They say that time is relative, and they’re likely right. The past three years within the 2020s have felt like a decade on their own, but 2012 still feels like yesterday. It was the year the Higgs-Boson was discovered, The Dark Knight Rises hit cinemas, the London Olympics took place, and when the world should’ve ended according to the Mayan 2012 Phenomenon.
It was also when some popular anime shows began broadcasting for the first time. Shonen fans got Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and isekai got a roaring start with Sword Art Online. Kuroko’s Basketball started slamming its dunks. Then for fans who were after something more mature, these top seinen anime made their debut.
7 Btooom!
Based on Junya Inoue’s 2009 manga for Comic Bunch, Btooom! almost sounds like an isekai when shut-in gamer Ryōta has to play a real-life version of his favorite game, the titular ‘Btooom!’, complete with his in-game wife Himiko. But it’s actually more like Battle Royale as he doesn’t get sucked into the video game's world.
Instead, he was taken from his home under mysterious circumstances, then dumped on an actual tropical island alongside the game’s other top players to re-enact it for the developers Tyrranos and the shady Schwaritz Foundation. The manga ran until 2018, but the anime began and ended in 2012, and was streamed on Crunchyroll.
6 Jormungand
This adaptation of Keitarō Takahashi’s manga also began and ended in 2012, lasting two seasons in Jormungand and Jormungand: Perfect Order. It also gained a 6-part Drama CD and a radio show. The title makes it sound like a Viking story a la Vinland Saga, but it’s actually set in the modern day, covering heavy topics like war, weapons smuggling, child soldiers, and more.
The show follows former child soldier Jonah and his employer Koko Hekmatyar. He hates war and arms dealers, while she is the head of a weapons smuggling operation. She hires him as one of her bodyguards, and he reluctantly joins her employ, not knowing he may be instrumental to Koko’s secret plan, codenamed ‘Jormungand’. For all her war profiteering, Koko might have more peaceful ulterior motives.
5 Berserk: The Golden Age-The Egg Of The King And The Battle For Doldrey
The 1997 Berserk TV series is generally regarded as the best adaptation of Kentaro Miura’s magnum opus. It’s not perfect though, as it had to shave things down to fit a 26-episode season, and its animation was limited. It also focused exclusively on the ‘Golden Age’ arc, the backstory for lead character Guts, which meant its finale was an open ending that didn’t get followed up on. Studio 4˚C gave the same arc a go fifteen years later with their Berserk: Golden Age Arc films.
The first two came out in 2012, covering Guts joining Griffith’s Band of the Hawk mercenary group and departure, respectively. The finale, The Advent, came out in 2013. It was meant to lead to more arc adaptations, which sadly didn't come to pass. That said, it's still a good adaptation of the Golden Age arc. Better still, its upcoming Memorial Edition will adapt the trilogy into a TV series with multiple new scenes. So, Studio 4˚C might have its day yet.
4 From The New World
From the New World stands out as it’s an anime based on a manga, which was based on Yusuke Kishi's original novel. Each has differences from the others. The anime looks like the manga, but skews closer to the novel, though it still had to cut some things out to fit a 25-episode season. Set in 3013, humanity is split between regular folk and people gifted with psychic powers called ‘Canto’.
One of these Canto-users is a 12yr old girl called Saki, who joins her friends at a psychic academy where kids learn how to control their powers. As she comes of age, she slowly learns there’s something dark lurking within this new society. What happens to kids who don’t develop Canto? Are the mutated Impure Cats real, and do they actually kidnap children? Saki discovers the answers to these and more, as her new day proves darkest before the dawn.
3 Lupin The Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine
The girl-crazy international thief needs little introduction. Monkey Punch’s original manga has been adapted into multiple anime series and movies since the 1970s, with Hayao Miyazaki’s The Castle of Cagliostro being the most famous. Each series had its own creative direction, be it the Miyazaki & Isao Takahata-helmed original series, or the futuristic Franco-Japanese production Lupin VIII.
2012 saw the debut of Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine by TMS/Po10tial. It told the series from the POV of the titular Fujiko, Lupin’s rival in both love and thievery. The new art style was dazzling and daring, yet its topics were darker and more adult in order to capture the manga’s ‘sensuality’ as it were. As racy as it could get, fans and critics alike praised the series as being a sturdy and entertaining refresh of the old series.
2 Space Brothers
It’s nice to get a show that can boil its premise down to a short title. Adapted from Chūya Koyama’s Morning KC manga, the series followed brothers Mutta and Hibito Nanba, who were both inspired to go to space after seeing a UFO when they were boys. Hibito aims for the moon, while Mutta goes further and wants to go to Mars. Hibito grew up to be a fully-fledged astronaut due to head to the moon.
Mutta had less success until he finally gets accepted into a program for new recruits. Now he has to prove he has what it takes to match his younger brother and make it into space alongside him. The anime ran for two years with a grand total of 99 episodes, plus a well-received animated movie. It also got a live-action movie, which managed to get famous Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin as himself for a cameo.
1 Psycho-Pass
Production I.G. sure knows how to handle cyberpunk. If adapting Ghost in the Shell for TV wasn’t enough, they made their own original crime thriller in Psycho-Pass. Directed by Naoyoshi Shiotani and Katsuyuki Motohiro, the anime was set in a future where Japan is run by the Sibyl System, a computer that rates how likely or unlikely citizens are to commit crimes based on their color-coded psycho-pass, and society promotes, demotes, and punishes them accordingly.
The system is held in place by a police force consisting of detective-like Inspectors and their guardians called Enforcers. Cool-headed rookie Inspector Akane Tsunemori joins forces with her wild Enforcer Shinya Kōgami to investigate criminal cases, where they learn the Sibyl System isn't all that perfect. The show was successful enough to earn two sequel series, three movies (with a 4th on the way), two spin-off manga, and a light novel. Still, that first 2012 anime is the best way to get into this thrilling series.