Let's kick things off, in this topic you can start discussions, mentions, recommendations or whatever about different animes if don't want to make a topic for it.

I've seen somewhere around 200 different animes so far and counting, and there's certainly a lot of garbage out there. While there are good ones, there are very few definite must watch animes- at least that I personally would recommend for various reasons. Because they drag on, are too dull at times, cliche, lousy plot, not interesting enough or aren't proper for non anime people and etc. Even I watch some animes in fast forward or at least some of their episodes.

I'll start by mentioning an anime I've seen recently.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

I watched dennou coil awhile ago, it wasn't my favorite series by any means, but it wasn't bad either... In the very least I liked it for it's take on augmented reality, and comparing it with how I assume the technology will end up being used (and what is and is not plausible).

Well it's like I said, that anime series can be one of those things that you either love or hate depending upon ones tastes. Read varying comments places, the majority thought of dennou coil as amazing though. You obviously can't please everyone however, and no story is meant to. That anime has recieved many rewards, and is considered one of the best animes of 2007.

What would you define as a favorite? Can help give an idea of what ones tastes in anime is.


If you're a fan of humor and bathroom humor then Gintama is the winner in that section, best bathroom humor and some of the best humor in an anime ever. There's action and blood too, pretty much no overall plot however- and you just get some serious story(normally containing lots of humor still) during a so many episode arc every so often. Also there will be many unentertaining episodes, and with the series stopping just recently at 201 episodes until the manga catches up likely. It's certainly and obviously only for the hardcore anime crowd who has the time to watch, and can bare through the rough times of it. It's not something that can be judged by just a few episodes, certainly not an anime that I'd recommend to a non anime fan- or to someone that doesn't care for it's style of humor. I'd say give it at least 75 episodes, it should spark your interest by then if it's for you.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

I liked Dennou Coil better then I liked Gintima, as I didn't like Gintama much at all. I didn't love or hate it, therefore I wouldn't categorize it as something as something you'd either love or hate, if i hated it I wouldn't have finished it.

As for anime I had as favorites, currently I'm watching FMA:Brotherhood (I have a large standing hatred for the original series due to the manga, and thus brotherhood being much better). I like all kinds of stuff though, just off the top of my head, Sayonara Zetabui Sensai... or however you spell it. I liked Honey and Clover... Clannad was quite good... Monster was really good... the girl who lept threw time... uh... azumanga...?

A lot of good series's, I have a hard time listing them though just off the top of my head, especially as I've not watched anime actively for awhile. I think the newest anime I've seen other then FMA:B was toradora... and I watched that just after the season ended.

Never watched the original FMA series, watched Brotherhood and it's pretty good, as it follows the manga more closely. Toradora I didn't like, it got better at the very end though. What didn't you like about gintama, and how far you go with it? Doesn't start off too good but it gets a lot better, first real arc doesn't even start until over 50+ episodes in- comedy and such gets better too.

If I had to name a must watch anime then Baccano! comes to mind, that story was pretty crazy. Jumped all over the place, skip the last 3 extra episodes though as they were lousy. If you like Baccano! then you'll probably like Durarara!! too, as it's by the same author- not as good imo though.

I watch animes as they come out seasonally, as do many others. Picked these from the current season, Angel Beats!, K-ON!! (S2), Working!, Arakawa Under The Bridge, Kaichou Wa Maid-sama, Senkou No Night Raid.

A place like http://www.anidb.net is good for finding out seasonal animes through the calender, and information about animes- fansub groups, seiyuus, airing dates and etc.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

I follow a few rules now for anime watching after I used to watch a crap ton of them. I break them for a few series, but it's pretty rare.

I only watch things recommended to me (I have a few specific sources that know what I'll like and what I won't) to counteract the fact that at one point I felt like I had a large queue of anime and it became work.
I only watch completed series (a lot of series I liked were stalled and then canceled by fansubbers, not to mention wanting to see the next episode is annoying, meaning I can stop at points that don't bother me, without week long breaks).
I rarely watch series over 45 episodes (because shows that last 200 episodes no matter how good the plot is, is dull).


--edit--
Oh yeah, other stuff, I watched gintima when it started, for a few weeks, then stopped, wasn't good enough early on, I've heard it's good later on, but I'm not going to mess with it, it violates with too many of my rules now. For this season I might watch K-On 2... I'm not sure if it's going to be worthwhile though, I liked the first season alright, perhaps this summer when I have some time.

I'll admit that for example the Detective Conan anime has dragged on ridiculously with ultra slow plot move'll, can only hope that the author ends that story in their lifetime.

Aside from that anime though.. A long anime isn't specifically a bad thing, some animes are better short. But with an anime made right and that stays entertaining, many wouldn't mind if it never ended- or went on for over a thousand episodes. Example as a fan of comedy, one can never get enough of original concepts that will make one laugh. As I near finishing the first Gintama season 201 episode anime, it certainly doesn't feel like it got dull- but looking forward to the second season that will come eventually for it.

Have you watched a series with a lot of episodes that got dull that you have that base opinion because of? Don't really think an anime is worth skipping because of guidelines if there's potential.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

I base my opinion off the fact that I've watched a hell too many anime's back in the day that I never had time to finish, whether or not I thought the plot was decent. Not to mention a 200 episodes at 20 minutes an episode (they're normally 24) 66 hours of anime, I do not have that much time to devote to a single anime, especially since I've not seen a single series with a plot with enough depth to warrant that many episodes. The only type of series that I could warrant that many episodes for is the type of show that doesn't really have an important plot line at all, and even then I prefer the thing split up into different series with their own minor introductions and resolutions resolutions. I really just don't have the time to commit to the long series, and if there's no draw to have me watch them all, I can assure you there's enough quality anime to last me a life time following my ruleset. I still have absolutely no clue why any series should have 200+ episodes, gintima will probably have 400+, I seriously doubt that there is anything particularly amazing that could neither be either done much quicker to just as good of effect, or can't be found somewhere else.

Honestly though my ruleset is based upon watching too much anime back in 2k5ish, but it really doesn't matter, It's pure entertainment, I'll choose to watch what I want to watch and I'll choose to like what I want to like. I don't honestly see any reason for me to change my choices currently. I honestly don't particularly care whether or not you think I'm some arrogant prick who just discounts everything for no reason. I have not made judgements on series that I've not taken the time to watch, and when I watched gintima first none of those rules were even in effect, I decided I didn't like it for the reason of atleast in the first 5 or 6 episodes that I had watched, I really didn't enjoy it. I really couldn't have watched any farther either, seeing as the series had just started at the time. Are we going to discuss our opinions on anime or argue about them, because if it must be the latter I think I'll be leaving now... Either way though, I'm going to go eat dinner.

It's understandable that there's only so much time to watch stuff, not asking you to change your guidelines or anything or saying you must watch something. Was just asking and giving my opinion about the matters, not meant to argue but as normal discussion- didn't mean to come off as rude or insulting.


If there's to be discussion, there needs to be a subject for discussion afterall.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

Yeah, sorry I'm just a tad on edge today, I was going to change it after dinner if you hadn't replied... been a tad of a long day, to be noted I do ignore the guidelines, monster for example violates my guidelines, so if it's something very highly recommended to me by someone I trust understands my taste I'll pass it up. Luckily with monster I had the time to watch most of it in marathon form. I'll probably watch alot more anime over the summer when I don't have tests and finals to deal with.

Boy fireball, you sure are hot-headed. :P (*SHOT* for lame pun)

Anyway, to be honest, I've never been a big anime person, nor really a big television-watcher. The only anime that I can remember watching through completely was Jetters. I've seen assorted random episodes from several different animes, but none was particularly my favorite. So as far as recommendations go, I don't really know.

I'll probably just use this topic to check out stuff you guys are interested in. Although I'm thinking about checking into some shows I've heard about over the years, so if I ever get to watching those I'll let you know about it.

I actually haven't been in much of an anime mood lately. The last anime I watched recently was this kind of old OVA titled "Riding Bean," based on a character from another anime/manga series called Gunsmith Cats, upon recommendation from my brother.

As long as you don't watch it dubbed, it was pretty solid. I watched it dubbed up until Bean first said something then switched to subs. It was really lousy dubbing even for a early 90s OVA. But anyway, it's pretty badass. The title character is this dude named Bean Bandit, known as the "Roadbuster." He's a guy who makes a living by doing various different kind of work that involve him driving (escort duty, getaway car, etc.). Because of his line of work, he is often bending the law and is in trouble with police, but he actually isn't a bad guy, so to speak. He's pretty badass, wearing a bulletproof jacket and bandanna (yes, a bullet proof bandanna), rips open car doors with his bare hands, skilled with a knife, and he eats walnuts with the shells still on. He's exactly the kind of guy you doesn't want to mess with.

Anyway, he ends up taking a job to escort a little girl back home. What he doesn't realize was that he was setup to look like he kidnapped her so that the real kidnappers can get away with their ransom money while Bean takes the blame. Bean wasn't exactly down with that and he sets off to go after the real kidnappers and clear his name (and take their ransom money as a reward). If you like ridiculous action and car chases (Bean's car is customized to do these ridiculous things like turn the wheels in a 90 degree angle, blades come out from the wheels to help him stop faster, and the entire car is bullet proof to name a few), it's pretty good. And it's only about 45 minutes long so it's not too much of your time wasted.

I've also been eagerly anticipating the new season of Haruhi Suzumiya, along with the new movie, "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya," which I hear is absolutely fantastic. I'd watch both of them, but my comp sucks for just about everything and apparently the only distributed video for the movie that's out on the Internet is a blurry camcorded rip from one of the movie theater showings (hopefully I don't need to explain why I don't want to watch this version). I've also been interested in a few other anime series/OVAs, but I haven't been in much of an anime mood lately.

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The Local Video Gaming Lunatic

Recent stuff I'm into:

Watching: A Certain Scientific Railgun (ep.14, stalled), Hoshi no Kirby (ep. 71, stalled), Nazo No Kanojo X (ep. 8), Acchi Kocchi (ep. 8)
Reading: nothing

I personally didn't like the haruhi series, felt that it was overrated when I saw it a few years ago. Someone who I talk to online who has seen around 500 different animes also didn't care for it, really nothing special about it.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

Unless you want to make me angry again, I'd somewhat suggest avoiding trying to back your opinion up like this. Expert opinion (or in the prior case, what "most people thought") have little no place in discussions about things that are purely taste. They're at best irrelivant, and at worst a cheap debate trick used as an attempt to artificially add value to your opinions, effectively devaluing everyone elses. It's one of about 3 things that ended up annoying me before, and seeing as I've both set peoples opinion of me for the time being as a "hot head" if stuff appears again I might as well point it out now.



As for Haruhi I kindof liked it, it also wasn't a favorite series, but I liked it, as it was wierd enough to be funny enough of the time. I liked some of the odder episodes, like the computer game episode, and I really kindof liked the intro episode, it wasn't all that funny, but the "faked bad camerawork" and absolutely rediculousness of it all reminded me of wierd crap I used to do in highschool.

Well I was just saying that from the point of some others who have watched loads of animes in the amount of hundreds, with loads of high level animes so to speak to compare it to. There's nothing too special about it for it to have drawn as much attention to it as it did, thus the word overrated. I've noticed years ago how it drew in non anime fans, so that could relate to it. People who don't really have much to compare it to could view it as something much better then it is, and it spreads through those type of people and thus gets overrated.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

I willingly admit that the Haruhi series is perhaps a tad bit overrated. But it's definitely among one of my top 10 favorite anime, without a doubt. I guess it isn't something for everyone to enjoy.

The intro episode is such a tease since it really has little to do with what the anime's actually about. But I find it to be one of the most hilarious episodes in the series, pretty much because it captures the essence of an amateur movie so perfectly (not to mention that Kyon's thoughts were almost always funny). The computer game episode was also one of my personal favorite episodes.

Not sure if you're interested enough, but the manga and original light novels are also quite good, although both the anime and manga pretty much use the light novels as reference material (I guess you could say that if you've seen one, you've seen them all). It could be argued that the light novels are better as they're obviously more in depth then the anime and manga adaptions, but that really boils down to a matter of opinion in the end. I like them all so far.

EDIT:


And there are people who have watched hundreds of different anime and loved Haruhi. It all just boils down to a matter of opinion in the end.


You're speaking as if most people that watched Haruhi watched it as one of their first anime, and somehow I highly doubt that.

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The Local Video Gaming Lunatic

Recent stuff I'm into:

Watching: A Certain Scientific Railgun (ep.14, stalled), Hoshi no Kirby (ep. 71, stalled), Nazo No Kanojo X (ep. 8), Acchi Kocchi (ep. 8)
Reading: nothing

Never got into the Haruhi series, though my friend watches it despite the fact that he's not much of an anime fan (yet he does watch Yu-Gi-Oh abridged).

I'm usually more into the mecha anime like the Gundam series (although the only one I've watched and I'm still watching is Gundam Wing) and Escaflowne. I also watch stuff that isn't mecha, like the Miyazaki films (especially liked Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Porco Rosso).

For Escaflowne, I prefer to watch to it in subs since I despise the English dub so much   but lots who saw it say it's a very beautiful anime along with the music. But of course, if mecha isn't your thing, you don't have to watch it. Escaflowne is about a teenage girl who gets transported to a world called Gaea and she meets a young prince. The girl finds out that she has mystical powers that she must use to fight the Zaibach Empire.

Those were just some suggestions though. I was never really into the shows that were based off video games for some reason, they just don't hook me into watching them.

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She's a maniac~

This one forum that I used to go to in the past with people I knew from there, they indeed did do stuff like that. Having only watched death note and haruhi, and one or two having watched bleach. And a few would go around recommending it saying people should watch haruhi and death note, because it's awesome or whatever- boasting about something with pretty much no experience in any other anime. But the thing is too, they wouldn't even give other animes a shot- I had tried recommending some.

So like I said, I'm just basing this stuff off of things that I have personally come across. It's not solid proof or fact, just opinion based on experience- and theorizing with that. It obviously comes down to taste as no anime is for everyone as I've said before, but there's other possible apparent factors that causes stuff to get overrated- and I was running guesses at that based off of experience.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

Nah, you've mentioned two anime fans that thought it wasn't that great. It's popular with anime fans here and abroad too. I'm still not quite sure that stating that you and your expert panel have years of experience has anything to do with the matter or not. Haruhi only really had ridiculous representation in anime fan groups anyway, I can guarantee if I ask any random person on the street they'll have no clue what I'm talking about, nor can I think of many people who have seen Haruhi and no other anime series, if you ask a random person you're more likely to get something that was localized and somewhat popular here, like dragonball z, gundam wing or full metal alchemist. That said, haruhi doesn't need to have something special to it to be a good series, not that it's easy for me to think of shows that did what Haruhi did better. I honestly wouldn't complain about it even if it were a substandard series (and in my opinion it's not), as the more anime fans it supposedly brings in, the more people you can get to watch serieses that are better.


--edit--
I liked escaflowne quite well, it's probably my favorite mecha, though I'm not a huge fan of mechas. I watched a few the terrible dubs fox put out back when it original aired in the states. It was certainly nice to go back to a series from my childhood that seemed good but with some serious issues and have most of them resolved by better translation.

I'm planning to watch some shows like Lupin III, FMA, and maybe Berserk, Elfen Lied, and Bleach. Maybe I'll even watch Hellsing and probably other shows of the Gundam series and maybe Slayers. I've already seen Death Note and it was pretty good and I've lately been addicted to the opening and ending songs.

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She's a maniac~