Okay, so I have been reading Jojo's Bizarre Adventure up to where Mangafox stops having it. (Somewhere into the fourth part. The one with ridiculous haircut man.) And I have to concede that it is a badass manga and I am excited for the anime adaption. Looking back at it, I think I like it because of, for example,
1) No pansy generic male lead characters. You know the one, the one with short black hair, tan skin, white shirt, black pants and zero personality whatsoever apart from being expert an women psychologist and wanting to save everyone. (Jonathan has that save-the-world thing going on. Jotaro is a bit lacking in terms of personality beyond being badass. But they are not pansies, and they don't dress like pansies.) Thus: Main characters with personality, which is kind of lacking in some animes. Kamijou Touma for example is a great main character in terms of personality and actions... within the bounds of the male lead formula. Independant female main characters (ones that do not primarily define them through their relationship with some male) are also a very acceptable substitute.
2) Good fights, ones that depend on smarts, not raw power and Deus ex Machinas (also known as the Scaling Algorithm of Villainry biting the writers in the ass). This is the big one, kinda.
In terms of Jojo's this is particularily evident with Joseph Joestar. If I wanted to list every awesome stunt Joseph ever pulled not by raw power but by trickery we'd be here all day, but his battle against Wham was particularily great - both sides are continuously ingenious in their moves and the whole fight is quite a great back-and-forth, even though Wham has the definite power advantage. The aforementioned Touma also pulls this although on an overall lesser scale.
Second Jojo example, Jotaro VS Dio. Although it takes a slight, if logical, Deus Ex to put them on roughly equal footing Dio is not a threat through his superior power alone, but also through thinking ahead to bypass Jotaro's guard.
3) The bizarreness of character design. Oh, Stands.
Tl;dr I wish to get recommended an anime that fulfills most of these properties: Smarts-driven fights, distinctive character design (please avoid run of the mill everything-orbits-around-the-male-lead-and-the-female-lead-is-a-tsundere), does not take itself 110% seriously. Bonus points for outlandish character design, humour, historic and/or (mundane) fantastic settings and tomboys kicking ass and taking names. Should perhaps be a bit longer than 12 episodes but that's not strictly necessary by any means.
I liked To Aru Majutsu No Index, Slayers, Black Rock Shooter, Bakemonogatari, Spice&Wolf, Nausicaa, The World God Only Knows, Katanagari (spelling dubious) and more animes I probably have forgotten about.
Go ahead, please shoot me suggestions.