So.... Anime.

I have always been one of those "Anime is for jerks!" sort of guys.... but recently I have watched Claymore and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood because they were recommended by friends that don't watch anime. Both of those have FANTASTIC stories and were entertaining through and though. Although I am still partially under the aforementioned "Anime is for jerks!" mindset, it is slightly growing on me. Anyone have any recommendation for good anime shows?

@matthias2437: Cowboy Bebop is a great place to start.

Forget anime, watch Adventure Time instead.

Hellsing. The first FullMetal Alchemist. Trinity Blood. Chrono Crusade. Code Geass. Death Note. I am sure there are plenty more I haven't seen. Anime is awesome.

I'm not much for anime, but I liked Death Note's story and premise, the entire concept is quite cool.

Death Note has a fantastic story, I would really recommend it if you want shorter series.

Death Note, Ghost in a Shell, Akira. and PERSONA 4 THE ANIMATION!!!!1111111111111111111111111111111111111

Cowboy Bebop. Always Cowboy Bebop.

My Little Pony!!!!

Persona 4 and Durarara. Here, let me get you started:

There are a few other animes that I want to watch, but neither of the anime sites I know of have them and I don't know how to tell if an anime site is seedy (outside the obvious, of course).

PERSONA 4,Toradora,Ghost in the shell,Akira,Gosick,Hunter X Hunter.

I'm not much for anime, but I liked Death Note's story and premise, the entire concept is quite cool.

I recommend Cowboy Bebop, Tiger & Bunny, and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Hey, I think you need more encouragement to watch Death Note. So ... Death Note. Clannad/Clannad After Story is a good drama, and my personal favorite so far. You can try Gurren Lagann if you like mecha too.

@Subjugation said:

Hey, I think you need more encouragement to watch Death Note. So ... Death Note. Clannad/Clannad After Story is a good drama, and my personal favorite so far. You can try Gurren Lagann if you like mecha too.

Second Clannad/Clannad After Story shit is good.

@PlasmaBeam44: I religiously watch Adventure Time hah.

@Video_Game_King: I have no clue how I forgot about Persona.

@Video_Game_King said:

Persona 4 and Durarara. Here, let me get you started:

There are a few other animes that I want to watch, but neither of the anime sites I know of have them and I don't know how to tell if an anime site is seedy (outside the obvious, of course).

Durarara is great and if you like that you should try out Baccano, which is by the same team, and I actually liked better. Other good choices are Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, Death Note, Air, the Melencholy of Haruhi Suzimiya, and Angel Beats. For movies I might suggest Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Summer Wars, and Paprika.

@49th: Yeah I have heard a lot of good things about that one.

@adoggz: Hahaha.... jokes.... right?

@adoggz said:

My Little Pony!!!!

You're doing it wrong, but also very right at the same time.

Oh, if you don't mind something that is a tad fanservice-y I'd also reccomend Witchblade. It was on IGN's "Top 10 anime of 2007" list and The Bluray of the complete series is $20 on Amazon right now. Great buy. http://www.amazon.com/Witchblade-Box-Set-Classic-Blu-ray/dp/B005DEUEX6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1333678147&sr=8-2

Cowboy Bebop is wonderful. I would recommend that series next. If you're okay with bawling your eyes out, Grave of the Fireflies is a pretty good movie. I don't know if you'll enjoy it, but I really liked Eyeshield 21. It's an anime about American football. It starts out kind of slow, but it turns into this weird sort of Bad News Bears-style series.

There are probably 50 other anime threads, but whatevs. Go watch Kaiji! Now! Or watch some anime films, duder. Perfect Blue, Redline, Nausicaa. those are all pretty great.

I've never really understood the "anime is for jerks" mindset. There are good and bad anime, just like there are good and bad TV shows, good and bad books, good and bad video games... you get the idea. Granted, I don't watch a whole lot of it myself, because there are some widely used tropes that I don't much care for, but there are always, always exceptions. The original Fullmetal Alchemist anime is probably one of my favorites. Cowboy Bebop, as others have mentioned, is also very good. Basilisk; Berserk; Mushi-Shi; Moribito; Ippo; Higurashi; I could go on for a while longer I'm sure, but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I haven't watched much anime in a few years, but all of the ones I just listed I can say I enjoyed pretty thoroughly.

@matthias2437: Cowboy Bebop, as previously mentioned, is a must. Death Note was good until the 25th episode if i remember correctly, then it went downhill. Ergo Proxy is also an anime i recommend without reservation as well as Guilty Crown. The changes in characters and their actions i thought were quite amazing.

FLCL is kind of amazing. It's probably my favorite anime, and one of my favorite shows of all time.

You should be watching Cowboy Bebop right now. Right now. Right fucking now! As soon as you are done with that then you need to watch Fooly Cooly. Bebop is life changing, and FLCL is simply amazing.

MONSTER.

http://www.animevice.com/monster/11-4611/

Lupin III is like 50 years old but is still super cool, though it resembles old american cartoons more than it does modern anime. I'd recommend most of the shows everyone else suggested, plus Steins;Gate, which was probably the best show of last year.

Cowboy Bebop is a great anime to see for someone who isn't all that into anime. On the other end of the spectrum, for a total mind fuck, I suggest FLCL (Fooly Cooly). Just be prepared for off the wall weirdness with that one. Also, FLCL is only six episodes long. Not much of a time commitment to watch it, which is great. Honorable mention: Gurren Lagann.

• Cowboy Bebop, as has been mentioned.
• The first Full Metal Alchemist - it's worth watching to note the differences and the vastly different, far more cynical last half.
• Baccano!, it's positively magnificent.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion, because that's a landmark series.
• Akira
• Ghost in the Shell - both the movie and SAC
• Yu Yu Hakusho, because it's the best fighting anime I've seen for two reasons: 1) Almost complete lack of filler and 2) Characterization is fantastic! Also, watch the dub of this one, the original Japanese is really dry from what I've heard.
• and Fooly Cooly (FLCL), because it's completely nuts.
• Well, OK, there's also Trigun. But I didn't like Trigun.

@IBurningStar: It is definitely looking like Cowboy Bebop is going to be the next one I watch.

@TheDudeOfGaming: First thing that came up when I searched Ergo Proxy on netflix was My Little Pony: Friendship is magic.... haha

@TruthTellah said:

MONSTER.

http://www.animevice.com/monster/11-4611/

Precisely.

@matthias2437 said:

@49th: Yeah I have heard a lot of good things about that one.

@adoggz: Hahaha.... jokes.... right?

who's joking?

So this has been an overwhelmingly awesome list of shows that I have gotten in the last 20 minutes! Thanks everyone that has given recommendation, I know what I will be watching for about the next 6 months now. (Outside of My Little Pony, I am never watching that. Ever.)

@MikeGosot: I disagree, I liked the first part a lot (say, same as the live action movies), anything after felt too forced.

@Demoskinos said:

@matthias2437: Cowboy Bebop is a great place to start.

there's yer answer.

I'm not crazy about Anime because it tends to disappoint on it's premise or it would start interesting and then the series takes a huge dive.

Really it depends on what you're into. Some niche series tend to be extremely formulaic, like Initial D, but i'm into it.

@matthias2437: Good luck, hope you enjoy the recommendations. Probably important to warn you (though you likely already realize it) that some shows can start off pretty slowly, but if you stick with them they can end up really great. (And there are shows that start off slow and never go anywhere, but hopefully you don't end up with any stinkers like that.)

Definitely Cowboy Bebop. Fooly Cooly is great if you love crazy. Also, pretty much any movie made by Hayao Miyazaki.

I actually preferred the original Fullmetal Alchemist to Brotherhood by a wide margin so it may be worth checking that out depending on how much you enjoyed Brotherhood.

Oh, and Grave of the Fireflies if you want to feel bad.

Death Note is a must see.

no one mentioned eden of the east so I'll say that, it's similar to death note & code geass except the protagonist isn't a judgemental asshole

@EchoEcho said:

Probably important to warn you (though you likely already realize it) that some shows can start off pretty slowly, but if you stick with them they can end up really great.

Is that, like, a general rule for anime? It seems to be true of my experiences.

Death Note, Trigun, Hellsing (ultimate and the OAV), Neon Genesis Evangelion, and after that you can start getting into the weird stuff.

Also if you can deal with the abstractness and insanity, watch FLCL, its pretty short and is amazing.

Ghost in the Shell

Baccano

Samurai Champloo

Karas

Katanagatari

Redline

Mardock Scramble

Kara no Kyoukai (The Garden of Sinners)

This is a great Anime. Only 23 episodes long too I think.

@Video_Game_King: Of the series I've seen, it seems to be fairly typical, with some exceptions. A lot of anime seem to take their sweet time building up to the point, which is a really double-edged sword. On the one hand it makes the payoff bigger (unless as mentioned it's a show that goes nowhere, in which case it's just a waste of time), but on the other it becomes a major investment when you could be watching something that's really engaging right from the get-go.

Makes it even more awkward when it's a show that was drawing things out under the assumption that they'd have two or more seasons, only to end up getting cancelled. At which point the story either just... stops, or the entire second half of the story ends up getting crammed into a handful of episodes, which is almost just as bad, as it almost never compresses in a way that does the story any justice at all.

I've watched a lot of anime, but Clannad is the series I continually recommend to anyone and everyone, then Clannad After Story after that. It sounds silly, but I've pretty much never felt so much emotion towards any characters in anything like I have in Clannad. Even the what if? scenario episodes are great.

Other than that, the first few seasons of Bleach are really good, it kind of peaks and then it's up and down after that. Fairy Tail is great if you like something that's a little more light-hearted and it's only getting better and better with each season, if you want something on-going to jump into, Fairy Tail might just be the way to go.

I can get behind the first Full Metal Alchemist. Trigun is pretty solid. If you're feeling for something a little more actionly, I would recommend Black Lagoon.

Eden of the East. One of the best TV SHOWS i've ever seen.

Samurai Champloo is awsome, FMA brotherhood better than the originals! Naruto is very animee ish but if u can bear through the first 20 or so episodes you will get hooked. My personal favorites in this order are Code geass, Naruto, FMA brotherhood, then probably death note.