YANST (Yet Another Anime Suggestions Thread): Slightly Rantish

Cafe Society
1

Okay, help me out here.

I like anime, at least I think that I do.

I went through a spurt of buying and enjoying anime for about two years, but recently I’ve had trouble getting into anything or even finding things that look good to me. I suppose it’s because I’m just nit-picky. So let me try to outline my tastes.

What I’m looking for in an anime right now:

I want something light, or at least something that has a sense of humor about itself.

I want something pretty and prefferably modern; I have nothing against the 80s I just think that most people at animation studios apparently were drawing with their feet for the whole decade.

I want something fairly unique. By which I mean I own Cowboy Bebop, I own all three Slayers series. I own Love Hina and the associated mini-spin offs. I own You’re Under Arrest. I own Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, Excel Saga and most of Full Metal Panic. I own Tenchi Muyo and El-Hazard both for some reason. Give me something at least slightly new.

Now let’s get into the negative stuff. The reasons I’ve not been buying up series left and right the way I used to.

I’m tired of a great many things in anime.

About disc 5 of Love Hina, I realized that I was sick of the two main characters. I had the same problem with Full Metal Panic (which is why I’m stalled at disc 5). I had the same problem with Martian Successor Nadesco (spelling?) and own only two discs of that series.

Invariably, I like the side characters more than the protagonists. I like Zelgadis and Amelia much more than Lina or Gourry in Slayers. There weren’t really any side characters to speak of in Cowboy Bebop, but I like Jet, Ed and Faye more than Spike. I suppose Read or Die has been one of the rare exceptions (although again there weren’t many side characters in that one unless you want to count Wendy).

I don’t really like Mecha. I know, it’s blasphemy for an anime fan to dislike giant fighting robots, but the only thing I’ve ever seen with a lot of Mecha in it that I’ve liked has been the Sakura Wars OVAs. And they barely had any Mecha in them at all. I really like the mecha in Last Exile but it’s too serious for what I’m looking for right now.

I don’t like ninjas. Or martial artists. I liked Cowboy Bebop in spite of the need to make Spike the baddest hand-to-hand fighter in the known universe (except, apparently for an semi-homeless cartographer). I liked Outlaw Star much better when they were fighting with guns and spaceships (although I did like Suzuka – she’s a side character, after all.)

I can not stand characters who get, for lack of a better term, mopey and sit around bemoaning things and being overwhelmed by things. Trigun is probably the worst offender, that I’ve watched, since at least with Neon Genesis Evangelion they never pretended the series was going to be any good to begin with. (Yes, yes, depth. Yes, yes, metaphor. Thank you, drive through).

Speaking of Trigun, I’m not a fan of the Super-Capable-Main-Character-Guy-That-Never-Fails-At-Anything. It also doesn’t count if the only thing he fails at is killing the Super-Capable-Main-Villain-Guy-That-Never-Fails-At-Anything. Strangely, I enjoyed X in spite of the presence of both these things.

So what’s the verdict? Is there anything out there for me right now, or should I continue my anime hiatus.

2

FLCL and Abenobashi (both done by Gainax) are really great if you like random humor and parody. Personally I’ve tended to shy away from more serious anime because it is rather cliched and tends to get soap opera-ish.

I would also recommend Ping Pong Club as some lowbrow humor with tons of "What the fuck?! :eek: ) type moments.

3

Well, part of the problem is that even the most “ordinary Joe” character will end up being super-extraordinary at just the thing that is critical to the plot; or at the thing the writers thought it would be “cool” to make him/her an ace at. Else why put him/her in the lead.

“Light”… hmmm… if willing to go for outright comedy, have you checked out The Irresponsible Captain Tylor? (TV, have not seen the OAVs). Biggest objections you may have is it’s not particularly “pretty” (being on a middle-of-the-road TV budget), and its “uniqueness” comes more out of being a parody show and thus standing many clichés on their heads on purpose; but it stays pretty light and does not try to become some sort of Profound Existencial Revelation. As for the side-characters, some get nice screen time but there is a reason his name is in the bloody title.

4

I second FLCL & Abenobashi. I loved the both of them. Mahoromatic is another Gainax series that is pretty good. Also, if you liked Excel Saga, then you must see the spin-off Puni Puni Poemi. Which is even more twisted than Excel Saga. :smiley:

Another good one is Azumanga Daioh. It is a light hearted comedy following a group of girls though high school. Not much of a plot, but the characters are brillantly done, and fit together just perfectly. Words fail to describe how brillant it is; I was nearly crying when episode 26 came, and the girls graduated high school.

5

Lupin The 3rd.

Lum/Urusei Yatsura.

6

If you like adventure and light-hearted humor AND you don’t mind hentai elements, Dragon Pink might fill the bill. There’s nudity and some sex, but it’s more of an RPG adventure story than anything else.