General Anime Discussion

Cafe Society
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Some of my likes and dislikes.

Freiren of course is nearly perfect, especially for and old Middle Earth fan like me. Story is from the perspective of an over 1000 year old elf mage. She was in the party the defeated the big evil 50 years earlier.

There is a strangely powerful scene where she makes a whole field of flowers bloom. This doesn’t win a battle, or accomplish a great deed, it just ends up paying respect to one of her now dead human companions.

Konosuba is a fantasy isekai comedy. I put it on par with Futurama for humor. It is a lot of fun.

Spy X Family is a fun spy comedy series taking place in 1960s Central Europe like place. I can’t describe it without spoilers, but it is really fun.

I watched but didn’t like Deathnote in the end, none of the characters were interesting or likeable to me.

Oh, I hate Demon Slayer, that style and even the drawing are nothing I like to watch.

But if we’re going older, SteinsGate is an incredibly good timey-wimey story with many great characters. So good.

Some lesser known (I think) excellent animes are:

Ascendance of a Bookworm, about a young woman named Urano who dies and is reincarnated as Myne, a frail, five-year-old girl in a world where books are scarce. Myne, determined to surround herself with books, sets out to create them in this new world, facing the challenges of a low literacy rate and a rigid class.

There is a climatic scene in season 2, I think, where they made grass growing epic. To achieve this was remarkable.

An older fantasy rom-com called Spice and Wolf was really good with some of the best dub work I’ve heard. A remake with more story was done in the past year, but it wasn’t as good as the older one. A minor agriculture goddess takes up with a merchant in this one.

A decent place to start looking for top animes:
Top Anime - MyAnimeList.net
Top 100 Anime Series Of All Time

Highest grossing series: https://www.cbr.com/highest-grossing-anime-franchises/

If this takes off at all, I’ll add more.

Discussion for Delicious in Dungeon / Dungeon Meshi

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I’d endorse Spice and Wolf to anyone whose experience is limited to combat or school-life anime who thinks the genre is mindless, though I agree, the later iterations are less impressive. I have many minds (most of which are negative) about later adaptations of the same story being redone to be “discovered” by a new audience, almost always with computer aided animation that jars (I’m eyeballing the Berserk franchise especially hard on this one).

My problem these days (and it’s MY problem, not always the anime’s problem to be clear) is that I’m more likely to find an interesting manga or light/web novel, read IT, then find the anime. I’m much more attached to the story that I am the images, so when I see the story inevitably truncated to fit the time and format, I tend to judge it harshly, the same way dedicated Tolkien fans may have a kneejerk reaction to the movies (leaving out the Hobbit and Rings of Power for different gripes) even when they’re a remarkably GOOD adaptation.

Despite that personal bias, I must admit that the Overlord Anime worked darn well for me, but then again, I’m always a sucker for a villain protagonist.

And in terms of “I shouldn’t love this so much but I do” is the Japanese/American “Big O” is still on my annual watch list, and some of my friends and I still continue to work out our individual theories of exactly what was going on in the greater plot.

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What’s the Big O?

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Not a big fan or consumer of anime despite having grown up with Gigantor, Speed Racer, etc., all of which are unwatchable to me now. That said, I enjoyed the first two seasons of Ghost in the Shell tremendously, a series that truly marches to the beat of its own drummer. Cowboy Bebop was entertaining until the characters (apart from Ein, the dog) began to grate on me.

The Big O - Wikipedia. Yes, quite incomprehensible, nevertheless I remember it fondly as well.

Assuming a general anime discussion includes features, I liked Castle in the Sky (1986) and Dead Leaves (2004).

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Have you tried “Solo Levelling”. I enjoyed it.

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Thanks for the assist @Dropo, I was doing IRL stuff.

It was one of those oddities, being deliberately retro in styling of the mecha, and was much more popular in the US (which is the only reason it got the second season) than in Japan. And you wouldn’t believe how much the very limited merch from the run is currently going for.

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First season was pretty entertaining, but I found the second season lost my attention.

I’m surprised it won the Anime of the year vote.

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Solo Leveling (TBC, I have read the entire web novel via fan translations and own the english translation of the first few volumes of the manhwa) is something I’ve been avoiding due to my personal prejudice I outlined above. That said, the art of the manhwa is gorgeous, so I’m torn about watching it. The problem to be honest, is that the story itself is … well, meh. It’s not bad, don’t get me wrong, but it has a LOT of tell, don’t show, which may be a part of the translation rather than the author’s skills.

I also wanted to check with @What_Exit, if anime produced for international rather than domestic audiences (primarily) count? Because if so, I loved and strongly endorse Cyberpunk: Edgerunners to anyone, even if they haven’t played or don’t want to play the CRPG.

Having played the game, or being familiar with the TT-RPG / Setting will be helpful, but it does a fine as a stand alone as well.

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There is a fair amount of anime produced for domestic and streamers now, so those surely count. Delicious in the Dungeon comes to mind as one where Netflix helped pay the production and both Japanese and English were done at the same time and knowing Netflix probably many other languages.

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Apothecary Diaries is awesome.

Currently just enjoyed Dandadan and From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman.

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Apothecary Diaries is excellent, Maomao is a fun character. It is a fun detective show.

I enjoyed both Dandadan which is getting season 2 soon and From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman which is much better than first impressions.

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I had a complex post or two forming in my mind before the weird obvious spammer that started this was wished into the cornfield. I want to mention this first, though.

I’m kind of glad that you mentioned this. I read the first volume or two of the manga for this a number of years ago, but forgot the name. (I had read it under the name Honzuki no Gekokujou). I say “kind of” because it turns out to have evolved into a complex read as a manga since I last encountered it. Seven volumes in a “part one”, twelve in “part two”, nine in “part three”, and ten in “part four”. So 38 volumes so far, and I see that the light novel source series has a part five, so maybe more manga volumes to come? Probably never get around to all of that. (And the anime will very probably never be “completed”.

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Here’s an anime unlikely to be mentioned by anyone else. I saw it a long time ago and enjoyed it, but when it has crossed my mind years later I was never able to google it up again from descriptive words. A couple of months ago it crossed my mind again and I asked ChatGPT about it and it got it on the first try, despite my description having some errors. (I thought about bringing that up in one of the "do you use AI/“how do you use AI threads”.

Summary

I’m trying to recall the title of an anime series from the early 2000s. It is a zany parody of several anime tropes. It parodies harem shows by taking place in a motel complex where the male lead lives with several women. It is also a parody of superheroes and science fiction. The male main character is secretly a superhero who wears a robot-like mask and cape. Some of the women that he lives with are secretly enemies of his hero alter-ego, such as being an alien ruler attempting to take over the world. Can you provide any help on this?

Yes! Based on your description, it sounds like you’re thinking of “Dai-Guard” or “Excel Saga” at first glance—but those aren’t quite right. What does match very closely is:

“Dokkoida!? / Sumeba Miyako no Cosmos-sou Suttoko Taisen Dokkoida”

Here’s why it fits:

  • Early 2000s: Aired in 2003.
  • Zany Parody: It’s a comedy that parodies superhero, sci-fi, and slice-of-life/harem anime tropes all at once.
  • Motel/Apartment setting: The main character, Suzuo, lives in a boarding house with several women.
  • Superhero identity: Suzuo becomes the superhero Dokkoida, wearing a ridiculous, tokusatsu-style costume complete with a robot-like helmet and cape.
  • Hidden identities: Many of his housemates are actually rival superpowered individuals or agents from competing alien companies trying to test their weapons/technology on Earth.
  • Harem/romantic comedy parody: While not explicitly a harem anime in a romantic sense, it clearly riffs on the genre’s structure and tropes.

It’s a very self-aware, over-the-top comedy with a ton of references and genre-spoofing moments—sounds exactly like what you’re describing.

I quickly found it (by means I wouldn’t be allowed to detail) and still enjoy it 20 years later. It is a fun comedy/parody that doesn’t require you to already be steeped in genre anime history to enjoy.
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So, the series starts off with a country boy moving to the big city and looking for a job (but having no luck). Along the way he encounters a weird little girl in a weird costume who tries to hire him to test a super suit that interstellar toy company she works for has made, attempting to branch out into supplying equipment for the interstellar police. He thinks she is (in character) trying to recruit for a mascot for an Earth toy line, and doesn’t want anything to do with the weird kid. Until he gets a few more job rejections. He finds her again, practically begs for the job, and it isn’t until he puts the suit on he discovers that everything she said was true and his life suddenly becomes much more complex. (There’s a touch of The Greatest American Hero in it.)

He and the girl move (incognito) into a new apartment complex. And each time a new bad guy is introduced and defeated, they just happen to move into the same apartment complex, too. But nobody recognizes each other even though it is as obvious as Clark Kent and Superman.

The English dub itself is slightly a parody, though not nearly on the level of Ghost Stories. For example, here’s an exchange as given by the English subtitles:

You’ll be paid properly, I swear! And you’ll get a new place to live! Hot water and meals and health insurance. We’ll pay for all of it!

That doesn’t help me right now!

And the same exchange from the English dub:

I’ll pay you a small but heartfelt bonus if you fight back! I’ll throw in a couple of ballet tickets. They’re nosebleed seats but you can use those tiny binoculars.

I’m not a big fan of the performing arts!

It appears to be available on Apple+

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I don’t like to watch a season until it airs in full. I wish the various sites that offer anime were better at saying how many episodes a season would be. It’s been painful waiting six months for Apothecary Diaries to finish up its second season. I think it’s my favourite show.

I also really enjoyed:

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (fantastic English dub)
Kamisama Kiss / Kamisama Hajimemashita (love the closing song.)
My Dress-Up Darling
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999

And a shoutout to the two titles that top all the lists: Frieren and Bocchi.