Anime Favorites

[J.W. Golan]

I thought I might assemble a list of some of the anime movies and series that have most touched or inspired me. Anyone who cares to add to the list is more than welcome. There are so many great ones out there. I know that I’ll forget a lot of them, but a few of my favorites include:


Anime Series:

Spice and Wolf - Think beauty and the beast - only the girl is both the beauty, and the beast.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica - The “magical girl” series that turns the whole “magical girl” genre upside down.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 - A lesser known series about the aftermath of an earthquake, as told from the viewpoint of a young girl.

Little Witch Academia - A very sweet series if you’re in the mood for something light and fun.

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Might be too violent for some, but great characters and definitely one of my favorites.

Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World - This is another violent series, but with great characters.

Violet Evergarden - A story about a killer automaton (trapped in the body of a young woman) created as the ultimate war machine, but who suffers from PTSD in a post-war world.


Anime Movies:

Anything by Studio Ghibli is usually great, although Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away top my personal list from them.

Garden of Words is another movie with beautiful animation and a romantic storyline.

When Marnie was There - Bring the tissue box.

Your Name (Kimi no Na wa) - Easily one of the best movies, anime or otherwise, ever produced. Haven’t seen it? Go find it!

Children who Chase After Lost Voices - A great fantasy adventure movie.

A Silent Voice - A much more deep anime drama than most people realize.

Wolf Children - Beautiful animation and a beautiful story.

In This Corner of the World - An anti-war war movie, in the form of World War II as viewed from the Japanese home front.

[Henry Dale]

Maquia, when the promised flower blooms: Call your mom after watching this. It's a fantasy movie that plays your emotional strings.

Edit:
Paprika: better than inception.

[S. K. Inkslinger]

Steins Gate- best time-traveling story I've ever came across (and I've watched dozens upon dozens of that). The theme song still got me every time

Code Gease

FMA Brotherhood

Gintama

Inuyasha

I kind of liked Bleach and Naruto too, although Bleach does plummeted in quality neared its last arc.

[tebakutis]

I will surprise no one that my anime favorites tend toward the episodic, SFF, or absurd.

I'd list:

Starblazers / Space Battleship Yamato (Yamato is superior, but I didn't find it until I was *much* older)

Robotech / Macross (I like Macross slightly better in some part, and Robotech in others ... it's a wash)

Cowboy Bebop (forever a classic)

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (the series, the movie was actually meh for me)

Psycho-Pass (my favorite cyberpunk of all time, honestly, esp the first season)

Kill la Kill (mainly because it's so ridiculous and how it makes fun of the skimpy clothing trope)

Ninja Slayer (it's a stupid, funny show, with barebones animation that makes it even funnier)

Castlevania (Netflix's adaption is ridiculously dark and funny, and surprisingly good. I sympathized with Dracula!)

Black Lagoon (imagine a John Wick style world with pirates instead of assassins)

Gurren Lagaan (again, quite silly, but also starts to make you really love the characters before you expect it)

Ergo Proxy (confusing as f*** the first time through, but the soundtrack is phenomenal and each episode is hauntingly beautiful in some really weird ways)

[J.R. Darewood]

FMA Brotherhood... (like everyone else) bc it's the best anime EVER
IDK if it counts but The Last Airbender, Heavy Metal and Batman the Animated Series (of the 90s) were also very beloved even tho not technically anime
Akira... That gamelan music still pops into my head
Princess Mononoke... One of the best movies of all time period
Ninja Scroll... IDK it's gory and I was young
I haven't seen the anime but I read the manga Gantz and damn those were the most intense fight scenes I've ever seen
Aaaand I know there's more I'm not remembering...

[Slaykomimi]

I haven't seen many animes, I am more the manga person (or better to say original source person) but here are some top picks from both sides from me.

Anime:

-Armitage III, very nice little sci-fi anime
-Agent Aika, besides the fanservice and all I really love the animation style, the action, most of the characters and so on
-Cowboy Bebop, I guess I don´t need to explain this masterpiece
-Neon Genesis Evangelion, I should rewatch it one day but I am still waiting for the next movie of the new series

I guess I nearly counted up every anime I´ve genuinely watched and would recommend.

Mangas:

-Elfen Lied, I read it nearly once every year, discard the anime and only read the manga, that's the true stuff.
-Franken Fran, I am no fan of the horror genre, but if there would be more like this I would consume horror ONLY
-Oretama, a bit on the perverted site but a really nice and well-made manga with very likable characters, good drawing style, and nice character development.
-Dragonball, it´s much faster and smoother than the anime, no filler, and it´s easy to consume the whole series in a weekend instead of in 300 hours, also you can see how Akira Toriyama started to don´t give a damn anymore at about the cyborg saga
-Urusei Yatsura, first long term work of Rumiko Takahashi, a masterpiece for me, especially the ending was so amazing. If it wouldn´t be that long I would read it more often.
-Death Note, also very well known, I really enjoyed how far they planned all and thought about their plans and tried to predict the others, it was very fascinating.
-Rave Master, very nice shonen manga, you can see much development on the drawings later, it becomes a little weak in the middle, but the pace catches on again at later part of the middle.
-Mahou Sensei Negima, I always describe it as a mix of Dragonball and Harry Potter, it is SO AMAZING, I LOVE EVERY FIGHT in it. It´s so hard to find such a vast amount of characters that are nearly all unique and take part in some sort or another in the story. I was so disappointed in the anime (except the fight of Negi and Eva in the scroll Jack Rackhan gave them when I saw Eva animated it was like an orgasm for my brain). I hope the sequel becomes as good as this one.

I guess that´s all for now, I surely forgot some things, I read and saw Hellsing, it was good too but I think in the end it slacks off too much. But I love the very early drawing style in the first chapters of the manga.
Sadly there are many mangas I want to continue reading but just find no time, like air gear was awesome too but I just found no time ever to finish it.
There are many I still need to watch, I am a big fan of old Animation styles and want to watch much more of the 70s, 80s and 90s anime, especially fantasy and sci-fi. It was just so beautifully made back then.

[Bender]

How many are into anime as well?

There are shows that'd rival any TV incl Breaking Bad and GoT to shame.

[J.R. Darewood]

FMA Brotherhood is my favorite
Watched the Last Airbender back in the day too.
Tried out Deathnote, Inuyasha, Naruto, and Sword Art Online, Ghost in the Shell, Elfen Leid, but just dabbled in those.

been having a hard time getting into new anime. I tried with Castlevania but just couldn't do it.

Mangawise, my fav is Gantz\

[S. K. Inkslinger]

I watched a ton of animes, and some of them even greatly inspired the novel I've just finished writing.

Bleach, Naruto, Inuyasha, Steins Gate, Code Geasse, FMA Brotherhood, Attack on Titan, those are just some of my favorites, haha. 

[Bender]

Cowboy Bebop, Attack on Titan, Death Note and Hunter x Hunter are my favorites.

It's amazing how mature the content are.

[cupiscent]

I do not much like anime. About a decade ago, an anime-loving friend decided he had a quest to educate me and my husband on the joys of anime, and he plied us with lots of stuff. There were many that I just couldn't deal with (I can't remember them all, but it included Trigun, Bezerk, Ghost in the Shell series, something with red riding hood???) but I did enjoy Cowboy Bebop (a lot) and something that I think was called FLCL, which worked for me on the same sort of hallucinogenic-allegory level as a lot of David Lynch's fimography, but a lot more fun.

A lot of this is, I think, that I have an issue watching serious things with cartoon faces. I just can't emotionally connect without real faces. I have this problem with the animated Star Wars material as well, and I'd desperately like to watch that because it covers a lot of the most interesting parts of the timeline and I understand the storylines are really good.

[hexa]

Ergo Proxy has a complicated plot, but as a science fiction concept, it's so interesting how the Proxies want revenge (justice) against the creators

FLCL is very funny, science fiction

[Bender]

A lot of this is, I think, that I have an issue watching serious things with cartoon faces. I just can't emotionally connect without real faces. I have this problem with the animated Star Wars material as well, and I'd desperately like to watch that because it covers a lot of the most interesting parts of the timeline and I understand the storylines are really good.

I'm just the opposite. I believe anime can cross the line that is difficult to do with real people. For example, Attack on Titan.  It's something that I can't believe be done to a similar level with real life.

Anime provides opportunity for creativity not possible with real people.

[S. K. Inkslinger]

A lot of this is, I think, that I have an issue watching serious things with cartoon faces. I just can't emotionally connect without real faces. I have this problem with the animated Star Wars material as well, and I'd desperately like to watch that because it covers a lot of the most interesting parts of the timeline and I understand the storylines are really good.

I'm just the opposite. I believe anime can cross the line that is difficult to do with real people. For example, Attack on Titan.  It's something that I can't believe be done to a similar level with real life.

Anime provides opportunity for creativity not possible with real people.

This. Pretty much why some anime live action adaptations (Attack on Titan live action, for one) failed as well, because some materials just can't be translated well enough into another medium. The Attack on Titan live action was just way too gory, for one.

[Alex Hormann]

I've never been able to watch more than a few minutes of anime, despite having friends who are obsessed with it. Much like graphic novels, it's just not an artform I get on with. The cartoony fight scenes, the basic faces, the scripting, I just don't see why it's so popular. Give me live action any day.