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The Anime Watching and Recommendation Thread (94 series now watched and rated)
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Sun, 02 Jun 2013 21:22:42
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For impressions, opinions and reccomendations. Please share.

The list of anime series I've seen so far from best to worst

BEST

  • Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood - a deep, compelling back story coupled with breathless performances
  • Fairy Tail - hilarious, touching and kickass, Fairy Tail is like an RPG sitcom
  • Avatar The Last Airbender - martial arts series inspired by Chinese folklore
  • Fist of the North Star (80s series) - Lived up to the 80s movie, a manly uber violent series with a heart
  • Hunter x Hunter - Gon sets out to find his father by becoming a pro Hunter
  • Code Geass - Death Note machinations (cheating a little) crossed with mechs, eggcellent
  • One Piece - much like Fairy Tail, some hardcore action and hilarity on the high seas with this pirate crew
  • Attack on Titan - brilliantly maintained tension - man eating giants attack humanity and their last city
  • Toradora! - A love story that airs more on the side of comedy, funny, smart, restrained, suspenseful, awesome
  • Hellsing Ultimate - sensationally O.T.T. Vampire series harkens back to the 90s
  • Full Metal Alchemist (original)- only here because Brotherhood shames it
  • Fist of the North Star Legends of the True Savior movie series - Major events from the series get shortened modern versions
  • Claymore - would be ranked higher - swords and monsters epic - whose story is sadly incomplete
  • Blood + - Superpowered schoolgirl fights superpowered monsters
  • Death Note - Exhaustive to watch, sometimes brilliantly clever series. Make sure you pay attention  when you watch it
  • Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple - resolute school kid Kenichi trains to become the ultimate fighter
  • Bleach - there's a lot of crummy-er episodes to wade through, do so and you will be rewarded with memorable fights and characters
  • Eden of the East - an excellent 12 episode complete story conspiracy thriller/light romance comedy
  • No Game No Life - Delightfully inventive and humourous tale of siblings dropped into a world of games
  • Blue Exorcist - the son of Satan trains to fight his father. A warm, whimsical funny/actioner
  • Ben-To! - the first rule about Ben-to is that everyone will fight over Bento boxes at the supermarket - this is fun!
  • Durarara!! - Clever, engrossing but strange series about a Tokyo district and its colourful residents
  • Psycho Pass season 1 - Future cops measure guilt on how healthy your frame of mind is with a special gun
  • Spice and Wolf - Delightfully playful series about a merchant and wolf god woman who travel across Italy
  • Fist of the North Star 2 - Kenshiro crosses the ocean to face a new load of assholes - A lot crazier and faster paced
  • The Devil is a Part Timer - A sitcom where Satan is exiled to Earth to work at a McDonalds - very funny
  • Magi Labyrinth/Kingdom of Magic - Middle Eastern myth inspired tale from the makers of Fairytail
  • Log Horizon - real people stuck in an RPG game start to adjust to their new surroundings
  • Legend of Korra The follow up to Avatar is good but fails to capture the same fun of the original
  • Berserk (the series) - Aside from some very dated presentation at times, this is a good swords and sandals epic
  • Samurai 7 - a remake of Kurosawas' The Seven Samurai set in the future. Very likeable and solid series
  • Jojos' Bizaare Adventure - an epic comedy/drama/horror that lives up to its name
  • Jojos' Bizaare Adventure: Stardust Crusaders the continuing series on the Jojo lineage is just as random, and hilarious
  • The Seven Deadly Sins - six traitorous knights return to the kingdom to set right wrongs
  • Broken Blade - one country invades another with mechs, not inventive but good
  • Love Chunibyo & other delusions - comedy about a girl whose mind lives in a fantasy world
  • Nisekoi False Love - Comedy about two people having to pretend to be in love or their mafia families will go to war
  • The Familiar of Zero (seasons 1-3) - Harem comedy where a Tokyo boy gets summoned to a witch in a fantasy world
  • World Conquest Zvezda Plot - comedy about a little girl who forms a squad of weirdos to take over the world
  • Beyond The Boundary - short but sweet supernatural comedy action series
  • Afro Samurai Directors Cut - 5 episodes of swaggering badassery
  • Golden Time - Comedy/Drama about a guy suffering amnesia who comes to terms with his new life at college
  • Robotics Notes - a school club builds a massive robot to save the world
  • Kill la Kill - super powered clothing tries to dominate the world at an academy - gets better in the 2nd half
  • Gantz - a completely unpredictable tale in which the dead are made to fight... aliens
  • Full Metal Panic FUMOFFU - Comedy focused spin off 13 episode series to the main series
  • Beserk Movie Trilogy - A glossy re-telling of the Berserk story, not really much different from the series
  • Jormungand - a young boy is recruited into a group of well meaning arms smugglers
  • Full Metal Panic - A high school comedy rudely interupted by more boring mech battles
  • Steins Gate - Somewhat overated time travel drama, too long for what it is and not impactful enough
  • Accel World - users enter Brain Burst, a virtual world where they can experience superhuman abilities
  • The Future Diary - future seeing people knock each other off to become God
  • Bacaano! - bizaare 30s set mobster story involving immortals and a train heist
  • Angel Beats -  A strange, dramatic, touching and funny 13 episode series about dead kids refusing to be reincarnated
  • Samurai Champloo style over substance martial arts fest with an awesome soundtrack
  • High School of the Dead - like the walking dead, with boobs and school kids
  • Kids on the Slope a good and funny slice of life anime that is pretty classy with a good and obvious love of jazz music
  • Another - School based asian Ghost story/Horror, a curse is unleashed
  • Danganronpa (Season 1) - people trapped in a bunker like school have to bump each other off
  • D-Gray Man - generic and takes a while to get into but entertaining eventually.
  • Akame ga Kill - rebel assasains try to free the people from a corrupt government using special weapons
  • Black Bullet - future Tokyo is under attack by giant creatures and only cursed children and their guardians can help
  • Girls Und Panzer - schoolgirls take up the hobby of tankery, non-violent tactical warfare
  • Kampfer - gender bending Harem comedy where everybody is a lesbian
  • The Comic Artist and his Assistants - A perverted manga artist deals with his female assistents
  • Noragami - (Season 1) a "God" tries to makes ends meet doing meanial jobs in modern day Japan
  • Supernatural The Anime - a not too bad anime mix of original and anime re-made episodes
  • Legends of the Dark King: A Fist of the North Star Story - underwhelming Rao origin series that has a couple of good bits
  • Deadman Wonderland - imagine The Running Man set in a prison with superpowered beings - yet boring
  • Rosario + Vampire - Harem comedy se in a Monster Academy - repetitive and cheesy
  • A Certain Magical Index season 1 - some cring inducing moralising and a mostly flat story
  • Blade and Soul - based on the MMO, an assasin on the run meets various people and fights Jin Varrel
  • Campione! - A human who kills a God becomes a Campione! And then it goes downhill like Rosario Vampire
  • Un Go - starts well, then descends into strangeness then the predictable
  • Clannad - depressing and pointless series peppered with some lovable and funny moments
  • Elfen Lied - tonally inconsistent anime, about a deadly girl with cat ears who kills many people
  • Blade - the best of Marvels animes deals with a subject anime already does well with - vampires
  • X-Men - it's more like a Resident Evil anime but that's not a bad thing...
  • Iron Man - Errr, it's okay... sorta
  • Wolverine - Errr, it's okay... sorta
  • Chrono Crusade ~~(abandoned after a few episodes) I think I watched some of these in the wrong order, otherwise decent
  • Karneval - a govt agency called Circus travels the globe hunting monsters and the mysterious Kafka organisation
  • Hellsing: Original series ~~(abandoned after a few episodes) seemed horrible at the time, but in light of Ultimate I may try again
  • Cowboy Bebop (abandoned after a few episodes) the same thing repeated every episode, style over substance
  • New Fist of the North Star - weaksauce 3 part new story
  • Bodacious Space Pirates - how they fucked this one up I will never know, it's a snoozefest
  • Rideback - ballet dancer becomes pilot of a transforming motorcycle, a little boring
  • Blood C - awful horrible, ruins Blood franchise, Saya fights Dragonquest like enemies, soooo bad
  • The Ambition of Oda Nobuna - You watch it, hoping it gets better..... it doesn't
  • Bakuman - boring non-fantasy show about manga artists. Feels very forced.
  • Vampire Knight - yikes, horribad romance horror mashup
  • Nadia Secret of Bluewater - really old Ghibli rip off
  • Yu Yaksu (Whatever) is a hero, boring shite too similar to Puella Madoka.
  • From the New World sucks ASS.
  • Excel Saga - a show so obnoxious it makes you want to break the tv remote
  • Shigeru Death Frenzy - inscrutable Japanese names, perirously slow, horrible narration and time jumps

WORST^ end of the list

REVIEWS:

2vd02zt.jpg
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - Japan Anime Series - English Dubbed

Story: After a tragic event two brothers embark on a journey to recover their original bodies. Set in a world of alchemy, alchemists use magic like a science in a country dominated by a military dictatorship.

Not to be confused with the original Fullmetal Alchemist series, Brotherhood is based on the original material. This is an almost perfect series -  hell it is perfect. Not a word I would ever use with almost anything else, this series wraps everything up with the most perfect of bows. There's a deep backstory, compelling characters, conspiracy, intrigue, action, revelations and comedy in an intellectual property that by all rights should be as popular and well known as Star Wars or Harry Potter. And it's probably better than both of those too.  Every aspect of this series, from the music, script, voice acting and animation are top notch. If you only watch one anime series, make sure it's this.

Rating: A+

Fairy Tail - Japan - Action Adventure Comedy- Anime Series - English dub

Story: Lucy, a 17 year old girl, sets out on journey to become a full-fledged wizard and joins the strongest and most (in)famous guild FAIRY TAIL where she meets Natsu, Happy, Gray and Erza, who treat her more like family than friends. This epic series takes us through all the dangers that the members of fairy tail face and eventually overcome through mutual love and friendship.

There's an epic moment in Fairy Tail, when the whole guild smashes into a rival guild for revenge - the message? You don't f*** with Fairy Tail or their friends, or they'll f*** you up. Fairy Tail is mostly an unabashedly fun and lighthearted show most of the time. But is has the ability to turn on a dime into something more meaningful and epic. To rachet up the emotions and wrap you up in its fantasy world.

Rating: A+ for fun

Note: Doesn't get great till episode 17-ish when more backstory is referenced

Hellsing Ultimate - Japan - Anime - Horror

Story: In world of undead things, a British organisation established by the Van Helsing family uses a powerful and bloodthirsty vampire as their ultimate weapon against the darkness.

Don't confuse this with the original  and bad Hellsing anime series - Ultimate is based more accurately on the manga and is on a whole other level of awesome. For a start, the animation is wonderfully glossy and rich, we're talking movie level animation with extremely high production levels. Hellsing Ultimate is about excess, glorious, wonderful excess and accepting the descent into bloody darkness and savagery. Everything is completely over the top, for instancea Nazi general gives what feels like a nonstop 15 minute speech on why he loves war, Alucard the vampire talks about death and killing with such savagery in his voice you can feel the delight he revels in. How can you not enjoy an anime with Nazi vampires invading London?

Rating: A

Large pic

Note: Part 1 is bad, stick with it.

Edited: Tue, 07 Jun 2016 16:11:49

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Sun, 02 Jun 2013 21:39:44
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Death Note is great, but it kind of loses some steam in the second half. Cowboy Bebop is also good.

A great comedy series that never takes itself too seriously is GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka). Easily one of my favorite anime series of all time.

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Sun, 02 Jun 2013 21:47:09
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I watched High School of the Dead Season 1 on Netflix a while back. It's a pretty good comedy-horror anime if you like zombies, and don't mind lots of fan service. LOL

Hmm, I wonder if Season 2 is available yet. Nyaa

Edited: Mon, 03 Jun 2013 01:35:53

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Sun, 02 Jun 2013 23:20:05
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Azumanga Daioh!

Chiyo Chan!

I think of it as Japanese Seinfeld with anime schoolgirls.  No demons, though.

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Mon, 03 Jun 2013 03:12:58
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Planetes. But maybe you'll find it dull. In which case you suck.

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Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:36:39
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SteelAttack said:

A great comedy series that never takes itself too seriously is GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka). Easily one of my favorite anime series of all time.

"Your search for "Great Teacher Onizuka" did not match any titles" Damnit, not availible here. Any others?

Ravenprose said:

I watched High School of the Dead Season 1 on Netflix a while back. It's a pretty good comedy-horror anime if you like zombies, and don't mind lots of fan service. LOL

Hmm, I wonder if Season 2 is available yet. Nyaa

There's only two discs availible? How many episodes is it?

Yodariquo said:
Azumanga Daioh!

Chiyo Chan!


I think of it as Japanese Seinfeld with anime schoolgirls.  No demons, though.

I'll try it thanks.

Foolz said:

Planetes. But maybe you'll find it dull. In which case you suck.

Can't find it here, does it have another name?

Keep em coming guys. thanks.

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Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:47:54
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I don't think it has another name.

It's sci-fi, but it's hard sci-fi, so the sci-fi part isn't a big gimmick or anything. But that has lead to a lot of people thinking it's dull. It's a drama, but it is amusing at times.

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Mon, 03 Jun 2013 11:25:23
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I don't think I will be able to find this one, seems like I might not like it either.

On anime in general anyone notice how a lot of episodes don't have your typical proper conclusion? I've seen so many episodes just end like they were cut down the middle. It can be very frustrating. Also there are these reflective episodes where they look back on how far they've come which are interesting.

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Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:18:30
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gamingeek said:

There's only two discs availible? How many episodes is it?

12 episodes.

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Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:20:29

I'll defintely try it, thanks.

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Mon, 03 Jun 2013 21:34:43

Where do you watch them?

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Tue, 04 Jun 2013 03:17:30
gamingeek said:

I don't think I will be able to find this one, seems like I might not like it either.

On anime in general anyone notice how a lot of episodes don't have your typical proper conclusion? I've seen so many episodes just end like they were cut down the middle. It can be very frustrating. Also there are these reflective episodes where they look back on how far they've come which are interesting.

Do you watch past the end credits, GG? Anime tends to have quite a bit more footage after the credits for some reason. I know High School of the Dead does this, and I've seen other shows do it as well.

Edited: Tue, 04 Jun 2013 03:21:13

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Tue, 04 Jun 2013 09:52:42
Ravenprose said:

Do you watch past the end credits, GG? Anime tends to have quite a bit more footage after the credits for some reason. I know High School of the Dead does this, and I've seen other shows do it as well.

The only bits past the credits I have seen are previews for the next episode.

SteelAttack said:

Where do you watch them?

http://www.lovefilm.com/c/?token=%253Fu%253D%25252Fcatalog%25252Fvideo%25253Funique%25253Dseries%252526mature%25253D1%252526type%25253Dseries%25252BOR%25252Bfeature%25252BOR%25252Bfilm%25252BOR%25252Bgame%252526f%25253D_fmt%2525257Cphysical%252526f%25253Dgenre%2525257C7338%252526f%25253D_fmt%2525257Cdvd%252526adult%25253D0%2526m%253DGET

Here, see if you guys can spot anything good to watch.

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Tue, 04 Jun 2013 14:29:43

Well, out of the ones available, I'd say Samurai Champloo and Baccano! are good picks.

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Tue, 04 Jun 2013 15:25:50
SteelAttack said:

Well, out of the ones available, I'd say Samurai Champloo and Baccano! are good picks.

How so?

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Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:54:07

Saw the first episode of Fullmetal Alchemist Brother, it hits the ground running, getting into some epic stuff that it took the original series a while to get into. That said, without the background knowledge from the original series I would probably have been fairly lost starting Brotherhood. The original eased you in slowly like an old man into a warm bath, Brotherhood starts out like a rocket. Brilliantly they have used the same English voice actors so the familiarity is there and I'm not annoyed by a change. The production values seem a tad higher in Brotherhood. Seems like it's going to be one of the best anime series I have seen.

Saw up to ep 9 of Full Metal Panic, they went military for a few episodes and now is back to sitcom. Good stuff.

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Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:31:29

Watched some more FMAlchemist brotherhood. Quite strange watching this, there is a lot of crossover with the original series, it's like watching the same thing in a mirror with tiny differences here and there. The original series was a bit better, slower paced so the story revelations were more rewarding. Here they just dive straight into it so it will probably be more appealing while the first is a slow builder. The original series seemed a bit better fleshed out, there is one 3 episode arc that is done in 1 episode in Brotherhood.

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Fri, 02 Aug 2013 15:11:36

Finished  Full Metal Alchemist, the original series, great finish but a couple of niggly points.

Went on to watch the  Full Metal Alchemist movies.

Conquer of Shamballa which follows on directly from the series. It's pretty eh, feels completely different from  Full Metal Alchemist in general, non-canon just some way for someone else to make money on it.

Movie 2 is the Sacred Star of Milos, that was great and was somewhere between  Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood and a Studio Ghibli film crossed with it.

Near the end of Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood and it's fucking epic, literally so good I would reccomend people just BUY it on bluray immediately, don't even think about it, don't rent it, just BUY it now.

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Fri, 02 Aug 2013 15:13:27

I gave up after 8 episodes of Samurai Champloo, it just seemed like it was going nowhere and going to be the same thing each episode, rock on to some new hill billy town short of cash and looking for a pointless fight. Good music though.

Gave up on Bleach 4 episodes into season 2, WTF is this? Boring boring, boring, weird, boring.

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