Bokurano

During a summer camp, 15 children, 8 males and 7 females, find a grotto by the sea. Deep within they discover working computers and some electronic equipment, and later the owner, a man called Kokopelli. Kokopelli claimed to be a programmer working on a brand new game, in which a large robot has to defend the Earth against alien invasions. He persuades the children to test the game and sign a contract. All but one of them signs, barely a moment later they mysteriously awaken on the shore believing what happened was just a dream.

If you like this, try

Neon Genesis Evangelion 84%

26 eps · 1995

Teenagers pilot giant machines against forces they barely understand, and the psychological cost lands just as hard as the mecha battles did for you.

Fafner 76%

25 eps · 2004

An island's sheltered kids get pulled into a war they didn't choose, echoing the same slow dread of ordinary children shouldering the fate of the world.

Now and Then, Here and There 76%

13 eps · 1999

A gentle boy is thrown into a brutal, philosophical war story where children's idealism collides with real atrocity, much like what you loved.

Space Runaway Ideon 76%

39 eps · 1980

Ensemble teens fuse into a super robot and get crushed by escalating tragedy, giving you that same sense of doom building episode by episode.