What's the best Anime Series Out there?

Cafe Society
61

Airk, you gotta believe what I say about plot twists. Trust me on this. I can’t say too much without revealing massive spoilers, but after watching just past about where you quit, I was hooked.

Something huge is cooking up, and if you don’t stick with it, you’ll miss it.

I have a bunch of this stuff on VHS. How’s that make you feel?

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Airk. You can’t mess with the classics (unless you’re Hideaki Anno), right?

Now that we’ve immersed ourselves in the digital age, there is a huge market for anime out there, and a glut of it even legitimately available on our shores. That doesn’t mean it’s all good stuff, though. I thought I might inspire the OP with some of the best.

It’s interesting to look at the posts above and guess who gets their anime fix from watching Cartoon Network and who digs a little deeper for something that might be better. I can’t look down my nose too much, though - I have both seasons of The Big O (another series I should have recommended above) on DVD!

62

If you’re talking about

Eren turning into a Titan

I already know about that and it’s what killed a large part of the hype for me. I mean, whut? You’ve got a perfectly good semi-apocalyptic scenario here, why would you…ugh.

Less old? But do you have it on 4th generation fuzzy recopied fansub VHS tapes? :stuck_out_tongue:

Meh; You can’t judge anime by its age. A lot of older stuff is total garbage. I used to have all of the original Tenchi Muyo, and to this day, I have no idea why, because it was basically terrible.

Fair enough to direct attention to the classics though. (Though for me these days, that usually just means “You HAVE seen all the Miyazaki movies, right, not just Princess Mononoke and onwards?”)

63

Speaking of classics, it looks like no one mentioned Cowboy Bebop.

edit: Never mind. My search function wasn’t working. Think I need to reboot firefox.

64

Was gonna say, pretty sure someone mentioned that. :stuck_out_tongue:

65

Serial experiments lain
Fruits basket
Princess tutu
Strawberry marshmallow

I also liked the girl who kept through time film.
I’ve seen cowboy bebop, helsing, Aria already mentioned (I liked the manga more, same for neon genesis).
It has been since 2007 since I have watched any anime, though.
I’m struggling to recall the name of a series about these “dead beat” fringe society in a progress obsessed Japan. It was sci fi and sort of dystopia for anyone unsuccessful. Ring any bells? I never got to see through to the end.

66

Seriously, Airk, that’s only the beginning of where it takes off. But I really, really can’t say anything more without totally spoiling the other surprises.

My copies of Patlabor I, Assemble Insert, and Prefectural Earth Defense Force High School are like that, where the reds really bleed out onto the screen… but that was what we had back then! Nobody (excepting maybe Sandy Frank, Carl Macek, and the Agramas) could have made a profit on anime in the age of magnetic tapes, so dubbed and re-dubbed fansubs were the best that was available. It sure beat the hell out of trying to follow Fist of the North Star while holding a copy of the script printed out on a dot matrix printer!

You have it because that’s what there was to be had. We were desperate and hungry for whatever would come our way - I even knew of an anime club that followed Maison Ikkoku like it was some kind of special treat!

I found Rumiko Takahashi’s other works to be amusing at first, but after about the eigth episode or so of either Urusei Yatsura or Ranma 1/2 (take your pick - it doesn’t really matter), you come upon the realization that it’s the same plot and jokes over and over again with slight variations in the characters.

I agree with your assessment of Tenchi Muyo. Geez, I’m beginning to sound like Jeff Albertson!

I have Warriors of the Wind, New World Pictures’ cut of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind on VHS. As much as people malign it (and its hideous cover art), it’s not that bad, and helped make me the anime and Miyazaki fan I am today.

What I would like to see - and I can’t believe I can’t find it in this digital age, because I know Pamela Buck is still out there (she must be in her late 40’s by now) - are the parodies of the Dirty Pair made by Pinesalad Productions. The humour is rude, juvenile … and completely hilarious!

67

Meh. I have a busy life these days. I don’t have time to watch 8-9 episodes of something in the hopes that it gets better, you know?

Hey now, I LIKE Maison Ikkoku. :stuck_out_tongue: And in fact, have like 60 episodes of it on fuzzy VHS tapes. :stuck_out_tongue:

Funny, I found that MI held my interest much longer than either of these, which are funny for about 4 episodes (and it doesn’t really matter WHICH 4…)

I was basically introduced to the hobby by a fansubbed copy of Nausicaa. It did its work well.

68

For Old School, try Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers.

Lupin 3rd for romantic comedy/adventure.

69

Well, we’ve already covered Yamato 2199, which is a fantastic retelling of the original, and I still firmly believe that Lupin III and the Castle of Cagliostro is the finest animated movie ever made.

Not sure if that’s the Miyazaki fan in me, loving the arcade game Cliff Hanger, or that it really just is that good!

Sure you do! Remember, if you take out the parts you don’t need to watch, each episode is only about 17 minutes long.

Consider the following: Attack on Titan is hugely popular both in the United States and in Japan. You go to a con, you are virtually guaranteed to see someone walking around kitted out with 3DMG and a Survey Corps uniform. The manga is still being written, there are plans to do a second season of TV and alive-action movie, and all of this accomplished without having shown up on basic cable (i.e. Cartoon Network) in the US.

To paraphrase Keifer Sutherland in The Lost Boys, a million Shingeki no Kyojin fans can’t all be wrong.

If you’re clever, though, you could refute my argument by using some of the same points I just raised to claim that Homestuck is going to be the next Lord of the Rings, and it isn’t even anime!

The kicker is that if you feel unfulfilled by the TV series, you can pick up where the story left off in the manga, and it gets even better!

Chuck, is that you? Do you still have that apron with the little chick on it that says “Piyo Piyo”? :slight_smile:

Yeah, but it was what we had back then. Viz Media published just about everything Takahashi wrote, and, like your Tenchi Muyo confession, I have to admit I don’t really know why else I would have so many volumes of Ranma or Urusei Yatsura in a box in the attic.

I loved Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets, and Star Blazers. Then came Robotech and Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years.

Not to long after that, some anime became commercially available on VHS, and some indie comic companies began to publish manga. In the late 1980’s, HBO showed Warriors of the Wind fairly often, and I picked up my copy at a books/music/video store called Hastings, which you can still find in small towns like Wichita Falls and College Station.

I had a friend with connections in Chinatown, and he supplied me with those fourth-generation VHS dubs, some of which were subbed, some of which you had to follow along with a script, and the aforementioned Pinesalad dubs.

Nowadays, anime is mainstream enough to be on broadcast channels, but like you and I both agree, Airk, there’s plenty of garbage available if that’s what floats your boat.

What else could possibly explain the success of Dragon Ball Z?

70

I wrote up a huuuuuge post, but the board ate it. So here’s the TLDR version:

I like Crunchyroll, it works fine for me on my computer & mobile devices, but I haven’t tried to hook it up to a TV. Plus it’s good value for the money (all-you-can eat with your subscription). Some episodes are free with ads, including most currently streaming series, to give you a taste. They have a free trial (their entire catalog for a limited time) if you want to kick the tires before committing.

Titles I recommend on Crunchyroll (too blitzed to rewrite the descriptions I had for them, so minimal summaries - just take as given that they’re all great and I love them lots):

Natsume Yujin-cho (AKA Natusme’s Book of Friends): Withdrawn boy inherits magic book that gets him into trouble with yokai (traditional Japanese spirits). Episodic, so you can dip into it as time permits. Fantasy / slice-of-life / spooky horror lite / “supernaturally-gifted kid makes human & supernatural friends” (which is totally a genre).

Moyashimon: Insane comedy about a college guy who can see and talk to microbes, his nutty friends and fellow students, and their scheming professor. Lots of random factoids about yeast, bacteria and fermentation. Comedy / drama / semi-educational-infodumping.

Time of Eve: Near-future science fiction about a society that has highly-developed AI and hasn’t come to grips with the ramifications; discrimination, passing, what does it mean to be human, etc. Six episodes, so not a big time commitment. Science fiction / drama.

Chihayafuru: Super-energetic girl and her various friends form a competitive karuta team at their high school. Sports (without the sports) / slice of life.

5 Centimeters per Second: Theatrical movie about love, loss, and distance. Sad. Romance (unsuccessful) / slice of life / drama.

Gankutsuou (previously mentioned): Surreally-animated Sci-Fi take on The Count of Monte Christo. With extra REVENGE! Drama / science fiction.

Genshiken Second Season: A sequel rather than a second season as such, should be mostly comprehensible to newcomers. Geeks in a college geek-culture club do geek stuff. Slice of life / comedy.

Hourou Musuko (AKA Wandering Son): Two transgendered pre-teens try to work out who they are and what they want out of life. Realistic treatment of the subject, and often heartbreaking. Slice of life / drama.

House of Five Leaves: Unassertive samurai falls in with gang of outlaws. More of a character study than an action show. Historical / slice of life.

Kids on the Slope: Teenage friendship in 60’s Japan, with lots of jazz music (in the story and the score). Slice of life / music / drama.

Usagi Drop (AKA Bunny Drop, previously mentioned): Gormless 30-something guy adopts young relative, heartwarming ensues. Slice of life / family drama.

The Rose of Versailles: Incredibly famous (in Japan) and influential 70’s girl’s series about a fictionalized version of the French Revolution, starring a young and innocent Marie Antoinette and (fictionalization incoming) Oscar Jarjayes, a dashing young nobleman who is actually a woman raised as a man. Historical / drama.

And for any ladies reading (or gay dudes, that works too): Free! Iwatobi Swim Club: Friendship and rivalry on a high-school swim team. AKA hot dudes in swimwear, booyeah! Sports (with the sports) / slice-of-life / gorgeously surreal underwater sequences / gratuitous pandering.

71

I’m half way through the series so far and I agree that its an excellent series. There is a fairly strong cast of characters (with the minor characters getting their light of day) while I like the animation style of the series. OTOH, sometimes it feels like I’m watching an allegory of the Ostfront in World War II from the German perspective.

72

I part of the reason Attack on Titan is so successful - whether Isayama intended it or not - is that the show has harnessed the same dread and desperation we all experience with (obviously popular) zombie adventures like The Walking Dead and World War Z.

My theory is that these settings combine the pathos we feel for the characters and their situation, while at the same time challenging us to think what we might do given the same circumstances. If you can get away from unecessary blood and gore and try to focus on the surviving humans, then you can hook a pretty wide audience.

73

See, this is what I liked about the first few episodes, but I feel that this feeling has been falling off SHARPLY the further I go with the series.

JR Brown - Natsume Yujin-cho and Chihayafuru are both excellent, EXCELLENT stuff if you like their respective ‘genres’. I’m also enjoying Service X Servant lately.

Crunchy Roll is definitely the best way to consume most of this stuff, but alas, some things are only on Hulu. :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit: Oh, yeah, and sorry, but judging anime by popularity would mean that Naruto was the best anime EVVVVVEER (except maybe DBZ.). Actually, I find that when things reach a certain level of popularity, it’s usually a good sign that I -won’t- like it. Because apparently there aren’t that many people in the world who like the things I do.

74

This is off topic, but since so many anime freaks are already here, what’s the best source for English dubbed anime? I know this a flogging offense as far as most fans are concerned, but don’t worry about my being punished - I self-flagellate :smiley:

Seriously though, I normally use closed captioning but only when I have trouble parsing dialog (accents, bad mixing, mumbling, etc). It bothers me if I have to read it non-stop plus I normally have the tv on in the background anyway so I don’t like to just focus on that and don’t see why anime should be any different.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer. I’ve found a number of items mentioned here with Eng dubs - or at least which supposedly have Eng audio track. I recently watched Puella Magi Madoka Magica for example which I rather liked. It reminded me a little of Black Butler(?) although the tone was very different. Bleach alone will probably keep me busy for weeks if I decide to go back to more anime soon, but it would be nice to have a list of anime available in English.

75

Yes, you do, or, as I like to call it “watch dubbed anime.” :wink:

It’s fine if you don’t really want to watch stuff, but from my perspective, if I’m not actually paying attention to something, I might as well just turn it off. :wink:

Hulu has a pretty good store of dubbed stuff, I think, which is the actual question you are asking. wouldn’t shock me if Netflix on demand were okay for this too, but I dunno, I let my Netflix subscription lapse like two years ago now.

76

You know, I have this discussion with enough anime fans that I think that these opinions might be based on dated information. I’m not saying that for sure, but it’s something to consider and here’s why. I’ve watched several things that were English dubbed with subtitles and the subtitles were awful compared to the dubbing. In fact I watched the Cowboy Bebop movie just today which was a perfect example of this. The dubbing was superb compared to the subtitles. If I’d had to use those to glean the meaning of the story, I would have missed a lot of the meaning not to mention nuances.

What I think has happened is that as anime has become so much more popular over the last decade or so, the quality of the dubs has improved exponentially but hard core fans still expect it as bad as it was back in the 80’s or 90’s. But seriously, for more mainstream anime, the dubbing is truly excellent. You owe it to yourself to check it out if you haven’t recently. :slight_smile:

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I wouldn’t count on that; In some cases, dubs have been known to just make stuff up. =/ But at the end of the day, there’s no “dubs are better” or “subtitles are better” rule of thumb for what does a better job of explaining things. It’s all about which team did a better, more professional job. And heck, sometimes you’ll find that the script is mostly/exactly the same between the two. That said, subtitles have several definitive advantages:

#1: They can, if necessary, add ‘translator’s notes’; Generally this is not a good idea, but sometimes, it can be used to clarify something such a pun that otherwise would have had to be completely changed around in English. They can also be used to explain a technical term that Japanese people might be expected to know, but which you can essentially guarantee the English speaking audience is going to be ignorant of, but that can also be done by just throwing text on screen in the dub.
#2: Japanese is more information dense than English, which means that any dubbed lines need to be edited in such a way that the voice actor can get them out in the amount of time afforded by the character speaking on screen. Subtitles can be more relaxed with their timing in this regard.

It’s not really that simple. Firstly, it feels like every time I tune in to a dub by mistake, I get one of three near immediate reactions:

#1: Man, this voice actor is terrible
#2: Man, I know I’ve heard this actor before and it’s going to bother me because he sounds exactly the same
#3: Man, that line just sounded awkward

Unfortunately, point from the ‘advantages of subtitles’ above just leads to problems with dubs of anime in general, because of the time constraints for lines, which often result in either stilted lines, or unnaturally rapid delivery.

Oh, and Naruto made me want to stab him in minutes of watching the dub. Holy crap. Never, EVER try to translate verbal tics from the Japanese. I’m sorry, just don’t do it. And again, subtitles don’t generally feel any pressure to do this - since you’re still listening to the original audio track, you can already tell that “that guy talks funny and keeps saying ‘de gozaru’” or “That girl always refers to herself in the 3rd person.” (Speaking of things that sound weird in English) or “That wierd little animal thing is ending all its sentences in -desu.” Whereas the options for dubbing those sorts of things and maintaining the same sort of effect often just result in the dub sounding weird, awkward, or stilted.

And then of course there’s the fact that after you’ve watched enough anime, you pick up enough bits and pieces of Japanese to get some subtleties that are virtually impossible to translate directly - characters who refer to themselves as ‘ore’ vs characters who refer to themselves as ‘boku’, that kind of thing. I don’t -speak- japanese. I know a handful of useless words (“HENSHIN!”) and basically no grammar, but there’s still information that I can get from a Japanese language track plus subtitles that I can’t get from a dub.

78

I understand what you’re saying and I’m sure those are all good points, but not everyone is a hard core fan. I enjoy anime, but for me it’s really just entertainment and not much more. That’s not meant to be a swipe or anything though. I feel the same way about pretty much all video and cinema. I don’t think I have the ability to see the artistic side of most media. I can certainly appreciate quality like Ghost in the Shell over crap but I’m never going to have the same, respect or reverence for it that a lot of fans do. I just don’t see it that way and I’m the first to acknowledge that’s probably due to limitations on my side.

So for me, it’s really an issue of trade offs. I’m willing to sacrifice a fair amount in order to be able to divide my attention and still follow the story. There’s virtually nothing I hold so sacred that I don’t do this. The only real exceptions are some UK murder mysteries and a handful of other serials that really require my full attention just to follow the story. The new Doctor Who for example tends to be like that. Also movies with a lot of special effects tend to get my full attention, but that’s also more out of necessity.

I think there has been some anime like that. GISH I think was like that, at least the first series anyway. Witch Hunter Robin maybe. But it’s been a long time now since I’ve watched a lot of anime so I’m not really sure any more. The point is that I’m not a true anime fan so I just have different standards.

Also, to be honest, the few times I’ve tried to listen to non-dubbed anime, the accents have really annoyed me, especially the female accents. They even annoy me in a lot of the dubbed stuff. They tend to be so damned squeaky. Take Puella Magi Madoka Magica for example. I watched that straight through and by the end the characters were really starting to get on my nerves. I liked them and I liked the story but I couldn’t take their voices any more - and it wasn’t the voice actors, at least I don’t think so. I think it might well have been worse in the original.

79

I’m not sure I’m a “hard core fan” either; I enjoy a lot of this stuff, certainly, but I’m kinda picky about it, I don’t buy piles of merchandise, follow any blogs on the topic, or anything else that one would generally associate with being an enthusiast, I just watch a lot of stuff and appreciate it. And the advantages offered by subtitles improve my experience.

I think this, rather than any fundamental degree of being a “fan” is what divides us. There is virtually nothing that I consider worth watching that I don’t consider worth giving my full attention to. If I’m dividing my attention, I am wasting my time and not giving any of the things I am (not) paying attention to the focus they deserve. I strongly believe that if something is worth enjoying at all, it is worth enjoying to its fullest. I don’t sit and futz with a laptop or tablet or something while I watch things. Though it’s also worth pointing out that I basically don’t watch “television” in the traditional sense of “content perforated by advertisements” at all because I find ads too irritating.

The only time I allow my attention to drift from something is when I’m watching something that I’ve already seen many times. If I put on Fellowship of the Ring for the umpteenth time, it doesn’t need my full attention. Otherwise? If it’s something I’ve never seen before? Either I watch it and appreciate it as it deserves, or I do not. There is no “Half paying attention.”

I don’t think this has anything to do with it. What is a “true anime fan” anyway? I doubt you could describe it in a way that would satisfy us both.

I don’t think you mean “accents” but that’s neither here nor there. As far as my experience goes, I feel that squeaky voices are far far more irritating to me in English; I suspect it has to do with the fact that I know what English is ‘supposed to sound like’, so super squeaky girl voices bother me, because I KNOW English speakers don’t sound like that, but adding the obfuscation level of a foreign language means that the voices in the Japanese are less irritating. I also suspect that as a rule, Japanese voice actresses are -better- at sounding like small girls than American voice actresses. This is probably the result of voice acting being a larger and more mature industry over there.

So, unless you actually sat down and watched Madoka in BOTH English AND Japanese and judged the squeakiness to be more irritating in the original language, I submit that you may well be wrong about squeakiness being more of a problem in the original language. After all, you say “you don’t -think- it was the voice actors” but without doing a comparison, how would you know? Here. I personally find the girl’s voices, while high pitched, not to be ‘squeaky’ or ‘nasal’ in the way English dubs tend to make them.

80

I’m the same way–the high-pitched voices don’t bother me when they’re in Japanese, but when dubbed in English they really grate my ears. I wonder, though–do any young girls really sound that high? I don’t remember my niece’s voice ever being that squeaky when she was growing up.

That’s why I like the voice actress for the main character in Kill la Kill, she has a much deeper voice that really makes her performance stand out from the usual pack of chipmunks.