DT Eightron

By 2187, a combination of wars and climate collapse has driven humanity underground into sealed domed cities, turning Earth into a wasteland — and now an AI called Zero runs one of them like a machine. Literally. The people inside Datania have had their emotions suppressed, turned into obedient workers who don't question, don't dream, don't feel much of anything. Shu is 14 and starting to crack that mold. He's having feelings, getting restless, dreaming about the ocean — which is a problem when the whole system depends on nobody doing exactly that. When he and his friend May make a break for it, they fall in with the Returners, a group of rebels living outside the dome who are actively fighting back against Zero's control. That's where the story kicks off. It's a 26-episode TV series from Sunrise, the studio behind Gundam and Escaflowne, so the production has some weight behind it. The vibe sits somewhere between adventure and quiet existential unease — there's action, but the show is genuinely interested in what it means to feel human when the world has spent generations trying to eliminate that. If you liked Ergo Proxy's atmosphere of a controlled society slowly unraveling, or Zone of the Enders' blend of sci-fi action with something more personal underneath, this scratches a similar itch. It's a 1998 sleeper that most people completely missed.