Anime recommendations

[Arrrgh]

philosophical themes, focus on technology, and a strong, but with flaws, central character(s) and villians that aren't just "bad evil dude", but is quite complex themselves. Also anything in a post apocalyptic or apocalyptic setting is also of interest. Don't know if it helps.

Ergo Proxy

[LC]

I will also throw in Juuni Kokuki and Last Exile

[Stormwaltz]

Girly stuff:

Somedays Dreamers - Magic realism
KamiChu! - Magic realism with a dash of Miyazaki and a lot of Shintoism
Nana - an anime soap opera about Tokyo punk rockers

[Korachia]

Thank you all the suggestions! I guess I have enough to watch for next couple of months now 

[Hoax]

Thank you all the suggestions! I guess I have enough to watch for next couple of months now  

Don't forget to tell us what you watch and how you like them. Always interesting to read what others think.

[Teleku]

Yeah, thanks everybody.  He basically asked the exact same questions I would have asked (I think our taste run fairly similar), so I'm going to give a few of these a shot (except for the ones I've already watched and know suck.  God damn you Last Exile for starting out so promising and getting so shitty).

[rk47]

Hmm can't seem to get into anime lately, but my younger cousins are into that class trading card game anime, Yu Gi Oh!, currently third series, 5 Dragons.

I laughed out loud when I saw the 4Kids dubbed version compared to the original. They're going to have a hard time to censor this shit. The first classic one was bad enough with 'Invisible handguns held by henchmen' but this one with murder and child abuse over children's card game is going to be hilariously hard to censor. Sometimes I wonder if Japan is OK with all this theme for a kid's show.

[Segoris]

Just finished Dance in the Vampire Bund, it was enjoyable the whole way through. Though, it did feel a little bit rushed at the end, it wasn't poorly done. Basic breakdown would be: Queen of the vampires is trying to create a society to protect vampires in Japan, and is doing so openly. She is dealing with vampire societies and people trying to stop her, and trying to maintain/build a relationship with her pet/guardian/lover werewolf who lost his memory and has other chicks chasing him.

Hopefully season 2 gets made, they have very clearly setup for it.

[Segoris]

In addition to all those in the spoiler above, and the others listed after, I'll add a few off the top of my head:
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (When the Cicadas Cry/When They Cry)
Angel Beats
Beck
Blood+
Shakugan no Shana
Great Teacher Onizuka (older so it won't have great picture, but funny as hell)
Bamboo Blade
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou
School Rumble (love/comedy)

I think what would be best though, as mentioned before, is to read through some descriptions and pick some that sound good to you. Try places like anime breaker, animea, zone anime, and go through their items. Start with suggestions here and then go through until you see one you like and give it a shot. Give animes a 2-3 episode trial, don't judge them based on the first 5 minutes or the first episode as a lot of things change fast.

Lastly, please do give feedback. More suggestions could be made after you develop your preferences a bit more, and it really is good to hear other people's opinions

[rk47]

School Rumble is a classic comedy. Writer really had lots of creative juices to just stew all the weird jokes he could spin. Too bad he ran out of it near the end and decided to end it. At least he ended it before it got too unfunny. The plot was getting nowhere but the gags kept it going.

I dig it. And enjoyed that other show, Lucky Star. It was crap first 3-4 then they changed writer and wheeeeeee numerous silliness.

I despise harem in general, it's like the shows are trying to talk to my dick or something. but I got a soft spot for drama stuff like Clannad. It got too mushy at times, but it does have good shots at comedy and decent story arcs. Compared to School Days (oh my what a mistake I made).

I think after Welcome to NHK! / NHK ni Yokoso! I started to look for some quality I can't seem to find. Eventually I drifted out and ignored anime altogether.

[Rendakor]

I hated the ending of School Rumble Sangakki; they should have just left it open-ended after Season 2 if they weren't going to wrap it up with a proper 3rd season.

School Days: I thought this show was ridiculous and awesome. Typical harem anime taken WAY too far, which made it excellent. Some highlights:

[rk47]

And that's why Japan was nuked, folks.

Seriously, just saw a lover suicide herself with children's card game. Wtf.
I bet if they made cartoon out of the western counterpart, Magic the Gathering, the gal probably will just faint.

[Stormwaltz]

School Days: I thought this show was ridiculous and awesome. Typical harem anime taken WAY too far, which made it excellent.

"Nice boat."

[Teleku]

And that's why Japan was nuked, folks.

Seriously, just saw a lover suicide herself with children's card game. Wtf.
I bet if they made cartoon out of the western counterpart, Magic the Gathering, the gal probably will just faint.

Heh, yeah, my usual comment while living and Japan and seeing something this fucked was, "We didn't use nearly enough nukes."

Also, are you sure this was a "normal" anime and not Hentai?  A quick Google seems to show the source material was a hentai visual novel....

[Segoris]

The anime was a regular anime while the original material was a hentai game. It's not unusual for harem anime to be based off of hental games/novels

[Lantyssa]

Love Hina was the only harem anime I can think of which I enjoyed.

[Rendakor]

The anime was a regular anime while the original material was a hentai game. It's not unusual for harem anime to be based off of hental games/novels

This.

"Nice boat."

[Hoax]

If it doesn't fall apart and finishes well I'm going to have to recommend Durarara its everything I liked about Baccano! but more episodes plus a setting that feels oddly authentic despite the fact that the whole show is clearly just making shit up as it goes.

[Segoris]

Finished Bakemonogatari and I liked it, though not as much as I thought I would. I think it was more due to my built up expectations of more action, but I have to say the story was still enjoyable with some cool random page inserts. The chemistry between the main protagonist and love interest remained interesting in a crazy-ass-Japanese-chick kind of way.

Started on Natsu no Arashi and didn't last three episodes. I didn't like the art, but more importantly, I thought the story was just bad through the first few episodes. To me, it suffered from an awful, awful opening where it just jumped in the story without any explanation of what was going on for the entire episode, it wasn't until episode two that they went back and did a decent setup, unfortunately episode two was still boring as could be.

I'm starting Seitokai Yakuindomo and enjoying it more than I thought I would for a typical harem comedy. It's funny, but I don't know if it will be able to keep the mild humor throughout the series. We'll see.

[Simond]

Random Curiosity Autumn Preview.


Oh, and rumours abour about some series called 'Berserk' or something.

[Stormwaltz]

Oh, and rumours abour about some series called 'Berserk' or something.

ROAR.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lihPs4BoDvo

[Rendakor]

If they do for Berserk what the new season did for FMA, that would be pretty awesome.

[fuser]

If they do for Berserk what the new season did for FMA, that would be pretty awesome.

Indeed that would be awesome, I don't know where the manga went but the last ~2-3 episodes of the anime were a train wreck on a really awesome series to that point.

[LC]

If it doesn't fall apart and finishes well I'm going to have to recommend Durarara its everything I liked about Baccano! but more episodes plus a setting that feels oddly authentic despite the fact that the whole show is clearly just making shit up as it goes.

The best thing about Durarara was the ED.

[Rendakor]

If they do for Berserk what the new season did for FMA, that would be pretty awesome.

Indeed that would be awesome, I don't know where the manga went but the last ~2-3 episodes of the anime were a train wreck on a really awesome series to that point.

Just like the original FMA!

[Stormwaltz]

Indeed that would be awesome, I don't know where the manga went but the last ~2-3 episodes of the anime were a train wreck on a really awesome series to that point.

The (first) anime was essentially a massive flashback covered in volumes... 3 to 11, or something close to that. What you see in the anime is pretty accurate, though the rescue of Griffen is severely truncated. The rest of the series is set in the time shown at the very beginning of the first episode, years after the events of the eclipse.

Personally, I liked the end of the anime. It takes balls to end a series A) bleakly and B) on a cliffhanger.

[Rendakor]

My complaint with the ending of the anime is one second we're in a relatively mundane fantasy world, then SUDDENLY DEMONS, DEMONS EVERYWHERE. It felt very sudden, forced, and silly. Even Wikipedia's summary makes the last 3 episodes read like bad fanfiction:

[AutomaticZen]

If they do for Berserk what the new season did for FMA, that would be pretty awesome.

Indeed that would be awesome, I don't know where the manga went but the last ~2-3 episodes of the anime were a train wreck on a really awesome series to that point.

Actually, that's pretty much how it happened in the manga.  If they had gotten one more episode, there would've been no cliffhanger and it would've linked up with the beginning.  Essentially, the first episode sets up the the DEMONS DEMONS EVERYWHERE part, and then the rest is pure origin story.  The anime is how Guts became a demon hunter and what drives him. 

[fuser]

Actually, that's pretty much how it happened in the manga.  If they had gotten one more episode, there would've been no cliffhanger and it would've linked up with the beginning.  Essentially, the first episode sets up the the DEMONS DEMONS EVERYWHERE part, and then the rest is pure origin story.  The anime is how Guts became a demon hunter and what drives him.  

I was going off of 7-8year ago last watching it and remembered being really pissed at the ending and assuming it was the demon stuff.  

So this week I re-watched the series. The problem is it just ends, it's not even close to a finish it was moving into the second "blacksword's man" arch of the story and boom its done with zero resolution. As Stormwaltz mentioned its totally bleak and the ending is really cruel to the viewer as you need to know what happens to the characters next. The golden age arch stood up fine and was a great intro to the characters but I forgot how much nudity/rape/violence/etc (gannon/griffith) the series had. Animation is surprisingly ok but a lot of still scenes or sparse filled backgrounds, music was still good.

If they chopped off the first episode, the last few(dropping deamon stuff), explained a bit more about behelit the "golden age" only story it would of held up fine in a single series. As it was explained to me the first episode sets up a flashback but it never gets to the point of where the series rejoins real time leaving you in udder confusion. It's like they got to episode 23 and said, "oh shit.. we have too much content and there's no way we can wrap this up".

Oh well telling a friend about re-watching it ended up with him loaning me all of his manga to continue on, oh well off to read  

edit:
One more note, there is no filler AT ALL, the story just keeps motoring on with no clip episode or christmas specials  

[LC]

So far this season, I've liked:

Bakuman
Letter Bee Reverse
Iron Man

In that order.

[Simond]

Bakuman is Peak Meta. It's an anime based on a manga about a pair of mangaka who want to make a manga so it can be turned into an anime.

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is everything I thought it would be.

Star Driver is Utena meets Gurren Lagann, and therefore I adore it unconditionally.

[fuser]

Iron man is/was horrible, it's off of this seasons list for me (srsly 2min of anticlimactic battles, horrible writing/acting, and bad music).

[LC]

Iron man is/was horrible, it's off of this seasons list for me (srsly 2min of anticlimactic battles, horrible writing/acting, and bad music).

I didn't think it was that bad. I always watch at least 3 eps before abandoning a show.

[Chenghiz]

I've been out of the new-anime loop for a while. Is there anything recent in the vein of more serious action/drama stuff like GitS, Ergo Proxy, or Mushishi? I keep seeing a lot of shounen/terrible-anime-injoke stuff in the lineups and I'm just not into that anymore.

[Hoax]

You could try Kurozuka, I haven't watched it beyond 1 ep yet but it looked promising reminds me a lot of Ninja Scroll. You might like Casshern Sins I felt like the story sort of ran out of gas but it started very well and the whole thing is very "styled" in a way I thought was pretty cool. Otherwise go back through the thread and see if you missed anything, like say Black Lagoon.