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The List
7 Government Organizations That Would Make the CIA Blush

by Lynzee Loveridge,

America's Central Intelligence Agency has fueled numerous conspiracy theories and espionage plots in films, books, and real life. Anime is no exception, with many protagonists uncovering all the dirt their utopian governments swept under the rug. This week's List runs down brains in jars, giant monoliths, and a school board that employs genetically-modified murdering cats. Not surprisingly, no elections took place to put these politicians of sorts in power.

Beware: Here are plenty of spoilers!




7. World Government (One Piece) The centuries old ruling establishment comprised of over 170 nations. It employs both its Marines military force at the dirty-dealing Cipher Pol with the primary objective of taking down pirates and quelling any attempts at revolution. This is little different from how much governments operate insofar as maintaining order but the World Government operates as an infallible entity of absolutes. Its members are human, however, and have no problem manipulating power to achieve selfish ends. This includes, but isn't limited to censoring or altering facts in their favor, destruction of opposing countries, and allowing certain criminals to continue their exploits to maintain their perceived power quota.




6. TSAB High Council (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS) The TSAB (Time-Space Administrative Bureau) is a security force with a reach spanning across several dimensions. Its resources include a military-level force used predominately for peacekeeping. Unbeknownst to most of its members, the Bureau is really being controlled by a high council, literally three brains on life support, and they control some nasty programs. The TSAB High council can take credit for creating artificial mages, combat cyborgs, and an attempt to obtain highly powerful and dangerous magical weapons.




5. SOLOMON (Witch Hunter Robin) SOLOMON and its corresponding Japanese branch STN-J employs hunters to track down Witches, which are more or less mutants that display powers similar to magic. When these powers awaken, the Witches can lapse into a violent rage and have to be taken out. The STN-J manages these hunts but their real motives is to develop advanced weaponry to wipe them all out regardless if they're awakened or not. A secondary organization tasked with developing the weapons made sure to use innocent witches trafficked by the STN-J.




4. Sibyl System (Psycho-Pass) The Ministry of Welfare's Public Safety Bureau, which in turn houses the Criminal Investigation Department, utilizes the Sibyl System to monitor Japan's population. The totalitarian level of surveillance constantly monitors its citizens' mental stability to preemptively take down criminals before the wreck havoc. Of course, this level of control isn't freedom at all nor does it work perfectly. The system itself isn't a supercomputer with a series of perfect algorithms but a conglomeration of over 200 harvested brains from criminally asymptomatic individuals. The people of Japan are monitored and judged by preserved personalities that lack empathy, sympathy, or otherwise unable to coexist in society. If you're selected to join the hivemind, you do not have a choice to decline.




3. SERN (Steins;Gate) SERN is one extension of the shadowy organization that manipulates events in Nitro+'s science-adventure series. They front predominately as laboratory developing scientific advancements like the Large Hadron Collider. In reality, this research is meant to investigate time-travel specifically to gain world domination. Their test experiments led to a series of "subject mismatch," were the human test subjects died. When the organization learns that Rintarō and his team have successfully developed a type of time machine, Rintarō finds himself stuck in a horrifying loop where SERN's machinations kill his friends.




2. The Ethics Committee (From the New World) In the future, society has barely survived an onslaught of destruction by psychics. The higher occurrence of psychic powers and the possibility of abuse led to an intense series of policies, genetic manipulation, and Pavlovian-style training to keep humans from being able to murder one another. Overseeing it all is the Ethics Committee and the Education Board, who, through a sense of greater good preservation, have systematically murdered children, adults, and any kind of outlier to maintain a seemingly utopian society. Their families aren't able to mourn their loss since their memories are also wiped.




1. SEELE (Neon Genesis Evangelion) The idea of uniting all humanity to eliminate all pain and suffering sounds noble, if not naive. It starts to fall off the deep end when "uniting all of humanity" is taken to mean as a single consciousness that abandons its current physical form in favor of further evolution. This is SEELE's goal. The group is actively orchestrating the Third Impact, a project that reaches back decades and is responsible for triggering the Second Impact that wiped out two billion people and permanently altered Earth.






The new poll: Which male anime character's home-cooking do you want to eat the most?

The old poll: Last week we asked which female anime character's home-cooking do you want to eat the most. Here's the top 20 results!

  1. Makoto Kino (Sailor Moon) 11.1%
  2. Asuna (Sword Art Online) 10.1%
  3. Megumi Tadokoro (Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma) 8.8%
  4. Erina Nakiri (Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma) 5.1%
  5. Kobeni Yonomori (Engaged to the Unidentified) 5.1%
  6. Aoi Sakuraba (Ai Yori Aoshi) 4.1%
  7. Machiko Ryō (Gourmet Girl Graffiti) 4.1%
  8. Eru Chitanda (Hyou-ka) 4.1%
  9. Ui Hirasawa (K-ON!) 3.7%
  10. Tohru Honda (Fruits Basket) 3.4%
  11. Chiyo Mihama (Azumanga Daioh) 2.7%
  12. Kasumi Tendo (Ranma 1/2) 2.7%
  13. Alice Nakiri (Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma) 2.4%
  14. Asa Shigure (Shuffle!) 2.0%
  15. Hiro (Hidamari Sketch) 2.0%
  16. Ryō Machiko (Gourmet Girl Graffiti) 2.0%
  17. Ukyo Kuonji (Ranma 1/2) 1.7%
  18. Winry Rockbell (Fullmetal Alchemist) 1.7%
  19. Ichigo Amano (Yumeiro Pâtissière) 1.4%
  20. Ikumi Mito (Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma) 1.4%
  21. Sanae Furukawa (Clannad) 1.4%
  22. Kosaki Onodera (Nisekoi) 1.4%
  23. Rin Tohsaka (Fate/stay night) 1.4%


When she isn't compiling lists of tropes, topics, and characters, Lynzee works as the Interest Editor for Anime News Network and posts pictures of her son on Twitter @ANN_Lynzee.

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