Anime?

Favs -
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Berserk (Except they cut the animated series short the way they did. I spent a DAMN long time looking for the 26th episode, which didn’t exist.
Naruto (sans filler episodes)
Cowboy Bebop
Samurai Champloo
Dragonball Z held my attention for a while. I’ve never seen the whole thing through, since its got hundred of episodes, but its something I’ve wanted to do just to make my life more pathetic when I describe it to people.

Out of all of those Berserk is the most Test filled. Gutts is born from his dead mother, kills the only father he’s ever known, becomes a feared mercenary, rises to the top, and then falls. Hard. As well as being possibly the LARGEST Anime hero ever, the show is just bloody graphic fun.

I need to find the translated manga, bad.

-Gendou

If you havn’t seen “Elfen Lied” then you are missing out. Short but amazing series.

Berserk popped my anime cherry… and I keep crawlin back to ol’ Guts.

Cowboy Beebop is good

Samurai X was pretty good. The series was a little corny but the first movie was fantastic.

I hear Bleach is also very good, havn’t gotten into that yet.

Geez! I didn’t get any notifications and just decided to check.

Yeah, Berserk was great.

Last Exile is so unspeakably kickass if anybody hasn’t that series.

The “Vision of Escaflowne” SERIES was fantastic even with it’s somewhat dated animation. The then 15 year old Maaya Sakamoto did the English and Japanese voice of Hitomi Kanzaki as well as singing the great opening theme. Tremendous talent. She does both languages flawlessly. English speaking people would never guess they were listening to a Japanese kid for whom English wasn’t their primary language. She did do the movie too.

Gungrave

Full Metal Panic.

RahXephon, if you can follow EXTREMELY complex plotlines.

All of Miyazaki’s stuff is classic

Black Jack

Bubblegum Crisis 2040

Crest/Banner of the Stars (all three series were great)

Record of Lodoss War, both series

Neon Genesis Evangelion, except the end was kinda rushed.

Yes, Cowboy Bebop, which somebody mentioned the music for was done by Yoko Kanno who did among other things the Escaflowne series as well as handling Maaya Sakamoto’s early singing career. I love her voice, even as a kid.

Those are all series (except Miyazaki)

For movies,

Perfect Blue

Grave of the Fireflies

Ninja Scroll

Akira

Jungle Emperor Leo

Jin Roh, Wolf Brigade

Tree of Palme

Voices of a Distant Star *** done by (almost) one guy with his mac in his livingroom.

I could go on.

Anime is like any other media form. It ranges from from total crap to absolute genius and I CAN understand people who hate it. It can be tedious and way the hell out there at times.

make it stop… anime wierds me out. I though the Japanese were supposed to be smart?

[quote]Shaved wrote:
If you havn’t seen “Elfen Lied” then you are missing out. Short but amazing series. >>>
[/quote]

That is most assuredly not for kids, but then neither is Berserk, Perfect Blue, Ninja Scroll and a host of others. The decidedly “not for kids” aspect of some of it throws a lot of people off who are expecting “cartoons”

However if you do have kids and want to turn them on to Anime Last Exile is guaranteed to keep em glued even they struggle with the somewhat advanced galactic politics. It was inspired by the same books that inspired Lucas to write the Star Wars series.

I still listen to “Tank” from the opening credits of Cowboy Beebop on my Mp3 player almost every time I’m in the gym. Great, great show. I watched the last episode once and pretty much refuse to watch it again because it crushed my young impressionable teenage soul.

Samauri Champloo was cool, but it was no Cowboy Beebop. SC had a lot of filler and the substance was kind of stretched thin.

Berserk, Hellsing, All the Gundams except Seed, Robotech, Macross, Trigun, Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, pretty much any Mecha / Steampunk type anime catches my interest, that and ones involving excess blood and flying limbs.

As for movies, Grave of the Fireflies is probably the most powerful anti-war movie I’ve ever seen. It disturbs me in a way that few movies have. Anything by Miyazaki is great. I just watched Princess Mononoke and enjoyed it a lot.

[quote]tassie wrote:
For those berserk fans, have you also read the manga? Not to oversell it, but it is 10x radder than the already rocking anime.

Its alot more violent and shocking though, but a great read, even for those that dont like comics, I didn’t either, before berserk

you can get almost the whole thing so far here

http://www.thehawks.org/

The artwork in the first few, while still good, pales in comparison to how awesome it progressively gets[/quote]

I watched the Berserk Anime first (blasphemous, I know) and was completely blown off of my rocker; flabbergasted, I then searched out the manga-scanlations online and devoured those within a couple of days, leaving me, like all the other fans, waiting for the new one of drop every couple of weeks.

By the way, how’d everyone like that three month (or was it more?) wait muiro put us through for episode 280? Hehe

tassie’s right, the artwork has come a long way, you can definately see the skill developing into something magnificient.

I like reading the manga, but there is something to be said about having the action animated for you on the screen. I really got lost in the anime as much, if not more so than the mange, and would kill for another season, but for all I know it won’t happen…at least not for a long long while.

Bearing witness to Guts’ badassery after the anime ends, however, is awesome, simply awesome, and the manga does a good job of conveying it, and once you get in the flow of reading it, its like watching an animated series.

But as has been repeated, Berserk is awesome and if you’re even sketchy about anime and wanna see what all the fuss is about, and why people can get so hooked into this stuff and how romantic the stories are, check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

^That’s a good one.

I used to be watch a lot of anime; now I’m down to a weekly fix of Naruto and Bleach. Some of my favorites were Trigun, Outlaw Star, Akira, and Cowboy Bebop.

How could I forget Ninja Scroll and Gundam Wing.

Every other Gundam Wing sucks

I’ll never forget Roy Focker’s theme song.

[quote]belligerent wrote:
make it stop… anime wierds me out. I though the Japanese were supposed to be smart?[/quote]

NONSENSE MAN!!! Rent Last Exile. 7 discs. If that series does not convince you how mind numbingly fabulous anime CAN be then you’ll never be a fan. Which wouldn’t make you a bad guy, just not an anime fan. Even if you didn’t catch the story, the animation will absolutely make your hair stand on end. Gonzo digimation baby, those guys are masters.

I’m frankly kinda surprised this many people here are into this.

[quote]Donut62 wrote:
As for movies, Grave of the Fireflies is probably the most powerful anti-war movie I’ve ever seen. It disturbs me in a way that few movies have. Anything by Miyazaki is great. I just watched Princess Mononoke and enjoyed it a lot.[/quote]

I don’t know if it was anti war as much as it was horrors of war. He never made it sound like he was sorry Japan declared war on the US. I don’t know if you knew, but that was a true story written by the guy who was Sato in the movie.

That one will rip your heart out. If you are unaffected watching that check your pulse. Especially once you realize it was real. Even being somebody who thanks God for every bomb we dropped on Japan that surely didn’t stop me from being emotionally crushed. Man that was rough.

For probably the best hand drawn frame art in the history of the world check out SPRIGGAN. Flat down eye popping artwork right from the opening scene in the mountains.

Some of the ones that I like that haven’t been mentioned yet:
GTO(great anime,manga,and live action tv show)
Slam Dunk (great anime and manga)
Hajime no Ippo (great boxing anime and manga)
Outlaw Star
Vampire Hunter D (both movies)
GoldenBoy (one of the funniest anime and manga)
School Rumble (both manga and anime)
Yakitate! Japan
Black Lagoon
Sunabouzu (just plain hilarious)
One Piece (both anime and manga, and not that toonami crap either)
Initial D
Gantz (never saw the american edited version but the original anime and manga are pretty dark and bloody)

I used to watch a lot and I’m sure I forgot most of the good ones but in case you where wondering were to get some of these and other anime I get most of my stuff either from Animesuki.com( which only posts torrents for unlicensed anime) and downloadanime.org(licensed torrents).

Also for those that like anime and live around Chicago, Music Box theater has showings every once in awhile.

ahem

[quote]wfifer wrote:
…Outlaw Star… [/quote]

[quote]wfifer wrote:
ahem

wfifer wrote:
…Outlaw Star…

[/quote]

yeah sorry i just glanced over the thread. someone else mentioned vampire hunter d too.

Jin-Roh is my favourite movie, not just when it comes to animes. The first Ghost in the Shell is amazing. As for series, as a kid I used to love this show called Guyver… that was so great.

One of the best most insane anime shows is FLCL, or Fooly Cooly (aka Furi Kuri). It’s… well like i said, insaaaane.

oh and speaking of insane, has anyone seen Colorful?

[quote]Shaved wrote:
If you havn’t seen “Elfen Lied” then you are missing out. Short but amazing series.[/quote]

Hell yah!

Fav series:

Cowboy Bebop
Elfen Lied
GANTZ
Hellsing
Le Portrait de Petit Cossette
Serial Experiments: Lain

Movies:

Akira
Howl’s Moving Castle :slight_smile:
Ghost in the Shell
Ninja Scroll
Perfect Blue

Generally, I like a good combination of ultraviolence and psychology with usually some sci-fi or fantasy thrown in.

I’ve seen a lot of other stuff, but I actually haven’t seen Berserk yet.