So any good WW2/modern age military anime out there?

[Nightmare799]

No space travel, giant robots or main focus on airplanes. I watched Valkyria chronicles, but well...the anime adaptation is kind of meh...

 

[mjriedstra]

It's a shame you don't want giant robots. A ton of terrific anime are about modern age mech warfare. I thought for about ten minutes trying to find something militaristic that doesn't have space travel, robots or airplanes and came up with almost nothing besides Valkyria Chronicles. Unless you're willing to stretch the definition of "military" pretty far to find something like Phantom of Inferno or Black Lagoon, or take an alternate timeline like Attack on Titan ... or GATE, which is half modern military, half fantasy.

[Nightmare799]

It's a shame you don't want giant robots. A ton of terrific anime are about modern age mech warfare. I thought for about ten minutes trying to find something militaristic that doesn't have space travel, robots or airplanes and came up with almost nothing besides Valkyria Chronicles. Unless you're willing to stretch the definition of "military" pretty far to find something like Phantom of Inferno or Black Lagoon, or take an alternate timeline like Attack on Titan ... or GATE, which is half modern military, half fantasy.

Anime about giant robots never gets the combat atmosphere right. Hell this is one of the few things that anime producers should take some pointers from hollywood on. It is mostly stupid duels between two dudes having short sequences of fighting between 2 minutes of talking after each short combat sequence.

It seems to me that anime about military in general should focus more about the experiences of the common foot soldiers, rather than long boring expositions and silly looking giant robots.

FMAB was pretty good imo so GATE might be my cup of tea, thanks for that suggestion.

 

[solidbatman]

There was some anime with character design from Mel Kishida that revolved around military anime girls, something So Ra No Wo To or something stupid like that 

[Monmon]

Hm...try some of these

Pumpkin scissors

Jormungand

Toshokan sensou

 

 

[Nightmare799]

Hm...try some of these

Pumpkin scissors

Jormungand

Toshokan sensou

 

 

Thanks, I will take a look at them.

[Nightmare799]

There was some anime with character design from Mel Kishida that revolved around military anime girls, something So Ra No Wo To or something stupid like that 

Female characters are more than welcome, but everything in moderation. 1:1 male/female character ratio would be perfect.

[solidbatman]

There was some anime with character design from Mel Kishida that revolved around military anime girls, something So Ra No Wo To or something stupid like that 

Female characters are more than welcome, but everything in moderation. 1:1 male/female character ratio would be perfect.

Then you might as well ask the sun to stop shining. A 1:1 male/female ratio in a military anime not involving mecha or space travel happens when the heath death of the universe happens. There just is no market for anything like that (as much as I'd like for there to be one)

[Down]

I'm not sure if you're looking for grunt, realistic stuff or just modern warfare whatever like Sora no Woto which basically has more moe girls doing moe things than actually using their god damn tank. It's indeed a shame you don't want giant robots because Ryousuke Takahashi's stuff sounds like something you'd enjoy in the former case. VOTOMS, Gasaraki, Flag... are all anime focused on the military, politics, etc with a realistic, low-key tone rather than Gundumb stuff.

Otherwise regarding WW2...

Staying on the topic of warfare, there's The Cockpit, an OAV adaptation on Leiji Matsumoto's manga.

Animentary Ketsudan is an obscure series that approaches WW2 in a documentary way, focusing on military operations.

Konpeki no Kantai and Kyokujitsu no Kantai are anime adaptations of two of Yoshinori Hirose's mangas, they're basically some sort of rewriting of WW2 putting Japan in a winning position.

If you're interested by WW2 itself (it's a bit less militaristic), try to get interested in Seiji Arihara's work, he did a lot of stuff about it and is often considered a must on that topic.

There are lot more anime about WW2, but a lot of them are character pieces that deal more with the social aspects rather than the military ones.

[Nebjula]

I don't know if someone said it, since I just kinda read a little of the actual thread. But, Girls und panzer, seems like what you're looking for.

[Nightmare799]

I don't know if someone said it, since I just kinda read a little of the actual thread. But, Girls und panzer, seems like what you're looking for.

There was some anime with character design from Mel Kishida that revolved around military anime girls, something So Ra No Wo To or something stupid like that 

Female characters are more than welcome, but everything in moderation. 1:1 male/female character ratio would be perfect.

Then you might as well ask the sun to stop shining. A 1:1 male/female ratio in a military anime not involving mecha or space travel happens when the heath death of the universe happens. There just is no market for anything like that (as much as I'd like for there to be one)

Well there was Valkyria chronicles, but we have seen how THAT turned out...

This kinda pisses me off.

[bronx819]

Black Lagoon is the way to go, its a bit ridiculous with the action scenes but its modern, mainly about mercenaries. Then there's Jormungand, a favorite of mine, it has good action, good characters (for me anyway) and good story. If you want WWII you're better off looking for manga, I think there was a small spin off of Hellsing taking place during WWII

[Shimakaze]

Surpised I didn't see Zipang yet :

The Mirai , a modern japanese Aegis cruiser, goes back in the time after a thunderstorm, the ship and her crew ends up in the middle of the Pacific in 1942, still carrying modern weaponry (Aegis anti missile systems, CIWS, Tomahawk, VTOL aircraft, ...)

The crew is hesistant to make any action, in risk of changing their known history.

 

A movie I really liked, with some kind of alternative WWII aircraft designs (Dauntless, J7W1, ...) : To aru hikushi he no tsuioku (The Princess and the Pilot) as well as the anime from the same autor, The Pilot and the Love song (To aru hikushi he no koiuta)

[NulloftheVoid]

I would try Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. It's a pretty good anime movie. I haven't finished it but from what I saw it's pretty enjoyable.

[Mr Poltroon]

I don't know if someone said it, since I just kinda read a little of the actual thread. But, Girls und panzer, seems like what you're looking for.

Seconding as somewhat related to the battle and war topic. It's entirely girls, but there is some amount of strategy (and plot armour, and luck). It's all done in tanks, pretty much. I liked it, but although I'm seconding it, it's because there's very little like what you ask for, and this is one of the closer approximations.