Where to begin with Anime

[Ric_Flair]

I figure myself as a person that is relatively well versed in different forms of entertainment.  I like Goddard and Miyamoto about the same and I can appreciate the nuances of film and the pleasures of a good video game puzzle.  I also like a bunch of different kinds of music.  I am something of a book whore too.  But I have no idea what the fuck is going on in anime.  So I am posting here for some guidance.  I need a good idea as to where to begin.  What is good to start out with, what is the "Citizen Kane" of anime?  I have seen two Miyazaki movies, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, and I liked both.  I also was totally enthralled by the animation sequences in Kill Bill Vol. 1, but some of the anime my friends have shown me makes no sense and seems to be a lot more posing and shouting than actual story telling.  Am I unlearned or is this just par for the course?  I detest Dragon Ball Z on television.  I can't begin to understand what is going on.  I feel like I am really old when I watch this stuff, but some of it just strikes me a crap.  Enlighten me o denizens of TMD.

[Bram]

Well, I'm no Anime expert or even fan or anything, but I do enjoy a good movie. And there's some damn fine anime out there. I too intensely dislike Pokemon variants. I tend to steer clear of Anime series, too. I'm a movie buff, not a TV one

You already mentioned Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, two of my favorites. Other really (really) good films (albeit more in a cyberpunk/sf than in a fantasy/fairy tale setting) are:
- Akira
- Ghost in the Shell
Both are excellent films regardless of whether you're into anime or not. Superb art direction, amazing, intruiging storylines. Well worth checking out. Also, more of a psychological thriller:
- Perfect Blue.

[edit: added the last film. Couldn't think of the title so I had to look it up)

[Triple_S]

I have very little anime experience myself, but I do have Akira on DVD and would suggest that as a good starting place.

[Kowal]

It's kind of a fad to enjoy Cowboy Bebop, but that's fine with me.

As a general rule, I detest anime because a lot of it follows the "Dragon Ball Z" clause you mentioned.  But Cowboy Bebop has the potential to be interesting, and more often than not is something entertaining and worth watching.

[jpmeyer]

NOWHERE

[Matt]

Grave of the Fireflies was good.

[waSP]

I found Cowboy Bebop to be extremely well done.  It has an excellent sense of style and one of the best soundtracks ever.  I adore Yoko Kanno.  I'm sure everyone has heard Tank, but Piano Black, Jupiter Jazz, and Blue are all stellar pieces.

Naruto is good for the kids (High schoolers, like me).  It makes me think of what I felt like when Pokemon was cool (all three weeks of it).

The others that I have seen were commented upon better than I could, so I'll leave them..

[Jacob Orlove]

Serial Experiments: Lain is crazy.

I'll second the grave of the fireflies, but be warned: it's heart-rendingly sad.

Some cowboy bebop episodes were okay, but I didn't like it that much.

Akira may be the closest to a "Citizen Kane" of anime, though.

[jpmeyer]

OK, fine.  My favorite anime movie is My Neighbor Totoro.  I pretty much only only watch shounen (male/teenage male-audience) comedies and romantic comedies.

While I think Grave of the Fireflies is the best anime movie, like jorlove said, Akira is pretty much considered the Citizen Kane of anime in the sense that it's really what everything seems to get compared to in some way.

I've found that I tend to like the dorama (live-action) versions of anime series more (GTO and Sailor Moon, for instance.)

[Joel Rojo]

Fuck me not, JP, do you really like Live Action Sailor Moon? Even the anime series went to shit fairly quickly, with women who were actually men, and wore leather suits, which made you think, dude, these chicks are hot, and then BANG they grow out penises. There is nothing worse than finding out that a hot chick has a penis.

And yes, Akira started the anime fever in america, other common favorites are Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, and such, in the movie department.

As far as TV anime goes, my personal favorite is Rurouni Kenshin, I think they call it Samurai X in some places, I dont know about the US. Rurouni Kenshin takes occurs in real places and upon a real time (around 1860, in the meiji era) and characters are based on real people. Of course, fighting is a bit fantastic, but totally NOWHERE near DBZ (which i hate), usually exaggerating the character's skill with the katana.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is very, very good, but id rather recommend you to read the mangas than to see the anime series, because seemingly, many people end up disappointed when they see the anime series because they think its about bible related monsters fighting or something, when its totally not. When Im reading the manga, I actually dislike when a fight shows up, because I want the story to go on, even if, actually, the battles are just another way to move the story forward.

Another personal favorite is Slam Dunk, which is MAD fun, imho, its about a high school basketball team. They often get into fist fights, but since they are actually fist fights among normal people, and not aliens shooting lasers or shit to each other, they tend to be pretty enjoyable.

Though, the most fun tv show I have ever seen was Doki Doki Densetsu Mahoujin Guru Guru (which, I think, was called Magical Circle Guru Guru on the US, but wouldnt bet my dog, osama, on it). Of course, a lot of it was because Im pretty much into RPGs.

Magic Knight  Rayearth and Chobits are some of my other favorites, I have been trying to get a hold of Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins, which I hear, mad rule, but I havent been able to see them, same with Escaflowne. This is what I can recall right now.

As a last note, if this post seems as if it was written by a kid, its because I was checking out realultimatepower.net today... geez, its the first time in like 2 years I went back there, and sometimes it sticks, lol.

[Magi]

Apparently the latest craze right now is Full Metal Alchemist. Get that if you can...

I just got the first 26 episodes from a friend sitting on my desk hehehe


But the movies listed in this thread are pretty good.

which made you think, dude, these chicks are hot, and then BANG they grow out penises

This stuff is so bad.

I mean, you're reading a manga (well not reading, but looking at the pictures :p ) and things are looking pretty good and then BAM the shemale action starts, and you just wanna..tear out your eyes...

It's almost as bad as all that tentacle/furry stuff the Japanese seem to enjoy so much.

[Bram]

I don't understand that stuff anyway. Who wants to look at drawn pr0n, expecially sick stuff like rapes, tentacles and shemales? WTF is up with that? Leave it to the japanese to creatue a beautiful, innovative style of drawing that holds infinite possibilities for interesting scripts, and then pervert it into a tool for recording otherwise overly obscene material.

[Dr. Sylvan]

For a forum that roughly 120 people have access to, this place is really busy at 3:30 am.

Though I guess it's not so irrational for the Dutchies to be here now.

Anyway, I figure that for every piece of pr0n I'm not interested, those people are spending less time stalking my friends, so I'm okay with that. It's the same reasoning I use to justify all the dead raksos in the world thanks to the infinite b8ing of internet dwellers.

[Magi]

I don't understand that stuff anyway. Who wants to look at drawn pr0n, expecially sick stuff like rapes, tentacles and shemales? WTF is up with that? Leave it to the japanese to creatue a beautiful, innovative style of drawing that holds infinite possibilities for interesting scripts, and then pervert it into a tool for recording otherwise overly obscene material.

I'm remember watching a show on TLC a while back saying how that fetishes and the like are developed in your subconscious as a child, and when you grow up you manifest them as whatever you desire...something like that. An example they had was how a man as a child liked to play Batman a lot, and he would always get tied up by the bad guy, or whoever happened to be playing the bad guy. Supposedly, that was what instilled in him his bondage fetish.

As for how this could possibly explain how a person could develop a tentacle fetish...I don't know. Maybe said person liked plants as a child?

And as for me, I don't know how I got it (I can't stomach any of that hardcore stuff though) but it must have been all those She-Ra and JEM cartoons.

[walkingdude]

The original Vampire Hunter D is quite good, although you have to be careful because there is a sequel called Vampire Hunter D, Bloodlust which is very visually nice but is mostly just fight scenes.

I’ll second both Perfect Blue and Grave of the Fireflies as excellent.

The basic problem with this thread though is that anmie is a medium, saying “I like animie” is like saying “I like movies,” it doesn’t really tell you all that much. Do you generally prefer action, horror, suspense, comedy, romantic comedy etc? If you give people an idea of what sort of films they like it might help them tailor recommendations.

[Joel Rojo]

To be honest, there is a point I have to concede to live action sailor moon: japanese girls in small school suits. Good looking asian women is usually a pretty good point.

And, seriously, what the fuck is up with the tentacles thing? How could anyone get aroused by that? Dear..., and, psychologically, yes, everything is projection, the example you heard seems too obvious to be true, really, but yes, usually everything you do is actually a projection of something in yourself, this applies even to the way you handwrite and pretty much anything.

[jpmeyer]

To be honest, there is a point I have to concede to live action sailor moon: japanese girls in small school suits. Good looking asian women is usually a pretty good point.

And, seriously, what the fuck is up with the tentacles thing? How could anyone get aroused by that? Dear..., and, psychologically, yes, everything is projection, the example you heard seems too obvious to be true, really, but yes, usually everything you do is actually a projection of something in yourself, this applies even to the way you handwrite and pretty much anything.

Yeah, but in the Sailor Moon Live Action, Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter have deeper voices than me.

With regards to TEH TENTACLES, a lot of that comes from Japan's really convoluted censorship laws.  If you want to know more, you can read Susan Napier's essay "Controlling Bodies: The Body in Pornographic Anime" (from Anime From Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation)

[Magi]

With regards to TEH TENTACLES, a lot of that comes from Japan's really convoluted censorship laws.  If you want to know more, you can read Susan Napier's essay "Controlling Bodies: The Body in Pornographic Anime" (from Anime From Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation)

long story short: Japan outlawed the depiction of human private parts. Fortunately(Unfortunately?) alien demon tentacles were NOT outlawed (dumb loophole). Material was slowly released, it struck a chord with quite a few people, and a whole new genre was born.

I read a few essays on this subject a while back, right after I watched several episodes of "La Blue Girl", "Urotsukidoji", and "Angel of Darkness", to see what the deal was with this stuff. A lot of stuff about how people who like that kind of thing like to dominate women.

Surprisingly, tentacle stuff is actually pretty tame these days compared to some new things artists are trying out. Love those Japanese, always pushing the limit.

[Jebus]

My recomendations.

Anything by Miyazaki.

I'm a huge fan of the Cowboy Bebop series and I recently got to see the movie.  Most excellent.

FLCL (aka Fooly Cooly or Furi Kuri) has got to be one of the most beautiful pieces of work I have ever seen.  It can be very confusing though and has some very VERY weird sequences.

I was very suprised that I enjoyed Love Hina.  I didn't think I could enjoy a romantic comedy, but this one clicked with me.  Kind of crazy at times, but I enjoyed how it poked fun at so many anime cliches.

I really enjoyed Trigun, but the english dub is very poorly done in my opinion.  It's kind of a weird SciFi/Western.

I've been told I should watch Hellsing, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I also recently saw the Animatrix and, well it was way better than Matrix 2 and 3, that's for sure.