Exploring the Visual Language of Anime User Interfaces

This collection showcases a wide variety of futuristic and imaginative user interfaces found in popular anime series. From the tactical displays in Macross Plus to the whimsical screens in Dirty Pair: Project Eden, these designs highlight how animation creators visualize technology. The curated images demonstrate unique aesthetic choices that blend functionality with artistic expression, offering inspiration for designers and fans alike.
datda
- twic
Frustrating that these aren't labelled! What's this NASA-ish one from? https://64.media.tumblr.com/75c79a0906e422a7072b9148b52d9501...
I didn't spot any of the weirdpunk machinery from Wings of Honneamise:
https://www.inetres.com/gp/anime/woh/woh07.jpg
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaYuAvpp7S6/
Or Golden Boy's computer made out of paper: https://youtu.be/A1R1Du2PsZ4?t=610
Or its Japanese-phonetically-respelled SunOS rc script: https://youtu.be/A1R1Du2PsZ4?t=1196
Or any of the computer bits in that episoder really. By the way don't watch Golden Boy if there are any people who are not, uh, extremely cultured around.
- chao-
Lots of classics here, but was also hoping to see the ZERO System from Gundam Wing (1995):
https://gundam.fandom.com/wiki/ZERO_System?file=W_ZERO_Syste...
Later in life I would think of it as being inspired by the UK's SAGE defense system, even though it probably wasn't. You can't exactly see from the image, but the screen is a glass dome:
https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/real-time-computi...
- EvanAnderson
Was hoping for more Serial Experiments Lain. There are references in it to the Apple OS codename Copeland or Rhapsody-- I don't remember which.
- jaqalopes
These are so sick. As a 34 year old whose first computers were already Windows 98, it's so weird to imagine a past where this is what the future of computing looked like, as opposed to what we actually got.
- BLKNSLVR
What I'm finding interesting here is that the "user interface" is either the screen (what I/we normally expect of the term 'user interface') or the input/interaction interface or both.
Cockpit images are interesting in an input context because there are buttons and switches surrounding the user.