the_eggwhite | Anime Recommendations?

So... I've run out of Anime that appeals to me. I'd quite like to know about some more, please. That said, please refrain from just recommending anything that you like and actually look at the things I already approve of. Big turn offs: lots of filler episodes, no ending in sight, endings that bear no relevance to what went before (I'm looking at you here, Evangelion). Things I do like: Good stories, good characters & character development. Films & series are both okay...

Stuff I already like rather a lot:
Ghost in the Shell (films),
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (series),
Pretty much anything from Studio Ghibli,
Planetes (Hard SF anime),
Last Exile (MIGHTY!),
Paranoia Agent,
Read or Die (Original OVAs)
(Bizarrely...) Azumanga Daioh (It's just barking enough that it's fantastic!)
Akira (I know it's become a cliche of giant, pulsating proportions, but it's still good)
Perfect Blue
[EDIT] Haibane Renmei

Stuff I enjoyed when I watched it:
RahXephon (like Evangelion, but more consistent),
Cowboy Bebop (overrated, but still good)
Full Metal Alchemist (would be in the first list, but lost it's way too often)
Full Metal Panic (bizarre high school / mecha / comedy / action nonsense - EDIT: includes followups)
Read or Die the TV (still good, but not as good as the originals)
Witch Hunter Robin (enjoyable enough - just didn't make the favourites list)
Chrono Crusade
Gungrave (really good, but a bit too unrelentingly bleak for me)
Texhnolyze (see above)
Serial Experiments Lain (huge hairy pile of WTF!?)
Some stuff from CLAMP, provided it escapes from the CLAMP formula & isn't too loaded with filler.
Trinity Blood
[EDIT] Hellsing Ultimate (OVA remake - it's a bit more consistent than the original Hellsing)

Stuff I can watch if it's a good example, but often just find excerable:
Harem anime (eg: Love Hina, Oh! My Goddess, Tenchi Muyo)
Some other stuff from CLAMP, where the CLAMP formula is clearly visible, but at least there's plot.

Stuff I don't like:
Naruto (made almost entirely of filler, no end in sight)
Excel Saga (Too much WTF, with not enough to hold it together)
School / shopping based anime that doesn't have something more going for it
Some more stuff from CLAMP, where CLAMP are making money from old rope.

So... what do people out there in LJ & Facebook land reckon I might like?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I enjoyed Cowboy Bebop a lot. Not sure whether the ending is good enough for you, but the series hangs together quite well, IMHO.

I've not got to the end of Martian Successor Nadesico, but that's really quite fun too.

I did like Cowboy Bebop - it's in the list above, but munged up formatting hid it a bit. The ending was good in the sense that although it was a very strange ending, it was foreshadowed enough that it fitted.

I'll look into Martian Successor Nadesico, though...

You haven't mentioned Hellsing, which Mistress _Fran introduced me to. I think Sea_Cucumber has some Hellsing icons, so she likes it too.

Indeed, Hellsing went unmentioned... because I forgot it. It is quite cool, although didn't seem to be able to make up it's mind where it was going, and then gave up. I have been following the "Hellsing Ultimate" remake OVA series, which I've found to be rather good and a bit more consistent.

"Haibane Renmei" -- it's another Yoshitoshi ABe series (Serial Experiments Lain, Texnohlyse) but not *quite* as WTF or as depressing. Deep and slow and not many questions answered at the end. Released by Geneon but you should still be able to get the DVDs from somewhere since they quit the anime biz a couple of months back.

For laid-back fun and relaxation, "Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou" (Record of a Yokohama Shopping Trip). My pocket description is "Lesbian robot bikers with guns roam a post-apocalyptic wasteland". That is factually accurate and totally misleading at the same time... There are four OAVs out there but they're not available in official English-language DVD releases. You'll have to go to BitTorrent or similar to locate copies. If you want to browse the manga the OAVs are based on, have a look at ykk.misago.org.

Another laid-back series is "Aria", but again there doesn't seem to be an English-language release. BitTorrent is your friend here again. It's about a group of apprentice gondoliers in the city of New Venezia, on a terraformed Mars. Not a lot happens though and you might regard it as being a bit filler-ish. Two previous series have already been released, a third series starts tomorrow on Japanese TV.

For laughs, not much beats "Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu!", a followup series to the original Full Metal Panic! No action, no thrills, just all-out comedy featuring Sousuke and Chidori.

Hope this helps.

Haibane Renmei is one I've seen, and which belongs in my top list... but I momentarily forgot! It is rather fantastic, and a lot more accessible than Serial Exp. or Texnohlyze.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou looks... intriguing. I may have to investigate more and see if it sounds like my cup of tea...

Aria... Again, not one I've heard of. When I talk about things having a lot of filler episodes, I tend to mean those episodes where lots happens that's completely unrelated to the main plot, and where nothing's ever mentioned again. Or those episodes which consist of a random one-off bad guy... or where everyone (including the villains) decides to go to the beach together. Aria sounds like it could be a really good idea, but I'll have to find out more before spending bandwidth to download it. Bandwidth, for the moment, is an issue.

As for FMP:Fumoffu, I kind of rolled that and 2nd Raid up in with straight FMP. I probably shouldn't have, as Fumoffu is even more utter nonsense than the rest... Entertaining, but utterly ridiculous!

Cheers for the suggestions! They'll give me some things to try out and see how they do...

Potted descriptions follow...

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou: it is set in the near future (unspecified) where some sort of cataclysm has flooded coastal areas of Japan, part of Mount Fuji is missing and humanity is dying out for no apparent reason other than, perhaps ennui and the realisation it's time to go. With few children being born, cities are reverting to towns, towns becoming depopulated villages and villages are being reclaimed by wilderness, the roads overgrown and streetlights replaced by mysterious glowing plants (but in a very Japanese piece of funny business, the vending machines still work...)

Hassenou Alpha is a roboto-person, human in appearance and effectively immortal. She runs a cafe (Cafe Alpha) on a remote peninsula while her owner (never seen) is away on unspecified business. The cafe rarely has customers and she only has a few neighbours. She rides a motor-scooter on her trips to Yokohama to get supplies like coffee beans. One day another robot, a courier named Kokone turns up with a package from Alpha's owner and they become good friends. And that's about it as far as action goes. Delightful, as in "full of delight".

Aria: set on a Mars where the terraforming operation went slightly wrong, the city of New Venezia is a faithful copy of the lost city of Venice back on Manhome, flooded with canals. The trade of gondolier is reserved to women ("undines") belonging to companies such as Orange Planet, Himeya and the most famous (and smallest), Aria Company. Three young apprentices from different companies strive to become fully-fledged gondoliers under the personal tutelage of the highest-ranked undines, the three Water Fairies.

Not a lot of action, quite a bit of feel-good, some supernatural goings-on courtesy of a confusing mixture of Martian spirits and imported human ghosts. Another delight.

Aria in particular sounds like it might appeal, so I'll see what I can do about getting hold of it.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou probably goes a bit lower on the list, but sounds interesting enough that I'll keep an eye out...

*tries to think of what anime she's seen*

Wolf's Rain is quite good. Although there are four episodes ttowards the end of the series which are complete recaps and contain no new material in them at all and are so utterly pointless. (If you're interested in the series I'll look up which ones they are so you can skip them.) It's about wolves who can trick people into seeing them as human, aristocrats in flying ships, a floral messiah and the end of the world. Kinda.

Gatekeepers and Gatekeeps 21 is good fun with characters, actual plot and an utter lack of pretention. It's about alien invaders and the secret society of AEGIS who protect humanity by opening gates of power and kicking arse.

X - (the series NOT the film) is an example of a decent Clamp storyline. There are a lot of character and you get backstory for all of them so the pace ambles a little at the start but it's not drawn out. It's about the dragons of Earth and Heaven - one lot wish to protect humanity perhaps at the cost of the earth, the other lot wish to protect the earth at the cost of humanity. Queue mystic powers and duels.

Chevalier D'Aeon is supposed to be very good. I've only seen one episode though. Set in france around 1700, seems to be more about plot and historic intrigue than weird powers.

Genkatsu (sp?) is a bizarre retelling of the Comte de Monte Cristo set in the future. It looks eye-bleedingly lovely, but is relatively slow.

That's about all I can think of...

Ah, this is useful for me, too!

I'm not the world's greatest anime fan, but I do remember rather liking one called "Doomed Megalopolis" when they showed it on C4.

Anime Recommendations?

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