Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
Anime recommendation thread:
(My interest in Gurren Lagann improved significantly when one of the most annoying characters in the show died.)
My own subjective rankings:
Made in Abyss- 10/10
If you plotted "child suffering" on the x-axis and "visual beauty" on the y-axis, Made in Abyss would occupy the upper-right quadrant where angels fear to tread. The show operates on the principle that the human brain can only process so much cognitive dissonance before it either shuts down or ascends to a higher plane of aesthetic appreciation. Each frame looks like it was painted by a Renaissance master who'd just discovered mescaline and child endangerment laws.
One could argue the series functions as a case study in the Dunning-Kruger effect as applied to spelunking; the characters' confidence in their ability to survive the Abyss is inversely proportional to their understanding of its true nature. The soundtrack, by Kevin Penkin, is not merely an accompaniment but an essential component of the world-building. I have it saved to Spotify and I listen to it regularly.
Madoka Magika: 10/10.
I seem to have a thing for the psychological torment of small children, in this case a bunch of magical girls who make regrettable decisions by signing up for that lifestyle. You will never hate a cute little kitty cat more in your life.
Shaft's decision to animate this as if it were directed by someone having a particularly artistic psychotic break was the correct one. The show functions as a deconstruction of the magical girl genre in the same way that a wood chipper functions as a deconstruction of trees.
The central tragedy unfolds from a series of Faustian bargains made by adolescent girls under conditions of extreme emotional distress and information asymmetry. The catalyst for these regrettable decisions, a feline-like creature named Kyubey, is a chillingly perfect depiction of a paperclip-maximizing artificial intelligence or a utility monster; it is a perfectly rational agent whose value system is simply orthogonal to human flourishing.
Do not expect to leave the show feeling happy. But you will leave satisfied.
One Punch Man: 10/10
I must provide a strong qualification here: this rating applies exclusively to the first season. The series subsequently suffers a catastrophic decline in quality, falling off a narrative cliff from which it has yet to recover. But that initial season is a sublime achievement in parody. It succeeds not by merely mocking shonen tropes, but by exploring the philosophical endpoint of shonen power progression: the existential ennui of absolute, unchallengeable strength. The protagonist, Saitama, has solved the problem of physical conflict so completely that he is left with a terminal case of goal-contentment dysphoria. Once away you have punched away all the problems susceptible to punches, what are you going to do about those that are left?
The humor is derived from the constant category error of applying godlike power to mundane problems. The superlative animation and soundtrack are merely the icing on a conceptually brilliant cake. You must truly understand and love a genre to mock it so beautifully.
Attack on Titan- 9.5/10.
AoT succeeds primarily because it takes its premise seriously and follows the logical implications wherever they lead. The mystery-box structure works because the mysteries have actual answers that recontextualize everything you've seen before. This is mystery writing done right - not arbitrary confusion, but genuine information management. The show's treatment of warfare deserves particular praise. Unlike most anime where combat is individualistic spectacle, AoT understands that military effectiveness comes from coordination, logistics, and tactical innovation. The development of anti-titan combat techniques feels like watching a tech tree progression in real time.
Overall, a remarkably well-executed epic that largely succeeds despite occasional pacing issues and certain grating secondary characters. Its primary virtue lies in its consistent portrayal of characters as agentic, rational actors within the horrifying constraints of their environment. The world of AoT is a high-stakes, low-information war game, and the characters, for the most part, behave accordingly, making sensible, calculated decisions under immense pressure. The periods of narrative slowness are forgivable as they represent the necessary lulls for strategic planning and information gathering that make the subsequent kinetic, high-casualty engagements so impactful.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: 8/10.
A wet dream for the aspiring pseudo-intellectual. NGE is an exercise in what can only be described as symbolism-as-a-service; it drapes a veneer of Gnostic and Kabbalistic mysticism over a standard Kaiju narrative to feign a profundity it never earns.
The plot’s coherence degrades exponentially with applied thought. The protagonist, Shinji Ikari, is a case study in clinical depression and crippling anxiety (and also a little bitch), and I'm left with the distinct impression that the entire plot could have been averted if NERV had employed a single competent staff psychiatrist with a prescription pad for SSRIs. And yet, for all its narrative failings, the show is compulsively watchable. The action sequences are iconic, a few characters possess genuine depth, and the entire production is a triumph of aesthetic and mood. My inability to "understand" it is, I now suspect, a diagnostic indicator that there is, in fact, nothing of substance to be understood.
The Melancholy of Haruhi
Suzuki MotorsportsSuzumiya: 8/10An elegant thought experiment executed with surprising sincerity. The premise: a being functionally equivalent to God has reincarnated as a Japanese high school girl, and the universe's continued existence is contingent upon her not experiencing boredom. We have all seen Pascal's Wager; meet Pascal's Entertainer. The protagonist, Kyon, is effectively the world’s sole, overworked AI safety researcher, tasked with aligning a god-like entity's utility function away from the existential risk of ennui. The show is played remarkably straight and is better for it. I think I watched around 8 episodes, so there's plenty left. It remains in my queue, pending sufficient activation energy to complete.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood : Closer to 8 than it is to 7
A show that frustrated me. Too tropey, too many characters being retarded. I find it hard to articulate my dissatisfaction in a satisfactory way.
FMAB represents everything that's simultaneously right and wrong with shounen storytelling. The worldbuilding is genuinely excellent: alchemy as magic system with consistent rules and costs, political intrigue that feels like actual statecraft, character motivations that make sense within their contexts.
But the show consistently undermines itself with genre conventions that feel obligatory rather than organic. The power of friendship speeches, the reluctance to actually kill major characters, the way complex moral situations get resolved through superior firepower, it all feels like the show is checking boxes rather than exploring the implications of its own premise.
The homunculi work brilliantly as antagonists because they represent genuine philosophical positions (pride, wrath, envy as ways of engaging with the world), but the final confrontations devolve into standard boss fights rather than ideological reckonings.
Chainsaw Man: 7.5/10
Chainsaw Man operates in the uncanny valley between genuine artistic ambition and adolescent power fantasy fulfillment. It's a show that simultaneously wants to be a profound meditation on trauma, exploitation, and the commodification of human suffering, while also being a series where the protagonist's primary motivation is touching boobs (me too buddy, me too...). This tonal schizophrenia should be fatal, yet somehow the series maintains enough coherence to be genuinely engaging.
The genius of Fujimoto's conception lies in recognizing that most shonen protagonists are essentially feral children who've been weaponized by adult institutions, then having the audacity to actually say this out loud. Denji isn't noble or pure-hearted; he's a walking collection of base desires who's been systematically deprived of every basic human need except survival. The Public Safety Devil Hunters don't disguise their exploitation behind rhetoric about heroism or duty; they openly treat their operatives as expendable resources in a cost-benefit analysis against apocalyptic threats.
The action sequences deserve particular praise for their kinetic brutality. Unlike the choreographed dance of most anime combat, fights in Chainsaw Man feel genuinely dangerous and unpredictable. Characters don't trade blows in neat exchanges; they attempt to murder each other with the frantic desperation of cornered animals. The animation captures this beautifully, particularly in moments where Denji's chainsaw form moves with the mechanical violence of actual industrial equipment rather than the fluid grace of typical anime transformations.
What elevates the series beyond competent ultraviolence is its commitment to the psychological consequences of its premise. Characters don't bounce back from trauma with shonen resilience; they carry their damage forward, making increasingly destructive decisions as survival mechanisms. The devil contracts function as externalized representations of psychological damage, with characters literally trading pieces of themselves for the power to keep functioning in an hostile environment.
The series' treatment of sexuality deserves analysis beyond the surface-level horniness. Denji's obsession with physical intimacy isn't played purely for comedy; it's the desperate reaching of someone who's never experienced basic human affection toward the only form of connection he can conceptualize. The fact that this is consistently used to manipulate him creates an uncomfortable but effective commentary on how vulnerability becomes a vector for exploitation. (I wish Makima-san would groom me . I'm weak for mommy GFs, even if they probably intend to ritually sacrifice me later)
Where the series falters is in its occasional retreat into conventional anime bullshit. Certain episodes devolve into standard monster-of-the-week format, losing the psychological intensity that makes the series compelling. Some supporting characters exist primarily as trope fulfillment rather than genuine personalities, though the core cast maintains enough complexity to carry the narrative weight.
The ending of season one represents the series operating at peak efficiency. Without spoiling specifics, it manages to deliver genuine emotional catharsis while completely recontextualizing everything that came before. It's the rare anime climax that feels like both a natural culmination of established themes and a complete surprise, demonstrating that the series' apparent chaos was actually precisely controlled narrative architecture.
Best enjoyed with the frontal lobe mildly disinhibited or disengaged, but not because the series lacks intelligence, rather, because its intelligence is often buried under layers of deliberate crudeness that require a certain receptivity to appreciate. It's junk food that occasionally achieves the status of art, which is more than most anime can claim.
Steins Gate: 7.5/10
The most frustrating anime I've ever watched. So close to greatness. A lot of nothing ever happens, and a waste of what might have been excellent worldbuilding potential. If I ever hear another "tuturuu," I'll stab a bitch. I warn you, the show will ramp up tension over and over again, and rarely justify it.
Steins;Gate has one of the best premises in sci-fi - time travel that follows consistent rules and has meaningful consequences (but completely wastes it on pacing that would make a DMV clerk impatient). It also betrays its own commitment to internal consistency, the plot eventually hinges entirely on whatever mechanism running the timeline being actually malevolent.
The first half consists almost entirely of setup that could have been accomplished in three episodes, followed by a rushed resolution that doesn't adequately explore the implications of its own concepts.
Mob Psycho 100: 7.5/10
In a nutshell: One Punch Man, but worse. Still manages to be above average, but maybe I'm grading on a curve here.
Mob Psycho 100 represents ONE's attempt to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle success of One Punch Man, but with the satirical edge sanded down into something resembling a generic coming-of-age narrative with psychic powers stapled on top. Where Saitama's overwhelming strength generated genuine philosophical comedy through existential ennui, Mob's god-tier psychic abilities are merely a vehicle for tediously earnest lessons about "being yourself" and "friendship is magic" - the kind of treacly moral messaging that wouldn't be out of place in a Saturday morning cartoon.
The series markets itself as a psychological character study, but scratch the surface and you'll find the same tired anime formula: awkward protagonist learns self-confidence through the power of believing in himself and having friends who believe in him. Mob's "journey" isn't particularly sophisticated - it's bog-standard therapy speak wrapped in supernatural window dressing. The show treats basic social skills development as if it were profound character growth, when really it's just watching a 14-year-old learn to make eye contact.
Studio Bones' animation style oscillates between genuinely creative psychic sequences and the kind of deliberately ugly character designs that mistake "stylistic choice" for "artistic vision." Yes, the psychic battles look impressive, but they're essentially expensive distractions from a story that lacks the conceptual sophistication to justify its runtime. The visual flourishes feel like compensation for narrative thinness rather than organic extensions of the storytelling.
Reigen, the series' most acclaimed character, is fundamentally a conman who's stumbled into an accidentally functional mentorship role. The show wants us to find this charming, but it's essentially watching an adult manipulate a psychologically vulnerable child for personal profit while occasionally dispensing fortune-cookie wisdom. That this relationship is treated as heartwarming rather than concerning says more about anime's comfort with questionable power dynamics than it does about compelling character writing. The fact that Reigen's exploitation "works out" only redeems him to a certain extent.
The series suffers from the same structural problems that plague most slice-of-life anime masquerading as action shows: it doesn't know what it wants to be. Episodes oscillate between mundane school comedy, supernatural battle sequences, and heavy-handed moral lessons without achieving coherence in any category. The cult storylines, praised by some as sophisticated social commentary, are actually fairly surface-level examinations of charismatic manipulation that any undergraduate psychology student could deconstruct. They're not profound; they're obvious.
Most damning is the series' fundamental dishonesty about its own premise. Despite positioning itself as a meditation on the dangers of unchecked power, Mob never faces genuine consequences for his abilities. The show consistently pulls its punches, ensuring that his psychic outbursts never result in permanent damage or loss of life. This safety net renders the entire "dangerous power" concept toothless - it's hard to take the moral complexity seriously when the universe conspires to prevent any actual moral complexity from occurring.
What we're left with is competently executed mediocrity that benefits from lowered expectations. It's One Punch Man without the wit, insight, or satirical precision that made the original compelling. The 7.5 rating is more a reflection of anime's generally dismal quality standards than any particular merit of Mob Psycho 100 itself. It's the kind of show that feels profound when you're 16 and vaguely embarrassing when you're old enough to recognize therapy-speak platitudes dressed up as wisdom.
Elfen Lied: 5/10
Elfen Lied represents everything wrong with edgy anime from the early 2000s. It mistakes graphic content for meaningful content and confuses shock value with emotional depth. The premise (evolutionary superior beings emerging to replace humanity) has potential, but the execution prioritizes gore and fan service over coherent storytelling (and I like gore and am a fan of being serviced). I gave up on it 3 episodes in, and would need a very large bribe to give it another go.
Demon Slayer: 5/10
A case study in how far superlative production values can carry a work with an empty core. The animation, courtesy of Ufotable, is undeniably god-tier. However, this aesthetic brilliance is a crutch for a story populated by a protagonist whose head contains little more than noble intentions and air. It is high-production narrative slurry. Slop, but served in a pretty box. I gave up on it a few episodes in, and see no reason to continue.
GATE: 6/10
Not enough curb-stomping of Virgin Magic Wielders by Chad Modern Military Hardware, in a series where that's the core conceit. Massive JSDF fan-wank by a Japanese revanchist.
GATE had one job: show modern military technology absolutely demolishing fantasy armies, and somehow managed to get distracted by harem antics and political messaging. The few scenes that actually deliver on the premise are genuinely satisfying, but they're buried under layers of irrelevant subplot and nationalist wanking.
Tokyo Ghoul: 3/10
I was incredibly high when I binged this series, and I still found nothing that could redeem it. I barely remember anything about the plot except it involved, as the name suggests, man-eating ghouls in Tokyo, and the fact that it gargled donkey balls. I'd say it only warrants mention due to how forgettable it was.
Miscellaneous:
Vinland Saga: Maybe an 8.5/10?
Didn't get very far before I got distracted, but I enjoyed what I saw. On the back burner for now.
What I saw of Vinland Saga suggested a show that takes historical setting seriously while using it to explore themes about violence, revenge, and the possibility of redemption. The animation quality was solid, and the characters seemed to have genuine psychological depth rather than anime archetype substitutions. Also, Vikings are just hella cool.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Never got past the first episode, something about the faux-British setting set me off. I mean to, at some point, if only so I can appreciate the memes better.
There's probably more I've seen, but I usually didn't finish them, and didn't have very strong feelings when I did. Will add in later.
I'll start with some comments on your review.
Made in Abyss: Great worldbuilding and it has a very nice visual style. I don't love the writing though, and veers heavily into misery porn, where it tries to create emotional depth by simply taking the characters through as much fucked up shit as possible, making it feel emotionally manipulative. Still, the world is really unique, detailed and fascinating and I am fairly curious about why the abyss is there.
One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100: One Punch Man is great and I agree with the recommendation for season one, but I definitely think Mob Psycho is the better series of the two. One Punch Man is a lot of fun, but I think Mob Psycho is much better written, with more interesting characters and character dynamics. The last season of Mob Psycho in perhaps not quite as good as the rest, but I still rate it as one of the best (and perhaps the best written) anime series I've come across.
Some further recommendations of my own:
Dorohedoro: The main character is a man with amnesia and a lizard head and the story follows him and his attempt to figure out who he is. It is set in a beatiful and detailed cyberpunkish city where the people are oppressed by magicians who live in a parallel dimension. This is an amazingly weird and funny show, with a unique world, that it populates with characters that turn out to be very different and much more interesting than the initial impression suggests. It sort of reminds me of early 2000s New Weird fantasy (think China Mieville), and it also has a lot in common with Arcane, but without being a complete, borderline unwatchable, cliche fest. Only one season so far, but the second season is expected to be released this year.
Golden Kamuy: This show is set in northern Japan shortly after the Russo-Japanese in 1904-05. It follows a war veteran and a girl who belongs to the local Ainu hunter gatherer population, and how they get drawn into a hunt for a huge golden treasure, trying to find it before the yakuza or the military. This show is simply great. It is well written, with really strong, complex characters and it manages to combine a unique setting with humor and an interesting and unpredictable plot. If I were to recommend one anime, I think it would be this one.
Heavenly Delusions: This is a slow-burn postapocalyptic show that follows a boy and a girl on their travels through a Japan almost completely destroyed by a mysterious disaster. This is a well written show that does something that is way too uncommon in anime: it actually has subtle exposition and doesn't take every chance it gets to over-explain everything in excruciating detail. Instead it trusts the viewer to figure out what has happened to the world and who the main characters are without too much handholding. On top of this it has some of the best art I've seen in an anime series. There is only one season so far, but I'm looking forward to see where this show goes.
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Rather than recommend anime, I'll recommend anime movies instead.
Madoka Rebellion is one of the singular achievements in anime movie making and a must-watch sequel for fans of the series. There's no way the much-delayed followup that finally comes out in 2026 is going to live up to this.
Summer Wars is perfect. Hosoda has made many movies, but this is his ur-movie, the flick he tried to make his entire career before it and the flick he can't get over after making it. I consider it the ultimate family movie.
Umamusume: Beginning of a New Era is a standalone sports movie that could be taught in film schools if you want to understand composition, mise-en-scene, sound direction, visual directing, editing. It's an assault on the senses in the best way and probably the most gorgeous animated movie I've seen that year.
Similarly, Pompo the Cinephile is worth seeing for editing. Storywise it's a fun nothing but the control of space and time through editing is masterful and on a level not seen since Satoshi Kon died. To see Satoshi Kon's skill on full display, Millennium Actress, a movie following the life and career of a Japanese actress through a turbulent time in Japanese history, is arguably his most beginner friendly work.
The normie pick: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Train made all the money it made for a reason. Credited with saving the Japanese box office and ushering in a new golden age of high-budget anime movies, the movie's more impressive feat is taking a small segment of a serialized weekly battle manga and expanding it into something that functions as a movie, with an arc, a centralized theme, and a thesis on death and those who fear it versus those who face it.
The patrician pick: Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms. Fantasy movie about one of the last survivors of a long lived race raising a human child. Not perfect, but probably the most interesting Mari Okada-written work. Worth a watch every Mother's day. Has more ideas that it can comfortably pay off, but succeeds in strongly depicting the complicated feelings of someone watching a child grow up too fast.
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Ok @FCfromSSC and @Fruck and @erwgv3g34 and @ThisIsSin and others, I finished episode 3 and it definitely had a real bite to it. Did not expect uhhh what happened. I'm still a bit judgmental but I'm wine drunk so I'm interested in watching more heh.
I will try and finish the season and report back next week.
Keep going, anime episodes are short enough it's easy to fit around a real life. Episode #10 is one of those great anime episodes that hits like a truck with the benefit of context.
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Vinland Saga: Suggest finishing, partly because the anime does something I've rarely ever seen: after the first season is a (fun) orgy of violence and revenge and action, the second season is the opposite: character development, slow plot, and a message about how violence is bad.
My own suggestions/mini review list, loosely sorted in order of appeal to non-anime types, or people who have only watched one or two. Of course, it's always subjective. I don't quite agree that "anime is just a medium" because its highly-controlled production pipeline and limited set of studios creates some definite commonalities, but it's true there's a wide variety of genres.
Violet Evergarden, 9/10
THIS is really an excellent first or early anime. A woman used essentially as a special-ops child soldier is now a little older, and while the war continues, she decides to take up an unusual vocation: a typist in an era where few people know how to write (I guess), she also assists in helping people organize their thoughts to write letters. Often, these letters are emotionally charged, or offer some major catharsis; thus the show's episodes are organized roughly with a major letter per episode. Parallel to this, we should mention that the main character, the eponymous Violet Evergarden, has lost both of her arms, replaced with mechanical ones, which mirrors her emotional state, still dull and robotic from her war experiences. So we slowly get to see her open up over the course of the series. Sad and emotional at times, hopeful in others, this one is highly memorable and at times honestly you often forget it's an anime at all. Finished, a season and a movie or two.
Apothecary Diaries, 9/10
This show is great. A nice mix of mystery, cool setting, and like the previous, much fewer anime tropes than your usual fare, this one stands out. A fairly level-headed girl but with a strange obsession with poisons, raised as an apothecary by her adopted father (read: herbal-medicine doctor for the poor, in this case often a brothel) is kidnapped into a loosely-Chinese imperial palace as a servant there. And not the cool, plot kidnapping version either, she's literally just nabbed off the street and sold and has to come to terms with her new life. Which she does, and she's pretty smart and a good investigator even though it really isn't her interest, and she gets pulled into harem politics to some extent as first a food taster, and then other adventures especially for a powerful eunuch within the palace. Ongoing story with two seasons, but with some good closure.
Frieren: At Journey's End, 10/10
Now, I'm not sure whether this score, which reflects my anime of the decade designation, translates to the general public, but it's very enjoyable. A fantasy series that explores the idea of what a long-lived elf's life is actually like! Lord of the Rings plays a bit with this idea in a way, but doesn't fully commit and it's spun differently. There, the elves are kind of tired of life, but here, we ask the question: what might Legolas be feeling, going on an adventure with some others, when he knows that they are going to die and leave him behind again? LotR dodges this a bit by both killing much of the cast, and Gimli is also of a similar long life, but Frieren tackles this a bit more explicitly. She once went on a save-the-world trip, but as the mage of the party. Living for at least a thousand years however, she doesn't fully appreciate the impact this trip had on her, and experiences regret for not emotionally engaging more after her friends pass away. She uses this as impetus to start another journey back north again to the demon lands, retracing the save-the-world steps with a new group of people who grow on her. The world-building is great, the storytelling is on point, the vibes are excellent, it's just a great watch. Ongoing, one season completed.
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, 9/10
This one earns a rare distinction for carrying with it a strong piece of advice: try the first episode or two subbed and dubbed. A humor-first series, this one takes place in a super-elite high school, where the two highest-performing students (one old money, and one a scholarship student), on the student council together, are trying to get each other to admit a crush on the other. They play all sorts of mental gymnastics to make this work. The humor largely comes from the commentary/narrator, but the sub and dub both approach it differently (and the dub actually localizes many of the jokes, so they are funny but in a different way). The sub leans a bit more dry-humor, irony-focused, while the dub plays up the conflicts as being outrageous. At any rate, this one is just good fun and although the series starts out as a bit more like a series of connected skits, it eventually transitions a little more into a proper show with character arcs and plot and all that good stuff. Finished, three seasons, epilogue movie to come.
I don't really know how the below actually stack up but I felt like tossing them in too.
Angel Beats!, 8.5/10
Admittedly it has been a while since I watched this one, but it's good. Some nice emotional catharsis, but I don't know how much I can say without spoiling things too much. A guy wakes up all of the sudden in a sort of alternate-reality school, with a confusing 'war' between a group of kids within the school and the school student body president, who is a bit of a robot, with the drone-like other students as bystanders. Despite the presence of guns, this is a low-violence affair where the war is mostly a series of, well, pranks more or less? Despite the sort of confusing set-up, you get some good character moments, and this one is a tear-jerker at times.
Dandadan, 8.5/10
Visual flair. Panache. Dialing stuff up to 11. This anime is now in its second season and is ridiculous but fun. You probably only need to see a few minutes to get an idea about what this one's about, but for text purposes the classic hook is that a high schooler who believes in ghosts teams up with one who believes in aliens, and they're both right! He has his balls stolen by a spirit, and aliens try to kidnap her, and then they have some adventures trying to resolve that.
Code Geass, 8.5/10
This is kind of like the Ender's Game of anime in a way? The main character lives as a privileged elite in a dystopian Japan ruled by a world monarchy-autocracy, but decides to join a local Japanese rebellion. He's very much a 5D chess type of guy, takes on an alter-ego, and did I mention there's mechs for some reason? Most of the show is him outsmarting people, because in a similar kind of "hook" to the oft-recommended Death Note (which I personally don't like), he has the ability to brainwash-command anyone to do anything... but only once, ever, in their life. Which he obviously wants to keep a secret, but has to also be smart about using due to its one-time-use nature. Two seasons.
Does the world they live in suffer from medieval stasis? Or does she see how much humans can change in a few centuries?
Yes and no, actually a bit of hard question. Let me say this. Factually, world-building-wise, the world absolutely is not in medieval stasis.
In practice, the theme you allude to is not emphasized, with maybe one major exception. Most of the story and its themes are focused on Frieren's own characterization and experience and thus most of the world-building is more subtle and done in the background (exposition is rare). Frieren has only about three major formative periods of her 1000+ year life that we've seen details for. 1000 years ago we see some more rare flashbacks and people are dressed in Greek/Roman style clothing, so that has an implication there. However, we spend most of the time in the present with some semi-frequent flashbacks all within the last 70 years or so. We also see in the anime's current plot (28 22-minute episodes) mostly rural countryside, too, so it's hard to get a precise bead on tech development, though the source material not yet adapted eventually will show a more advanced nation. The visual vibe is maybe 1400s, we do see some pretty clean and well built out cities.
The one massive exception: tech advancement is not the focus because the show's 'tech' is magic, and magic advancement IS definitely a major theme, dealt with directly. Magic goes from restricted to humans (hoarded by elves and natural to demons, thus a major taboo) to humans leading major advances (even somewhat threatening the elves with their thousands of years of practice), and that comes up and will come up again.
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I think the closest you see to this is a change in clothing trends from when the elf is young to present day. But I don't know how much you'd be able to tell apart clothing from 500AD and 1500AD (I certainly couldn't, aside from 'vaguely stereotypical ancient Greek' to 'vaguely stereotypical fantasy European').
But there is at least a little emphasis on "humans actually do change and grow relatively quickly". At one point the elf notes that it's impractical to get the magical equivalent to a license when the governments and organizations change so often.
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Magic did change in a few centuries, as for mundane technology I don't recall anything specific.
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I appreciate the detailed reviews!
Of the anime you note, I've sampled Frieren, Violet Evergarden and Dungeon Meshi. By which I mean I watched maybe 30 minutes of each before getting distracted and not finding the impetus to continue. That says more about me than it does about the show, and I'm open to giving them a proper go.
In the case of VG, is the movie a 1:1 reprise of the show? The former is what I had half-heartedly begun.
The VG movie (actually I lied there are actually two but one is more a side-story) is actually more of an epilogue of sorts, so I'd strongly recommend watching or trying the series first instead. IIRC the show starts to truly get going by the third episode (and if you're the impatient type you could honestly start there and be OK), but the most memorable and highest rated ones are a little back-loaded in the season.
I've tried a few episodes of Dungeon Meshi but it didn't really hook me, so I can't speak to the praise there.
However, with Frieren I'd say two episodes is the minimum to get a proper feel (concludes a bit of a mini-arc), although the story (such as it is) doesn't properly take shape until the fourth episode and we don't meet the last major companion travelling with Frieren until the fifth, so although I'd still consider it excellent it is very much a slow burn, contemplative kind of show. With that said, it makes the smaller pieces of action even more memorable, but they are still sparse. Somewhat famously, in episode seven or so, we find out that although the show doesn't have an actual big bad (the major plot after all is that she already helped save the world) there are still a few demons out and about that didn't get defeated along with their leader. These demons are worse than irredeemable (in fact they pretend to have emotions and feelings to disguise their true identity as pure predators of humanity) which at least in anime terms is a bit of a trope reversal.
None of that is to say that a certain minimum is required for most shows, but you know how it is, "will I like this" is a tricky question to answer anime or no. One of the only anime where I'd consider it truly mandatory is My Star (Oshi no Ko) where the first episode is a full hour or so on purpose, knowing that you need the full time for it to make sense (also a fun show, about the dark side of the entertainment/movie industry, saying more is a spoiler) because of said major spoiler that changes the course of the show entirely occurring at the end of it. I think Madoka Magica is classically the other, where episode 3 or so has a major twist, but I haven't seen it myself so I couldn't say.
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Have you seen the Promised Neverland? It feels like it fits well with your top couple shows.
I've heard the name, don't know anything about it I'm afraid. If it's anywhere in the same ballpark as MIA or MM, then I'm certainly interested!
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You should really try the original Fullmetal Alchemist.
First of all, if you only watched Brotherhood, you completely missed the setup, because Brotherhood speeds through the early episodes on the assumption that you have watched the 2003 version. Second, it is a much darker, cerebral, and emotional story. It's not filled with fights and comedy and friendship speeches the way Brotherhood is. 2003 avoids the standard battle shonen cliches in favor of telling a more dramatic and philosophical story using the exact same setting and characters.
It's like Fullmetal Alchemist for grownups.
My own recommendations:
Erased (AKA The Town Without Me) is one of the most beautiful stories I have ever had the privilege of experiencing. It's also only one cour long.
The Promised Neverland. The first season is incredible, and ends at a very natural stopping point, but definitely leaves room to continue the story. The second season is legendary for how bad it was, and most fans pretend that it doesn't exist. It works really well if you choose to treat it is as a single-cour anime. I wrote a longer review on /r/rational.
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I watched the first season of this after seeing numerous recommendations along this line (are all of these reviews based on single seasons or entire series?), and my ultimate feeling was "meh". Made in Abyss presents a world in which there is a big creepy hole, and ooh, what could be inside the big creepy hole? Turns out it's big and creepy. Wow.
While it is nicely animated and soundtracked as you say, the dull approach to the story and particularly unpleasant anime degeneracy left me with little desire to continue.
So much better than everything else on your list I honestly have no idea
I must say, most holes that are big and creepy don't leave you bleeding out of your anus. That is at least +5000 creep points, in every sense of the word.
Most of the "unpleasant anime degeneracy" is, in my view, instrumental, not incidental. The juxtaposition of childlike innocence and body horror is the engine of the show's aesthetic effect. It's designed to create maximum cognitive dissonance. It's a story about the absolute, uncompromising brutality of a natural system that has no regard for human values like "fairness" or "pity." The suffering of children is used because it's the most effective means to maximize the audience's sense of injustice against an indifferent system. If you find the mechanism distasteful, that's a valid reaction, but to me it's the core of what makes the show function so effectively. I don't think it would have hit nearly as hard if it was Hitler and Stalin going on a buddy cop adventure into hell.
Mob Psycho 100 is, by all accounts, a well-executed character piece about self-acceptance and emotional growth. It is narratively and thematically safe. Its central message is "it's okay to be yourself" and "your friends can help you." These are pro-social, therapeutic platitudes. It is, essentially, My First Therapy Session: The Anime. My preference is for stories that are thematically unsafe. Madoka is a brutal examination of utilitarian ethics and the horror of information asymmetry. Made in Abyss is about the collision of human aspiration with a universe of crushing indifference. Attack on Titan is a multi-generational study of the feedback loop between fear, violence, and ideology. One Punch Man (S1) is an exploration of existential ennui in the face of solved problems.
These shows take a high-concept premise and follow its logical implications to uncomfortable, often horrifying, conclusions. They are exercises in systems-thinking applied to narrative. Mob Psycho uses its high-concept premise (god-tier psychic powers) as a vehicle to deliver a fairly standard, low-stakes emotional journey. Mob's internal conflicts are profound to him, but the show's philosophical stakes are puddle-deep compared to the others.
I tried to specifically note where I simply got fed up with a particular show, or got distracted (which is often not the fault of the show itself, particularly for Vinland Saga). I think I finished the first season of MP100 before deciding to venture elsewhere.
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I suppose I should add my own anime recommendations to the list. In no particular order:
K-On: 10/10
This is a series about high school girls who are in a rock band together. The personalities range from "very responsible" to "complete moron slacker", and a lot of the enjoyment comes from seeing how the different girls interact and handle the situations that come up. There is essentially zero plot to this show, which would normally bother me as a plot-centric person, but somehow works here. The closest to a plot is a general sense of the girls moving through their young lives - figuring out where to go to college, having to face the pain of saying goodbye to friends when they graduate, that sort of thing. It took me a bit to get into it as you need to get to know the characters some to fully enjoy it, but once I did it was a blast. Also one of the few shows to ever make me cry, which it somehow does every single time I watch one episode in particular.
As an aside - there's one part which I always found kind of bizarre, where the girls are on the beach and one of them feels embarrassed because she has bigger breasts than everyone else. @George_E_Hale, do you know if that's an actual thing for Japanese girls? I know you have boys and not girls, but thought you might have some insight. It was odd to me because as far as I know, American girls feel self-conscious if they have small breasts, not large ones. But maybe it's different over there, IDK.
Fullmetal Alchemist: 7/10
Note I don't mean Brotherhood here. I've seen that and rate it quite highly (9 or 10), but figured I would focus on the first anime adaptation. Overall it's not as good as Brotherhood, because about halfway through the series they caught up to the manga and had to figure out their own ending. Questions like the origin of the Homunculi and the nature of the alchemy gate play out very differently in this show. I generally prefer the manga author's vision (as seen in Brotherhood) for those plot elements, but this was still good. There are also various parts of the manga that were only adapted into this show, as Brotherhood chose to skip material that was in the first show unless it was critical to the plot. So that is another reason to watch the show, more fun adventures with the characters that you don't get otherwise.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: 9/10 first season, 8/10 second season
While the movie is good (as I argued in the WW thread this week), the show is better. Rather than trying to adapt the Puppet Master story again, the team wisely chose to write their own original story for this. Each season is divided into episodes which are self-contained plots, and episodes which are part of the story arc for that season. This structure works very well for the series, as it means they don't have to stretch the story arc too thin. It also means they can poke into more corners of the world even if they aren't strictly relevant to the main story. Overall I really enjoy the look at day to day operations for Section 9, and getting to know the characters better than you can with a 2-hour movie. It also has my favorite take on the GitS art style, and great music. Season 1 is overall stronger than 2, but both are good and worth watching.
Durarara: 7/10
Based on a light novel (side note: can anyone explain to me the difference between manga and light novels? They seem the same, as they are both comics), this series follows a huge cast of characters as they deal with gang warfare and paranormal activity in their corner of Tokyo. And when I say huge cast, I mean it. There are probably 20-30 characters in this story, all of whom get a decent amount of screen time over the course of the two seasons. The plot gets kind of messy and overly complicated at times, but it's a very fun show and the characters are a treat. There are real gems like Celty (a dullahan, as in the Irish mythical creature), who has lost her head and is working as a courier in the city while she tries to find it. Or Izaya, an info broker who loves to stir up shit just so he can see how people react, because he gets bored otherwise (and who is arguably the villain of the series, to the extent it has one). Or Simon, a black Russian who has landed in Tokyo running a sushi restaurant, and who is freakishly strong (he can throw refrigerators), but who is a devoted pacifist. And a lot more. The plot lets this one down at times, but it's still great fun and the music slaps.
Food Wars: 7/10
This show is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. It's about a culinary school where disputes are settled with dramatic cooking duels, where everyone gets together in the school gym to see whose honor will prevail based on the votes of the judges. It's about a world where people's clothes fall off (mostly girls) when they taste food that is good enough, or people will imagine themselves being forcibly penetrated by squid tentacles as they eat a particularly nasty squid dish. It is not remotely serious or in good taste. But that's exactly why I love it. They go so over the top with the ridiculous premise that it loops back around from "stupid" to "actually hilarious" just by virtue of how hard they commit to the bit. Very fanservice-y, don't watch this one on public transport or anything. You also cannot try to take it seriously, you have to just enjoy it for the farce it is. Special props to the animators for making the food the star of the show, they know that a show focused on dramatic cooking needs to have delicious looking food and they deliver. Some of the recipes actually seem like they would work pretty well in real life, which supposedly is because the manga author worked with an actual chef to develop them and would even include recipes in each issue. I do think the show goes on one or two seasons too long, but it's great fun despite that.
Delicious In Dungeon: undetermined, not yet finished
This show is about a group of adventures who are too poor to afford provisions, so they plan to cook and eat monsters they find in the dungeon. I really wanted to watch this based on the premise alone, it sounded funny and I once DMed for a D&D campaign where my players did a very similar thing. What surprised and delighted me was that it turns out there's a plot, and it's pretty good (so far). I don't want to say much more than that, because for me discovering that was part of the joy. It's also incomplete, so it might not stay good. But possibly the highest praise I can give is this: the story gets so good that I seriously considered buying the manga just to see what happens next faster, and I hate reading manga. The fact that I was that eager for more speaks volumes, to me. I would definitely watch it, but can't really rate it just yet.
I armchair psychologize that many girls who are more well-endowed here (not simply big) develop a kind of hunched-over posture to de-emphasize their tits. Onsen (hot springs) and public bathing are not uncommon here, and a girl who develops breasts larger than the norm will 100 % have this commented on by other girls. While this is also true back in the states (or used to be, I've no idea now) there is a cultural tendency in Japan to avoid standing out. What you describe is not that surprising.
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Light novels are not comics.
Can you explain? Because I've seen pictures of Durarara and it is most certainly a comic. It's panels of artwork with text bubbles and the like, just like manga. I can't tell a difference between the two, which is why I asked.
Light novels are mostly regular books that have occasional anime-style illustrations in them, maybe ten per volume. They are written at a lower level of language complexity and are aimed at younger audiences; basically the Japanese equivalent of YA novels.
Example 1, from "An Introduction to Light Novels".
Example 2, from "What Are Light Novels? How To Write Light Novels?".
Durarara was originally a light novel, and was adapted into both a manga and an anime. This is completely normal in the incestous media ecosystem of Japan; The Saga of Tanya the Evil is another good example.
In general, the lower the production cost, the more titles there are. So these days there are tons of web novels, the most popular of which get rewritten into light novels, the most successful of which get adapted to manga, and only the very best get adapted to anime.
One notable feature of modern anime is that it often serves as essentially an advertisement for the manga or light novels rather than as an end in itself, so you get one or two cours and then nothing, because there is no point in promoting a print series that has already ended. C'est la vie.
Thanks, that helps a ton. It sounds like we don't really have anything directly comparable in the US, since our YA novels don't have illustrations (or they didn't back in the day, maybe they do now).
Yeah I have seen series which don't bother to adapt the entirety of the source material, which can be frustrating when it leaves the story unfinished or rushes the ending. Maoyu was one I saw that was like that - good premise, fun characters, but it managed to feel both rushed and unfinished. My understanding is that the manga was better, but they didn't adapt the whole thing.
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According to both English Wikipedia and Japanese Wikipedia, light novels may have some manga-style illustrations but are not full manga.
I'm not well acquainted with light novels, but Durarara was adapted from its original light-novel format to a manga as well as to an anime, so maybe you saw an image of the manga.
I see. Yeah I wasn't aware of that, so maybe my confusion is caused by having seen the manga without knowing.
It's pretty common for works to only get localized to the West if they're popular enough to have a manga version, or sometimes only after they've had a successful anime release. I'll point to Kino's Journey as a particularly extreme example: it went directly from light novel in 2000 to anime in Japan in 2003, you could find it in the US anime in English in 2005ish, but the manga didn't start until 2010 and for stupid licensing reasons only the first volume was ever officially translated in 2006, and it was nearly impossible to find.
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I will randomly watch anime that my wife is into, and recently started watching "Twin Star Exorcists" My review: if I saw this in middle school I would have been soooooo into this. As a grown man it's pretty cringe, but in a funny way. It is a catalogue of Shonen tropes.
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I think the history of anime aspect of NGE and subsequent movies and what they say about the mental health of the creator is worth a deep dive. The conversation on this show Says Something Culturally Important and interesting about mental health, even if the shows seems a bit dated at the time.
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Just got to the second episode of Madocka magica, and while the premise is interesting and the art is cool, I can definitely see the anime-to-pedo pipeline if this is one of the most popular animes out there.
The covert sexualization of middle school aged girls is uhh.... concerning.
Very interested to hear what you think of episode 3 and following...
Hah I had to stop midway through ep 3. Not because of the sexualization necessarily just a sort of 'what am I doing here' type moment. I find it increasingly hard to 'waste' time nowadays.
Thomas the entire forum got together and discussed it, you need to finish episode 3.
Alright screw it I had a few glasses of wine at my friend's baby's baptism, I'm going in.
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Go ahead and finish episode 3; it has a real bite to it.
The three episode rule was largely established in response to Madoka.
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Finish Episode 3. Don't lose your head.
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You really should finish episode 3. I nope'd out maybe 15 minutes into ep 1 the first time I tried to watch it, and then came back a few months later and decided to give it another go. end of ep 3 is where the preflight checklist is complete and takeoff is acheived.
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Japanese pop culture may not be for you, unfortunately.
(Although, it should be pointed out, there is an entire subgenre of shows/games/books that feature, well, all-male casts, if you'd prefer that...)
I've watched a lot of anime before, most of it isn't this bad tbh. I'm surprised this one is so popular def concerning to me. Also the fact that there's a stay at home dad with a girlboss mom gives me the ick.
But hey I'm still watching it, so...
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I'm reasonably confident there isn't actually an anime to pedo pipeline. Japan just has... different standards.
Also, Madoka? I don't recall seeing anything out of the ordinary there.
Ok as of the second episode I'm changing covert to overt.
For one there are constant close ups of the girls legs in short skirts, and their bosoms. There is a whole thing where the two middle school aged girls are implied to have had sex or at least made out together which is why the other girl is a third wheel. The constant fan servicey outfits and things where guns fall out of the older girl's skirt as she lifts it up, etc etc.
You aren't convincing me this isn't just different standards, lol. Well I suppose it is but it's a standard I oppose. That being said I do like anime and have watched a good bit of it but this sort of stuff turns me off. I'm probably going to try and finish the show though we'll see.
You had me questioning whether or not we watched the same show for a second there. Granted, it's been quite a while.
If you're talking about this, Hitomi's just being stupid about it, and this is a meme for a reason. Also, I hate to break this to you, but 14 year olds do know what lesbians are, and if the mere mention of [a character that age considers that a half-reasonable explanation in the absence of other evidence] is salacious pedo-bait then I really don't understand what wouldn't be.
What bosoms? Most of the girls are relatively flat; the only real exception to that is Mami, and I guess Sayaka's chestplate makes them look a bit bigger. As for the skirts, yes, drawing your attention to that part of the inner thigh is the reason people use that outfit.
Wait, you really think a 'sexuality' predicated on a lack of secondary sexual characteristics would be... enticed by outfits meant to accentuate them? That doesn't make much logical sense to me.
Instead, I think this is just your normal adult woman fetish being activated in a way you're uncomfortable with/not used to and being Very Concerned about it.
I believe Mami is a year or two older than the rest, acting as the mom of the group. Little surprise she's got big honkers,during adolescence those can come out fast.
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incoherent flabbergasted noises
IDK if you read my spoiler note (I wouldn't have in your shoes), but that character was the only good part of the show in my book. I knew we had different taste in things, but don't think I realized how opposite our tastes are until this moment, lol.
Well... for what it's worth I really enjoyed part 1, enjoyed part 2 to a lesser extent, and then really disliked parts 3 and 4 (stopped watching after that). But, in accordance with my newfound realization of how opposite our tastes run, that probably would mean you'd enjoy it? In any case, the British setting lasts only for part 1 (which is also by far the shortest part) so don't let that put you off the show by itself.
You're talking aboutKamina right? I really couldn't stand him I'm afraid. Given that he's dead, I don't suppose he could change my impression of him later on in the series.
Since about 3 of you guys spoke up enthusiastically in favor of TTGL, I'm going to try and finish it regardless. At least you've primed me to expect some ground-shaking changes down the line.
My backlog is rather long at this point! But I'll give it a go. Something about the way the (19th century?) British lifestyle was depicted hit me with an incredible sense of uncanny valley. Hearing Japanese VAs mangle English names didn't help either. (I usually prefer subs over dubs)
Your spoiler tags are broken. Two vertical bars each side, not just one. But yeah that is who I meant. By far my favorite character and honestly the only thing I enjoyed about the show. His antics never failed to make me laugh.
Thanks, fixed that.
Well, there's just no accounting for taste!
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The uncanny valley depiction of foreign cultures is one of the funniest things in Jojo. Wait till you get to the second half of Part 1 (set just before WWII, plenty of wacky Nazis) and to Part 4 (set in a Japanese tourist's dream of Italy). Generally JJBA takes all the things that make shounenslop unwatchable - incredibly long fights, painstaking descriptions of each attack, powerscaling, ridiculous poses, flat characterization, corny villains, etc. - and dials it up so far it becomes amazing even if you normally hate that stuff.
I really want to like Jojo, believe me. I think I've tried watching the first episode at least thrice and bounced off it. Maybe that's just on me, since the reviews are raving. I do intent to give it a fairer examination at some point.
Jojo really finds it's footing in the 3rd arc. Don't get me wrong the first part was good but it's not very bizarre until later.
How many episodes or seasons in is that?
Part 2 (Battle Tendency is where it starts getting pretty bizzare) but it goes up like a hockey stick in part 3. Part 3 was definitely my favorite arc of the show.
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The first episode (and the first arc) of Jojo are really far from what people usually like about it.
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It changes a lot in between parts, in terms of artstyle, storytelling, setting, powers, etc. The first 10 episodes of part 1 (i.e. Part 1 of the original manga) in particular is pretty rough compared to the others, and the action only really kicks off in episode 3, but it certainly kicks off.
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I mean, I think Jojo sucks lol. So it could just be that it isn't for you. But it is fairly popular, so it's probably worth giving a shot up through part 3. That is where the show undergoes a significant transformation in formula, and becomes more or less what it will be for the rest of the series.
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Best anime for anime watchers is Cromartie High. It is near perfect in pacing, absurdity and meta-jokes about anime as a medium to begin with. The english dub is actually better than the sub simply because the ridiculousness of the voiceover heightens the comedy, even when relatively subtle wordplay (rare) is involved. Konosuba achieves largely the same and is a good rip on the extremely tired Isekai power fantasy genre.
Otherwise for seriousness I found Gundam Witch From Mercury one of the best examples of longterm psychological manipulation presented in any medium, all while wrapped in an enjoyable high school drama with good action and decent worldbuilding. Last 2 episodes compressed a season into 2 episodes which is nuts but otherwise it was pretty excellent. A good lighthearted series is Dungeon Meishi which makes an attempt at internal consistency and logical subversion/adherence to fantasy tropes, so its a good time there.
Slice of life isn't quite my style, though I think I watched an odd episode of Azumanga Daioh and liked it.
I'm a bit confused on where to get into Gundam, I've heard that the different series can be very different, and I'm looking for a good mecha anime in the first place.
I would give a slightly unusual but wholehearted recommendation to start with Gundam 00 (my personal favorite of the franchise, and probably one of my favorite anime series in general).
It is fully standalone, so you don’t need to worry about Gundam continuity— while you’ll inevitably miss some of the thematic callbacks to the overarching franchise, the only one that really matters for understanding 00 is that the timeline is pointedly set in terms of “A.D.” time (where other continuities are given alternative labels like being set in “the year 0079 U.C.”), meaning it is supposed to be set in the future of the real world as opposed to a more vague sci-fi future; this is thematically relevant in that the show is really trying to say something about the structure of the world and about the trajectory and nature of humanity. Having been made in the mid-00s a lot of the themes and morals are, in my opinion, notably prescient and are still relevant today.
Without spoiling anything, I think the reason I like the show so much is that it’s one of fairly few anime (or any pop-cultural media really) that you can watch with your “literary analysis brain” engaged and actually get a payoff for it. Damn near every creative decision, plot development, and character arc is meaningful and analyze-able in a way that connects to the central themes and plot. For example this is the reason why my fiancee, who very rarely likes mecha anime, thoroughly loved it— there was always something to talk about after every episode, often something meaty too. I’d caution that it is a bit of a slow burn, but this is deliberate and the pace does pick up as it goes on. It’s definitely not a perfect show, there is filler (although less than in a lot of similar shows, and there’s never an outright wasted episode) and there were some production issues that do show at times, but never anything bad enough to really drag the show down.
Very strong recommendation as an anime in and of itself, regardless of being a Gundam series really.
You've got me sold, thank you for taking the time to review it. Despite my hard scifi fetish, I can occasionally ignore the square-cube law and enjoy a good mecha brawl!
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Best mecha anime was Macross Frontier, honestly. Others mentioned Code Geass below as well, which works. Both have good mech animation, good characters, good pacing. Most of the gundam examples have moments of brilliance bogged down by oceans of slog. The ones cited by others have great scenes or episodes and then multiple filler or slogs that just make it unwatchable.
But the true best robot anime ever is Megas XLR. A giant death robot with a hotrod for a head and a hotter redhead as the boss of the mechs 2 idiot pilots? Pure joy.
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Gundam has a bunch of alternate continuities called "timelines", each of which is canonically independent of the others even though they tend to reuse the same story elements (giant robots, space colonies, a masked antagonist, etc.); think Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem.
The first timeline has the best OVAs (War in the Pocket, Stardust Memory, and The 08th MS Team) but the problem is that the original show which establishes the timeline is a fucking mess. Mobile Suit Gundam has shitty animation, padding, stupid gimmicks designed to sell toys, etc. It's not really worth watching.
I'd recommend starting with Gundam SEED instead, which is basically a modern remake of Mobile Suit Gundam with much better production values, and is a genuinely decent show. Just make sure you watch the original version instead of the HD remaster, and for the love of God avoid the sequel Gundam SEED Destiny.
Which is the one with the national stereotype gundams, ie mexico gundam with the sombrero?
G Gundam? It’s fun, but even by gundam standards pretty goofy.
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Thank you. But Jesus Christ, I really want to know how this particular state of affairs arose. I feel like I'd get a more canonical answer if I earnestly asked what is current Marxist canon.
The exact same thing that happened with Fate.
It turns out that people give you their money if you keep re-imagining the Pacific War in space with giant robots, so when Philip J. Otaku says "Shut up and take my money!", the market responds by supplying as much Gundam as can be sold.
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If you haven't watched it yet, I suggest give Code Geass a try. Although people often say Code Geass is actually not a real or true Mecha anime. I hate the art style and character design and I still watched the whole thing and don't regret it. It's widely considered to have one of the best endings in anime and I have to agree. Also the OST is great.
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If the strange animation doesn't put you off (switching between old and new animation), the Zeta Gundam compilation movies are a great place to start without committing to a full series. There are compilations of the original Gundam, as well, and it's actually those movies that made the story famous after the original series was canceled. Skip ZZ. If you like Ghibli movies watch Turn A.
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IMO:
Of the three core Universal Century series: The original Mobile Suit Gundam has intolerably bad animation; Zeta Gundam is peak; and Gundam ZZ insults the viewer by failing to become good until almost literally the halfway point (episode 23 of 47). But starting with Zeta Gundam while having zero knowledge of the background provided in MSG probably would be a bad idea. I dunno, maybe watch the MSG compilation movies, or play the MSG campaign in an emulated Dynasty Warriors Gundam game (which is how I got into the franchise, sans emulation).
Gundam X is pretty good.
G Gundam and Build Fighters aren't really the same genre as the rest of the franchise, but still are quite fun. (The other Build Fighters and Build Divers series are not nearly as fun, IMO.)
It's been a while since I tried watching Gundam Wing, Turn A Gundam ,Gundam SEED, and Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans, but IIRC I didn't like them much.
The first Gundam I watched was probably SEED, but my personal favorite was Gundam 00. Wing was okay, and I won't recommend Iron-Blooded Orphans because I really didn't like the ending.
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I've reviewed a few of these in older FFTs as well, but I think I didn't say anything about NGE. My honest opinion is that watching it is one of these things you have to do at the right developmental step.
If you are the same age as the protagonists and you've just recently learned self-reflection and furiously reflect every day in the shower and in your own bed, NGE fucking blows your mind. It's literally the pinnacle of "I'm 13 and this is deep", it resonates with you.
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Poser spotted
:(
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For the most part the only anime I watch are movies, rather than TV shows. The one exception was Paranoia Agent, which I adored (helps that it was created by a director, Satoshi Kon, whose cinematic work I'd previously loved - Perfect Blue which was the inspiration for Aronofsky's Black Swan, and Tokyo Godfathers which might be my favourite Christmas movie). A bizarre and blackly comic mashup of police procedural, psychological thriller, fantasy and social satire which I cannot recommend highly enough.
I watched Tokyo Godfathers recently at the suggestion of my wife, and found it quite decent. Absolutely watchable. A rarity among movies in general and anime especially.
Its creator is Satoshi Kon. Of all his works, there is one I would most recommend anyone should read: https://www.makikoitoh.com/journal/satoshi-kons-last-words
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