Zettai Shonen
Alt titles: Absolute Boy
Synopsis:
Aizawa Ayumu is spending the summer visiting his father in the quiet, rural town of Tana; but before long, he begins to notice that things aren't quite right. Flowers are blooming out of season and stories of ghosts and kappa abound, but for Ayumu, the strangest thing of all is the appearance of mysterious creatures who take the form of floating balls of light. Adding to this mystery is Wakkun - a boy who seems to be connected to the lights and claims to know Ayumu from the past. Now, Ayumu begins to search for the truth about the lights and Wakkun, as a summer like no other begins...
applying filters, loading recommendationsrecommendations
Haibane Renmei
- TV (13 eps)
- 2002
A young woman quietly falls to the earth, escorted by a solitary crow. This sort of dream, as many other before have dreamed, comes just before being reborn as a Haibane, a charcoal-winged angel. On the outskirts of the walled-in city lies Old Home, a haven for Haibane to study, live, and learn, while waiting for their chance to ascend to the heavens and escape the confines of their new world. Rekka is the newest inhabitant of Old Home who wants nothing more than to remember her past and discover the secrets of her kind. Together with Reki, Kuu and plenty of other new friends, Rakka will laugh, explore, and search for the meaning of their existence in the process.
tags:
my anime:
2 people think you'd like this because...
add recIf there's any anime out there that could be regarded as similar to Haibane Renmei, it's Zettai Shonen. Both series are very slow paced, whimsical, slice-of-life sorts of stories, and both make strong use of literary elements and leave many things up to the viewer's interpretation. Zettai Shonen doesn't have the stellar artwork of Haibane, opting for a more simplified style, but aside from that there's little reason why someone who enjoyed one would not like the other.
Both Zettai Shonen and Haibane Renmei are strongly character-driven dramas where 9/10ths of their stories are simply the interactions between the different characters. If you had the patience to sit through one and the frame of mind to enjoy it, I can heartily recommend the other.
.hack//SIGN
- TV (26 eps)
- 2002
In a massive online world, people act only as well as their conscience demands. When one player's punishment is to be trapped in this world, a disparate group of people seek the answers why. Their motives are varied; their methods even more so. What stands between when we tear down the walls of reality? Where does our soul end and we begin?
tags:
my anime:
1 person thinks you'd like this because...
add recIn .hack//Sign and Zettai Shonen, you have two slow-paced anime which revolve around their characters' relationships both to a large mystery at hand as well as to one another. Although .hack doesn't have as much literary/thematic depth as Zettai Shonen, fans of ZS should still enjoy it. Likewise, although the music isn't exactly Yuki Kajiura, fans of .hack should consider ZS a solid option to watch, if not an upgrade.
Serial Experiments Lain
Alt titles: Lain
- TV (13 eps)
- 1998
"I have only abandoned my body, I still live here" - are the words emailed to friends of Chisa, several days after her death by suicide. As Lain delves deeper into the world of the "Wired" (also known as the internet), the line between it and reality becomes more and more unclear. Close the world, open the nExt.
tags:
my anime:
1 person thinks you'd like this because...
add recThis is a tough one to recommend since Zettai Shonen is basically two series back to back, but the second half reminded me oddly of Lain. The atmosphere of strange occurrences and the recurrent theme of crippling loneliness seemed to touch on whatever made me love Lain in the first place.
Mushishi
It isn't unusual for a person to feel that the world around them is strange and has unexpected secrets lying just beyond their sight. However, for most people this is just an occasional sensation that greets them upon awakening or chases them into sleep. For the mushi researcher Ginko, it isn't a feeling at all; it is a knowledge which guides his travels and motivates his life. Found in the cracks between what is conceivable and what is not, are the varied life forms collectively known as mushi. They surround us and affect us, but their intensely different nature makes them unrecognizable to most. Ginko brings these life forms into perspective for the lives of those most affected and most in need of an explanation.
tags:
my anime:
1 person thinks you'd like this because...
add recZettai Shonen and Mushishi are similar in various ways. Both are slow-paced animes that include very strange plots. The plots include a character interacting with strange beings that they can see; only them and a few others can see these things. In Mushishi, they are called Mushi and in Zettai Shonen, the beings are called Material Evils and Material Fairies. In both, the main characters interact with them.
Denno Coil
- TV (26 eps)
- 2007
In a futuristic world, the virtual world is merely a layer on top of reality; within it, cyberpets are abundant and information is plentiful, and it is only visible by wearing special cyberglasses. In Daikoku City, this cyberspace is behaving strangely: cyberpets are going missing, dark entities known as "the Illegal" roam obsolete space that shouldn’t exist, and a large pink antivirus program known as Satchii wanders the streets, attacking both virus and pets alike. Sixth grader Yuko Okonogi has just moved to Daikoku City, and after cyberdetective children help her rescue her lost dog, she soon joins the others in a search for the truth behind these strange occurances.
tags:
my anime:
1 person thinks you'd like this because...
add recIn both series we have a pack of friends with their little problems and quirks. Both series have lovely slices-of-life part which is not so common in anime, so instead of watching another seventy thousand rockets being hurled at an enemy in a badass giant robot we can see how children interact with each other, gradually grow up and form bonds, now isn't that epic ? :-)
Finally both series have the mystery part to them, each plot being interesting and dealing with rather serious stuff (no REAL viiolence though which is good too for a change).
All in all if you liked one then the other won't disappoint you.
