There aren't many that aren't MMO tier. That's why it was so popular to begin with.

Danjon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darō ka is the closest you'll get. MC travels to different dungeon levels to gain more money, power, and fame. The lower you go the harder it is, but the bigger pay off. Even then it's RPG-Like, but it isn't straight up MMO.

>>31667
Shit. That's disappointing.

As an example I mentioned in the OP, GetBackers mainly involved two guys who would "get back" any item/person/whatever for a fee. To tl;dr it, they eventually end up going into Infinity Fortress (the main mysterious and alluring area of the series) because whoever wins the 'Ogre Battle' can enter Babylon City (the area at the top of the Fortress) and change the world however they choose. Everything is revealed to have been virtual reality, and there weren't any RPG or other vidya mechanics involved.

I don't know if that description would help change any ideas for recommendations, though.

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>>31656
So general journey stories?

The most obvious example is Blame!, essentially about a super old android guardian of sorts looking for holders of 'net terminal genes' mcguffin, then bring them back to point X.

According to its artbook, it takes place on a Dyson Sphere, so when you wrap your head around how big this space is, the MC is, for all intensive purposes, walking staircases from Earth to beyond Pluto

>>31656
why so many fagets looking for gay ass anime wat a waste of time pls go away

>>32374
Oh wow a recent reply.

I suppose so but not really at the same time? I don't mind fighting and general shonen-esque themes (powerups, that type of shit) but maybe it's more about the mysticism if done well and overall mystery if the plot is decent.

I'm actually reading BLAME! right now but only two volumes in. I know about the megastructure and that stuff but I thought that it was only as large as up to around the size of Jupiter's orbit.

>>32381
Originally heard Jupiter, too, but some folks on /a/ seem to say its larger. Big structure either or

If you're just looking for mysticism and travel but minus the mcguffin at the end, you can go with Mushishi or Mononoke, both of them are about wandering healers of sorts dealing with supernatural stuff that isn't inherently evil or really trying to kill people, just problematic with normal life. Kino no Tabi is also all about traveling, its like Einstein's Dreams but less focused on time being a theme. Again, though, these 3 are aimless wanderings, they're all episodic

>>32389
Megastructures generally are especially when considering space. To our viewpoints, at least.

Ah yeah I'd prefer something with an overall arc/story, if possible. I don't mind a mcguffin at the end as long as its done well, or seems to be enticing enough. I can't explain it any better way.

>>32392
Yeah that's pretty rare without hitting shonen

Going for anything off top of head

Kaiba - this one's a hard swallow because the art style is so out there, and you also don't know what the MC is trying to accomplish until mid story, but it is a journey story with an eventual reason by the end

Dungeon Meshi - this one's really recent and more comedy than anything else, and also very D&D fantasy so not sure if that'll be a turn off. MC's sister gets eaten by a dragon and gets transported out of dungeon before the rest of the party is killed. Ressurection spells are normal in this setting, but MC's group is piss poor, so they decide to forgo even buying rations for the journey back down to get her and looking to eat off the dungeon ecology to survive. Very recent and the author is very obviously versed in actual D&D so the setting feels more like a tabletop rpg than a jrpg. The plus is that there hasn't been any power leveling really going on, everyone's just working off of what they know to survive

if you don't mind live action

Kikujiro
Kid, who lives with grandma, gets a random letter from his mom in an unfamiliar address. Grandma hires a friend of a friend, who's some wannabe middle aged gangster good for nothing, to go chaperon him to his mom. Journey ensues with lots of meeting random folks to help them get moving. Really great story, just live action movie

>>32404
One more come to think of it, and I'm more certain this is up your alley

Battleship Yamato 2199
Remake of the old 70s series, ridiculously high production values, total journey story. Earth is near fugged, space invaders came and screwed us royally. Another alien species sends us some tech for long space travel and a map as to how to reach nice aliens to get a way to revive Earth. Space journey commences.

Also, a little older
Toward the Terra
AIs run the universe and try to control the population with selective breeding and brainwashing, some people escape this by going psionic. To escape this life, they get on a ship, try to save more of their psionic brethren, and journey to old earth

>>32404
I wouldn't mind shonen with this type of premise as long as its entertaining.

Are these manga though? I actually did watch, or try to watch, the Yamato remake last year sometime. Very nice visuals and effects.

Toward the Terra sounds pretty cool. Might download that anyway and throw it in the backlog.

I suppose I'll try one last bump.