Strangest premise for an anime

[WouldYouKindly]

We all know that anime is no stranger to the utterly bizarre premise. Girls und Panzer used to wear that crown in my book, but that was before I heard of Upotte. Think like Hetalia but instead of anthropomorphic countries(actually not that uncommon or weird to think about), anthropomorphic guns... Yes, that is probably one of the strangest things I've ever heard. Now, I'm sure there must be other utterly batshit insane ideas as starting points for anime, but I'm still more or less an anime neophyte due to my peculiar tastes and lack of desire to watch something more than about 40 episodes long.

What is the strangest show you've heard of or watched?

 

[Timotei]

Not sure of what show was called, but I remember hearing it was a show entirely about bread making and the overreactions people had to it.

 

[hazabaza1]

It's not really an Anime originally but it's anime style so I'd say Persona 3 counts.
Japanese high-schoolers shoot themselves in the head to use their emotions to summon gods and demons in order to fight monsters to stop the world becoming zombies. Also your party members feature a 10 year old kid, a realistic android, and a dog.

 

[Tartarga]

Strangest one I can think of is called Haiyore! Nyaruko-san.


The Plot:

Spoiler

"The story of Haiyore! Nyaruko-san centers around Nyaruko, a formless Cthulhu-deity of chaos (Nyarlathotep) who can take on the shape of a seemingly ordinary silver-haired girl. Mahiro Yasaka is a normal high school boy who is being chased by a fearsome black alien one night, until Nyaruko saves him. She explains that the creatures from H. P. Lovecraft's works are actually races of aliens, and that she has been sent to Earth to protect him from being kidnapped by an alien trafficker. Eventually, Nyaruko and two other Lovecraft-creatures, Cthugha and Hastur, end up being freeloaders at Mahiro's place."

I watched it since the premise sounded so ridiculous, but it was just another generic love comedy anime. I'd seen the jokes and the characters a thousand times before.

 

[sextus the crazy]

It's not really an Anime originally but it's anime style so I'd say Persona 3 counts.
Japanese high-schoolers shoot themselves in the head to use their emotions to summon gods and demons in order to fight monsters to stop the world becoming zombies. Also your party members feature a 10 year old kid, a realistic android, and a dog.

Honestly not to strange by anime standards. It's just pokemon, but you encourage them to fight by faking suicide.

OT: Hyperdimension neptunia counts now that the anime is coming out/came out. Seriously, as far as anthropomorphic interpretations of things as high school girls goes, the console wars is up there in strangeness.

 

[Elfgore]

Clearly Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabu Kome wa Machigatteiru, because it makes you think it is a simple romantic comedy then you realize it really brings up good points on the youth of today. It starts off generic with a guy joining a club, who's only other member is a girl, then another girl jumps in around the second or third episode. But if you make it that far it really starts to pick up. It makes a valid point on how the friendzone pandemic can start, how teens will do anything for attention, and how self sacrifice of one is sometimes the best option for a whole group. Even goes a little bit into middle school for one episode.

I don't why I picked this one out of all my other romcoms to watch, but something told me it would be different and I was right. The whole psychological aspect of it really shocked me, found it strange for a romcom to make use of it too. Usually the psychological stuff is blood upon blood or neon genesis.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Arakawa Under The Bridge are up there.

Also, I find most anime based on classic stories to have pretty weird premises, like Gankutsuou. It's a good anime, but how can you seriously sell it to someone by telling them that the Count has a spaceship and fights in a giant knight robot. Or Romeo x Juliet, which has dragon horses, begins with the Montagues wiping out the Capulets, then skips a few years to where Juliet is posing as a boy, wears a mask, and goes out doing vigilante work.

 

[sextus the crazy]

]Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Arakawa Under The Bridge are up there.

Also, I find most anime based on classic stories to have pretty weird premises, like Gankutsuou. It's a good anime, but how can you seriously sell it to someone by telling them that the Count has a spaceship and fights in a giant knight robot. Or Romeo x Juliet, which has dragon horses, begins with the Montagues wiping out the Capulets, then skips a few years to where Juliet is posing as a boy, wears a mask, and goes out doing vigilante work.

Just finished watching Gankutsuou, myself. My mom's a big monte cristo fan herself, so I told her about it. She's interested although she's accepted that it'll have weird animu stuff she doesn't like. But yeah, the giant robots and shit was pretty distracting.

 

[Username Redacted]

Maoyu - King of the demon world journeys to the human realm to improve the human realm's economy in order facilitate peace between the two realms.

When they Cry - Think 'Groundhogs Day' but with more children and the children are killing one another.

Those are the weirdest ones that come to mind at the moment that are actually IMO good watching.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

]Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Arakawa Under The Bridge are up there.

Also, I find most anime based on classic stories to have pretty weird premises, like Gankutsuou. It's a good anime, but how can you seriously sell it to someone by telling them that the Count has a spaceship and fights in a giant knight robot. Or Romeo x Juliet, which has dragon horses, begins with the Montagues wiping out the Capulets, then skips a few years to where Juliet is posing as a boy, wears a mask, and goes out doing vigilante work.

Yeah, I'm not sure how "random things anthropomorphised as cute girls" can hold a candle of weirdness to "The Count of Monte Cristo ...IN SPACE".

 

[DasDestroyer]

The craziest thing I've watched is probably Steins;Gate, where a couple of college students make a time machine... out of their microwave... by accident.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Not sure of what show was called, but I remember hearing it was a show entirely about bread making and the overreactions people had to it.

Yakitate Japan!!

Great show and greater manga, it's what inspired me to make bread baking a hobby!

 

[somonels]

By the nature of what popular anime has always been, stuff like: Gin no Saji and Bunny Drop. Probably because they might just as well been live action schlock but aren't and simply shifting the medium finds it a whole new audience that might not always appreciate it. They take a medium wherein pretty much everything is possible and do something absolutely normal with it

 

[NeutralDrow]

Ground Defense Force: Mao-chan is pretty weird. Basically, aliens are invading Earth, but they're really cute aliens, so Earth has to counter with a force comprised of eight year-old girls, because if our forces don't out-cute theirs, we'll feel like bullies. Although it is a deliberate parody series, so it might not count.

Princess Tutu is also quite strange, but in ways that are too much of spoilers for me to feel comfortable describing.

DiGi Charat and Pani Poni Dash are basically about nothing, so I wouldn't count them, despite the serious weirdness.

I assume using porn is cheating, or I'd use Elven Bride as an example.

I definitely know more, including some otherwise serious ones (like Sky Girls, aliens invade and humanity temporarily defeats them, but at the cost of a metric fuckload of deaths that severely shift humanity's gender demographics), since they're part of what drew me to the medium in the first place, but those are the ones off the top of my head.

 

[TehCookie]

I'd have to go with Lotte no Omocha, not to mention the premise does a terrible job describing the story.

"In the medieval fantasy world of Alfheimr, succubus princess Astarotte Ygvar--the first princess of the kingdom of Ygvar--has just reached the age of 10. In the coming years, it is necessary for succubi to obtain a male harem. To maintain their appearance, they must consume a substance only found on males called "Sauzfryma", better known as semen.

The princess, however, detests males and will only agree to create a harem if a human male joins."

It's actually an innocent show about a family relationships and a father meeting his long lost daughter.

 

[Tombsite]

If that is your stranges anime then you're not even close to ready for:
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
(this links to the manga but thereis an anime version out there)

From the wiki:

In the year 300X, the entire world is under the tyrannical rule of the Maruhage Empire, and their ruler, Tsuru Tsurulina IV (Bald the 4th). His Hair Hunt troop captures innocent bystanders' hair, leaving the people bald and their villages in ruins. Standing against this evil regime is the heroic, but bizarre, rebel, Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo, who fights the Hair Hunt Troop with his powerful Hanage Shinken (Fist of the Nose Hair). His team consists of the normal teen girl Beauty, the smelly teen warrior Heppokomaru (Gasser) and the Hajike leader Don Patch (Poppa Rocks). Bo-bobo is on an exciting, gag-filled quest to deliver his own hairy brand of justice to evildoers everywhere.

Yes it is indeed an anime about a guy fighting an empire using his meter long nose hair (also there lives an old couple in his nostrils)

 

[dyskordian]

Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan

It centers on a teenage boy and a killer angel from the future who constantly gets him into trouble and kills him violently and repeatedly with a spiked club, only to resurrect him seconds later.


It's hilarious and weird.

 

[Rashkavar]

I'm tempted to say Serial Experiments Lain, but it's more the presentation than the premise that makes that show weird. Bakemonogatari, much the same....and Kurozuka, which was the other one I was thinking of.

Hmm...it seems I've largely managed to avoid the truly bizarre story concepts and just stumbled across animes with surreal presentation. If you're looking for recommendations for quirky anime, all three fit the bill.

 

[Shinsei-J]

Oh man, this stuff is my JAM!
I just wrote about a page worth of text on each of the kinds of strange I've encountered, to then backspace it all because I figured I can get the same result by just telling you one thing.
Ben-to is the best and strangest anime I've ever seen.
It put's anything along the lines of Kill Me Baby, Saint Oniisan, Pani Poni Dash to shame.
Why? Because it's mother fucking fight club for half priced dinner!