Top Five Anime Picks

[Rackhir]

I only wish Harmony Gold wouldn't have tried to mesh Macross, Southern Cross, and Moespaeda (sp?) into one show. I especially hated the end of season two, where verything was just "and the world blew up again, everyone you cared about for the last season died, and now we start over." It was too depressing. Taken individually, the three seasons were fun to watch (again, voice acting aside).

BTW, someone mentioned Dominion: Tank Police. I completely forgot about that! That's from way back when (at least ten years ago), when all my anime came from Sci-Fi Channel's Saturday Anime, where I got to see cool stuff like Vampire Hunter D, Record of Lodoss War, the cleaned-up version of Project A-ko (don't watch it uncut; it's Japanese kiddie-porn), Robot Carnival, Venus Wars, Akira, and Lensman. What fun!

EDIT: As a pre-adolescent, I thought the cat-girls from Dominion: Tank Police were too fine. My current aversion to "furries" and "furry-like" manga art makes me cringe at this memory somewhat.

You've watched anime this long and you find all the characters getting wiped out to be depressing? That consistutes a HAPPY ending for the japanese.

Project A-ko is NOT kiddy porn, though it was originally supposed to be. It was done by the people behind the infamous Cream Lemon ova series (if you aren't familiar with it that's probably a good thing), but during the development process they decided that they had something better than just some porn and changed it into the comedy it became. Some of the leftovers are obvious, like the battle for C-ko's "friendship", the ship full of women and excessively attractive teacher. Granted there are more panty shots in it than any other piece of anime I've ever seen, but that hardly makes it kiddy porn.

Hey, your revulsion at "furries" stuff is perfectly understandable, but the Puma sisters are created by Masamune Shirow. If you've ever seen some of his Intron Depot books, you know he knows "babes" (in the best Pamela Anderson meaning of the word).

 

[Halivar]

Project A-ko is NOT kiddy porn, though it was originally supposed to be. It was done by the people behind the infamous Cream Lemon ova series (if you aren't familiar with it that's probably a good thing), but during the development process they decided that they had something better than just some porn and changed it into the comedy it became. Some of the leftovers are obvious, like the battle for C-ko's "friendship", the ship full of women and excessively attractive teacher. Granted there are more panty shots in it than any other piece of anime I've ever seen, but that hardly makes it kiddy porn.

Oh, the first movie was fine... I loved it and thought it was great fun. What I'm talking about are the sequels, which quickly degenerated into Japanese kiddie-porn.

 

[Rackhir]

Oh, the first movie was fine... I loved it and thought it was great fun. What I'm talking about are the sequels, which quickly degenerated into Japanese kiddie-porn.

Originally Posted by WizarDru

Poor A-ko. Hilarious and ground-breaking, I just can't shake all the negative connotations I associate with its sequels, which I just didn't dig nearly as much.

Again I must refer you to my previous answer.

What sequels are you talking about? I have heard blasphemous rumors of such things, but no honorable, morally upright person would admit to having viewed such abominations.

If there had been such things they would more likely simply be horrible abominations in the eye of god.

 

[Impeesa]

My fave five, off the top of my head (in no particular order):

-Macross Plus
-Cowboy Bebop
-Trigun
-Macross Zero (what exists so far, at least - I'll be damned if if ep. 3 isn't the most beautifully animated fighting I have ever witnessed)
-Umm... Macross Plus again? I dunno.. let's just say that this is my desktop image, and I have one of these standing atop my computer tower. My Robotech character has spent years (in-game and out of game) trying to build himself one, because the Alpha is goofy looking.

Honorable mention: I do have a soft spot for the over-the-top fighting in DBZ, when they actually get around it. Fun bit of trivia: the show is so horribly drawn out because they were making it while the manga was still being published. Every time they had to wait for a new issue to hit, it was basically "crap, we need to kill a few more episodes." Then, of course, the North American dub and edit killed it even more, but that's another story.

--Impeesa--

 

[beta-ray]

And I'm surprised how many things people are listing that are really NEWER shows. C'mon people, am I the only person hanging onto the 'past' of Anime here?

...I'm too young to be the Anime Diaglo....

No you are not... but I am OLD.

 

[beta-ray]

Force Five:

Danguard Ace
Starvengers
Gaiking
Grandizer
Spacekeeters

Note: These are the Americanized names of the anime. At least most of them are.

These are the shows that started me down the road of Anime.

Ah never saw Force Five, though I did see it advertised in the magazines. Though I don't remember getting Gaiking, Danguard Ace, or Grandizer here, we did get Mazinger Z (Transor Z to the rest of ya), Great Mazinger, Getter Robo, Yuusha Raideen, UFO Dai Apollon and sever others here subtitled... Wonderful wonderful memories... That's what started me on on anime...

 

[beta-ray]

I'll step into the breach.

1) 1986 - The Dirty Pair Movie (AKA Project Eden - A name which does NOT appear on the original Japanese LD). That classic DP destruction, one of the best soundtracks EVER, a terrifically over the top villian and some of the best action sequences ever.

I didn't care much for Dirty Pair, but I have to say I actually enjoyed this movie.

2) 1984 Urusei Yatsura Movie #2 : Beautiful Dreamer - Urusei Yatsura is in my opinion the prototype for the looser boy with magical harem girls shows, only without the treacle.

Never cared for UY. I guess my sense of humor always fell into the really wacky stuff like FLCL and Dr. Slump. Loved that NGN was subtitling the latter series in the 80s...

3) 1988 : My Neighbor Totoro - Possibly the greatest Children's movie ever. Unless you are a complete curmudgeon, this movie will charm you and touch your heart. I'm not a Miyazaki fan, but even I was disarmed by this one. Even though there is absolutely nothing in it that could possibly offend anyone, but the most determined and humorless self appointed guardian of public morality, it will enthrall children, yet still neither bore nor insult the intelligence of a watching adult. Great soundtrack as well.

Totoro was cute. Most of Chibili's animation is at least fair to very good. I liked Ponpoko a lot, but I always loved tanuki. Wanted to, but haven't seen Porco Roso, but that will be out on DVD later this year.

4) 1995 (the Newby of the group) Macross Plus - While the original series was terrific and possibly should be here instead. This OVA series does capture everthing that was great about the original series and updates it with some jawdroppingly well animated arial combat sequences, a terrific soundtrack and an original, creative and absorbing story.

Loved Macross Plus. Am also enjoying Macross Zero (too bad they don't make the Macintosh puns no more). I also like Yukikaze's approach (no transformables, but really cool airplane designs beautifully animated) to air animation.

5) 1988 : Kimagure (Capricious) Orange Road Series + First Movie

Never saw it and not really interested...

Runners up

Mobile Suit Gundam the Original Saga - MSG to Char's Counter Attack : It's the classic Giant robot series. I really love pieces and the ideas/world of it more than any of the individual series. Though 0083 : Stardust Memories is my fav.

Funny, but I didn't care much for MSG. I did like Zeta a lot... probably my favorite series of the bunch. I was a bit peeved that 0083 out tech'd Zeta. I liked 0080 and CCA a lot too. Though I didn't care much for F91 (heard they may release that theatrically here in the US), I was surprised to have liked VGundam and am VERY surprised to be liking Seed (watching it on Cartoon Network) so far. I don't much care for non-UC series.

Iczer One - Again a real trend setter, with some cool characters, mecha designs and one of the stupidest villians of all time (Iczer two - When your robots are powered by emotions, the last thing you want to do before finishing off the heroes is to cruelly and pointlessly stomp on the last person left living that one of the heroes cares about).

I think those who don't want to like "anime" would be scared off by Iczer!

Area 88 - Tragic hero, betrayed by his best friend and forced to fight in a war to save his own life, so that he can survive to return to the woman he loves. The most terrible part of all for him, is that he is very, very good at the Killing.

I liked this show too... and there is a recent version too (which I have not seen):
http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/a88/

One observation, a number of these probably wouldn't have the same effect if you watched them having seen a lot of the newer stuff. These were the originals that the later stuff was based on. So much of their impact would probably be lost on more recent viewers. What has be come trite and repiditive was original and shocking once upon a time.

Agreed.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Force Five:

Danguard Ace
Starvengers
Gaiking
Grandizer
Spacekeeters

Note: These are the Americanized names of the anime. At least most of them are.

These are the shows that started me down the road of Anime.

Those shows, along with Robotech were my first taste of anime. I really wish i could find them on dvd/vhs/for download. It's been so long my memeories of those shows are a bit vague, i'd love to see them again

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

1. Akira
2. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
3. Ghost In The Shell
4. Cowboy Bebop
5. Trigun

 

[Cyrik Skylark]

In no particular order:

Hikaru no Go - What can I say, I'm a Go nut. When I first saw this show, it was like a breath of fresh air - no impending world destruction, no tragic sacrifices, just a kid and a ghost and a goban. It's funny, as well, and the Go is actually interesting. Well, if you're into Go.

Azumanga Daioh - Again, a breath of fresh air, but even more so than Hikaru was. Not only is there no world to save, there isn't even a plot. Just a group of friends, going through high school. It helps that the characters are so quirky and unique on their own, but the chemistry between them is what makes this series great.

Naruto - I didn't expect to like this when I first saw it. I mean, ninja kids? Lame. It didn't take long before I was hooked, though - the characters are engaging, the plot is decent, and the action is top-notch. Not a still frame pretending to be action to be had.

Rurouni Kenshin - Though I'll qualify, and say that the first 12 eps, and the Kyoto arc, are the only really good parts of this series. The 16 eps between the opening and the beginning of the Kyoto arc were, for the most part, repetitive filler, and the Christian arc at the end shows why you shouldn't diverge from the manga you're based on if you've been following it faithfully from the beginning.

Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou (Kare Kano/His and Her Circumstances over here) - It's a romance story without the fluff and the angst! Well, really more of a slice-of-life high school drama. In any case, it gets full marks for getting the boring, angsty, "Will the two characters ever get together?" plot over with in the first four, five episodes (where most series take an entire 26 episodes of waffling and angsting to do), and getting on to the much more interesting question of, "What happens now?" Granted, there's still angst, but the characters actually do something about it, instead of just wallowing in it. The supporting cast is also great. Only downside: either Gainax got really creative about mid-way through, or they ran out of money and decided that no one would notice if they started doing some episodes with paper cut outs of the characters.