Anime Recommendation Thread - Minor Plot Summaries

Cafe Society
41

Less well known and popular series that I think rank among the best are:

Key: The Metal Idol - This is, effectively, the show that LOST always wanted to be. There’s a series-long mystery about Key’s past, as she tries to become a real girl, by gaining a following of listeners from whom she can suck their life force.

THE Hakkenden - Based on a classic series of novels about a band of 8 brothers, the children of a dog and a princess, they have decided to work for a samurai lord who they think is fair and honest, but the court and everyone they know is being corrupted by a trickster demon that is out to get them.

Katanagatari - A woman seduces the greatest swordfighter in Japan, to help her collect 12 famous swords. The series is very episodic (more so than even Revolutionary Girl Utena), but the characters and their bond is very interesting.

42

Not exactly an anime, but I figured I’d throw this one out there;

  • Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. After a witch imprisoned on another planet for millennia is accidentally released by Earth astronauts and she attempts to conquer the Earth, her rival, an ancient white wizard, summons five youths and imbues them with the powers of the dinosaurs to fight her and protect the Earth. Sound familiar? If you’re of a certain age, it should - this is the Japanese sentai series that provided the stock footage the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers was built around, and an English-subtitled version was just released last year. I’ve only worked my way through a few of its 50 episodes (less than half the number the American series got by editing the footage), and it’s remarkable how it’s simultaneously familiar and yet different. It’s much more action-heavy than the American series - as much as parents complained in the '90s about how violent Power Rangers was, watching just a bit of this show makes it clear that it was severely toned down. Witch Bandora is more intimidating and less campy than Rita Repulsa, and her minions are effectual instead of just being comic relief, whereas the Zyurangers are more conventional heroes instead of “teenagers with attitude”, and make more use of the various weapons at their disposal. Sage Barza isn’t quite as cool as Zordon, but he has a charm all his own. It’s really interesting to see what the American series used and how it changed from the original, and what was left out. The subtitled version is available free online if you’re inclined to check it out - it’s a fun bit of nostalgia for '90s kids like myself.
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I haven’t seen many tokusatsu (costumed hero) TV shows, but Kamen Rider: Ryuki is rumored to be one of the best, and I was actually fairly surprised by it.

44

Well, I came off “the road” right after 9/11. Worked in Dallas up until late June '03 before moving back to St. Louis, MO, to help my Mom with her cancer (surgery/chemo/radiation) and stayed.

I’ll give it a try, as I liked everything about the Death Note manga except the print size, LOL. Got your other recommends noted, as well. Thanks.

45

My advice? Watch Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Princess Mononoke and* Macross Plus*.

Then quit.

I watched a LOT of anime, and I never found anything as good as those four titles. 99.9999% of it is just drek, and any TV series is just guaranteed to be awful.

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I’d be curious what else you saw. Certainly there’s a lot of dreck out there, but Ghost in the Shell was only ever very good for its special effects and, while Macross Plus has great music and some great scenes, the end is anti-climactic and it sort of fails to gel into a whole story.

Of Mamoru Oshii’s stuff, I’d recommend Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, Patlabor: The Movie, and Avalon over Ghost in the Shell.

For Macross Plus, I’d tell anyone to buy the soundtrack. But for anime, I’d tell them to watch The Wings of Honeamise, Orguss 002, Cowboy Bebop, or Evangelion if I was trying to think of something in that general territory.

Granted, I tend to go more for story than visuals. Though the visuals in Macross Plus are pretty amazing (particularly for their time). And, of course, The Wachowski’s stole all the visuals from Ghost in the Shell to make The Matrix. In the realm of visuals, those are hard to beat. Wings of Honeamise is a contender though.

47

I watched Ajin: Demi-Human and Attack on Titan based on the recommendations provided above.

Both were excellent! I can’t wait for the next seasons.

48

I also watched Attack on Titan (a.k.a. Fightin’ and Cryin’) and enjoyed it. Thanks for the recommendations, guys.

49

Have you… seen the live-action adaption?

There’s a live-action adaption of Space Battleship Yamato (and, hell, I should also mention the live-action adaption of Matsumoto’s other undying franchise, Space Pirate Captain Harlock); I once saw someone describe it as Heroic Sacrifices: The Movie.

50

I got the titles mixed up. Appleseed XIII is the companion series, Appleseed Alpha is the prequel movie.

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Akagi - Have you ever thought to yourself “Poker is simple enough, how interesting could it be to watch?” Then, you saw an episode or two of The Word Series of Poker and got hooked by the psychological play? Well, if you ever want to get pumped-up over 4 person Mahjong, Akagi is your go-to anime. Every aspect about the game is patiently explained, so even I as a complete know-nothing about Mahjong could follow along and appreciate the psychology and gambling antics going on.

If you want to introduce Mahjong into the rotation of your family’s game night, watch this anime as a family.

also a very long manga
One Outs - Want to get pumped-up over the psychology of pitching and playing baseball, to a similar degree of Akagi and Mahjong? Want to see ingenious rules bending, and the daily struggle of the worst baseball team, The Lycans, as they try to claw their way up to competing in the World Series?

Don’t know anything about baseball? That is fine, the anime will explain everything, such as why leaving the grass in the outfield cut long, and the infield cut short, might help our team and hinder the opponents.

Good luck finding this anime legitimately, not on Crunchy/Netflix/Hulu as far as I know. If anyone knows where to find it, I would appreciate it. I had to scour places like Youtube, and Vimeo for it while it was still freshly coming out as a weekly series.

also a manga, read it if you can. It is not as long as Akagi or Monster
Kaiji - or Ultimate Survivor Kaiji - is the story of a loser. A complete waste of human potential that is so addicted to gambling in all forms, that his losses allowed the Yakuza and loan sharks to put him in debt-hell. His last chance of ever paying off his debts in his lifetime is to play a string of various black-market life-or-death gambles that the ultra-wealthy watch as entertainment.

Cry along with Kaiji (and he cries a lot) as he is betrayed, bloodied, and bound for the deeper circles of debt-hell. Rejoice along with Kaiji as his ingenuity allows him to barely out-strategize or counter-cheat his opponents out of enough money to wipe away his significant debt.

please remember that you should remove 2 zeros when converting yen to dollars. A million yen is $10,000
a very good manga, it goes on longer than the show does, and is still ongoing
Monster - How can you explain to the police that all of these murders happening around you are not your doing? They were all done by someone else that you only know in passing, who leaves without a trace. Thus Dr. Tenma, a brain surgeon, goes on a trip around the world across the course of most of his life in order to track down that elusive person and clear his own name, while trying to stay ahead of the police who still believe in his guilt, but just need more evidence to prove it.

Government conspiracy, psychological drama, and hard-boiled detectives. What more could one ask for? Follow the viewpoints of Johan and his sister, Dr. Tenma, and inspector Lunge over 74 episodes as we see them grow as people; their thoughts and actions subtly changing over time as they learn more about the others and themselves.

Good luck finding this one anywhere as well. Please tell me if a legitimate TV/streaming service ever has this available. It is a manga as well. Just read that for the story.
Yakitate!! Japan! - Love Japanese puns and over the top reactions? Enjoy cooking shows, but wish there was more comedy? Then prepare your resumé for the bakery nearest you, as Yakitate Japan shows you legitimate (and advanced) baking techniques through a variety of fun Chopped or Cutthroat Kitchen challenges.

also a manga

52

From this thread, I have now watched two series.

Death Note - Wow, this was excellent. Really great stuff. I found it really picked up after episode 10 or so. I liked it a lot. Highly recommended.

Attack on Titan - Good. Not great, but good. I actually got kind of bored with this part way through. I watched the English voiced version. The guy who voiced Armin was super annoying and whiney. 6/10, basically.

I’ll move on to something else, soon. I have a few movies to watch before I start another show.

53

I watched the first season of Sword Art Online after the glowing reviews it got here. I have to say, I really didn’t like it at all.

There’s a dub? I watched a few episodes on Netflix and they only had subtitles, and so does Crunchyroll.

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Bumped to add a +1 Recommend to some “upstream” mentions, and add a few more of my own (all of these are [or were] available on NetFlix, about my only access to anime.
I’m not saying these are the greatest animes ever, but I found them enjoyable enough; I tend to accept a story for what it is, what the creator intended, and judge it by its execution, not its “greater/lesser relevance” to the larger, overall artistic pantheon.

Your Lie In April: Awesome music (if you like classical piano), heartbreaking story. Tormented (and emotionally/physically abused) boy prodigy, who can no longer play due to said abuse, meets vibrant young girl who brings him out of his shell, helps him heal enough to resume (and enjoy) playing.

Young girl then succumbs to terminal illness, and recently healed/still vulnerable boy must now cope.

Have tissues handy.
Aldnoah.Zero and Knights of Sidonia: Smapti thoroughly and accurately summarized them here.
Durarara!! and Durarara!!X2 A modern Urban Fantasy told in interlocking vignettes, like Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. It draws heavily on many different anime tropes for each different vignette, weaving them all together loosely in the end.

TV Tropes/Laconic summarizes it here
Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet: a +1 on psieskier’s recommend. I found this series both good, verging on great, and disappointing at the same time. Good, in that they did tell a good, compelling story; disappointing in that they had so much more material they could have mined for a larger, more thoughtful, and engaging story. I bought the anime.

Shout out to Chamber K6821, the Magnificent Bastard; if we ever really do develop A.I., we can only hope that we wind up with a Chamber.
The Devil Is A Part-Timer: The Great Demon King Satan is defeated by an Army of Holy Righteousness, and retreats (with his Number 1 Sidekick) through a wormhole to another world: Earth.

Where he immediately loses most of his powers, assumes human form, and must now work for a living. He lands a part-time job at MgRonald’s (no international MegaCorps were harmed in the production of this anime!). The Chief Paladin of the A.H.R. pursues Satan to Earth to continue the battle. Hilarity ensues.

This is a mostly humorous, light-hearted, fish-out-of-water tale, with copious loads of Enemy Mine thrown in.
K: another urban fantasy. A seemingly ordinary high school student is being pursued by people with rather supernatural powers, accusing him (and wanting to punish/kill him) for a crime he didn’t commit. Or at least, he doesn’t remember committing said crime.

It’s worth watching just for the robotic trash cans/street sweepers. They only have four stock phrases that they use/repeat, but they use them well.

55

I love Knights. The theme songs by Angela get stuck in your head!

I should get back to this and finish it, except …

ATTACK ON TITAN SEASON 2!!!

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Steins:Gate - I just recently finished it. 25 episodes. Teenagers invent time travel, sort of, and screw things up and must fix it. It’s slow at first and you wanna punch the main guy in the face for being kind of a dick but then episode 12. Oh man. Episode 12.

It took me a couple of weeks to get to episode 12, usually an episode a night, and then a couple of days to finish the series. From what I’ve read on the internet this is normal.

57

Good bump. Now that I’ve watched a ton more anime in the past year, I can recommend a lot more.

Shirobako is a wonderful and a rather informative peek into the world of making anime. Heartily recommended; my sister and I both loved it.

Re: Zero was great. It’s biggest flaw is that it ran out of source material to adapt, so the overall story is not resolved by the end. It was popular enough that it’ll probably get a season 2 some day, but that could be quite a while (see: Attack on Titan), and there’s no guarantee of ever seeing a full ending to the story, unfortunately.

Konosuba is hilarious and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It tells the story of a Japanese teenaged boy who dies trying to save a classmate’s life, and is offered the chance to reincarnate in a magical world, with any one magical boon of his choice as an incentive. His choice of boon winds up being rather unconventional (and hilarious), so I won’t spoil that (the Crunchyroll synopsis of the series does spoil that joke, unfortunately). Kazuma finds himself in a world that basically runs off of videogame logic, right down to gaining XP for killing monsters and spending skill points to learn things. Konosuba lampoons all kinds of videogame and anime tropes, and has a blast doing it. My biggest complaint is the copious amounts of fanservice – women’s breasts bounce around at the slightest provocation, and the main female character appears to be wearing no underwear under a miniskirt. This really stands out given that I’d expect a series that parodies anime tropes to be mocking this type of fanservice rather than engaging in it, but it is what it is. Kobosuba is absolutely hilarious, so if the fanservice won’t offend you to the point that you can’t watch, I’d definitely recommend it.
A pair of related action animes that I’d recommend are Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. Both revolve around the “Holy Grail War”, in which 7 mages battle for the wish-granting holy grail. To aid them in the battle, each of them summons a single magical Servant, who are basically reincarnations of real and mythical heroes (e.g. a prominent Servant in the series is King Arthur).

F/Z is the prequel to UBW, and I’m unsure what order to recommend watching them. Both orderings have their merit. I personally did UBW first, and the Fate Stay/Night reddit recommends that order. However, the F/Z anime was produced first, and there are clearly plot elements of UBW that assume that you’re familiar with F/Z. However, missing those plot elements won’t ruin UBW on your first watch-through. On the other hand, there are some surprises in UBW that will be spoiled if you’ve already seen F/Z already (but the anime producers were clearly aware of this, because those surprises aren’t built up very much). The main thing that the UBW-first order has going for it is that UBW has a stronger hook than F/Z, and thematically, UBW followed F/Z works a little better. I don’t think that either order will serve you wrong, to be honest. There is a third anime, Fate/Stay Night, that I haven’t seen personally. It is regarded quite poorly by fans of the series, so you should probably just skip it. Similarly, there is an Unlimited Blade Works movie that reportedly makes no sense if you are unfamiliar with the source material. I’d recommend sticking with the two ufotable anime series.
School-Live! is one of my favourites. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to explain what makes this series so great without ruining one of its absolute best moments. Seriously, the best thing to to is to read absolutely nothing about the series (especially not the Crunchyroll synopsis … sigh) and go in and watch the entire first episode blind. And I mean the whole first episode. Even if you’re bored, stick with it. The plot doesn’t get going until near the end of the first episode, so give it the full 22 minutes before deciding whether you like it. When I introduced my sister to it, at the half-way mark she was certain that the series was too cutsy and just not something she’d be into. When the episode ended, her immediate reaction was “Can we watch the next one?” It’s a great series.