Hello, I am trying to get into anime as it is, and I am kinda lost. I did watch Madchen und Panzer, and a while back (Oh hormones) I watched HotD. So, what are some good shows for me to watch?
Vector has excellent taste, and I second many of her recommendations - Princess Tutu and Haibane Renmei rank highly with me as well. Cowboy Bebop is another fun show, Gundam is very good in almost all of its incarnations, and I was fond of Puella Magi Madoka Magica as well. For shows not yet listed...
Legend of Galactic HeroesIn the far-distant future, the repressive, hegemonic, and rather Prussian Galactic Empire is engaged in an endless war against the Free Planets Alliance, an offshoot of rebels which fled the Galactic Alliance and formed a free, but increasingly corrupt democracy that felt to me like a cross between the Third French Republic and America. In this war has risen several young promising officers, two of which in particular become the focus of the story - Admiral Reinhard von Lohengramm of the Galactic Empire, golden boy of the Emperor who holds his sister as a concubine, and Commodore Yang Wen-li of the Free Planet Alliance, a would-be historian forced to become a military officer to pay his education debts, who has become a junior staff officer aboard Vice Admiral Paeta's battleship. Between the two and the people who support them, they will change the fate of both nations and all of humanity. This is a long story, to put it mildly, clocking in at 110 episodes in just the main series, and tends to move along at a rather sedate pace, but it is a very good story.
Revolutionary Girl UtenaUtena is a girl who wants to become a prince, after having been saved by one in her childhood. Given a ring by that prince, which he promises will help her find him, she cherishes that memory of him. Years later at Ohtori Academy, while protecting a friend, she challenges a member of the kendo club and school council to a duel, but finds that her ring, like that which he and the other student council members bear, marks them to fight in not the match she had expected, but a series of duels that will grant the victor the power to bring about a world revolution as well as the Rose Bride, Himemiya Anthy. Very deconstructive work looking at fairy tales, mythology, and existentialism, artistically very interesting. Arguably a classic of anime, and certainly a classic of magical girl anime.
PlanetesGarbagemen in space.
...
OK, OK. A very interesting work about everyday life in space, with science hard enough to scratch a diamond. The main characters work in the Debris Section of Technora, tasked with collecting spare debris before it can do things like damage or destroy passenger ships, satellites, or space stations in Earth orbit, which, in addition to the lives that would be lost and the economic costs of destruction, would create even more high-velocity debris in what can become a self-sustaining reaction. Though a necessary job, it's not a particularly glamorous job. A very interesting work with compelling characters and a background of political machinations as well as the pursuit of one's dreams.
Honey & CloverSlice of life show at an art college. I really, really love this show. It's about life, love, and dreams amidst art.
Princess JellyfishAn all-female dorm (the "Nunnery") of female otaku with varying, but tremendously obsessive interests such as Japanese dolls, trains, the Legend of Three Kingdoms, and older men, and have severe weaknesses to stylish people and men in general. The main character Tsukimi's obsession is jellyfish, and after encountering an extremely stylish woman who helps her, that stylish woman decides to throw herself fully into the daily life of the "Nunnery" with entertaining consequences. Also, judging by the
OP, someone on the production team *really* loves movies.
Dennou Coil - A Circle of ChildrenApparently called "Studio Ghibli meets Ghost in the Shell." A story about children growing up in the near future, in a city where they have effectively integrated AR into real world. Main character Yuuko moves to the city with her father, mother, and sister after her father gets a job there, makes friends, and meets a mysterious transfer student (aren't they all?) who arrives at around the same time she does and is also named Yuuko (albeit with different kanji), who is an unusually skilled hacker with an agenda related to the unusual programs/viruses called "illegals" that hide in AR. Also has urban legends, inter-facial ballistic missiles, and quite possibly the most...interesting
anti-virus hunter-killer I've ever seen.
Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne/Full Moon O SagashiteTanemura Arina's my absolute, complete, and utterly favourite manga artist, so I'll include her anime works though most people don't like them. Both shows are magical girl anime; the former is about a magic thief named Maron with the power of God, tasked with sealing demons who consume the happiness in people's hearts, along with sidekick angel-in-training Finn Fish. In addition to her own severe family issues, she also has to deal with the fact that her best friend Miyako is the daughter of the police detective responsible for catching her, and has also made it her own personal goal to help her father out to capture Kaitou Jeanne which she pursues with...zealous intent, and appearance of the rival Kaitou Sinbad, who seems to be working for the devil with the black-winged angel Access Time, and capturing the demons for his own unknown purposes. The second work is a magical idol show about Mitsuki, who wants to become a singer but must deal with the dual issues of her music-hating grandmother (her own parents being dead) and her own throat cancer, which she refuses to permit an operation on due to the risk to her voice. When accidentally visited by two shinigami (death gods or, more accurately, reapers; collectors of the dead who can normally be seen by those soon to die, like Mitsuki), she talks them into helping her, and they give her the power to change her age to the point where she can work and become a singer. At this point, she also takes the opportunity to pursue her second goal - to find the boy who she loved, who she met and who was adopted by another family before her grandmother came for her. I really love both shows, though they can get rather emotional at times, and I'm well aware that the massive amounts of melodrama tends to make them less popular with some people. And filler; I'll admit both shows had a bit of a filler problem at times, which is why I prefer the manga in certain respects.
Other works that I liked or had recommended to me by other people...
Air/Clannad/Kanon (all three are based on Key visual novels)
Kimagure Orange Road (classic romantic comedy)
Maison Ikkoku (the other classic romantic comedy, by Rumiko Takahashi, and arguably one of the few works she did that ever actually finished properly instead of just trickling out)
Nodame Cantabile
Ouran High School Host Club
Serial Experiments Lain
EDIT: Received and applied a gender correction.
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Topic: I like anime, do you like anime? (Read 3140866 times)