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60 Highly Recommended Anime Series Part 4: Super Powers

1.

Gon's father, long believed to be dead, is still alive and was once one of the greatest Hunters in existence. Gon believes he will be able to meet his father once he himself becomes a Hunter. However, before he can become one, he has to pass the Hunter Exam first, an exam made of numerous tasks and dangerous trials. Persevering and refusing to give up, Gon manages to reach the Hunter Exam, all the while keeping his innocent attitude. Throughout many of the tasks and trials of the Hunter Exam, Gon manages to make many unique friends. Kurapica, a sole survivor of his clan seeking revenge, Leorio, who wants to become a doctor, and Killua, a member of an infamous assassin family, all eventually join up with Gon in hopes of passing the exam together. Each of them have their own reasons for taking the exam, but will they manage to pass it alive? It will be no easy task, as the tasks and trials in the exam are not easy. Aside from worrying about dying from the exam itself, Gon and his friends also have to watch out for killers participating in the exam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FREtfwdPv7k


2. Speedgrapher

Ten years after the Bubble War, the dichotomy between the rich and the poor in the world becomes more prominent and Japan is no exception. The rich seek to satisfy their desires and derive pleasure for themselves, and Tokyo has materialised into such a city as a result.

Saiga Tatsumi, once a war photographer, works for Ginza Hibari in the capitalist state of Tokyo. He infiltrates the Roppongi Club, a secretive base located in the red district area of the city, to collect information. However, he was caught in the process and brought forward to a girl called Kagura who was in the midst of a ritual. His contact with Kagura awakens his special ability: the power to make things explode when photographed. In order to unravel the mystery behind the Roppongi Club and Kagura, Saiga begins his solitary struggle.


3.

Vampires exist. It is the duty of Hellsing, an organization backed by the British government, to hide this frightening fact and protect the blissfully unaware populace. Along with its own personal army, Hellsing also has a few secret weapons. Alucard, an incredibly powerful vampire, has been controlled by Hellsing for years. Although he dislikes being a servant to the Hellsing family, he certainly enjoys his job as Hellsing's vampire exterminator. Seras Victoria is a fledgling vampire and a former police woman. Although reluctant to embrace her new self, she is still a valuable member of the organization. Integra Hellsing, the current leader, is usually fully capable of fulfilling her duty, but lately, vampire activity has been on the rise. Unfortunately, the cause is more alarming than anything she could have imagined.


4. Fullmetal Alchemist

Two brothers lose their mother to an incurable disease. With the power of alchemy, they use taboo knowledge to resurrect her. The process fails, and as a toll for using this type of alchemy, the older brother, Edward Elric loses his left leg while the younger brother, Alphonse Elric loses his entire body. To save his brother, Edward sacrifices his right arm and is able to affix his brother's soul to a suit of armor. With the help of a family friend, Edward receives metal limbs – automail – to replace his lost ones. With that, Edward vows to search for the Philosopher's Stone to return the brothers to their original bodies, even if it means becoming a State Alchemist, one who uses their alchemy for the military.


5.

High school junior student Emiya Shirou is twice an orphan. Once, a great fire that destroyed more than a hundred homes took the lives of his biological parents. He was then adopted by the man who saved him from that inferno, a man who called himself a magus; however, after a few years, that man, too, died. Shirou was left with a home, the dream to become a superhero, and some extremely limited knowledge of magecraft, the art practised in secret by magi all over the world. Now, unbeknownst to him, the city he lives in, Fuyuki City, is to become the place where a great war will be fought in secret by magi like the man who adopted him.

For this great war, seven magi shall gather together in Fuyuki. Each magus becomes a Master, and each Master summons a Servant, a spirit of a mighty hero of the past that, due to their almost almighty powers in life and to the faith people have put in them through the times, ascend to a higher level of existence, outside of time. Together, Master and Servant fight against the other teams for the possession of the Holy Grail, a relic said to be almighty and grant any wish, no matter how great. However, in order to allow the winning Master and Servant to be granted one wish each, all other teams must be defeated, and the enemy Servants annihilated. That war is thus called the Holy Grail War. The Holy Grail War has happened four times so far, and the fifth one is about to take place.

The hero each Servant was in life has fame, and as such their lives are well-known. By knowing the true name of a Servant, one clearly also knows its strengths and weaknesses; thus, it is the custom for each team to hide the identity of their Servant and try to find out those of the other ones. To better hide the identity, the Servants are usually referred to by their classes, Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Berserker, Caster, and Assassin.

One night, Shirou witnesses a fight between two servants, Archer and Lancer. To preserve the secrecy of the War, Lancer mortally wounds him. However, a girl who up until now was just a classmate of his and the school idol, Toosaka Rin, saves his life by pouring all the magical energy from a pendant into fixing his heart. However, he gets attacked by Lancer again, and this time Rin will not be able to save him. Just as he's about to die for good, he unwittingly summons Saber, who promptly drives Lancer off. The powerful sword user turns to Shirou and asks whether he is her Master, much to his bewilderment. In spite of being just a rank amateur, he now has to fight a war between powerful and experienced magi, and has people he knows turned into enemies.


6.

Ten years ago, a bizarre phenomenon appeared in Tokyo. Three days later, two types of humans with supernatural abilities appeared: emotionless dolls that only do what they're programmed to and wield the ability of surveillance, and powerful contractors, feared and hated by the humans that know of their existence. Rationally self-preserving and without the feeling of guilt, it's not long before contractors are used as ideal assassins and weapons of war.

Unable to analyze the phenomenon that created these beings safely, it's decided that a huge wall be built around it, called “Hell's Gate.” PANDORA, an international research group, protects this wall and analyzes what little they can, while the government struggles to suppress dangerous contractors and the publics' knowledge of them.

In all the police force's efforts and doll-assisted surveillance of the city, one contractor continues to evade them. BK201, as the police force knows him, stands out as an exceptional killer, while those in the syndicate who know him as Hei see him as a powerful, yet strangely irrational contractor…


7.

Several hundred years ago, humans were nearly exterminated by giants. Giants are typically several stories tall, seem to have no intelligence, devour human beings and, worst of all, seem to do it for the pleasure rather than as a food source. A small percentage of humanity survived by walling themselves in a city protected by extremely high walls, even taller than the biggest of giants.

Flash forward to the present and the city has not seen a giant in over 100 years. Teenage boy Eren and his foster sister Mikasa witness something horrific as the city walls are destroyed by a super giant that appears out of thin air. As the smaller giants flood the city, the two kids watch in horror as their mother is eaten alive. Eren vows that he will murder every single giant and take revenge for all of mankind.


8.

Brandon Heat, a silent and passive man, is living a laid-back life with his friends. He has got his eyes on Maria, but her father forbids their relationship. After the brutal murder of his friends and Maria's father, Brandon is on the run together with the only friend he has left: Harry MacDowel. When he finds out custody over Maria has been taken by Millennion, the largest Mafia syndicate in town, he and Harry decide to join the syndicate. He goes through many hardships after joining the syndicate, but he is willing to risk everything as long as he can be close to Maria.


9.

The diclonii, otherwise known as two-horned humans, are mutants of the human species that may well be the next step in human evolution. The diclonii have horns and strong telekinetic powers represented by arms. However, with this great power, they could easily destroy the human race.

Fearful of their power, humans quarantined the diclonii into secret research facilities to study them. However, in a freak accident, a enraged female diclonius escaped, killing many guards in the process. Interesting enough, the female escapee appears to have suffered amnesia after her escape, and floated to Yuigahama of Kamakura city. There, she meets Kouta and Yuka. They name her Nyuu, and decide that they all should live together.


10.

In a street somewhere in Hong Kong, there is a detective office called The Three Sisters Detective Agency. Recently they have been hired to escort and protect an author called Sumiregawa Nenene suffering from writer's block and who is looking for Yomiko Readman (aka The Paper). A short time after the I-Jin threat was dealt with, Yomiko and Nancy vanished.

Michelle, Maggie, and Anita all possess the power to manipulate and use paper in various ways. Michelle can make weapons, Maggie can create Golems, and Anita is skilled in close-quarter combat, though she hates books. And so the three sisters and an author try to locate “the Paper” and learn the truth about what happened to her.

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

My name is Panos Kotzathanasis and I am Greek. Being a fan of Asian cinema and especially of Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai movies since I was a little kid, I cultivated that love during my adolescence, to extend to the whole of SE Asia.

Starting from my own blog in Greek, I then moved on to write for some of the major publications in Greece, and in a number of websites dealing with (Asian) cinema, such as Taste of Cinema, Hancinema, EasternKicks, Chinese Policy Institute, and of course, Asian Movie Pulse. in which I still continue to contribute.

In the beginning of 2017, I launched my own website, Asian Film Vault, which I merged in 2018 with Asian Movie Pulse, creating the most complete website about the Asian movie industry, as it deals with almost every country from East and South Asia, and definitely all genres.

You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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