After Maya’s father’s death, Maya thinks she can finally realize her dream of shutting down the Occult Academy and ridding herself of any involvement with the occult. Instead, she has to deal with a time traveler called Bunmei warning of the end times and destroying her father’s possessed corpse all in the same day. Now she must team up with Bunmei in order to save the world from the coming apocalypse via alien invasion!

Very early-on traumatic experiences for the female leads in Vivy and Occult Academy make for tragic similarities. Both Vivy and Maya are reluctant heroes dragged into a fight they want no part of thanks to a meddling time-traveler. While technology spurs the events of Vivy, it’s the occult that grips the characters of Occult Academy. If you like reluctant duos trying to stop an apocalypse with a fair amount of fight scenes and gore, check out Occult Academy for a supernatural twist!

Eccentric science-enthusiast Rintarou fancies himself a mad scientist of sorts but bites off more than he can chew when he encounters Kurisu. She claims to have met him earlier and ends up dead minutes later only to be found alive and well soon after. Finding their fates somehow entertained, Rintarou and Kurisu, joined by Rintarou’s friends Itaru and Mayuri, focus their attention on their ‘phone microwave’ with the power to send texts to the past. They soon learn that such tremendous power comes at a great price.

With a focus on fixing the Singularity, or altering events to protect the ‘correct’ timeline, Vivy and Steins;Gate each keep you worried about every single deviation in the past. There is a great emotional toll on the characters of both Vivy and Steins;Gate as they struggle to weigh their personal sacrifices against the common good for humanity. Death is a part of any timeline, and some events seem destined to play out.

The Sybil System has made life better for Japanese citizens, removing potential threats and guiding humans to their most ideal occupations. However, removing these threats includes taking in or even killing people who have yet to commit crimes. Akane is an idealistic young woman who joins the Inspectors and Enforcers who deduce and apprehend those who could become threats to society. While Akane truly wishes to uphold justice, she’ll be forced to question the validity of the rulings of the Sybil System and risk being branded a criminal herself.

Vivy and Akane share the desire to protect people’s happiness though they go about it in very different ways. They are both going off what a ‘system’ of sorts is telling them is best, the Sybil System for Akane and the program self-named Matsumoto. Both Vivy and Psycho-Pass force you to consider the validity of ‘removing threats’ before they ever become a threat and how saving some lives will damn others.

After a destroyed Earth was made habitable again by the great Y who created cities of gears, humanity again begins to flourish alongside AI. Clockmakers keep the world literally moving and Naoto, despite being able to create gears, longs to join their ranks. He possesses a great ability to hear a specific gear in a machine that is broken and fix it which is what leads him to awaken RyuZU, a highly advanced android/automata created by Y himself. Marie is a genius clockmaker who finds herself and her automata butler Halter teaming up with Naoto. Naoto, who prefers automata to humans, and Marie, who looks down on others less intellectual than she, have to put aside their differences to protect their world.

Coincidentally, Vivy sings her own theme song and Naoto’s VA Yoshino Nanjo sings the theme song for Clockwork Planet (though not as her character). AI plays a huge role in both series and show human-like emotions that make them endearing. They also deal with terrorist organizations that they’d normally never come in contact with by leaving their normal lives to save the world. If you enjoy the notion that machines are sometimes more humane than humans but need a bit more humor in your anime, this is a good choice!

As humanity tries to move forward after The Great War, former soldier Violet Evergarden finds it impossible to transition from fighter/survivor to a normal human capable of forging relationships. Left with the words “I love you” from the one person she cared for but unable to grasp their meaning, she longs to enhance her ability to feel and perceive emotions. This leads her to become an Auto Memory Doll, a person who transcribes what another is thinking and feeling better than they can convey themselves. In doing so, she hopes to gain a greater understanding of her own feelings.

While not having much to do with AI, Violet Evergarden and Vivy share a good amount of similarities when it comes to what makes us human and understanding others more deeply than just their jobs and their words. Violet is not entirely human as she has mechanical arms, having lost hers in the war. They serve a greater purpose following their own goals, Vivy to make people smile with her song and Violet to understand human emotions better which drastically affect the lives of those around her.

Arato is a young man with great respect for Human Interface Elements or hIE which are androids made to make humans’ lives easier but has never had the funds to own one. It seems he’s in luck when a combat-oriented hIE named Lacia appears and offers to save him in exchange for Arato taking ownership of her. But now the two are intertwined in a battle against the MemeFrame Corporation that created Lacia and her sisters.

Vivy and Lacia may have very different initial roles, but they start to think for themselves and work against their code as they become more human-like. They are seen as mere tools by most of humanity and yet have more agency than some humans that just accept the status quo. Not all AI is created equal, much like in Vivy—the Sisters are quite advanced compared to maintenance AI—in Beatless, Lacia and sisters are far more advanced than regular AI. They both also deal with terrorist groups that think AI is too advanced and should know their place. With a lot of violence and tough decisions, it’s a great anime to watch when you want to feel the divide between AI and humans slipping away!