The Wild Dogs

A gleaming city perched above the clouds houses the rich, while everyone else rots in a wasteland full of toxic air and monsters. Ning Fan is a broke student stuck in the Lower City, and when his mother's health takes a bad turn, he doesn't have the luxury of waiting around. He signs up as a wanderer — basically a mercenary who takes the jobs nobody else wants because the survival rate is terrible. That's the setup for Shang Cheng Zhixia, an ONA from Da Chenger Gongzuoshi adapted from a web novel, and it wastes no time throwing you into the grit. The world-building has that same oppressive, stratified society feel you get from Attack on Titan, where the system itself is the enemy as much as the creatures trying to kill you. The Lower City's poisonous miasma and beast-infested ruins also give off strong Made in Abyss energy — beautiful in a haunting, hostile way. Ning Fan assembles a ragtag crew, each with their own reasons for risking their lives, and together they start pushing back against a world that was designed to keep them down. The animation blends traditional and digital styles in a way that gives the action sequences a raw, kinetic edge, and the soundtrack leans into the atmosphere hard. If you liked D.Gray-man's darker tone and escalating stakes, this scratches a similar itch. It's grim, it's desperate, and the class warfare angle gives the fights actual weight beyond just looking cool.