What’s your favorite/funniest anime?
Best anime: Ghost in the Shell
Funniest anime: Castle of Cagliostro (A.K.A. Lupin III)
I’d also like to give a special award for world’s most complicated origin story to: Twin Dolls (X-rated)
Favorite anime that I’ve just watched for the first time: Cowboy Bebop. I’d tell you what’s so good about it, but I have to go to work soon and that could take a while…
Funniest anime of all time: Irresponsible Captain Tyler. Just watching Tyler read a newspaper can crack me up.
Funniest anime that no-one else I know got the jokes for: ARIEL Visual, about a giant robot combating an out-of-luck alien invasion company.
Funniest anime that is currently playing on Tooniverse: Bono Bono, a strange little kids cartoon about a blue seal/otter creature and all his animal friends. It’s like Hello Kitty gone horribly wrong.
Jungle Prince Tarzan, known in Korea as Unstopable Tarzan. It’s incredibly gross, and very funny.
Two Korean cartoons that are very funny: Super Robot V, another giant robot parody. An old man and his dog construct a giant robot from assorted scrap, then use it to augment their crime fighting hobby. This one isn’t released yet, but the trailer alone has caused me to stop breathing from laughter…
Also, see:
http://www.mashimaro.co.kr
… for the most popular web cartoon in Korea right now.
Another vote for Cowboy Bebop, just a great series.
Serial Experiments Lain is another I’m pretty fond of. It even makes a sort of bizarre half-assed goofy sense as it goes further along.
Funny ones: certain episodes and scenes within Bebop (Cowgirl Ed and Ein the dog tripping on mushrooms, f’r’instance), but not the series as a whole.
Slayers has always been good for laughs.
Single least funny anime: Grave of the Fireflies.. I couldn’t bring it up as being a “favorite”, as watching it’s like being run over by a truck. But in a good way.
Trigun all the way. One of the best and the funniest I have ever run across.
I saw the first couple episodes of Captain Tylor, and I’m going to throttle the rest out of my anime supplier when he comes back to town in the fall if I have to.
Berserk is too cool. Sure, it gets messed up near the end, but it’s one of the most mature anime shows I’ve yet to see and the main characters are just…wow.
Fatal Fury’s a good decent one, too. The fights are definitely worth watching.
Other funny ones I’ve seen are: Excel Saga (NABESHIIIIIN!:D), Ping Pong Club (one of the freakier shows, but hilarious as anything), and, naturally, Ranma 1/2.
I oughta get my hands on Cowboy Bebop, too…anyone who’s seen both Bebop and Trigun go here. It’s a fictional, funny duel between the cast of Cowboy Bebop and Vash. 
alas, I have not had the pleasure of seeing Trigun yet.
I like Gunsmith Cats, of course, and I really enjoyed Blue Seed.
I did like Gundam Wing as well.
My favourite anime has to be Neon Genisis Evangelion.
Close second is Ghost in the Shell.
Haven’t seen too many other animes.
My favorite anime series has to be Rurouni Kenshin,
which sadly enough was cancelled before they could animate the last arc of the manga. It has a wonderfull story and great characters and no anime thread go without mentioning the brilliance that is the Rurouni kenshin OAV
The funniest: Dragon half, a hilarious self-parodying anime which has the single best ending theme of an anime ever
Do you count anime movies? If you count them, then it is Princess Mononoke. If not, another vote for Ruroini Kenshin(or Samurai X). It was the series that made me interested in anime and manga in general.
Ah, I do not see much anime either.
Favorite anime: Vision of Escaflowne, Ghost in the Shell, and the first of the Memories series. Oh and Nausicaa et al. There are so many…
Funniest anime: gotta go with Lupin. Bastard is pretty funny too (heavy metal band names for characters).
Castle of Cagliostro is the best animated film ever made. I enjoy it every time I see it.
Close runner-ups in the category of favourite anime would be Patlabor (just the first movie, really), Sol Bianca (again, just the first movie), and the original Bubblegum Crisis series. Neon Genesis Evangelion was good while it lasted, but I hated the ending.
Funniest anime? Well…
I can’t argue with that. The first time I saw Dragon Half, I laughed so hard it hurt.
Other favourite funnies include Project A-ko, Prefectural Earth Defense Force High School, and Urusei Yatsura: Only You (the only Rumiko Takahashi comedy at which I won’t turn my nose up). Some of the City Hunter stuff has a comedic slant to it, and yes, Irresponsible Captain Tyler is pretty good, too, but it got old after a while.
Pete
Take off every .sig for great justice!!
That’s way difficult!
Best Anime Move: Princess Mononoke
Best Anime OAV: Cowboy Bebop
Best Comedy: Jubei Chan: Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch
Marc
I’ve never really watched many of the videos, but as a teen I read many of the book forms. There was this hilarous one about this guy who had his d*ck blown off or something and replaced with this HUGE machine gun/various other weapons. It was quite naughty and in tune with my adolescent humor.
I was reacently watching Princess RANE and I was cracking up, just cracking up. There’s this one guy who talks backwards. I was watching with English subtitles and so to translate his backwards Japanese they had the English backwards. .iht ekil kool dluow ecnetnes a oS He never said anything really that meaningful but I always had to pause to read. And it was SOOO quick I never had much of an oportunity to think what was happening. I think most people who watched it lost the plot pretty quickly but it didn’t seem to matter.
Seconded! And yes, that closing theme is simply bizarre. I have it in MP3 format, but it simply isn’t as much fun without the subtitled lyrics…
Best anime? Hard call… I’m very fond of the original Tenchi Muyo OVAs. El-Hazard (again, original OVAs), Bubblegum Crisis (and BGC24040) and Serial Experiments Lain are all big favorites. And my wife and I are very into Gasaraki right now.
– Bob
I love Princess Mononoke, of course. This is the film that really introduced me to anime, and continues to hold a special place in my heart.
I’d also like to add another second for Ruroini Kenshin (or Samurai X).
I haven’t seen many, but both my favorite and the funniest I’ve seen is Bastard. Bizarrely enough, the dubbed version was way funner than the subbed.
I laughed my ass off.
I’m sorry, I can’t imagine what possible reason there could be for no-one yet mentioning the all-time best anime ever.
Akira
At the risk of coming across as snobbish, I saw this film in an old art-house theater on a seventy-foot screen, after which my best friend and I walked out silent in stunned amazement. I haven’t really been able to bring myself to watch much else of anime. It’s sorta like why I can’t drink much American-made beer - first beer I tasted was in Germany. If your first taste is of the best, any thing after is a settle-for.
Sometimes I stumble across “Sailor Moon” or “DragonBall” on 'toon network, and it just makes my head hurt.
So please let me know if there’s anything out there that is on the same level as Akira. (Actually, the things I’ve heard about Princess Mononoke have gotten my curiosity up…)
No offense, but since you haven’t seen much anime other than Akira, I don’t think you can really make the claim that this was the best anime ever.
I’ve seen Akira. I didn’t much care for it… I found it long, pretentious, and convoluted, all of which would be okay if not for the fact that it also wasn’t particularly interesting.
Mind you, it’s an important film. Akira really raised the standards for animated film in Japan, and it helped promote anime in the west.
There are many, many anime films which, IMHO, are far superior to Akira. It’s not really fair to compare Akira to things like Sailor Moon or Dragonball, since those were television shows rather than theatrical releases. Try to find any of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies- Princess Mononoko was one.
If you want high drama and art, may I suggest that you check out Grave of the Fireflies. If it’s science fiction action that you want, I would reccomend Evangelion, Battle Angel, and the often mentioned Cowboy Bebop. If it’s beautiful animation and pagentry, try Robot Carnival or Macross Plus.
Eek. After re-reading what I posted yesterday, I think I must have been in full sanctimonious-geeky mode when I wrote it. I hope I didn’t come off as too snippy… I also hope that I’m not the reason why no-one else has posted to this thread.
Tygr, I didn’t mean to be unfriendly, or to insult your taste in movies. Sorry if I gave either of these impressions.
I think I was also a bit hard on Akira. As I said, I didn’t like the movie myself, but that doesn’t make it a bad movie. See the IMDB comments page for some more reviews. Most people seem to either love Akira or thoroughly despise it, with very few people falling in between. It may even be fair to say that Akira is the 2001 of anime.
And now, in the hopes of inciting further conversation, here are some links to video clips:
Cowboy Bebop opening theme. Click the link in the light blue box. The title sequence really captures the atmosphere of this series, IMO.
Gwi JJa Family. This one reminds me strangely of South Park- bathroom humor, the main characters are a group of kids, title song was recorded by famous punk rockers. In any case, this show is playng on Tooniverse right now in their late night slot and I’m kind of ashamed to admit that I find it really funny.
“Twilight of the Cockroaches”
Far and away, my favorite anime film is Ninja Scroll. A little slim on plot, but beautifully drawn, over-the-top violence, and really cool characters. My wife showed me this film while we were still dating, and it made me completely head over heels for the girl. 
I still laugh myself to near-incontinence during some of the more violent scenes. [Cartoon violence is funny!]
Close second, but without the humor, is Rurouni Kenshin OAV. Beautiful art, music, and story. Ahhh…
[hijack] No matter how good the story or jokes, I can’t stand anime with cheap drawing, e.g. Ranma, Devil Huntress Yoko, etc. [/hijack]
Finally, best anime to laugh at: Fist of the North Star! Hilarious, but unintentionally so.