What if you got a second chance at living? What is life all about anyway? This movie offers some really profound vistas.

NGE seems to be tailor-made for dealing with angst, depression and anxiety that many otaku have undoubtedly experienced. It portrays the symptoms of having a small and insecure perspective on life, and shows what could alleviate such a thing.

The message that I can infer is that people want to feel safe, accepted and loved, and to have something to live for. When they don't feel that way, they tend to develop psychological issues. There's no need to justify or feel sorry for your existence and participation in this world: you're in the same boat as anyone else. Life can be a hassle sometimes, but there's not much else to do, unless you want to ponder whether to exist at all.

To a child, the adult world can sometimes seem frightening, cruel and insane, but once you've gained some perspective, it's also where fun, joy and freedom in life can be found, and it's not so bad after all. Realizing that is an important step in growing up.

This is the anime to watch regarding identity, memories, and nature (or non-nature) of individual existence. Who are we, what makes us us, and is it important in the end?

A thematic meditation on the many possible situations, outcomes and ethical and philosophical implications of robotization (and AI) that's becoming more and more important in our time. Very metaphorical.

Seemingly important life decisions can have surprisingly little effect on your happiness and fate if you don't improve your own perspective and attitudes.

Things (and people) are way more connected than they might seem on the surface. You can find, build and partake in such connections by seizing the moment and going out there.

A more concrete and immediate perspective to the end part of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Showcases humanity's conflicting yearnings to be both united and apart. What is life/existence without boundaries?

A condensed retelling of the beginning part of Neon Genesis Evangelion. In this rebuilt form, I think I saw more emphasis on matters like being scared of life, and that the universe, humankind, family and even the individual human body ultimately take care of their own: your job is to live; questioning it just complicates things and simply boils down to whether you should keep or not keep on living.

Live and let live; absorb the scene and its aesthetics without judgment. Samurai Champloo presents us with a world with morally questionable elements and characters that ultimately don't make said world a bad or ugly place. It gives us a zen-like perspective where everything is one big beautiful flow of reality that would only be diminished and disrupted by value judgments.

Who deserves to die and why, and to what end? Do fear of being caught doing the wrong thing and elimination of the immoral bring about true morality?

This show presents us with a hikikomori (social recluse) who tries to mend his ways. The show deals with depression and loneliness, and tries to give a few pointers on how to combat them, albeit with moderate influence from Japanese right-wing sensibilities: at times I wasn't sure whether the show had a sympathetic or despising attitude toward hikikomori and their plight. Some of the solutions presented were along the lines of 'just get a grip of yourself and go to work', with a tendency to absolve the Japanese system where the state does little to support those who can't take care of themselves. The show's outro implies that hikikomori are self-pitying, selfish and childish parasites to their families and society.

NHK does however bring up the importance of connections and initiative in fixing your life.

I must commend this anime for being so intense and forward with its subject matter. It's not something that you can just lightly touch on and expect to make any impact.

Someone else might find your life thoroughly fascinating and make the most of it in your shoes, and vice versa. This film makes a heartfelt argument to feel more grateful for the life and connections you have.

Spend your everyday life well, in a way that's meaningful to you. One day it's over.

What sets humanity apart from sufficiently advanced AI or artificial lifeforms?

This one demonstrates the importance of personal growth and discipline, and how much it means to have someone supporting you.

A woman finds an allegorical embodiment of her own presence and awareness.

Makes a case for tea, art and ceremony being focal things, i.e. something of ultimate concern and significance in human life that don't need to be a means to another end. (See device paradigm as a philosophical concept)

The show contrasts the purity of tea, art and ceremony with the greed and cruelty of power games and the egotism of the aesthetically-oriented protagonist.

The main characters in this series are fully actualized versions of themselves, i.e. they're 'maxed out' in their relevant skills, and their personalities are free of insecurities, and they know their world thoroughly. That makes them very 'godlike' entities that treat the world as their playground and extreme adventures as a fun pastime, almost as if they were highly experienced players with level-capped characters in an open-world online game. Everyone clearly enjoys the life they have and don't take danger or setbacks very seriously.

As such, Lupin III is an excellent demonstration of how 'perfect' entities might act while having a carefree and playful attitude toward their lives and the world.

This show gives a special feeling of how raw, crazy, lovely and fleeting life ultimately is, and how love and kindness can make it better.

A depiction of desensitization and loss of empathy upon gaining power over others.

Immoral actions sometimes have consequences of unexpected type or magnitude.

This dialog-free film deals with man's relation to nature, and vice versa, and also man's relation to his own kind and family. When nature provides for man, what does man do?

This is like a more elaborate version of Inside Out: it's about a growing person's internal elements and mechanisms taking human or architectural form during a time of confusing changes and gaining new layers to his/her life.

This is a science fiction (hypothetical society showcasing) roadtrip anthology in a distantly similar vein to Star Trek: The Original Series. The protagonist goes to different places, each one with some different rule or special characteristic that has molded the local society in some way.

There's some light meditation on ethical and societal concepts. The show isn't that committed to serious exploration of its themes and subjects, though, and I feel that it messed up in portraying people and places in a believable way, opting to force scripted ideas onto them rather than going the extra mile to think how they would behave within the given frameworks.

Ghosts and demons seem terrible allright, yet living people can often be far worse in a terrifyingly mundane fashion when you get to the heart of things.

A short but sweet reminder of the power of memories and simple wisdom of childhood.

Childlike playfulness, proactivity and open-mindedness can serve you during childhood and beyond.

The inherent nature of children is to be selfish and inconsiderate until proven wrong by consequences. What if they had more power over others with virtually no consequences or discipline, spiced up with bad parenting? That is the dark comedic core of Nekojiru Gekijou, or Cat Soup Theater.

A fever dream version of Nekojiru Gekijou, with the same kind of core. This time with more ethical nihilism on the narrative's side.

Meditations and examples on approaches to life and its content.

The circumstance of mankind in this series is somewhat analogous to that of animals/nature in our world, with giants representing the ultimately base and thoughtless mankind that intrudes and destroys where it's able to, especially when they see easy pickings.

Can also be seen as a showcase of how a fascist system could be justified by creating and maintaining a narrative of constant final defense against a frightening outside threat.

I think this story's bit with the trapped scout is an especially poignant example of what I explained about the main series (man vs. nature), this time showcasing a conflict between preservation stemming from respect and destruction that can't be helped.

I think this works as a decent analogy for revolutions, namely socialist/communist ones where a dehumanized lower class, upon gaining a suitable ideology and drive, seeks to eliminate the middle/upper classes with little discrimination and hijack history to suit a favorable narrative.

The time traveling and past-fixing aspect of this story in itself doesn't provide much in the way of useful philosophy, but it does help highlight and underline how precious even simple nice moments are when you're truly present in them and know how fleeting and unique they truly are.

This short music video showcases beautifully the infinite web of interconnected reality that modern media creates and amplifies in our world.

What does the internet do to people?