Ask John: What Anime Titles Are Available For Adults?

Question:
What anime would you call “serious” or “adult”? I do not mean hentai or anything of the sort. Most series, however intelligent they are, are intended for teenagers (so far as I can judge). What anime could you recommend, if there are such at all, that are aimed primarily at a more mature audience (20-30)?

Answer:
A few different factors contribute to the difficulty of accurately transcribing a list of anime titles designed for adult viewers. Japanese production studios rarely reveal the theoretical audience that an anime was created for. Differences in cultural perception also blur a distinct deliniation between anime intended for teens and anime intended for adults. Television anime broadcast times may confuse the issue of what demographic particular anime may be intended for. And finally, despite the vehement exclamations from animation fans like myself, that animation is not inherently a medium for children’s film, the primary consumer of animation is children and teens.

Anime studios infrequently reveal the audience demographic that their animation work is primarily intended for. Most of the time this secrecy is transparent because consumers can easily tell from observation that certain anime are targeted at specific audiences. However, this instinctive recognition becomes muddied outside of Japan. For example, Japanese viewers immediately recognize that an anime series like Dragon Ball Z is a children’s anime. But American fans that aren’t used to seeing “realistic” human violence and character deaths in children’s animation frequently assert that Dragon Ball Z is an anime for teens and young adults. In effect, often times, it’s viewers that must ultimately decide if an anime is for adults, teens, or children. And viewer impressions of anime vary wildly.

A large number of contemporary television anime air after midnight. While the primary reason for this has to do with audience size, observers may presume that anime broadcast after children and teens have probably gone to sleep are intended for adults, that’s not actually the case. May anime broadcast after midnight, in a presumably “adult” time slot, are anime targeted primarily at teens and young adults.

It would be inaccurate to say that there’s no anime targeted at adult viewers, but the percentage of anime made for adults is small because the largest and most devoted audience for animation is children and teens. It will be impossible for me to create a definitive list of “adult” anime. So instead, I’ll try to point out a few examples.

Possibly the earliest anime specifically created for adult audiences was Mushi Productions’ series of three “Animerama” films: A Thousand & One Nights (1969), Cleopatra (1969), and Belladonna of Sadness (1973). The first two of these three motion pictures are among the anime industry’s first productions to include nudity and sexuality. Belladonna of Sadness is one of the anime industry’s first “art films.”

Personally, whenever I think of anime for grown adult viewers, the first title that always comes to my mind is the 2002 Tsuri Baka Nishi (“Fishing Fool”) television series adaptation of Juzo Yamasaiki and Kenichi Kitama’s award winning 1979 comedy manga about a middle aged salaryman more obsessed with fishing than with his job or family.

Gainax’s 1999 Anime Ai no Awa Awa Hour television series consisted of one episode Little Women in Love, one episode of Here Comes Koume!, and two episodes of Ebichu Minds the House. These comedy shorts ranged from innocent to shockingly sexually frank, and all of them were targeted primarily at adult women viewers.

Fuji TV’s series of “Noitamina” anime television programs began in April 2005 with the goal of attracting adult women viewers that didn’t normally watch anime. Series under the Noitamina banner including Hataraki Man and Ayakashi seem obviously targeted at adult viewers while other Noitamina series like Paradise Kiss and Jyuousei seem like conventional anime targeted at typical otaku.

The 2006 television series Bartender, a slice-of-life story about a considerate and skilled bartender, and the 2006 TV series Binchoutan, a nostalgic and touching drama that recollects a naturalistic, rustic Japanese lifestyle both seem like relaxing anime to calm stressed salarymen.

The 2004 anime television series adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s suspense manga series Monster was a morally challenging, nail-biting thriller that focused heavily on psychological conflicts. Similarly, the 1998 motion picture Jin-Roh may include action and spectacle that would seem at home in an anime for teen otaku, but the sombre, symbolic, and fatalistic tone of the film suggest that it’s a movie much more appropriate for adult viewers.

While Studio Ghibli typically creates anime for children, the 1991 film Only Yesterday is an anamoly in the Ghibli canon as it’s a film clearly designed to address the sense of nostalgia within grown adults.

Studio 4°C has produced anime for young audiences, such as Princess Arete and Spriggan, but the company is better know for its feature films for adult viewers including Mind Game, Tekkon Kinkreet, and Genius Party.

Director Satoshi Kon’s theatrical anime work, Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, and Paprika seem like works for an adult audience primarily because their themes and content are handled in such a responsible, adult manner.

While these examples are, or seem to be, anime created specifically for adult viewers, few of these series are especially serious, grim, dark, morose, psychological, or intellectually challenging because many of anime’s most atmospheric and clever entries are not specifically productions intended for adult viewers. Intellectual, atmospheric, dramatic anime titles like Serial Experiments Lain, Boogiepop Phantom, Ghost in the Shell, Twilight of the Dark Master, Paranoia Agent, Evangelion, Berserk, Ergo Proxy, Cowboy Bebop typically seem to be targeted at teenage and young adult viewers rather than full-fledged adult viewers.