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ANIME.. Anyone?

JeffS7444

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I’ll put Yuru Camp on my list of things to check out, thanks! My Japanese is crap, but is good enough to get some of the gags like naming a character “Naruto Uzumaki” (but as a class, shonen anime isn’t my thing - the premise is often intriguing, but storylines almost inevitably morph into endless battles eg Hikaru no Go, One Piece, Initial D)
 

Azeia

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Umm I showed madoka to some friends once and they never took anime serious ever again. It's still a mahou shoujo show with little girls you know :p your mileage may vary with this one.
At this point Occam's razor requires me to place the blame on the friends rather than the show. ;)

And if we're going to classify this as a standard "magical girl" show because it has some of the elements, despite being way darker, then we'd also have to ignore the parody elements of shows like One Punch Man and just classify it as a standard shounen show like all of the others, as opposed to something that is parodying those tropes. If we go even further with this train of thought, then even hentai wouldn't qualify as adult because it's "just cartoons" after all.
 
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fairx

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Glad this thread is taking off..

I'm reading quite a few title I never heard.

Yuru Camp ost is very good and quite promising in depth and height . I like Motosu theme the most. It also reminds me a lot of Kuri Coder from Azumanga Ost.

Another ost I'm quite fond of are Mai Hime by Yuki Kajiura and GITS / Innocent by Kanji Kawaii. Gits soaring haunting vocal harmony never fails to impress.

In recent years many praise Made in Abyss ost. But maybe it's just not for me.

There's also a scene from Jubei Chan 2 ep 7 IIRC which sounds so explosive during the fighting scene. Need to check out again later who made that ost.

For relaxing moment I used to listen to selection of Aria ost.

 
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fairx

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Many of the gags in Azumanga Daiou are not directly translatable. But some of the fan subs do a good English take.
Azumanga subs came out during the heights of fansubbing scene. And the quality of their subs are staggering. Lots of cultural reference and explanation. Fansubbers group doing a great service introducing anime to the rest of the world. Nowadays most streaming subs never explain things like that anymore. People had to scour reddit for reference. But at least the fans are still the same. They contribute a lot among fan.
 

VintageFlanker

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My recent anime watch is Kimi no Na wa (Your name). Nice romantic fantasy film.
Loved this one. Was going to show this to my daughter. I guess she's old enough to understand it, now.

Mononoke Hime still one my favourite movie 20 years after the first time I saw it. Such a poetical and ecological trip.

Nowadays, Shingeki No Kyojin (Attack On Titan) became my favourite show of all time, whatever it is an anime or not.
 

raif71

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Here's an oldie and those that like classical especially Beethoven
 

Timbo2

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Azumanga subs came out during the heights of fansubbing scene. And the quality of their subs are staggering. Lots of cultural reference and explanation. Fansubbers group doing a great service introducing anime to the rest of the world. Nowadays most streaming subs never explain things like that anymore. People had to scour reddit for reference. But at least the fans are still the same. They contribute a lot among fan.

The group that did “Oruchuban Ebichu” took that to amazing lengths. The team at GAINAX after Evangelion did a completely NSFW and adult series about an OL her horrible boyfriend and her naive pet hamster. It’s awesome!
 

direstraitsfan98

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I like recommending shows like Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni to people who are new to anime or skeptical that you can have more serious themes in anime. The first is extremely deceptive in it's outward appearance, you go in thinking it's just some childish "magical girl" show, but then things start to take a dark turn (I won't spoil it for people who haven't seen it, just take my word for it). The second could best be described as psychological thriller/horror; if you're squeamish in terms of extreme violence, I would not advise watching it, but it can be quite a brain-teaser trying to figure out what exactly is happening throughout the story, and why.

Of the others mentioned in this thread, I've seen and really enjoyed Jungle wa Itsumo Hare nochi Guu, Azumanga, Slayers, Akira, and Porco Rosso (I like most of the Ghibli films). Slayers in particular is one of my favorite series of all time, and Lina Inverse one of my favorite characters of all time across all media.
Lol, these are the worst anime's to recommend. Madoka magica and Higarushi are literally the two shows that turned me off completely from cartoons to come out of Japan.

They are chock full of the worst tropes in anime. edgy grimdark, random death and violence. if that's your thing by all means go for it, but the writing is terrible, the voice acting even worse. I highly recommend to anyone who is visiting this thread who hasn't watched anime yet, to NOT watch these two shows. You get what you deserve, the source material is literally teen trash, erotic novels marketed towards young adults. It's like expecting a good science fiction movie to be good thats based off of a poorly written preteen science fiction novel. -cough- hunger games and maze runner -cough-

Though in that case, this is more to do with my issue with the beyond retarded concepts those novels introduce, dystopian future and a society that has devolved to the point people enjoy watching children hack each other to death. Oh and guess what, the concept for the whole thing is based on series that came straight out of japan. need I say more?

Watch the following: Akira, Memories, and Ghost in the shell. I also recommend Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Castle in the Sky. Lupin the 3rd movie is also quite good. If you found any of those enjoyable, THEN I would reccomend checking out the anime series Cowboy Bebop. If you like weird, or surreal, checkout FLCL. I am a huge huge fan of FLCL, I love the music for it, and the surreal aspect nature of it, reminiscent of plots of movies like being john malkovich.

I can reccomend more, but those are the ones I suggest to start with, they are, imo, the most approachable anime/cartoons to come out of Japan, and if you can get through the 'quirkiness' of those series and movies, you might actually be able to enjoy other series like Melancholy of Haruhi Suziyama, or even things like Hellsing or Triblade, jojos bizarre adventure, and fist of the north store. all shows I would not recommend to someone new to the medium.

Anime is a funny thing, I have a love hate relationship with it and I could go into much more detail than I have here but I'll leave it at this for now.
 

direstraitsfan98

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If you've never watched anything to do with anime before, and you do have some appreciation for cartoons, I actually reccomend watching Spirited away. I saw it on VHS when I was 10 years old, it blew my mind and still does to this day with the concept of being 'spirited away' that is, whisked away to a spirit world if you've misbehaved. the journey and sense of wonder you get watching that movie is just incredible, I feel like I'm a kid again and I've just went on a grand adventure by the end of it. its really a very touching film. get the bluray of it if you can, it's in print still and can be acquired on amazon. it's one of the best looking bluray transfers done for any animted movie, period.

The reason why I'm making such a concerted effort to get my opinion accross is I knew a vast majority of the userbase for this site is middle aged and perhaps a lot of people reading this post right now have never actually seen an anime and might be interested in it.

it goes without saying that the silver screen tends to have more time and money available so thats why i suggested the movies as opposed to the 30 episdoe long series first. they are typically better acted, better writing, better animation, and just easier to get into (more mainstream). It also goes without saying that you at least need to have some appreciation for the medium of animation to really 'get' what is the point of watching a 90-120 minute cartoon movie. I've tried to seriously show off some of the suggested shows to some older people I know and they just didn't 'get it', they don't like disney movies, dont like animation in general. it kind of seems like trying to teach a old dog new tricks, but we'll see if my words have helped any of the older folks here.

again, do NOT watch the above mentioned shows, higarushi and madoka magica. its like watching an episode of the first season of fargo, or the first season of true detective, vs watching any episode of a CW series, like the flash or arrow, or buffy the vampire slayer or smallville. there's just now comparasion. one show is on a different league from the other.
 

cryptout

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Big Anime fan here! The first I saw was in the early 80's called: Nobody's Boy: Remi (家なき子, Ie Naki Ko, lit. Homeless Child)
If I walk with my dog I sometimes still think about this show...
 

Azeia

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They are chock full of the worst tropes in anime. edgy grimdark, random death and violence. if that's your thing by all means go for it, but the writing is terrible, the voice acting even worse. I highly recommend to anyone who is visiting this thread who hasn't watched anime yet, to NOT watch these two shows. You get what you deserve, the source material is literally teen trash, erotic novels marketed towards young adults. It's like expecting a good science fiction movie to be good thats based off of a poorly written preteen science fiction novel. -cough- hunger games and maze runner -cough-
I'm not sure what you're talking about regarding the tropes; when I think of "edgy" shows that use random violence, I'm more likely to think of Fist of the North Star or a lot of the stuff that Manga Video brought to the west back in the 90s. Also, while Akira is a great film, one of it's primary reasons for success in the west was precisely that it had extreme violence which was unusual in "cartoons" at the time in the western world (certainly wasn't the story, as I guarantee that few people understood Akira's story the first time around, and some people still don't), since cartoons were typically always targeted at children in the west.

Most people's negative perceptions of anime typically come from either associating it with childishness because cartoons are usually for youths, or an association with "weeb culture" and moe archetypes, etc, which are viewed as cringe-inducing by non-anime fans (and even many anime fans too). In fact, if I had to think of the "worst tropes" in anime, the ceaseless moe spam would have to be at the top of the list, as the "edgy violence" tropes you point to aren't even common enough in modern shows for it to be an actual problem.

As to the criticisms themselves, maybe you were watching different shows, but the violence and deaths aren't any more "random" in those shows than they are in a show like Game of Thrones. I should know because I watched a massive amount of "random violence" anime as a kid because violent edgy stuff is the only things they used to bring stateside back in the 90s or so, so it was all I could find at local video rental stores. Shows like "Angel Cop", "Wicked City", "Genocyber", "Fist of the North Star", "Devilman", and even more popular ones like "Ninja Scroll" would fit your description of random violence for the sake of edgy gore far more than Higurashi or Madoka, which have actual stories that captivate. As for the source material, Higurashi's source material was a detective murder/mystery game series, where the goal is to collect clues to solve murders, and the show has a similar feel to it, where you never know whether the characters or a scene in question are real, or if it's some hallucination, and knowing the difference is typically the key to knowing what is actually happening. Madoka meanwhile doesn't have "source material", as the anime is an original production that then spun off manga and novel adaptations, not the inverse.

Also, it's odd to me that you added Hellsing on your list (albeit with a "once you're comfortable with the medium" disclaimer), which while it's a good show, is far more guilty of peddling random violence for the sake of violence and being edgy. Much of the plot is simply an excuse to watch Alucard go nuts and kill everything in sight (not that it's a bad thing to want to see that, after all, horror movies wouldn't be popular either if there weren't something fascinating about violence to a certain audience).

Now I will give you one point, which is that in this specific community, with some people who may be more middle aged, and who may have more of a lean towards the creative/imaginative aspect of art, perhaps some of these shows would be boring as this demographic may be "over" the whole ultraviolence thing. But once again, this would equally apply to shows like Hellsing which you mentioned.

And while I hate to pull the "popularity" card, while Higurashi is a bit more niche, Madoka certainly is not, and is a massively successful franchise. Popularity does not make it good, but it raises questions, there is no such thing as an "objectively good" or "objectively bad" show, it's all subjective, but it's certainly weird when someone says "all the Marvel films suck", or "all of Game of Thrones sucks"; again, popularity doesn't make these good, but it does have some meaning, namely, that the shows in question have some mainstream appeal, and thus maybe it's not crazy to recommend them while thinking that someone else will enjoy them too.

Lastly, while Cowboy Bebop isn't bad, it's not for everyone, the episodic format can be very frustrating for some people. When I first watched it, the first episode was really exciting, but then as it went on and I realized there wasn't really an ongoing story, and it was more just watching them go about their day, etc, I just found it hard to get invested in it or interested in what happened to the characters, I felt like I was watching strangers for the whole show, as if each episode is episode one. The music is great however, which has to be noted since this is an audio forum. =)

Oh, and FLCL is one of my favorite shows of all-time as well, but I don't know if I would call it "approachable" for people who are completely new to anime, and have a bad impression of it, it's pretty out there, and I think most people new to anime as a medium would be turned off by not knowing what in the hell is going on half the time (half is being generous here, more than likely, most people won't know what is going on at all from start to finish).
 
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Hipper

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Here in the UK a television channel, Film Four, ran an anime series a couple of years ago. This introduced me to the world of mostly Japanese anime. So far I've seen the following via a lending library:

5 Centimetres Per Second (Shinkai)

From Up Poppy Hill (Miyazaki)

Howl’s Moving Castle (Miyazaki)

Giovanni’s Island (Nishikubo)

Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata)

In This Corner of the World (Katabuchi)

Kiki’s Delivery Service (Miyazaki)

Miss Hokusai (Hara)

My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki)

Ocean Waves (Machizuki)

Ponyo (Miyazaki)

Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki)

Ronjo, The Robber’s Daughter (Miyazaki)

Spirited Away (Miyazaki)

The Anthem of the Heart (Nagal)

The Garden of Words (Shinkai)

The Wind Rises (Miyazaki)

When Marnie Was There (Yonebayashi)

There are a few more on my list to see.

I didn't like some of them, but some were excellent and one I found outstanding - In This Corner of the World. I fell in love with some of the music too:



There's also a charming American animation:

Up (2009)
 

JeffS7444

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Grave of the Fireflies is great cinema, but IMO not the easiest thing to watch! Given the anti-war sentiment shared by Takahata and Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli co-founders), The Wind Rises by the latter seems a bit puzzling, as it has the audience rooting for the creator of the Zero fighter aircraft. But I suppose that’s very much Japanese cinema for you, the sense that good and evil are not absolutes.
 

esm

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Since this is an audio forum :) I'll jump on the Your Name bandwagon; I've listened to that soundtrack a ridiculous number of times, and it's thanks to that movie that I became a RADWIMPS fan. Add to that the fact that I love Makoto Shinkai's films, and I'm really looking forward to Weathering With You's US theatrical release this week.

Other audio-slanted picks:
  • Cowboy Bebop, because it's a love letter to a dozen genres of music. Also Ein.
  • Carole & Tuesday, but only because of the soundtrack. This is another Watanabe joint (see also: Cowboy Bebop), and the sound and art direction are amazing. I should have loved this, but for some reason I found it kind of... soul-less? Hard to explain, but I just couldn't love it. This might be a great starter anime for someone used to western media, though, and again, the musical performances are stellar.
  • The Garden of Sinners. This is not going to be everyone's cup of tea; it's horror/supernatural/mystery, it's older (so the aesthetic is dated), but I enjoyed the hell out of it, and the musical score by Yuki Kajiura is fantastic.
  • The Monogatari series. Amazing dialogue from Nisiosin meets amazing art direction from Shaft; it's one of my favorite series, but I'd never show this to someone just starting out with anime. Maybe start them with Rascal Does Not Dream first (it's kind of Monogatari-lite) instead. The soundtrack is all over the place, but it's perfect for the series, and it's full of earworms.
  • Your Lie In April. It's about piano prodigies, of course I'd include it. This might be a tough watch for some folks, depending on your tolerance for heavy emotional content.
  • Nana: it's a punk-rock love story.
  • Aggretsuko. Just watch an episode, you'll understand. :D
In general, I tend toward emotionally-devastating anime. ;) So, Clannad, A Silent Voice, Anohana, Grave of the Fireflies, Your Lie In April, I Want To Eat Your Pancreas, that sort of thing. Mostly slice-of-life, although I have a pretty huge chunk of dystopian stuff in my collection too.
 

bigx5murf

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My wife and I watch a lot of anime together. Below is something my wife drew free hand in a coffee shop back when we were still dating.

The previous year has been great for new anime, so many good ones. Off the top of my head, Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia, Rising of the Shield Hero, Konosuba, ReZero, Tokyo Ghoul, Ajin, Fire Force, and my personal favourite Dr Stone (Korean mangaka living in Japan, I've read all his one shots years ago, as well as the long running Sun Ken Rock, many had a similar science theme).

A couple of quirky out of left field slice of life ones that we really enjoyed were "Are You Lost", and "How Heavy Are The Weights You Lift?". Also a couple sports anime we're following, "Ace of The Diamond", and "Ahiru no Sora".

My wife's ATF is Slam Dunk, she likes sports anime the most. I introduced her to "Hajime no Ippo", which she also loved.
20200114_104444.jpg
 

ShiZo

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Accel World
Another
Attack on Titan
Seraph of the End
Excpelled From Paradise
Psycho Pass
One punch man
Akira
Angel Beats
Berzerk
Btooom!
death note
Chobits
Code Geass
Darker Than Black
Deadman Wonderland
Elfen Lied
Escaflowne
Eureka seven
Evangelion
Familiar of Zero
Fooley Cooley
Full Metal Panic
Future Diary
Gantz
Guilty Crown
Gurren Lagann
Higurashi
Kaze no Stigma
Martion Successor Nadesico
Princess Mononoke
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Saikano
Scryed
Shakugan no shana
Shiki
Steins Gate
Sword Art Online
 
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