Anime?

[hawkedup]

Yeah, I can't get enough of it. I watched through the Sky arc mostly in one go but then got distracted by other things for a while. Since I got back into it, though, right before Water 7, I haven't stopped watching. The problem with it is, if I put it on I know there's nothing else I'm going to want to do for a while. They know how to end an episode, that's for sure.

[Ryan]

I quit watching that show. The animation was beautiful, but once I found out that

 

Eren could turn into a Titan, it completely ruined the show for me. It cheapened all the effort and training the entire squad put in and focused everything on Eren, who, let's face it, is not a very strong protagonist. Mikasa was my favorite, and I wished the show were centered on her.

 

I might have forgiven it that, but it's also a pretty gruesome show, which I can only handle in small doses. It's a bit like Deadman Wonderland: beautifully animated, weak protagonist, horrifically gruesome. I can't watch shows like that.

[bartbug]

Yeah, I thought the spoilered thing was kind of out of left field, but then the narrative gets ridiculously better. While the Trost arc was mediocre, then next one is nothing short of superb. Eren (thankfully) becomes a better protagonist. I say, give it another try.

To me, it's a lot like the Walking Dead, only with steampunk. Then again, if you can't get into that sort of thing, then I agree it's not worth watching.

[PorridgeBrick]

I almost quit there too, but it most certainly gets better. Some of the stuff later on is just so great. Though I do have a high tolerance for gruesomeness.

[stormcursed]

I'm really enjoying Space Dandy, it's the new show from my all time fav anime director Shinchiro Watanabe (of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo fame). It's a fun little show about the misadventures of an 'alien hunter' ( a person who hunts aliens and not an alien who hunts) and his crew. It's taking a while to find its feet but all the episodes are at the very least fun.

[hawkedup]

Yosh! Just finished Thriller Bark. Bink's Sake is my new favorite song. Onwards to the Red Line, New World, and Fishman Island!

[Ryan]

For my part, I have finished Arlong and Buggy's Return (which I wish hadn't happened; ridiculous side character is ridiculous). Now I'm delving into the history of Gold Roger and the I-can't-believe-they-allowed-that-even-in-the-90s Captain Smoker.

 

Still not sure I'll make it through 650 of these. Arlong had some intense bits, some genuinely magnificent bits, and a lot of absurdity. I'm having a hard time suspending my disbelief with this show and putting everything down to it being a silly cartoon, and Japanese to boot. Things like sailing ships being treated like they have a motor and an auto pilot, or people holding their breath under water for minutes at a time while exerting themselves. Why do these things take me out of the story, but fish men and GUMU-GUMU-NOOO!!! powers don't? I'm not sure.

[Cracknut]

Yosh! Just finished Thriller Bark. Bink's Sake is my new favorite song. Onwards to the Red Line, New World, and Fishman Island!

Usopp vs Perona and Zoro vs Kuma, two of the best things that ever happened in animes :D 

 

 

For my part, I have finished Arlong and Buggy's Return (which I wish hadn't happened; ridiculous side character is ridiculous). Now I'm delving into the history of Gold Roger and the I-can't-believe-they-allowed-that-even-in-the-90s Captain Smoker.

 

Still not sure I'll make it through 650 of these. Arlong had some intense bits, some genuinely magnificent bits, and a lot of absurdity. I'm having a hard time suspending my disbelief with this show and putting everything down to it being a silly cartoon, and Japanese to boot. Things like sailing ships being treated like they have a motor and an auto pilot, or people holding their breath under water for minutes at a time while exerting themselves. Why do these things take me out of the story, but fish men and GUMU-GUMU-NOOO!!! powers don't? I'm not sure.

I don't know what you're expecting from it. Its pure japanese shonen anime. If you can't handle people crying out their abilities names in fights I doubt any of shonen animes are for you. It is aimed for children/teen, thats what shonen is about. I see creativity where you see silliness and have fun about stuff you get annoyed. You have a bad perspective on this anime and that's ruining it for you imo.

Buggy on other hand is truly annoying as hell But in Marineford arc and onward he takes he's trolling to another level and now he's so annoying that he's good. Legendary even.

[Ryan]

I don't know what you're expecting from it. Its pure japanese shonen anime. If you can't handle people crying out their abilities names in fights I doubt any of shonen animes are for you. It is aimed for children/teen, thats what shonen is about. I see creativity where you see silliness and have fun about stuff you get annoyed. You have a bad perspective on this anime and that's ruining it for you imo.

Buggy on other hand is truly annoying as hell But in Marineford arc and onward he takes he's trolling to another level and now he's so annoying that he's good. Legendary even.

 

Actually, I specifically mentioned the ability shouting as something that doesn't annoy me so much. It used to, years ago, but I'm over it. In fact, I've pulled a 180 on Luffy. He used to annoy me, and now he just cracks me up. His guileless innocence is infectious. And since he's so overpowered, they always have to find ways to take him out of the fight so other characters can contribute, and it's usually in creative and amusing ways.

 

I think I figured out what was bothering me. The things that bother me are the details that look like lazy writing. If you want to write a story with lots of sailing ships on the ocean, do at least a teeny bit of research about how they work. Even if it's just a silly cartoon, I don't think that's any excuse to phone in the details. We viewers of TV often give it a pass on stuff that we'd never accept of, for example, a book. But that's a pet rant of mine and doesn't really belong in this thread.

 

What do I expect of the show? I'm still figuring that out. And I'm still watching, even if I'm not fully committed yet.

[Retsam]

I've only seen moderate amounts of anime, but I've enjoyed a lot of what I've seen so I'll recommend a few series; the first is my all-time favorite series, the other two things I've seen more recently.  All 3 of them are less than 30 half-hour long episodes in their entirety, which is part of what I like about these series (and anime in general), they do a good job of telling a story without overstaying their welcome.  Also, all of the shows on this list are quite "clean", i.e. free from any major gore, nudity, violence, jaywalking, etc.  Nothing wrong with shows that do have those, but personally don't enjoy excessive amounts of those.  

 

Trigun

 

This one is my all-time favorite anime; part of the reason I haven't seen a ton of anime is that I keep coming back to this one; I've probably seen it ~8 times through; it's fairly short, but still, I'm generally not the type for rewatch.  

 

It's sci-fi western (I'd say "space western", but it all takes place on a single planet), the main character being a legendary gunman, "Vash The Stampede", with a massive bounty on his head... who happens to be a pacifist and not like killing anyone; the series follows him, two girls who work for an insurance company, assigned to follow him around in order to minimize damages, and a wandering gunslinger priest.  

 

The series starts out as a comedy with elements of drama, but becomes much more of a drama with elements of comedy in its second half.  (And it always has some pretty good action)

 

What I like about this series is a lot of what I loved about Way of Kings.  It's not the comedy or the action of the series that I really enjoy (though I do love both), but the characters and it's ideology, which can be accurately summarized by what Kaladin says at the end of Way of Kings: "a life is priceless", but also like Way of Kings, Trigun takes place in a setting where human life is largely treated as disposable, which sets up much of Vash's character.

 

(Sub vs. Dub?  Dub.  Definitely dub; it's one of the few anime I've seen where the dub voice acting is generally considered to be superior to the sub.  Johnny Yong Bosh is one of my favorite voice actors and does an excellent job doing Vash, and everyone else on the main cast is pretty good)

 

Stein's; Gate 

This is the anime that I watched most recently, and also really loved.  It's best known as the "time travel anime", it does with time travel (to a limited degree) what Sanderson does with magic; creates a set of rules for time travel that the viewer can (mostly) understand, and sets the series around exploring those rules and the consequences of those rules.  It's not perfect in this regard, (there's one particular bit of "reverse the polarity" nonsense that really threw me - data compression via black hole) but it's still easily the best depiction of time travel I've ever seen.  

 

And the characters and plot are what really sell it; you come for the time travel mechanics, but you stay for the gripping plot and hilarious character interactions.  Like Trigun, this one is a similar combination of drama and comedy; starting off mostly comedic but getting much more serious in the second half.

 

(Sub vs. Dub; more of a mix, I lean towards dub; again I really enjoyed the main characters voice actor in English, and they do a good job of replacing jokes that wouldn't make it through translation with equivalent English jokes, where the sub I think generally just attempted translation)

 

Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Or just Madoka Magica as most people call it)

 

On this one I'm going to be rather brief, because it's difficult to say much about this show without ruining it.  At first glance, this show (intentionally) looks like run of the mill "magical girl" stuff (basically a sailor moon clone), but it's really much more intelligent and interesting than that.  I'm really not a fan of the magical girl genre (nothing against it; it just doesn't generally appeal to me), but I watched this on a friends recommendation and I'm glad I did.  

 

Basically, it's normal to have certain expectations about the magical girl genre, (or really any show in which the main characters all run around in brightly colored miniskirts fighting evil), and this show takes those expectations and smashes them into a wall repeatedly until they stop twitching.  To say much more than that would likely ruin the series more than I already possibly have.

 

This is also the shortest show on the list; only 12 half-hour episodes or 2 movies (same content, different format), with a 3rd movie (which I haven't seen) that serves as a sequel of sorts, so if you're not sure you'd enjoy it, it's a fairly minimal time investment to give it the chance.  (It's what, a fifth or a sixth of a Sanderson audiobook in length?)

 

 

(Sub vs. Dub, up to you; there's nothing particularly good or egregious about the dub in my opinion)

 

-------------------

 

Anyways, those are my recommendations, I do have a couple others I could mention if there's interest, but I figured this post is long enough already.  

[Laryna]

My top favourites-

Naruto Shippuden

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Bleach

SKET dance

Attack on Titan

Deathnote

Dragon Ball Z

One Piece

Free!

Black Butler

Psycho Pass

K

Fairy Tail

Kuroko no Basuke

Code Geass

Sword Art Online

Eureka 7 AO

Kaichou wa Maid sama

Katekyo Hitman Reborn

There are probably more, but I can't remember right now

[PeterAhlstrom]

Last night we got to episode 10 of Sword Art Online. Now we've had a good run of not-depressing episodes. I quite liked what these few episodes led up to.

 

We've also watched a few episodes of Steins;Gate and will be watching more, but so far it's just a good show, not spectacular. The voice acting in the dub is definitely very well done, with quite a good adaptation.

 

Hunter X Hunter continues to be very strong. The beginning of the Chimera Ant arc was pretty bleak and depressing, but recent episodes have gotten out of that. Especially once Komugi showed up; the King was super boring before she came on the scene, and she saved that aspect of the plot. There were also some recent storytelling devices that have been very interesting; there were a couple of episodes where someone was there who was supposed to be dead and no one mentioned anything about it. Drove me nuts, but I figured it out before the explanation was revealed.

[Kurkistan]

Steins;Gate's earlier episodes get retroactively better, btw.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Kurkistan

[PorridgeBrick]

The more Steins;Gate goes on, the better it gets. The plot gets really dark and interesting. The characters are more complex than most animes.

[Teccam]

Just finished SAO. Some of my other favorites include Cowboy Bebop, Attack on Titan, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Haven't watched a whole lot of anime besides these — started Kill la Kill but it didn't really appeal to me. Started Samurai Champloo and was intrigued, but haven't watched any more yet. Started Accel World earlier today and I think I might try to stick with that.

 

But trying to figure out where to go next. A few on my list include Steins;Gate, Hunter x Hunter, Mirai Nikki, Psycho-Pass, and Monogatari. Which of these do y'all think is the best place to start, given the tastes mentioned above?

[Kurkistan]

Well I can tell you that Mirai Nikki and Psycho Pass are very different from the shows you listed as favorites.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Kurkistan

[PeterAhlstrom]

I do really love the early episodes of Bleach. I liked the whole series except for the filler (non-manga) episodes (which we ended up skipping, and I recommend that, plus one of the non-filler arcs—the arc right before episode 168 is totally skippable) and the fact that the recaps at the beginning of each episode got entirely too long and also skippable. Um. This doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement, but the series is worth at least starting.

 

I've mentioned it before, but Tiger & Bunny is great and I think it would appeal to you.

 

Log Horizon is the same genre as SAO, but not as bleak as some SAO episodes. I like it.

 

Silver Spoon is by the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist, but a completely different genre. Still, it shows her excellent storytelling skill. I can't automatically say it would appeal to you.

 

We love Chihayafuru but it's also a totally different genre; I would recommend it if you had watched and liked Hikaru no Go.

 

I definitely would love to find a show as appealing as FMA:B. We don't have a shounen action show we're watching right now other than HxH, unless SAO and Log Horizon count (I guess they do count).

[Teccam]

Thanks, Kurk and Peter. Log Horizon was on my list, but I was thinking about waiting for season 1 to finish and binging it.  I'll check out the others; hadn't heard of any of them before.

 

Kurk, how exactly are those two shows different? Would you advise against watching them?

[Kurkistan]

No problem: I've found some of my favorite anime through recommendations from others like this, so I figure I should pay it forward.

 

I quite like both Mirai Nikki and Psycho Pass (they're both on the "wouldn't have even looked at if someone hadn't recommended it" list), but they are very dark shows. Peter keeps saying how the opening of SAO is bleak, and it is, but compared to those two (especially Psycho-Pass...)...

 

Then again, you've watched and liked Attack on Titan and FMA:B, and those aren't exactly made of pure sunshine and rainbows either (I've never seen Cowboy Bebop (yes, a crime, I know)). I'd recommend watching at least a handful of each, but don't be shocked if it's not your thing.

 

Also, fair warning for Accel World: I have it on good authority that the show tanks at the start of a new arc halfway through its run. It ends on a good enough place before that, so I'd actually recommend just stopping there.

[Teccam]

A lot of people seem to dislike the second arc of SAO but I thought it was fine. I'll keep that in mind though, thanks again. I definitely don't shy away from dark/gritty stuff — in fact, I tend to prefer that style. Definitely feeling good about a lot of the shows on that list. Now just need to figure out some semblance of an order to watch them in. 

[Grayv]

I am waiting for them to turn the manga Shokugeki No Soma into an anime because I think it would be awesome. For those who haven't heard of it, it is about a young boy, whose house is also a special-of-the-day restaurant, finding himself in a special high school for chefs. All the teachers are stricter thank Gordon Ramsey, and if the students have arguments, they settle it with an iron chef like battle. It's a little risqué because when they eat the food, their reactions usually involve mental images of themselves (usually naked, with parts covered) in some form of foodgasm. Also there is a funny character that likes to dress in nothing but his chef apron. So far it is a great manga and could be a great anime (if it isn't one already and I just can't find it on the net)

Edit: spell check and a word change

Edited March 19, 2014 by Grayv

[Cracknut]

Still regretting watching Mirai Nikki. It has interesting twists but and story so you keep watching it because you want to know whats up but ending wasn't worth it imo. Accel World wasn't my thing from the beginning :| I too haven't watched Cowboy Bebop even though I know I'll love it, just keep forgetting it when I'm into anime watching mood  

Bleach had an awesome beginning, then it started doing same over and over again with more fights and less story every time and I stopped watching it when

Ichigo gets super power up just before he fights Aizen

Kill la Kill is masterpiece, just because it's done by same people as TTGL

btw am I the only one who sees similarities between TTGL and Mistborn? 

Edited March 19, 2014 by Cracknut

[Joe ST]

Silver Spoon is so awesome

[Kurkistan]

Still regretting watching Mirai Nikki. It has interesting twists but and story so you keep watching it because you want to know whats up but ending wasn't worth it imo. Accel World wasn't my thing from the beginning :| I too haven't watched Cowboy Bebop even though I know I'll love it, just keep forgetting it when I'm into anime watching mood

 

I've heard it said that Mirai Nikki is terrible at living up to its original premise, but enjoyable if you roll with it from there.

[veriviette]

If I could throw out an oddball recommendation here in between these other fantastic ones, I highly recommend Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei, or The Tatami Galaxy. I loved the weird aesthetics, and the ending and the final message it gave was a great emotional punch to the gut. Er, get ready to read subs very fast though. 

 

Other odd shows I've heard about but haven't watched yet are Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World) and Uchouten Kazoku (The Eccentric Family), both high up on my "to watch" list. Anyone watched these two yet?