Now I know what you’re probably thinking, “Really? A simple card reader gets to be number 10?” but keep on reading. Back when the series first came out, the thought alone of virtual reality was just a dream. A heavy set of hardware around your head and body were necessary to experience something close to realistic. Yet, with that card reader alone, you could see the monsters represented on the cards come alive right in front of you and fight on your side!

While the original series brought monsters to life with a large card reader station (almost as big as a soccer stadium!), this practical carry-on accessory developed by Seto Kaiba takes the battle out of an established field and into anywhere you’d feel like playing at! Making the game itself that much sweeter and pushing the envelope for the use of virtual reality not only as a game element but also into anime itself.

There’s no greater balance between war and survival than with this device. “What are triggers?” you may ask. Well, they are devices that when activated store your real body within the Trion Supply System and replace it with a combat body made out of Trion. To put it in simpler terms, they emulate your body for you to last as long as you can in combat (or at least until you run out of Trion).

Not only is the trigger an emulator of your body but it also develops a customizable weapon out of trigger that can be used in battle! If this technology were real, it would become pretty much a must have for hand-to-hand combat by any military unit in our world. Definitely earns its spot on this list due to all the battle functions and practicality that it has. Also, let’s be honest, how many of you would be fighting with friends out in the street if you had one?

Getting a bit more realistic by the second, every year we can read about AI being closer to surpassing human calculations and abilities without so much as a drop of sweat. When it comes to emotions however, it’s still a bit of an unknown territory. Lucky for us, anime can give us a closer look at what could happen with future AI with their own set of emotions and the reaction they could get from their owners or co-workers.

We’ve chosen Giftias from Plastic Memories to serve as a more recent example of what could potentially happen once a person shares more than a simple connection with an AI machine. Will this be the case in reality once robots develop sentient AI? It’s still to be decided, but humans have always been known to be infatuated by the most bizarre objects. Guess this would be one of the safest bets for it to happen!

Going back into the classics, there’s so much that could be said about a series like Evangelion. Keeping on track with the topic of this article, we’ll talk about the revolutionary concept of Evas. These were fabricated from previous “angels” who were the monsters humans wanted to defeat in the first place. Technological gadgets to be manipulated as Shinji, Asuka and Rei saw fit.

I guess this is more of a creepy way to give the enemy “a taste of its own medicine”. As technology moves forward, with each step we’re forced to consider the limits that we’re pushed to break with every decision and this is something not many would be able to take. Would you be able to imprison a being inside a technological carcass in order to make it move as you’d like it to and force it to fight your battles for you? Gendou Ikari already gave us his answer.

Talk about flexibility and creativity. These Capsules were a dream come true for many daydreamers back in the day, and even to this day they can still be considered a great idea for anyone to develop. Imagine having anything, from a bicycle to a whole house, right in your pockets! Convenient to have around especially when you’re traveling around the world trying to find the Dragon Balls.

Now we know why Bulma and her family have so much money. Who wouldn’t like to have one of these bad boys when you’re in trouble. Can’t find a ride? *BOOM* Car Capsule saves the day! Can’t rent a room for a while? *BOOM* House Capsule is your shelter for the night! Need to travel quickly? *BOOM* Here’s the intergalactic spaceship to- oh wait, that’s from another series but I’m sure you could fit an airplane in there, too!

Crime and Justice. How many lives have been defined by those two words alone? Certainly too many to count. And just as life itself, we could have many anime series that have their take on both sides of the coin. When it comes to it, it’s a difficult topic to tackle on a simple perspective. This is when Psycho Pass comes along and redefines how we deal with these two subjects by establishing a dystopian future where, from the very beginning, your behavior is analyzed and quantified by police standards. In doing so, action is taken upon the high probability of a crime that’s about to be committed.

The concept of predicting crime by quantifying probability could be the ultimate solution to solve all crime around the world. However, as good as it sounds it could also be one of the most dangerous ideas ever created. If it applied to our world, how many times could crime be stopped before it becomes evident? Similar to the plot of Minority Report, what would happen if someone who has yet to commit a crime gets indicted before the crime itself happens? Still, nothing short of a dystopian paradise that could be brought to life and be developed… As scary as it may sound.

What could be more impressive? The fact that we were able to discover a new Dimension (hence the name “Dimension W”) or the fact that we were able to extract an unlimited amount of energy from it? The mere thought alone would make electricity companies tremble in fear.

No batteries, no chargers, no hardware damage or replacement. Coils would function as an eternal battery that could power everything and anything that had a coil outlet, day after day. From a car, to a walkie-talkie. Even androids like Mira Yurizaki! You could love them or hate them (like Kyouma Mabuchi) but they are certainly an impressive technological feature, enough to make it earn the fourth place in our list.

We find ourselves facing a topic that has become a recent trend in the videogame world, Virtual Reality. The NerveGear demonstrated its capability to simulate and stimulate all of its player’s senses , potentially becoming the most powerful game console. However, as you may or may not already now, its use had an ulterior motive behind its creation.

Without spoiling the story of SAO, just the thought alone of a Virtual Reality console that could induce such a vivid experience for a player is incredibly tempting. Reaching nearly five years later since its introduction in the series, companies like Sony, Microsoft and even Facebook are already looking into the future of gaming while developing and producing Virtual Reality consoles and games. Hopefully though, we won’t see an outcome where a player becomes trapped in a game unless it’s a SAO Virtual Reality game… On second thought, we don’t want to be traumatized!

As we get closer to the number one spot, these technological devices get crazier and crazier. Case in point, Cyberbrains! What are Cyberbrains you ask? Well, they are human brains enhanced by integrated electronic components that allow them to connect to the internet and to many other cyberbrains. Let that sink in for a moment.

How would they apply in our world? Well, the fact of their existence would change our core human experience. Needless to say, Cyberbrains would render so many gadgets useless (goodbye calculator!) and the speed of communication would reach lightspeed levels! Of course with all its pros, there are also some cons to be considered. If someone decided to hack their way into a cyberbrain or many of them, how could it be stopped? Definitely something that must be well thought-out before bringing it into our world. Never mind, where’s the line to get a cyberbrain again?

However you call him, Rintarou, Okarin or Hououin Kyouma, this man just had a “Eureka” moment that Alexander Fleming would be proud of! Of course, this creation transcends beyond time and space, literally. While first just turning food into slimy inedible gel, little did he know that he would be at the brink of brilliance sooner than he might have thought. This device has the ability of sending text messages to the past.

You might be thinking “Sending messages to the past takes number 1?”. Think about it for a second, how would your life change by just sending a text to yourself to the past? It could be of as little use as correcting a small mistake or it could potentially create an alternate universe where you become the next president! The possibilities are endless and with the existential possibility of multiple universes, that’s more than enough to take the number one spot on our list.