For me, it has to be HXH and One Piece. Are there any other shows that can compete with those two’s worldbuilding?
You must log in or register to comment.
Dungeon Meshi has ludicrous detail. Even more with the bonus chapters of the manga.
I loved watching Dungeon Meshi. Very casual, fun, and sometimes intense. I didn’t think too much about its worldbuilding before but now that you say it, it is indeed very detailed.
It’s especially impressive considering it takes place within a single dungeon on a small island.
Like when it was pitched to me I thought, “neat, a small focused story” and then the scope of the world-building is just insane.
S2 will go so much further in that regard.
Frieren does a fantastic job of implying a world so much bigger than the characters we focus on. It feels like a very unique style of worldbuilding for how the littlest things are meant to convey a lot.
I’ve watched Frieren. The magic system is my favorite aspect despite its simplicity and a few balance flaws. One thing I’ve noticed in most anime is that the protagonist always has a very basic ability/power so that they can fight a variety of enemies and not get hard countered. The same is true for Frieren; however, the big difference here is that the protagonists are completely aware of this trope and thus use it to their advantage. I don’t even know if what I said was related to worldbuilding, but I still wanted to say it anyway.
magic systems are certainly part of worldbuilding! It makes the world feel more alive and believable the way frieren used it and explains how it evolved to become what it is instead of “it has always been like this”
Having read the manga the anime really conveys everything covered there so I hope S2 will also do that
Funny, just a few weeks ago I read a comment elsewhere about how Frieren’s worldbuilding is unrealistic. Like its JRPG ancestor Dragon Quest 3, there’s no obvious source of food to support the walled cities of the Northern Countries. Feeding all the people in Äußerst or Eiseberg would need miles and miles of surrounding farms, not forests. I didn’t mind that on an NES, because a world map at its scale wouldn’t show farms anyway. It’s more of an issue in a manga.
Frieren is one of those post-story fantasy stories. They cheat a little because you can just impose your experiences with regular fantasy stories to serve as the world basis. Demon King and Hero another example. Both are good stories and have good world building.
actually think One Piece worldbuilding is hilariously bad, so wild to see it used as a good example.
I think most of the anime I’ve watched that I’d consider to have decent worldbuilding usually cheat by basing it either directly or indirectly on the modern world. Something like Solo Leveling, which I think actually does a great job exploring how human society would react to videogame dungeons suddenly appearing, still gets the benefit of world cultures and how they act already being in place. Similarly, I think a lot of cyberpunk anime cheats in the same way; it’s more like a modern society getting extra bits and bobs added to it than an originally built world.
Honestly, thinking about this has made me realize no anime I’ve watched is stacking up against the serious juggernauts like Tolkien or Pratchett. Pre-Shippuden Naruto is pretty close, but I think the world becomes increasingly nonsensical as the series goes on. Dr Stone would be towards the top if everything in its world didn’t revolve around Senku, though it also cheats a little bit by having those connections to the modern world.
I think my answer, as boring as it is, will actually be Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I think the country of Amestris and its history are really well realized, other countries in the world are fleshed out pretty well, and while they are clearly based on real world archetypes, there’s enough magical additions to make them a little distinct. The alchemical rules are simple, but understandable, and they don’t get broken by nonsense powerscaling. You can put a lot of the story together ahead of the big reveal by understanding the world and it’s logic, which I consider the mark of really great worldbuilding.
actually think One Piece worldbuilding is hilariously bad
Yeah, I’m not going to bother with the rest of your comment
I mean, there is a lot that doesn’t really make sense.
A simple example - the geography and navigation in one piece is just broken. Look at any map that exists and none of the way they travel seems logical (especially given all the crazy powers). Not to mention the inconsistency in how fast people can travel.
Its a fun show, but the rules/world change as the story needs it (a good example is shanks, who is both super strong yet losses an arm to save luffy as a child).
The biggest change that I loathe is the Void Century. The initial concept seemed too fantastical to be true. A 100 year chunk of history that has been cut out and scrubbed from the record? So there was contiguous history from before that, right?..right?
Spoilers for Manga
Elbaph has been good so far, but learning that actually there’s a shitton of history from before the Void Century that has all been covered up, and actually it would be more correct to just call the Void Century the start of recorded modern history, was a huge let down. That’s just Big Brother from 1984, it’s not nearly as impressive that the WG was able to craft their own narrative when they were the only ones coming out of an apocalypse.
Oda’s really big on rule of cool and having flashy setpieces in the moment, and that’s fun. It’s just a very disappointing world when there are so many examples of the audience being told one thing, only for the information to be changed later.
That must be in some of the newer content, but yeah that sucks.
And yeah, it’s definitely rule of cool, which is fine and lot of fun, but doesn’t make for consistency/good world building.
deleted by creator
Spoiler
If Lor D. Coast was strong enough to remove the mark of the Abyss from Shanks’ arm, what does this mean for my base Luffy stonks?
I might be the odd one out here, but I really liked the first two seasons of Log Horizon.
The gradual awakening and transition from “this is a game” to “this is our real world now” is something I would have loved to see more of.
I enjoyed the first season so much. Hyped every OP.
I am one of those that hated the juniors arc. Guhhhhhh.
TRUE
like, it wasn’t bad, but if they really wanted to do that it should have been an OVA or spin off. The thing that drew me in was people adapting game mechanics and real life, making new things and changing the world.
I get character growth is important in general, but in specific it was the worst part of the show.
I also loved Log Horizon S1. It’s too bad that the later seasons were terrible Studio Deen productions.
Mushoku Tensei, Ascendance of a Bookworm, Made in Abyss, The Irregular at Magic High School.
So you’re a fan of isekai and ecchi, huh? I agree with your first 3, but The irregular at magic highschool is nothing more than fan service. It’s like claiming you like the world building of Highschool DxD or To-LOVE-ru. The world is just a set piece for the anime titties.
The irregular at magic highschool is nothing more than fan service.
I dont like it for the ecchi but for the world building, you are probably basing your statements on a few episode you watched.
The author did a lot of work on world building, the magic system in this world have defined rules, and it’s kinda realistic if magic happened in a world similar to ours.I’m basing it off of the first arc of the manga- which was a lot of incestuous grossness, and a Mary Sue protag that could do no real wrong. The world was just a copy-paste of every other magic highschool story.
The manga is derived work, the original story is a novel.
So you’re saying the original work didn’t have the incestuous love interest and Mary Sue protagonist?
No, i’m saying it have more world building.
Fair enough.
Made in Abyss and Violet Evergarden
Pedo shit. At least for MiA.
Downvotes me all you want, you can’t even argue it’s not 100% true.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Virtues successfully signaled! (30 Social Points)
I’ll bite because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. My next question is: What do you wish to happen next?
If you go old school, Galaxy Express 999 has a universe of extreme inequality where immortal robotized wealthy humans hunt poor people for hunting trophies because they’re so removed from their human origins. The intergalactic train system that the protagonist rides on is an unimaginable luxury, and many plots arise from people trying to steal his train pass in order to escape their own doom or hopelessness. Each planet that they visit is a study in pathos in one form of another, stemming from some human condition or desire.
Such a good show.
Are there any other shows that can compete with those two’s worldbuilding?
I didn’t watch HxH and One Piece so I can’t really compare against them, but my favourite worldbuilding is from Cells at Work!.
The bodily functions are presented in a way that dumb things down sufficiently to the viewers while still largely retaining scientific/medical accuracy.
Honourable mention goes to the Umamusume franchise. The level of details that goes into building a world that is almost exactly like ours - except with horsegirls instead of horses - is more than I’d expect.
I’ve seen very very few anime with interesting worldbuilding if I’m being honest. Most of my favorites are either set in present-day Japan (Kaguya-sama: Love is War, LOOK BACK) or their focus is simply elsewhere (Gurren Lagann, Redline).
I almost presented Mobile Suit Gundam as an exception, but then I remembered just how many spin-off stories there are about secret Gundam projects the Federation was supposed to have been working on during the One-Year War, and how poorly they all mesh together.
That said, exceptions do exist. I’ll second what djsoren19 said about Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Amestris really is a cool, well-defined setting where small details such as its generic, vaguely-circular shape really matter.
Delicious in Dungeon also has shockingly good worldbuilding considering it’s an anime in which you spend almost all your time looking at the same hole in the ground. Same goes for Made in Abyss.
I think my favorite worldbuilding in anime has to go to Eureka Seven though. Throughout the show it raises all sorts of question about both the world you’re looking at and the pasts of the characters you’re invested in, most or all of which it eventually answers in interesting and plot-relevant ways. Also, mechs flying through the air on surfboards is a cool aesthetic. Can’t get enough of it.
Kaguya sama ? Really ?
Anyone putting in contemporary romcoms doesn’t understand what world building means.
Yeah. Have you watched Season 3? It’s a great show, just not for worldbuilding reasons.
Gotta second Ascendance of a Bookworm (though really the novels are much better). I also rather like Danmachi’s worldbuilding, but a lot of that is in Sword Oratoria which mostly hasn’t been animated.
Trigun (the original) has a good one, which is not just an exoplanet western setup.
Small world but I really liked the pace of world expanding in Yuru Yuri.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, while it’s not a usual world building, I really love its take, because the world building is pretty much psychological here.
I think Basilisk has one of the best world buildings out there. It may not be long but a lot of things happening here fast.
Really nothing can compete with Gundam.
Do you mean UC Gundam? I’d have to disagree there. All the different stories that are supposed to happen at the same time in the One Year War don’t really mesh together well.
Cowboy Bebop and Full Metal Alchemist, but I’m old so take that with a grain of salt.
I’m personally a fan of the world that was built for Tokyo Ghoul. To be fair- I think the manga does much more justice to how paranoid and on-edge most people seem to be on a day-to-day basis.
Dance in the Vampire Bund.
I loved the political story and the world building around it. It’s just a shame that most of the time was spent on fan service and more genetic short vampire stories.
Aesthetica of a Rouge Hero.
First episode setup an interesting premise and world that could have been a meta commentary on isekai stories, but wasted it in being a genetic battle highschool/fan service anime.
