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waterfall_maker  10d ago (text post)   1280 thread views

I am looking for story about nondysfunctional family (or group of friends)

I am looking for story where group of characters (family or friends) form together a group that is NOT dysfunctional.

Them dealing with problematic/oppressive/bureaucratic/evil world is fine, in fact I want to have some conflict. On the other hand I do not want them to win effortlessly or get some insanely OP powers that invalidate any opposition. I do not want tragic/bad ending, I also do not want obvious 100% perfect absurd success thanks to blatant plot armor.

I also want story to not feature blatantly stupid setting or characters that make no sense whatsoever. Initially I phrased it as "no unrealistic stuff" but I am in fact fine with dragon-flying slave traders as antagonists, as long as suspension of disbelief is achievable.

I strongly prefer avoidance of current politics in either direction, I have seen remarkably few cases where it was done well. I also do not want books that would be recommended only due to current politics, quality of that is even worse.

Story may be small scale. I actually prefer to avoid "saving the world" story. I think that within last decade I seen two stories that did it and were done well (House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds, Deepness in the sky by Vernor Vinge). And maybe few more that I read earlier (LOTR, Ursula K. Le Guin)

I was thinking about fiction when I was writing this, but if you have anything that is nonfiction and fits - even better!

I hope that it is fine to ask for book recommendations here? If not, then please delete/downvote this and let me know what went wrong.

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I really like that 80s/90s vibe. Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Eva, Jin Roh, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, Trigun, Bebop, and so on. That era's animation and vision of the future just hits right.

LOGH is GOAT but there's really nothing else like it.

A more modern anime that landed well for me was Blame! though I think it could have been better.

What did you think of Psycho-Pass?

The first season, not the subsequent ones.

An absolute masterpiece. Watch it, if you didn't.

I agree!

I'm unfortunately mostly familiar with (late) 2000s animes and you already mentioned most of the older ones that I know.

Some more niche pre-2000s ones: I enjoyed the first short of Memories (1995) very much, though the other two shorts were mediocre imo. Infinite Ryvius (1999) is basically Lord of Flies IN SPACE. Serial Experiments Lain (1998) has already been mentioned by others. Great Teacher Onizuka (1999) is a lot of fun, but also no SF.

If we extend to early 2000s: Texhnolyze (2004) has a dark & arcane atmosphere very similar to Blame!. Gankutsuou (2004) is the Count of Monte Cristo IN SPACE, this time literally. Haibane Renmei (2003) is by the same author as SEL and in my opinion one of the best animes of all time. But it's not SF.

On Blame!, I can definitely recommend the manga. Imo it's better than the movie.

Yeah, I did enjoy Haibane Renmei and Gankutsuo though the latter's ending was pretty disappointing. GTO was a lot of fun when I watched it 20 years ago. Maybe time to do that again!

LOGH is GOAT but there's really nothing else like it.

Amen.

Not internet-themed in the least. But great.

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