, so that he continues to wander around the light.
The exploits of the Elriks are learned in the government and invite to the public service. Edward and Alfonso become invincible defenders of the country, Amesris, who is surrounded by wars from all sides. True, service for the good of the state is far from their main goal. Heroes hope to regain their former appearance and find a philosopher's stone, it’s good that the proximity to the government elite and access to resources accelerate their search, although they do not simplify their path. The series is based on the manga of the artist Hirom Arakave. In 2009, the Bones studio decided to film the story in a new way in the series “Steel Alchemist: Brotherhood”, bringing the narrative close to the original and improving the drawing.
"Ranking Ranking" (Ousama Ranking), 2021
Genre: Fantasy, Drama
Studio: Wit Studio
Director: Yosuke Hatt
A small boss king was a little deaf-mute son of Boji-a smiling boy with great ambitions. Due to growth, even the servants do not recognize the child, and the Kingdom's subjects make fun of him behind him. When the king dies, leaving the order to convey the throne of Boji, the stepmother of the heir puts on the throne of his cruel son Daidu. The new monarch does not intend to put up with a living threat of his rule and declares hunting for a half -brother. The prince is forced to flee the palace. In exile, the hero is preparing to return the legal title, and in this he is helped by the knight Babin and the magical creature – the shadow of Kage.
The director of the series Yosuke Hatt chose a 2D rice rare for modern animation, which filled the visual with the spirit of old fairy -tale cartoons. At first glance, naive and childish, anime surprises the echoes of “Games of Thrones”. Jokes, smiling and lightness turn around with bloody palace intrigues and an emotionally difficult transformation of the protagonist. The series differs from many modern projects by competent production – the main events will not be long in coming, the plot develops rapidly, not forgetting to devote time to the side characters and details of the fantasy of the world.
Violet Evergarden (Violet Evergarden)
Genre: Fantasy, Drama
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Director: Haruka Fujit
Technological alternative XX century. During the war, the 14-year-old military Violet Evergarda lost memory and limbs. Now prostheses are installed in the place of her arms and legs, but the girl does not know at all where to apply herself. The closest person who was preserved in her rare memories, Major Gilbert, no longer responds to letters, although before their parting he admitted her love. The trouble is that Violet cannot understand the nature of these words – having spent all his life in the war, accustomed to ignoring the pain and anxiety, she never learned to recognize her feelings and emotions of other people.
Already in peacetime, a friend of Major Gilbert Khojin begins to look after Violet, who offers the girl a job as a postman. But the heroine manages to find a more interesting thing. Once at the dawn of the century, the scientist Orlando invented a doll-machine gunner for his sick wife, who recorded all the stories of a woman. Soon his invention gained popularity and spread around the world. Violet decides to try itself as a printing machine that helps people send letters. Write down the words of other people, she gradually begins to capture the subtle vibrations of feelings and emotions in sounds and inscriptions, which allows her to recognize herself and understand the once sounded recognition of Major Gilbert.
“Created in the Abyss” (Made in Abyss), 2017- ..
Genre: Fantasy, Drama
Studio: Kinema Citrus
Director: Masayuki Kojima
The series shot along the Akihito Tsukushi manga offers to explore the mysterious and harsh world through the prism of children's perception. On one fantastic planet populated by people, there is a bottomless abyss. The abyss is divided into levels, each shows a unique variety of flora and fauna. The abyss has become a source of minerals and artifacts, inspiration for legends and scientific discoveries. They tried to explore her along and across, but no one managed to get out of its lower limits alive – the descent into the abyss is accompanied by a terrible danger of the loss of its self and the previous physical appearance. This is exactly what the mother of the rico girl disappeared. The researcher went down and lost in the unknown forever. Rico decides to go in search. Children, not knowing fear, begin their immersion, full of adventures and meetings with dangerous fantastic creatures.
"Created in the Abyss" plays with the expectations of the viewer already in the first episode. Sweet drawing, adventure atmosphere and childhood naivety turn out to be only a veil hiding the darkness and madness of this world. The designer of the characters Cazetika Kise carefully adapted the original manga to the animation and presented a diverse fantastic dimension. And the screenwriter of the Hideyuki show Kurat wrote not just a fairy tale about inexperienced travelers, but a story about injuries and losses, growing up and non -childish horrors.
“Bride of the Sorcerer” (Mahoutsukai No Yome), 2017
Genre: fantasy, melodrama, horrors
Studio: Wit Studio
Director: Naganuma Norichiro
Anime adaptation of the same manga Kore Yamadzaki. Fairies, perfumes, dragons and other magical creatures are accustomed to exist secret from human eyes, but wizards and alchemists from the world of people often strive to reach them. And Japanese Tise Hatori does not even need magic: since childhood she is able to see the magical world, for which those around him mocked her all her life. TISE did not fit into society, her parents were afraid, and therefore refused. So the girl fell into slavery. For many years injured and broken Tise, she hoped to find refuge for many years and once she turned up luck. When they decided to sell the heroine at the London auction, it was bought by the mysterious Elias – a sorcerer, with a skull of a beast instead of a head. The magician saw a source of powerful power in the girl and took her to his students, freeing from slave shackles. Tise began to live in the mansion of a sorcerer, and both became a family for each other. But over time, Tise recognizes the terrible secret of the teacher and the sad fate of his future.
The “sorcerer’s bride” immerses in the amazing life of creatures from myths and legends, but in the foreground of the series there is a difficult conversation about human life. The mature dramaturgy of anime allows him to be philosophical thoughtful, inspiring, and at times healing. The narrative represents wise thoughts about love, family and intimacy, affects the themes of psychological violence, suicide, and relations with death.
“Master Musi: The next Chapter” (Mushishi Zoku Shou), 2015
Genre: Fantasy, detective
Studio: Artland
Director: Hiroshi Nagahama
Who are these mysterious? Demons from Japanese beliefs or invisible entities that weave the fabric of the universe? Contact with secret forces can turn into terrible consequences, but what if these energies live everywhere? Mountains and forests have their protruding fools, but sometimes people themselves become such masters-they are called Musy and they are a great responsibility to maintain nature in the balance sheet. Lonely Ginko is able to see such intermediate creatures. The hero is wandering around Japan, helping those who are faced with Musi. In search of people, he looks into mountain forests, plowing natural landscapes, and in the course of his path he gets to the most mysterious creature for a person-his own soul.
The contemplative and sad anime of Hiroshi Nagahama can be laid out according to the frames, from his soundtrack you can build programs for meditation. This is an anime in style closer to Japanese cinema – slow and attentive to the little life of life, as soon as possible transformations of the surrounding world. Without an excessive action, the Hiroshi Nagahama series unobtrusively maneuvering genres, sorting out the elements of the horror, fantasy, detective and drama.
“Inuyasha” (Inuya), 2000-2004
Genre: Fantasy, Comedy, Adventure
Studio: Sunrise
Director: Yasunao Aoki
Fun and carefree retro-anime of the 00s, which can be considered classics of fantasy. There are hundreds of demons and demons, a lot of humor and there are plenty of horrors. In the center of the plot, girl Kagae Higurasi. Together with her family, she lives in a Shinto temple in a modern Tokyo and once from her grandfather learns about some stones of four souls, which the Higurasi family carefully kept for many generations. Looking at the stones, Kagoma does not even see a hint of sacredness in them, she does not believe fantastic stories, but the next day the demoness attacks it and takes the past through the portal. The heroine finds herself in a medieval village, whose inhabitants recognize in her the reincarnation of the warrior Kikyo. She at one time hid the sacred stones, and now one of them was in the body of Kagoma. In addition, before her disappearance, Kikyo riveted the semi-demone of Inuyasi to the tree. The former villain eventually becomes a friend and assistant to the heiress of Kikyo from the future.
In medieval fantasy epochs, it is completely unsafe, demons and robbers lead a bloodthirsty hunt for stones to get their strength. And everything would be fine, but during the battle with the villain Kagoma launches an arrow from a bow to the heart of a stolen stone, and it breaks into hundreds of fragments. Now she will have to find them all to prevent disaster.
"Country of Semlodes" (Houseki No Kuni), 2017
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Studio: Orange
Director: https://magicwin-gb-casino.co.uk/ Takahiko Kugoku
A distant future survived a series of environmental disasters, six stars appeared to the world, which turned into the moon. All living things went to the bottom of the ocean, and there it disappeared, becoming substances that, after many years, went back to land in the form of living gems with the form of people. 28 supernatural entities live on a tiny island, feed on sunlight and defend themselves from the militant inhabitants of the Moon. In his free time, gems learn, classify the remaining living creatures and roam the deserted, but beautiful world. But phosphofillitis feels lost: she can’t fight with the inhabitants of the moon, her memory constantly fails, and even in a small community she is not entirely comfortable. Loneliness is felt not only by her. Cinnation Self -flow involves involuntarily the poison that destroys living matter, no one interacts with it, and the heroine wants to go with lunar aliens to their lands to leave gems alone. Both single heroines find a common language, when a school teacher gives phos the task of rewriting the book of the history of the world, but there is a nuance-somehow in this tiny world everything is intertwined, thoughts, words and reality are inextricably linked and the conduct of the annals is fraught with many dangers.
The Arange studio decided to convey the apocalyptic setting and unusual gems using CGI, combining 2D and 3D animations elements. The image surprises throughout all the episodes and works well for maintaining the plot: the versatility of the visual performance techniques enhances the main leitmotif of history, which tells about the unit magic of the diversity of living and inanimate creatures of the universe.
“Titans' Attack” (Shingeki No Kyojin), 2013 – ..
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Action, Drama
Studio: Wit Studio
Director: Tetsuro Araki
Humanity survived a series of attacks of huge predatory creatures – titans. The few survivors founded in the city, protecting themselves from monsters with high defensive walls. For a hundred years, the city has been constantly guarding the military, it seems that evil has not been expected, but when the threat still comes – no one and nothing are able to stop it. Titan attacks the city and brutally crashes with its inhabitants. The monster destroys the house of the main characters, the boy Eren Yeger and his reception sister Mikasa, and then their mother eats in front of the children. Eren, Mikasa and their friend Armin decide to join the detachment of resistance to give terrible creatures a rebuff. Heroes have to quickly say goodbye to carefree childhood. In the course of their path, they solve the terrible secrets of the city, government conspiracies, find secrets about themselves and meet intelligent titans.
“Titan attack” quickly won the status of a cult anime not only in Japan, but also beyond. The series hooked spectators all over the world with a piercing story, unexpected plottvists and powerful battles. Starting as action fantasy, the “Titan attack” gradually turned into a full-fledged political thriller and psychological drama, in which the history and modernity of the real, and not fictional, humanity easily visible.
“Magic Battle” (Jujutsu Kaisen), 2020 – ..
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Drama, Action
Studio: Mappa
Directors: Pak Son-Hu, Yui Umemoto, Ryokhay Takesita
At the same time, a ridiculous and terrible fantasy anime about growing a hero under the load of responsibility for saving people from dark forces. The world is teeming with evil demons-producers of souls. Once upon a time, people tried to fight back and killed the leader of the demonic kingdom-Remen Sukun. The essence was divided into pieces and scattered around the light, having previously protected with strong magical spells. Damned parts began to serve as a talisman drive away from other curses. One of these artifacts, the finger of the demon, was in the hands of the athlete Eugi Itadori and his friends in the occult mug. While Yuji visited the grandfather in the hospital, the guys from the circle took off the protective spell from the finger, luring to the walls of the school of demons, eager to take possession.
To protect friends from death, Yuji decides to swallow a finger, after which he receives magical abilities and steps on the path of war with demons and monsters from otherworldly dimension. The hero is admitted to the secret magic school and teach to manage a new dangerous force, but it seems that Yuji has become part of the bloodthirsty experiment of magicians. It turns out that Yuji is the only one who can resist the destructive influence of the demonic essence, so he decides to feed all the parts of the demon, but before, they need to be found.
“Saga about Vinland Saga), 2019 – ..
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Drama
Studio: Wit Studio
Director: Suhai Yabuta
The eleventh century. Vikings-Westerners dream of crossing huge waters to get to Vinland-Country of City and Fertility, which is composed of legends. The leader of the Icelandic Vikings tribe Torsos is sent on such a journey, but first his army needs to help the Vikings from Denmark to win the battle of England. Unnoticed by adults, his son Torfinn makes his way to the ship’s ship, the boy hoped to know the spirit of adventure and conquests, but did not suspect what his desire would turn out. On the way to the detachment of the torso, Viking Askladd attacks, he defeats the torso with deception and kills a man in front of his son. The boy immediately decides to take revenge and rushes into battle, but Askeladd requires an honest fight: Torfinn first needs to gain experience and grow up. The warrior offers the child to join his detachment and go together on the long -term conquests of England, Torfinn agrees, hoping that he will at least be close to his enemy.
“Saga about Vinland” is a harsh and cruel action movie about a broken protagonist who gradually loses humanity. Before killing one single, Torfinn has to exterminate people by order of Askeladd. The boy quickly turns into a cold -blooded warrior with an empty look, suppressed to any manipulation. As the plot develops, the relations of the main characters are becoming more complicated, Torfinn begins to see his father in Askellas, and Askellad in Torfinn – his son. In regular battles and violence, the young man loses moral guidelines, but the cycle of fate returns him the ghosts of his crimes. Over time, the hero begins to understand that he is no different from his opponent.