Ningen Kousaten

These series consist of episodic stories, in most cases about the lives of male adults. The Ningen Kousaten episodes have a happy ending. The Warau Salesman episodes usually have an unhappy ending. 

These are collections of very realistic and reflective stand-alone stories, with each focusing on an adult in modern Japanese society and the things that they deal with. 

Human Crossing and RT's Anthology have quite a lot in common. Both were licensed by Geneon in America; selling terribly. Both are totally episodic, slice-of-life titles. Both are underrated; Human Crossing having an average below 7/10, which is terrible by MAL's standards. Both don't stray enough from reality to appeal to most users of this site. Human Crossing offers more hard-hitting stories, where as Takahashi's charm prevents Anthology from ever being truly depressing. That's the main and only real difference between the two. The first episode of Human Crossing is about a boxer. It explores his reasonings for starting boxing, jumping back into his past to reveal the truth about the scar on his face and the reason for the distance between him and his mother. Like all of the stories in the series, it ends on a happy note--one of the main flaws of the series being how, often, happy endings seem forced due to the short length of each story. The first episode of RT's Anthology is about a a family living in an apartment complex. The husband/father of the family has a pet penguin forced on him by someone, and his wife has to look after it... even though pets aren't allowed and her neighbors cause problems. It sets the tone for the rest of the series and, like much of Takahashi's more serious and shorter efforts, the series as a whole was hard for me to stop watching. It's too late to support Geneon now, but I STRONGLY recommend trying to track the DVDs down; be it on eBay or elsewhere. They're worth a place in anyones collection and should be appreciated by most; adults in particular. read more