Top 20 anime you probably ought to have watchedFollow

No Macross / rowboattech, no cowboy beebop, no battleship yamato, your list is invalid.

I've only seen Haruhi and Lain on your list, Catwho

I really need to watch Bebop, Trigun and Texhnolyze sometime..


If I had to list anime series to get people interested in anime, they'd be some or all of these (depending on the person, really):

Clannad + Clannad: After Story
Kara no Kyoukai
Higashi no Eden
Baccano!
Darker than Black
Hajime no Ippo
Minami-Ke
Paprika
5cm Per Second


And then go from there, depending on what they liked.

I think I've mainly watched a lot more Americanized anime. I believe the first anime I really watched was Zoids: Chaotic Century on Toonami back when they still had Toonami! After that I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion and loved it. I watched Steel Angel Kurumi just because my friends and i were perverted high school boys back then. I loved Escaflowne, Princess Nine (if you like sports related ones). FLCL of course, Inuyasha was big when I started watching anime on adult swim (and when they still played true anime all week, not just the second set Saturday night). ATHF is a good show.

Others I've watched:
Cowboy Beebop
AFRO Samurai
Excel Saga (Eps 1-4)
FMA (a few episodes then I fell behind)
Deathnote (some, though I have read the entire manga)
Most of the Miyazaki movies.

Actually, Yamato was on an early draft of the list, but I realized I'd omitted something else and took it off. I suppose that was a mistake.

Robotech/Macross probably does deserve a slot on that as well. Honestly, I missed it when it was on TV in the US, and only when I was an adult did I watch Macross Plus, so I think that's more of my personal bias showing through.

I guess there's no reason to limit it to 20, although if we wanted to list all the influential series from the last 50 years, it'd be closer to 200-300. This was meant to be more of a primer for someone whose only exposure to anime so far has been DBZ and Pokemon reruns and Naruto episodes they found off the web.

Edited, Jun 17th 2011 2:12pm by catwho

No Ghost in the Shell?

Akira came before, but I believe it was Ghost in the Shell that really brought manga and especially anime to Europe. Granted, not the US.

Wouldn't "Spirited away" not also have to be on the list? It got an oscar, the first Japanese anime that got one.

And no Rurouni Kenshin? (granted, the series were not good, apart from the second season, but the movie was absolutely brilliant)

Half naked kids saving the day on a weekly basis? That was my second guess.

I agree, I really like Spirited Away. Princess Mononoke is also amazing. Ponyo (the third and latest Miyazaki film I've seen) wasn't nearly as good, IMO. But it's probably freaking amazing while high.

I felt like Ponyo would have made a solid kid's movie, if the kid in question was familiar with ancient Japanese mythology.

Found it to be decent, but not great.

Haven't seen the others, save Princess Mononoke, which I enjoyed.

Edited, Jun 21st 2011 5:28pm by Eske

I really wish companies would stop making animes out of manga that are DEFINITELY not going to be anywhere close to finished by the time the anime catches up with them. It just makes everything worse. Naruto had years of filler, and still has a filler arc every other (which is why I haven't watched it in a loooooong time, though I've also stopped reading it). Bleach has small arcs every so often, so I generally just wait several months and then catch up on the actual plot episodes.

But the one that brought on this rant? Fruits Basket. The manga was great and, up to the point it diverged, the anime was too. It's just so depressing to think that we could have had the entire series animated, instead of just the first several chapters.

Grrr.

(I was reminded of this after FB came into my recommended list on Netflix).

Flame of Recca and Ranma ½ both need to be finished, and Soul Eater needs a Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood style reboot.

I'd also like the continuation of Hajime no Ippo, but with the stipulation of no fight go longer than four episodes, preferably less.

Edited, Jun 27th 2011 8:32pm by lolgaxe

The manga is on chapter 87 atm. I think the really huge deviation begins at chapter 60, after the arachna fight. There were minor deviations before then.

Hmmm, I can't remember if I got there or not. I definitely passed the point where she started collecting the engine things, though.