You forgot the part about the relgious symbolism getting turned up to 11 in the final episodes/movie.
Haibane Renmei. Some find it slow. I find it gorgeous and tight.
Also, someone I know who loved Chobits also really liked Mahoromatic and Mahou Sensei Negima which is just Negima! in the US.
Grave of the Fireflies is probably the most mentioned anime on this board, and for good reasons. And yes, it really is that sad.
I’d add Hayao Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro” (which is really sweet) and “Spirited Away” (which is scary/sweet). Miyazaki seems to have mastered capturing childhood, in all its fantastic and terrifying nuances, in the same way classic fairy tales have.
It’s rather confusing: there are two series:
Negima!: Magister Negi Magi, run on TV in 2005, which was Mahō Sensei Negima! in Japanese.
Negima!?, which retells the same story, and which was run on TV in 2006-2007.
There are also some spin-off OVAs, and of course the original manga.
In my opinion, the first series is easier to follow, but the second series has rather better animation. And they have a very odd premise: a 10-year-old Welsh magician comes to Japan to teach a class of 13-year-old girls. It’s not explained how his Japanese is perfect, while his English is pretty awful: perhaps he speaks Welsh better. And of course his class has the full range of stereotypes, including a ghost, a robot, and a 500-year-old vampire.
Miyazaki really is great! I agree with both Totoro (my very favorite anime by a large margin) and Spirited Away. Also from him, Porco Rosso and Princess Mononoke are well worth watching. I’ll disagree with tr0psn4j though, and say that, to me, Nausicaa felt rushed and wasn’t really on the same level as the other Myiazaki films I’ve watched. Kiki’s Delivery Service and one that had a flying castle and flying robots that melted in one point of the movie (that’s honestly all I remember of it, other than its director) were kinda fun but not great.
I’d honestly recommend against watching Grave of the Fireflies, it’s so god damned depressing. Honestly, its as bad as a Bergman film! And Cries and Whispers Bergman at that! Sure, it’s beautiful, I admit I was touched - but it was like being touched in a bad place by a creepy person! I had to stop watching several times, I cried and I felt sick for a bit after it ended - and I’m not usually emotional about movies. The guy that directed it did make another cartoon that I’ve seen and this one I liked immensely: it was called Pom Poko, I think, and was about some raccoons with magical giant scrotums (swear to god!) that were being driven from their native forest by developers. Despite how it sounds it was a very good movie, both visually inventive and heart-felt.
Metropolis was another long-feature that I enjoyed. It’s got a good little sci-fi story and is gorgeous to look at. I recommend this one very much.
Of the series, I begun watching Lain and stopped quickly, watched the whole of Trigun and wasn’t really impressed, loved most of Cowboy Bebop (great music!) and watched most of Evangelion just to stop near the end of it - I still didn’t get most of what was going on and didn’t care all that much. Ghost in the Shell, both the movie and the series I liked, but I didn’t get a chance to see second season. Take care though, as the poster that said it was complicated was very right. None of the “funny” shows I tried managed to make me laugh and most annoyed me a lot.
All of the above is IMO only. Not only tastes vary, but I’m perfectly open to the possibility that my ignorance of japanese culture may have interfered with my ability to comprehend and or enjoy the shows and movies mentioned.
Forgot about Metropolis. Vaguely similar to the Fritz Lang move of the same name from the 1920’s, but supposedly the creator never actually saw that movie. I have to wonder how true that is, considering they do share certain common themes(Babylon, Organized Labor). Still a good one though.
Ergo Proxy is another one I liked. The animation is beatiful, and the plot intially looks like a cyberpunk thriller, only to turn more philosophical as the heroes take an odyssey across a desolate future earth. It’s hard to really describe and it’s defiantly not going to be to everyone’s liking.
I have to second (third, something) the Ghost in the Shell TV series. It’s an easier watch than the movies, and the second season especially has some damn good writing in it. Along those lines, I also suggest Appleseed. Both ideas came from the same writer, but AS is less depressing and convoluted. There’s three incarnations I’m aware of–an older OVA, and two CGI movies that were produced this decade. All are worth watching.
For more light-hearted fare, I suggest Haruhi. It’s a newer series and fairly comedic, though not in a particularly stupid way. Be warned that there’s two episode orders though–it wasn’t originally aired in chronological order. Arguments can be made for either order, though I prefer the airing one.
If you’re willing to sign up for Hulu, I recently found Shikabane Hime there. It’s a pretty intense series, and all the episodes aren’t up yet, but I’m really enjoying it. It’s only available subbed though, FYI.
Yes, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yūutsu) is a great series. It’s also worth reading the light-novel series that it’s based on, since there’s a lot in the novels that aren’t in the anime. (The novels have not yet been published in English, but there is a translation out there on the web if you hunt for it).
Don’t forget the live-action series!
No, wait. Do forget it.
I’d like to offer some suggestionsl, but I should warn you that my tastes may be diametrically opposite yours. I tend to prefer a decently complicated plot, I enjoy a dark twist well done, and frankly, a number of the ones I like are just silly.
The three “best” for me are:
Movie: Porco Rosso. I personally think this is Miyazaki’s best film. This is a Light comedy/drama, and the moments of humor are integrated into the story. You’d have to be able to accept the main character as a “pig”, but this is integrated into the whole in a way you can accept.
OVA: Gunbuster! Aim For the Top! An early Gainax effort, 6 episodes. A very otaku twist on the the whole mecha/aliens invading earth story genre. In a sense, this is to that genre what Blazing Saddles is to the Western: it is both a send up of the mecha & aliens genre as well as being one of the best examples of it. I will warn you that there is some silliness, gratuitous nudity, and more than a couple slices of ham, but the core story is extremely well done.
TV Series Magic Knight Rayearth Season 1. This was Clamp’s commercial breakthrough. It has an amazing plot twist at the end, which does not come out of nowhere. Like most of Clamp efforts up to this point, this is more than a little dark in places. The animation is quite good for a TV show. This is is something of a combination of the magic girl and fantasy genres. There is a second season, but the first season is self contained. This was later redone as an “re-imagined” OVA (for lack of a better way to put it).
I would consider non of the above “way-way silly”, and only MKRE has a convoluted plot - but you will find that with Clamp. If these strike you as “good”, I can offer some others of a similar nature.
Another thought for you, one that is way older, is Castle of Cagliostro. This is a Lupin III movie that was directed by Miyazaki. So it shows some of his influence and touch, but the characters and story type are quite different than those you would find in his other films. Lupin III is sort a Japanese version of The Saint, so this is pretty much a modern caper film. Well, modern for the 80s.
Of course, if you are willing to tolerate silly for the point of being silly, there are always the Project A-Ko and All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl OVAs
Gunbuster has the single greatest ending of any anime ever.
And the end of several of those episodes were just emotionally brutal. That kick in the nuts when it goes from goofy mecha show in episode 1 to the ending of episode 2 stings.
My favorite recent series is Monster. I stopped watching a lot of anime because what I liked in it before (the unique fantasy and scifi shows) started fading into the background and so much of it picked up a bland sameness and the fandom surrounding it was just becoming more and more unpleasant to deal with. It didn’t help that for a while there US anime companies were acquiring just about everything which made filtering the few stalks of wheat from metric tons of chafe a more annoying process than I cared for.
So getting to Monster, it is the exact kind of show that can’t be released in the US: a psychological drama. A crusading doctor in late cold war West Germany chooses to save the life of a young boy over the life of a politician and nearly ruins his career. However everyone who was blocking his career due to this choice dies under mysterious circumstances a few weeks later. Ten years later, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he encounters the child again who has grown up to be the world’s most dangerous serial killer and he wanted to thank the doctor for saving his life.
So it’s a series about personal responsibility, shifts in culture, cold war politics, and the nature of morality. It’s also about seventy episodes long. The only way a seventy episode long series can be sold in the US these days is if it airs on television and there’s no way that Monster would be popular enough with anime fans to justify it. However it is possible to acquire the series with an English translation through less than legal means.
I will second (and third or more as appropriate) the above recommendations for Bleach, Sailor Moon, Inuyasha, Full Metal Alchemist, You’re Under Arrest, Midori Days, *Fruits Basket *and Ghost in the Shell.
A few ideas of my own:
Black Lagoon & Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage- Violent, often over the top, but not really silly. I particularly liked the “Fujiyama Gangster Paradise” arc in the 2nd season.
Higurashi: When they Cry(Higurashi no naku koro ni and Higurashi no naku koro ni kai in Japan) - a mind bending “groundhog day” sort of show with interlocking mysteries, some good humour and some outright brutality that still manages to not be too dark in the end.
D. Gray Man - an interesting supernatural, alt-history action show.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, all three seasons - I think this one is best described by the entries at TVTropes. Persons of mass destruction indeed.
Ah My Goddess - The TV series.
Eureka Seven - One of the series that got me into watching anime (along with Bleach and Inuyasha - thanks YTV Friday night lineup).
Blood+ - a creepy and interesting vampire(ish) show.
Koi Kaze - yes, it’s about incest, yet it never seems voyeuristic. The characters are well drawn and the ending is unexpected.
Equally controversial is Kodomo no Jikan. It really isn’t what it seems and is quite funny yet can be touching (a new OVA series is ongoing).
If one likes romantic stuff, there’s Ai Yori Aoshi, Myself Yourself, Shuffle!, ef a tale of memories (very interesting show with two semi-related storylines running in parallel), and Onegai Teacher (also Onegai Twins).
In the guilty pleasures department there’s ToLoveRU, Da Capo (and season 2), Dears, Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun, Princess Resurrection, Karin (Chibi Vampire), Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl(though the manga is much better),Nagasarete Airantou(but it is very silly), Night Wizard, Ouran High School Host Club, and Zero no Tsukaima(3 seasons).
And in the extremely guilty pleasure department there’s Strawberry Panic. Yeah I liked it, so sue me.
Turns out it was rather more than a few ideas. Sorry. 