In 2000, a man going by the name of John Titor went nanners on some online forums, claiming to be a time traveler from 2036. He warned of a rapidly approaching World War and nuclear fallout. Of course, none of his predictions came to fruition, but there was a video game and anime series inspired by his rantings.

In Steins;Gate, a group of friends who view themselves as mad scientists discover a method of sending text messages back in time. They try to use this to change the timeline after finding the body of a dead neuroscientist, but of course, things go awry. They probably should have watched The Flash before attempting to mess with time.
https://i.imgur.com/g132K2Y.jpg

Mawaru Penguindrum is not only the greatest named anime, it's also quite harrowing as it uses a real-life 1995 terror attack in Tokyo as the backdrop. On March 20, 1995, a group attacked multiple lines of the Tokyo subway with sarin gas.

Mawaru Penguindrum is the story of two brothers who must find an item called the Penguindrum to save their terminally ill sister. The story confronts the effect that the real-world attack had on children. https://i.imgur.com/mxZi3VX.jpg

Zipang is a manga adapted to anime about a Japanese warship that accidentally travels back in time to find itself in the midst of a naval battle between Japan and the US in WWII. The inspiration for the story is based on an American urban legend known as the Philadelphia Experiment that tells the tale of a US Navy ship supposedly "disappearing" from its dock in Philadelphia and instantly traveling 200 miles to Norfolk, Virginia.

https://i.imgur.com/BvIULPh.jpg

Bakuman is about two young boys who aspire to become manga artists - one as a writer, the other as an illustrator. The manga was originally published in a Japanese magazine called Weekly Shnen Jump, and the characters are based loosely on the writers and editors of the magazine itself.

Furthermore, there are numerous manga titles referenced in Bakuman that are actual mangas published by Weekly Shnen Jump.
https://i.imgur.com/wquaNwV.jpg

The protagonists of My Neighbor Totoro have a mother who suffers from tuberculosis, though it's never stated explicitly. This mirrors the actual life of the writer/producer of the film, Hayao Miyazaki, because his own mother also suffered from tuberculosis. In this regard, the film is partially autobiographical.

In fact, Miyazaki said that the protagonists had to be girls because it would have been too painful had they been boys, as it would have been too reminiscent of his own childhood. The movie as a whole is an exploration of death from a child's perspective.
https://i.imgur.com/3raCpE5.jpg