Anime Suggestions

Testiculese · Post by **Testiculese** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 4:07 pm

I'm looking for some anime, but I'm a total noob. I know nothing about who is who or, which animator is best, etc.. I just know that I've seen a few and I want to find some good ones.

What I've seen, and the styles I am looking for:

Vampire Hunter D - I thought the faces they drew fit the characters they portrayed perfectly. The attention to detail in general was really great.

Appleseed - The best 'cartoon' animation I've ever seen. I'm really hoping there are others out there with this animation quality. (For an idea of what I mean, here's a scene)

Final Fantasy - The most amazing animation I've ever seen, but it was an emotional train wreck (\"We're all a part of Mother\"...wtf..). The overexplaining dialog was really sappy, and kinda killed the movie.

Ghost In The Shell - Great 'traditional' animation. Good storyline I thought.

I know there are a few japanime fans here, from these titles, are there others you can recommend me?

d3jake · Post by **d3jake** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 4:23 pm

Personal Favorites
Love Hina - classic 1 guy and many girls, though its my favorite because they're just such fun characters...so to speak.
Ranma 1/2 - Well, Ranma Saotome is a normal martial arts teen, though ever since a training trip to China, kinda turns into a girl when hit by cold water. Hot water reverses this, untill the nest rouge wave of water hits him.

modedit: ZOMGSPOLIERS

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 4:39 pm

Elfen Lied

here's a small clip from the opening. Very dark but gets complex.

Bleach
You're probably going to like bleach. You get gripped by the action. Then addicted by the character connections and history. If you watch the start of this clip there shouldn't be any major spoilers

Just watch the opening fight

Death Note
(unlike anything you've mentioned or i've ever seen before)

very different from other anime but it's mostly tactical movements against the protagonist and the detective. Everyone i know who's watched it says that they're addicted after the first episode.

edit:
forgot to add my personal fav naruto!
!?!?!?!

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 6:28 pm

The Twelve Kingdoms is mega epic overdose. If you don't watch anything else, watch this.

Elfen Lied seems interesting at first, but when I think about it now after some time and seeing a lot of other stuff, the series generally sucked. I don't recommend it because it has hardly any plot and extremely graphic in places for no good reason.

Bleach/Naruto are targeted at young teenage boys and both feature over a year of filler per series. For either of these I would say skip the anime, read the manga which is better. If you want a decent action series, instead of Naruto/Bleach I suggest Eureka Seven. You could also check out the first 62 or 63 episodes of Rurouni Kenshin (+ the Samurai X OVA) (everything after the Kyoto arc is filler). Full Metal Alchemist is also a good mix of action/adventure/drama.

Since you liked Ghost in the Shell there is also a sequel called Innocence which is worth getting, and two full TV seasons called Stand Alone Complex + a Stand Alone Complex movie which are all excellent.

If you like good animation quality, then you should like a couple OVAs and Movies done by Makoto Shinkai:
Hoshi no Koe (eng: Voices of a Distant Star)
Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho (eng: Beyond the Clouds)
Byousoku 5 Centimeter (eng: 5 Centimeters per Second [not all of this is available yet])

Full Metal Panic is fairly amusing in places; FMP: Fumoffu is 100% pure comedy gold. Speaking of Comedy, Azumanga Daioh is rather amusing and based off a comic. Another series that is currently running and is very similar to Azumanga is Lucky Star, but you would likely mis most or all of the anime references used in it. For that same reason, don't watch Genshiken since you won't get most of the jokes if you haven't seen a lot of anime.

A series that took the whole \"anime community\" by storm last year: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu (eng: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). This was a very entertaining show based off a series of novels. But it is also hugely confusing since the episodes air out of chronological order.

That is enough for now, I've outlined some of the better ones out of the nearly 6,000 episodes I have seen. If you develop some real likes/dislikes after watching these I could recommend some more. I could also point you to the AnimeDataBase ( http://anidb.info ) where if you register and set a vote on about 30-40 animes it can give you fairly accurate recommendations on what you would like.

Testiculese · Post by **Testiculese** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 6:30 pm

Elfen Lied and Bleach are pretty much the exact opposite of what I'm looking for. Deathnote has pretty good animation, but is youtube-only, it looks like, no thanks.

Anime like Cowboy Bebop or the cutsey-wutsey stuff I don't like at all.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 6:40 pm

Krom wrote:The Twelve Kingdoms is mega epic overdose. If you don't watch anything else, watch this.

Elfen Lied seems interesting at first, but when I think about it now after some time and seeing a lot of other stuff, the series generally sucked. I don't recommend it because it has hardly any plot and extremely graphic in places for no good reason.

Bleach/Naruto are targeted at young teenage boys and both feature over a year of filler per series. For either of these I would say skip the anime, read the manga which is better. If you want a decent action series, instead of Naruto/Bleach I suggest Eureka Seven. You could also check out the first 62 or 63 episodes of Rurouni Kenshin (+ the Samurai X OVA) (everything after the Kyoto arc is filler). Full Metal Alchemist is also a good mix of action/adventure/drama.

Since you liked Ghost in the Shell there is also a sequel called Innocence which is worth getting, and two full TV seasons called Stand Alone Complex + a Stand Alone Complex movie which are all excellent.

If you like good animation quality, then you should like a couple OVAs and Movies done by Makoto Shinkai:
Hoshi no Koe (eng: Voices of a Distant Star)
Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho (eng: Beyond the Clouds)
Byousoku 5 Centimeter (eng: 5 Centimeters per Second [not all of this is available yet])

Full Metal Panic is fairly amusing in places; FMP: Fumoffu is 100% pure comedy gold. Speaking of Comedy, Azumanga Daioh is rather amusing and based off a comic. Another series that is currently running and is very similar to Azumanga is Lucky Star, but you would likely mis most or all of the anime references used in it. For that same reason, don't watch Genshiken since you won't get most of the jokes if you haven't seen a lot of anime.

A series that took the whole "anime community" by storm last year: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu (eng: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). This was a very entertaining show based off a series of novels. But it is also hugely confusing since the episodes air out of chronological order.

That is enough for now, I've outlined some of the better ones out of the nearly 6,000 episodes I have seen. If you develop some real likes/dislikes after watching these I could recommend some more. I could also point you to the AnimeDataBase ( http://anidb.info ) where if you register and set a vote on about 30-40 animes it can give you fairly accurate recommendations on what you would like.

x2
But there's stuff there i haven't seen. Must go check out at next con!

Sapphire Wolf · Post by **Sapphire Wolf** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 6:48 pm

Here's my suggestion(s):
Robotech series-
If you're intrested in Mechs/Mecha, you'll love this one, It's really retro but excellent action and some drama. The three original Robotechs in Japan are Macross(The Macross Saga), Southern Cross(The Masters), and Mospeada(The New Generation) You can find the DVDs of Robotech(original and remastered) at amazon.com. One thing- The Zentraedi Officers' Pod(AKA Glaug) from Robotech: The Macross Saga is the basis for the Marauder(Inner Sphere MAD-3R 75 tons \"unseen\") from Battletech/Mechwarrior, if you know that the original Marauder(Inner Sphere) got removed due to copyright issues, then you'll be surprised when you see the Officers' Pod in action.

Gundam series-
The first anime series(the first Gundam in Japan) that introduced mecha. If I were you, I would recommend Gundam Wing. Very good action.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 6:54 pm

Ah! excel saga. butunless you read fast (@ light speed), dont watch it in Japaneses.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 6:57 pm

Did I also mention that Eureka Seven is Mecha? (like robotech/gundam) Well now I did.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:15 pm

gj krom. Do you watch everything you can get your hands on or just read tons of reviews?

Sapphire Wolf · Post by **Sapphire Wolf** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:39 pm

Krom, I know that Eureka Seven is mecha, I've seen it before, I got vol. 1 on DVD for Christmas eve 2006.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:49 pm

Isaac wrote:gj krom. Do you watch everything you can get your hands on or just read tons of reviews?

I tend to check out the raws for most interesting looking series every season. And I read a ton of reviews/blogs/fansubbing sites. I also hang out on a few anime forums and keep an eye out on what series and OVAs people are talking about the most. The 2007 spring season rocked, but the summer season is somewhat lacking, only a couple shows look promising.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 8:25 pm

I was pleasantly surprised at Eureka 7. Had a nice ending with some twists and wasn't terribly cerebral.

Firewheel · Post by **Firewheel** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 9:47 pm

I've never seen Eureka Seven (or much anime at all, for a while now), but I've heard it has a song or two by Supercar featured in it, which pretty much equates to an instant win.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:03 am

Eureka Seven was absolutely amazingly done, and a hell of a lot of fun for me personally to watch through. I'd highly recommend giving it a shot. I'd be willing to recommend the majority of anime series that air/have aired on the [adult swim] programming block; Fullmetal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex, Trigun, Wolf's Rain, FLCL, and Big O are all series I've greatly enjoyed. I'm currently being entertained by what I've seen of Bleach so far, and Noein (which is currently airing on Sci-Fi's Ani-Monday block) seems as though it will be all kinds of mind-****-tastic.

Also, I'm going to take a moment to disagree with one of Testi's opinions: Cowboy Bebop is the greatest ***damn piece of entertainment ever produced by anyone, anywhere. That is all.

In terms of more recent series, I'm not really big into the sub scene, but one series I can definitely recommend is Monster. 74 episodes of gripping psychological drama, with enough twists and turns to make your brain turn into mush and leak out of your ear. I also know a great deal of people currently loving the heck out of Gurren Lagann, though I haven't seen it myself.

Kiran · Post by **Kiran** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 6:21 am

What originally got me into anime was DragonballZ (From my brother DragonX constantly watching episode after episode of the big fight against Cell) and Gundam Wing.
Tenchi was comedic (though some of you guys may not really be into it

).
I really loved most (not sure if I seen all from Cartoon Network) of the Gundam series.
Rurouni Kenshin is also great.
Naruto is okay to me but that's because I haven't been able to follow it episode to episode. I did hear some really good comments about it though.

There's just a good variety of anime for anybody. It's a matter of which series actually interest you.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 9:20 am

Kiran wrote:Tenchi was comedic (though some of you guys may not really be into it ).

On TV it was comedic, on DVD it is pretty much softcore porn. *yawn*

If you boil off all the stare down scenes and dust settling, DBZ has about 20 episodes worth of actual content, the rest of the 292 episodes is boring gap filler. (Oh, and about 20-30 episodes worth of content was censored out of DBZ. Probably the most notable one was the episode where Freeza speared Krillin with his horn and toyed around with him for 10 minutes *much blood spraying* and then proceeded to brutally beat the tar out of Gohan for another 10 minutes, whole episode was cut.)

Cartoon Network has to cut and censor a lot of series. For instance Outlaw Star on cartoon network was 24 episodes long, on DVD it is 26, and a lot of the humor was changed. Cowboy Bebop is also censored in some scenes on Cartoon Network, though not as much.

Top Gun wrote:I also know a great deal of people currently loving the heck out of Gurren Lagann, though I haven't seen it myself.

Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann is one series which has a stuck throttle so far. From episode 1 to episode 15 it has been totally stuck on AWESOME. I watch the raw every Sunday almost as soon as it comes out. Unfortunately this series is licensed (ADV) and not too many decent subbers are doing it. There are a few speed subbers on the scene that do reasonable jobs on it, but that is about it. Anon is the best speed subber so far. Unless you understand enough Japanese to watch it raw like me, it will be harder to keep track of this series. If you liked FLCL, you will probably like Gurren-Lagann too.

Kiran · Post by **Kiran** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:17 am

Oh man, I forgot about Outlaw Star! I did liked the show when it aired a long time ago.

Hmm... I should stop spending money on clothes and just buy some of the DVD's.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:50 am

Check out films made by Studio Ghibli. My personal favorite is Spirited Away.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:08 pm

Grendel wrote:Check out films made by Studio Ghibli. My personal favorite is Spirited Away.

My favorite Ghibli so far is Howl's Moving Castle. But I haven't seen Grave of the Fireflies or Nausicaa yet.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:10 pm

Krom wrote:
Grendel wrote:Check out films made by Studio Ghibli. My personal favorite is Spirited Away.
My favorite Ghibli so far is Howl's Moving Castle. But I haven't seen Grave of the Fireflies or Nausicaa yet.

Princes Mononoke was the first anime i ever saw and made me go from hating it to never getting enough, in one fell swoop.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:17 pm

Isaac wrote:Princes Mononoke was the first anime i ever saw and made me go from hating it to never getting enough, in one fell swoop.

I just wonder if there is a Ghibli movie that doesn't feature some kind of moving and or man eating slime. I can't remember if there was any in Tonari no Totoro, but Mononoke Hime had a lot of it in the end, Spirited Away had some, I think Howl no Ugoku Shiro had some also.

Every time I watch one I think to myself "someone is a 'The Blob' fan".

Dakatsu · Post by **Dakatsu** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 2:10 pm

My favorites are Trigun, Outlaw Star, and Cowboy Bebob. Ironically the ones who only span about 25 episodes (although not because of cancellation, but the story ends).

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 3:09 pm

Krom wrote:
Isaac wrote:Princes Mononoke was the first anime i ever saw and made me go from hating it to never getting enough, in one fell swoop.
I just wonder if there is a Ghibli movie that doesn't feature some kind of moving and or man eating slime.

I'm pretty sure Grave of the Fireflies didn't. But damn, that's one sad movie.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 3:31 pm

Nausicaa didn't have any either, as far as I recall. I highly recommend that particular movie to just about everyone, whether you're an anime fan or not. It's my personal favorite out of the Miyazaki works I've seen so far, a truly beautiful epic fantasy.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 6:41 am

Eureka Seven eh. Going to have to look that one up at some point, if it's what you guys say it is... I've seen a little bit of Naruto, and am still watching Bleach (mainly because overblown sword-fights are still great fun to me, even if I'm about 10 years too old for it); don't have a lot of traffic quota to spare on downloading video, but then again...

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:43 pm

Kyouryuu wrote:
Krom wrote:
Isaac wrote:Princes Mononoke was the first anime i ever saw and made me go from hating it to never getting enough, in one fell swoop.
I just wonder if there is a Ghibli movie that doesn't feature some kind of moving and or man eating slime.
I'm pretty sure Grave of the Fireflies didn't. But damn, that's one sad movie.

I found it quite enlightening. The whole firebombing of Japan bit was skipped over in school. I find it rather ironic that so many Japanese flip out when we don't apologize for the two H-bomb drops when the fire bombing we did killed more people and did more property damage than both bombs combined. Aw well.

It is a sad movie but a good bit of history and well done. It's kind of a "Dickson's take" on WWII in Japan.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 9:19 pm

Ghost in the Shell SAC
Ghost in the Shell SAC 2ndGig

Samurai Champloo

Bleach

Naruto Hurricane Chronicals

Appleseed

Blood

Ergo Proxy

Hellsing Ultimate Series

Akira

Steamboy

Blue Submarine 6

Just to name a few

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 9:45 pm

BUBBALOU wrote:Ghost in the Shell SAC
Ghost in the Shell SAC 2ndGig

Samurai Champloo

Bleach

Naruto Hurricane Chronicals

Appleseed

Blood

Ergo Proxy

Hellsing Ultimate Series

Akira

Steamboy

Blue Submarine 6

Just to name a few

I think you and me would have been friends in person.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:09 pm

Almost all of those I have on DVD BTW

TigerRaptor · Post by **TigerRaptor** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:01 am

The X series One through Six I thought was pretty good. Not a long series but good story line.

Fan trailer.

Intro.

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:34 pm

Naruto, I would say.

I would also have said Hellsing, but that's only 13 episodes long, IIRC.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 2:53 pm

TIGERassault wrote:Naruto, I would say.

I would also have said Hellsing, but that's only 13 episodes long, IIRC.

The original Hellsing anime sucks... or more accurately, it sucks after it split from the manga. If you want to watch Hellsing, you have to watch the Hellsing Ultimate OVA.

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 3:02 pm

One Piece. Also known as \"The Neverending Story\".

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 4:13 pm

Krom wrote:The original Hellsing anime sucks... or more accurately, it sucks after it split from the manga. If you want to watch Hellsing, you have to watch the Hellsing Ultimate OVA.

Originally Posted Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:19 pm, BUBBALOU wrote:...

Hellsing Ultimate Series...

I have the orginal series and working on the ultimate series (DVD's that is)

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 6:13 pm

Another interesting set of series that are worth looking into would be the Crest of the Stars --> Banner of the Stars. They are quite old, but well done anyway.

I also liked Kino no Tabi (Kino's Travels) a lot, although it lacked any exciting pace. Another series that also has a relaxing pace would be Haibane Renmei, both of those still hold your attention quite well for not doing anything flashy.

If you are up for some crazy action, try out the Read Or Die OVA, and if you like it, get R.O.D. The TV. The Read Or Die OVA is especially hilarious in places, like when it blows up the white house in the first minute.

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