Key takeaways
- Tatami Galaxy explores alternate realities and teaches acceptance of the past.
- Summertime Rendering offers an expertly crafted mystery in a time travel setting.
- Erased is a gripping murder thriller where the hero travels back in time to save a friend.
Traversing time is one of the most popular tropes in fiction, and anime is no exception. With the amount of stories revolving around the same theme, you'd expect there to be repetition. While there are certainly flops, most stories continue to find new ways to keep the trope fresh.
From wholesome coming-of-age stories to psychological thrillers and Isekai, there are an endless number of great shows to choose from.
8 Tatami Galaxy
Going back in time to a cooler college life
Have you ever regretted the past, and could you change it? The hero of this amazing series wants to change his dull college life, gets a chance to do so.
Unlike the thrilling mysteries and convoluted timelines of most other shows, Tatami Galaxy beautifully explores how different actions can lead to vastly different outcomes and how our imaginations and reality don't always align. The show uses time travel as a trope to teach you to accept the past more and focus more on the present.
7 Summertime rendering
Mysteries with legends
One of the greatest appeals of the time travel genre is the mystery, and Summertime Renderings has some of the most expertly crafted, thrilling thrillers ever seen in time travel media. It's hard to explain what makes the show such an amazing ride without spoiling it all. Each mystery is delicately written, each detail adds something to the story.
The story follows Shinpei returning to his childhood hometown, only to realize that his childhood friend has been killed. Chaos ensues when a childhood friend returns as a shadow, and time loops to find out what's going on on this isolated island.
6 The Sadness of Haruhi Suzumiya
A high schooler putting God to the test
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya explores a world where a teenage girl, the title character Haruhi Suzumiya, takes on the role of God. The thing is, he doesn't know that it's his will that shapes reality. She creates the SOS Brigade to find all things supernatural, including an esper, a time traveler, and an alien who tries to keep Haruhi under control, so her unstable mind doesn't create any dangerous situations for the world.
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is a movie that explores a timeline where Haruhi never existed, and focuses more on Kyon and Nagato.
One such dangerous situation occurs in Endless at Arc, where Haruhi's desire for a summer break creates a time loop where summer keeps repeating itself. Unlike many other interpretations of the time loop, the protagonist is not fully aware that time is repeating itself.
Eight full episodes of the same sequence of events being animated in different ways depict time loops in a way that shows how disturbing and depressing they can be for the characters experiencing it.
5 Deleted
Going back in time to save his childhood friend
Erased is a murder thriller that draws you in immediately. It follows Satoru, who has an ability that allows him to go back in time before the disaster, giving him a chance to stop it. When his mother has a fatal accident, instead of being sent back an hour or two, Satoru is sent back 18 years.
The show then follows Satoru in his elementary school body trying to save the life of a former classmate who was murdered 18 years ago. If you are a fan of mystery thrillers or time travel, Erased is an absolute must watch.
4 Click the link
The pictures really take you back in time
A useful ability like going back in time shouldn't be saved for grander goals. Sometimes, helping others (and making a quick buck doing so) is reason enough to bend the rules of reality. Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang did just that, using photographs to travel back in time, working at Qiao Ling's Time Photo Studio.
Cheng Xiashi can travel back in time by going inside pictures taken in time, while Lu Guang can communicate and guide Cheng Xiaoshi telepathically.
However, sometimes helping others is not as simple as you would like. Link Click follows Time Photo Studio as it meets various clients and travels back in time to solve problems, anywhere from unresolved conflicts between people to finding the culprits behind heinous crimes.
3 zero again
return by death
Re-Zero is not a traditional time travel anime; There is no science involved. This is an isekai where the protagonist, Natsuki Subaru, returns to a save point after meeting death.
This seemingly simple premise snowballs into complexity when you add other elements of the magical world to it. Subaru has no other power; He can only use the information he gained from returning to the past to stop enemies who can kill him and all his friends with a glance of their eyes.
2 Vivy: Song of Fluorite Eyes
An idol android saves the world
In terms of complexity, Vivy may have the most out of the box plot on this list. The show follows Vivy, an android created with the sole purpose of singing to listeners. Even if people don't want to listen to her songs, Vivy would have a normal life as an idol robot, if not for a certain incident.
For some reason, an android, Matsumoto, came from the future and requested Vivy's help to save the world from destruction. What follows is the story of the centuries Matsumoto appears out of nowhere when something catastrophic is about to happen, and Vivi helps him stop the event.
1 stains; Gate
The best time travel anime
If we're talking about time travel, no series can even come close to Stans; Gate. The series follows Okabe Rintaro, or self-proclaimed mad scientist Houuin Kyuma, as he battles his down-on-his-luck enemy organization. All this was Okabe's delusion, nothing more than escapism.
However, as it turns out, it all ends up being true. Okabe and his group accidentally create a time machine that can send messages into the past, changing the actions of everyone affected by the message. This creates extremely complex timelines, with Okabe alone able to guide the world.
