Best Anime
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Rurouni Kenshin ~ I should first note that this is the only anime which I haven't finished that I'm going to suggest. I have only ten episodes left but I've long completed the arc that is the sole reason I'm suggesting it. The Kyoto arc is that arc. Out of all the plenty of shonen series I've seen, The Kyoto arc just may be the greatest arc of them all. Makoto Shishio is one of my all time favorite villains, all the characters in the show gets their fight, their moment in the spotlight. The story surrounding the arc is incredibly solid, so much better than the stories in DBZ ones which for the most part are actually pretty poor (not that I don't love DBZ, I do, DBZ = My childhood). It's a samurai show, and their are plenty of great samurai action, the best out of any samurai show I've ever seen though granted that's not much but Samurai Champloo did have several awesome battles so it does mean something.
Outside of the Kyoto arc, it's decent at best. If you want, I could give you the list of episodes in the first season that you will need to watch as they are brought up in the Kyoto arc or for character establishing, if you don't want to sit through all if it to get to the awesomeness of the Kyoto arc. Post-Kyoto arc, which is like episode 62 I believe, you can pretty much stop but I'd suggest you watch episode 66 too as it's my favorite stand-alone episode of the series and works as a series finale. Also, The OST is great all-throughout.
Baccano! ~ The first episode is going to confuse you. Challenging the standard conventions of narrative, Baccano! jumps through two different years at once, and a few other years as well. After the first episode or so, they stop skipping around and each year begins playing out in a linear fashion but it still works fantastically combined. Each episode you'll begin to understand more and more until about half-way through when they have an episode that takes place years before the story to fill you in what's been left out. From there, you're just watching for the end of the two stories you've been watching and they both are resolved greatly. Also, there's three bonus episodes that while aren't as good as the first thirteen are still entertaining and wraps up even more than episode thirteen does and does it without even really wrapping anything up.
And that's just the story, which isn't even the heart of Baccano! The heart of Baccano! is it's characters. For one, their really is no main character of Baccano!, unless you define main characters by screen time than it's Isaac & Miria. While I love the story, the characters are fantastic. Not a single series has a many fun characters as Baccano!; Isaac, Miria, Ladd Russo, Jacuzzi Splot, Nice, Chez, Firo, Ennis, Chane and a few others are just a bunch of characters I absolutely love and it's a limited list. I just picked my favorite characters out of the 17 they show with their names in the Opening. Some of my favorites don't even appear there, and they do get sufficient screen time. And for the record, the opening track is my favorite opening track in anime.
The only problem, is it does get a bit gory. Not a problem for me, but if you're really opposed to that then it may be a reason to skip it. It's not gratuitous gore either, so that may help.
Cowboy Bebop ~ My all-time favorite anime. The series is a mostly episodic series, with only five episodes directly relating to any over-arching plot but watching them all in order you can actually pick up on subtle things that make them fit into a specific order. As an episodic series, it contains a fantastic amount of variety in the episodes. Outside of the two-parters and the first two episodes of the series, all the episodes are very distinctive and mostly great in their own way. Hell, most of them I'd consider a masterpiece. Boogie Woogie Feng Shui being the exception to that, that episode is freakin' terrible. Otherwise I loved. Characters are great. One of the best features about the series is it's soundtrack, it's vital to the episodes and scenes. While the vast majority of shows use music to enhance a scene, Cowboy Bebop tends to use it's music as an integral part of the scene. There's also a great variety in the music too. And it's only my second favorite OST in anime. I'll leave on this with three more notes. The first, this show is actually pretty westernized, for example the episode Toys In The Attic (which yes, is named after the Aerosmith song) even pays homage to the movie Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Secondly, this show is loved by people who hate anime. Finally, to paraphrase JesuOtaku "Cowboy Bebop is a show that is style over substance with more substance than 90% of other shows".
Fullmetal Alchemist ~ Both series. Start with the first one, as both series start with the same material (with subtle to big difference) but the 2003 does it in 25 episodes and Brotherhood does it in about ten episodes. The first episodes of Brotherhood suck, but after getting over that hump it eventually becomes much better than the first series, but I also don't like the direction of the first series goes after episode 25 (minus a few episodes, my favorite is probably post-25 actually). Unfortunately, I've talked to death about both in real life trying to get my friends into it, so I don't feel like going into too much depth about this one but I can tell you my friends enjoyed it heavily and so does everyone I know. Just watch both.
Gankutsuou ~ Gankutsuou is a re-imagining of The Count Of Monte Cristo and a damn good one done by the company Gonzo. Unlike another re-imagined show they've done, Romeo X Juliet, this isn't just in name only. And no, I'm not going to suggest Romeo X Juliet, though I do like it better than the actually story (as I don't like the original). There are many, many differences but the biggest one is by far the fact that this story is not the one of Edmond Dantes but the story of Albert (and his friends). This means several of the plot points that take place can have different interpretation and meanings, granted I've never read the full book, but I've read in great detail about many of the differences and reviews. Up until around episode 18 where it verges off almost completely, aside from one aspect. That all said, the art style is absolutely beautiful and I still have not seen anything that looks even remotely like it. Maybe there is, but my point being that it's a beautiful series and that it's possibly one of a kind in art style. The show itself in as close as perfection as you can probably get for the most part. Little to no flaws to pick apart unless you're just one of those people who judge solely base on how faithful of an adaption it is but that's a stupid way to critique in my opinion. Anyway, this remains until episode 23. Episode 23, the climax episode, is one of the worst episodes of anything I ever seen. Then 24 is good again, but 23 is completely atrocious. Still, I vastly enjoyed the other episodes. And it also includes one of the best tracks in any anime ever. So I can still recommend it, but 23 is terrible. Like seriously.
Monster ~ Their is a big difference between this one and practically everything else on my list. This one is realistic. Nothing supernatural or unbelievable, though some critics argue Johan is. It's again, one of those anime's that tend to subvert a lot of tropes generally considered with anime, and it's also seinen not shonen (I.e. it's target demographic are [mature] adults, not teenagers). This show has one of the greatest cast of characters ever, there are so many of them and I can't think of any two that are really alike. Several of them will make it onto my favorite characters list, and several of them have some of the best development I've seen in any show. The series is 74 episodes long and to be honest at first this worried me. Generally shows, especially ones the focus on one over-arching plot like this one, can keep up quality for all episodes. Hell Death Note, a series which is compared to Monster for both being mystery/thriller genre, and both being excellent (except Death Note is more well known and uses supernatural elements). However, Death Note loses my, and a lot of peoples, interest after episode 25 and the following episodes until the last one (which is incredible and one of the best finales period), but the rest are terrible (okay the one before the finale one isn't). Considering that Monster is double the length of Death Note, I thought I was in for trouble. However, the series never drops in quality from where it starts, and with maybe one exception only gets even better. But the final portion of the myth-arc is amazing and before that pretty much everyone is better than the portion before. The one problem I can see is that it has a slow start. For example, the synopsis I was given, it took about three episodes to get to. But even then I enjoyed it. On the technical side, the OST is great, and one of my favorites in anime.
Mushishi ~ This series is the only completely episodic series I'll be recommending. Only one episode in the entire series make reference to any of the past episodes. So you can basically watch in any order, especially since the anime didn't even adapt them in order. Mushishi revolves around Mushi, a life form that comes in a large variety of forms and have plethora of different effects on the humans they encounter. These life forms are also ones that very few can see, and even less known about them. Those who do, and specialize in study them/dealing with them are Mushishi. We follow Ginko and for 26 episodes experience 26 different cases of Mushi he's had to deal with. Similar to Kino's Journey in that vein for those who've seen both. However, what makes it different Kino's Journey, is a much greater focus on the one-offs who deal with the Mushi. Unlike in Kino's Journey where a lot of episodes revolved around the people in the country's being oversimplified to make a point, it also made the whole thing less realistic to me. Mushishi doesn't fall into this problem, as instead of the episodes focusing on Ginko, they actually normally focus around the people effected by the Mushi and just have Ginko there to give advice/fix things when he can. Hell, on at least one occasion, Ginko only appears in the last five minutes of an episode. Though that certainly isn't the norm; Ginko is heavily involved, I'm just saying the emphasis of the plot isn't on Ginko, he just tends to be the solution. What this does is make all the people he meet feel real, you're able to connect with them and Ginko at the same time, you slowly learn more about Ginko. And I love Ginko, he's one of my favorite anime characters ever.
While I'm not sure I explained everything in the previous paragraph correctly, or giving it justice, let me say I know that it seems like this series wouldn't have a lot of variety but trust me it does. The series produces a ton of fantastic episodes that are all diverse from each other though that's not to say it doesn't have bad ones. Sadly, the last two episodes of the series are the two worst episodes of the series in my opinion. The OST is great again, especially since each episode has their own ending track; which gives it an OVA-esque feel to me. The art has a problem of making a lot of the characters look different (something Monster doesn't do, and it has a much larger cast) but the Mushi are animated well enough to make up for it. If you're looking for action though, don't look here, as only one episode off the top of my head contains action, and it's very brief. Still fantastic series.
Trigun ~ First off, the OST is good again, and the art is good. I'm sick of talking about those things at the end. Trigun is a series that starts off almost completely comical with some gun action thrown in there until around the half way point when Cerebus Syndrome kicks in and it starts getting more serious. The funny episodes are really funny and the serious episodes while do have some laughs to and much better action scenes, do include some of the most memorable and sad scenes found in anime. In fact, probably the saddest scene for me in anime history comes from Trigun, it's a scene that I've seen individually enough times to fill up enough space for three episodes. The characters of the series are the real charm here, as believe it or not, I actually have quite a few problems with the story. But Vash is wonderful, and one of my favorite technical pacifists (Oh, here's one good thing about Trigun, unlike the many other series focusing on technical pacifists; this show does a great job of showing the down side to not killing the bad guys). Nicholas Dokonokuminomonjawaresumakinishiteshizumetarokakora Wolfwood is one of my favorite characters ever. Milly is entertaining too. Meryl . . . I don't like her. But Nicholas & Vash are really awesome.
Wolf's Rain ~ One of my favorites of all-time, being one of only three series to receive a ten from me (Monster & Bebop being the other two). Technically the OVA's got a ten for me, but I'll get to that. I'll be honest, I'm getting a little tired of writing all this shit down, so I'm not going to bother getting into the plot, which would take awhile since there's a lot to it. However in it's simplest form, it's about Wolf's and their search for paradise (to note, this is not episodic though that short summary may imply otherwise). The action is brief but nice. The animation is awesome. The OST is my favorite OST in anime history. The story is fantastic, the characters are all great, Darcia is one of my all-time favorites villains (funnily enough, both characters I mentioned as that are voiced by Steven Blum). Their are a few low points, I didn't entirely care for the humans part of the story up until the episode that focused majorly on them, episode 13 (one of my favorites), but that isn't that big of a problem. The real problem is the show has four recap episodes in a row, episodes 15-18 if I recall correctly. These are terrible for obvious reasons, and it happened because production shut down for a stupid reason and they already bought air time so they decided to throw something out or had to contractual. Either way, it's a big problem. To remedy this, and finish the story, they released a four episode OVA. The OVA's are basically the same quality, on the technical side. The ending is also one of my favorites ever, and it's also one of the most controversial endings in anime ever.
Yu Yu Hakusho ~ I only was going to suggest anime's that got a 9 & 10 (for the record, I only rate shows I've completed [thus not Case Closed] and my rating system isn't based solely on personal enjoyment) the only exception to that being Kenshin, but since the OP mentioned DBZ, I had to throw YYH out there. If you liked DBZ, you should love YYH. Most people who like DBZ like YYH. YYH's like a better DBZ, better character/character development, better plots, better/more complex villains and it's arguable on which series has better fights but I'd go with YYH as no battle took nineteen episodes to finish. Chapter Black arc (possibly my favorite Shonen arc ever) contained plenty of battles that simple fisticuffs wouldn't win. I'm getting lazy, and have been for awhile typing up this post, so I'll cut off there.
Outside of the Kyoto arc, it's decent at best. If you want, I could give you the list of episodes in the first season that you will need to watch as they are brought up in the Kyoto arc or for character establishing, if you don't want to sit through all if it to get to the awesomeness of the Kyoto arc. Post-Kyoto arc, which is like episode 62 I believe, you can pretty much stop but I'd suggest you watch episode 66 too as it's my favorite stand-alone episode of the series and works as a series finale. Also, The OST is great all-throughout.
Baccano! ~ The first episode is going to confuse you. Challenging the standard conventions of narrative, Baccano! jumps through two different years at once, and a few other years as well. After the first episode or so, they stop skipping around and each year begins playing out in a linear fashion but it still works fantastically combined. Each episode you'll begin to understand more and more until about half-way through when they have an episode that takes place years before the story to fill you in what's been left out. From there, you're just watching for the end of the two stories you've been watching and they both are resolved greatly. Also, there's three bonus episodes that while aren't as good as the first thirteen are still entertaining and wraps up even more than episode thirteen does and does it without even really wrapping anything up.
And that's just the story, which isn't even the heart of Baccano! The heart of Baccano! is it's characters. For one, their really is no main character of Baccano!, unless you define main characters by screen time than it's Isaac & Miria. While I love the story, the characters are fantastic. Not a single series has a many fun characters as Baccano!; Isaac, Miria, Ladd Russo, Jacuzzi Splot, Nice, Chez, Firo, Ennis, Chane and a few others are just a bunch of characters I absolutely love and it's a limited list. I just picked my favorite characters out of the 17 they show with their names in the Opening. Some of my favorites don't even appear there, and they do get sufficient screen time. And for the record, the opening track is my favorite opening track in anime.
The only problem, is it does get a bit gory. Not a problem for me, but if you're really opposed to that then it may be a reason to skip it. It's not gratuitous gore either, so that may help.
Cowboy Bebop ~ My all-time favorite anime. The series is a mostly episodic series, with only five episodes directly relating to any over-arching plot but watching them all in order you can actually pick up on subtle things that make them fit into a specific order. As an episodic series, it contains a fantastic amount of variety in the episodes. Outside of the two-parters and the first two episodes of the series, all the episodes are very distinctive and mostly great in their own way. Hell, most of them I'd consider a masterpiece. Boogie Woogie Feng Shui being the exception to that, that episode is freakin' terrible. Otherwise I loved. Characters are great. One of the best features about the series is it's soundtrack, it's vital to the episodes and scenes. While the vast majority of shows use music to enhance a scene, Cowboy Bebop tends to use it's music as an integral part of the scene. There's also a great variety in the music too. And it's only my second favorite OST in anime. I'll leave on this with three more notes. The first, this show is actually pretty westernized, for example the episode Toys In The Attic (which yes, is named after the Aerosmith song) even pays homage to the movie Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Secondly, this show is loved by people who hate anime. Finally, to paraphrase JesuOtaku "Cowboy Bebop is a show that is style over substance with more substance than 90% of other shows".
Fullmetal Alchemist ~ Both series. Start with the first one, as both series start with the same material (with subtle to big difference) but the 2003 does it in 25 episodes and Brotherhood does it in about ten episodes. The first episodes of Brotherhood suck, but after getting over that hump it eventually becomes much better than the first series, but I also don't like the direction of the first series goes after episode 25 (minus a few episodes, my favorite is probably post-25 actually). Unfortunately, I've talked to death about both in real life trying to get my friends into it, so I don't feel like going into too much depth about this one but I can tell you my friends enjoyed it heavily and so does everyone I know. Just watch both.
Gankutsuou ~ Gankutsuou is a re-imagining of The Count Of Monte Cristo and a damn good one done by the company Gonzo. Unlike another re-imagined show they've done, Romeo X Juliet, this isn't just in name only. And no, I'm not going to suggest Romeo X Juliet, though I do like it better than the actually story (as I don't like the original). There are many, many differences but the biggest one is by far the fact that this story is not the one of Edmond Dantes but the story of Albert (and his friends). This means several of the plot points that take place can have different interpretation and meanings, granted I've never read the full book, but I've read in great detail about many of the differences and reviews. Up until around episode 18 where it verges off almost completely, aside from one aspect. That all said, the art style is absolutely beautiful and I still have not seen anything that looks even remotely like it. Maybe there is, but my point being that it's a beautiful series and that it's possibly one of a kind in art style. The show itself in as close as perfection as you can probably get for the most part. Little to no flaws to pick apart unless you're just one of those people who judge solely base on how faithful of an adaption it is but that's a stupid way to critique in my opinion. Anyway, this remains until episode 23. Episode 23, the climax episode, is one of the worst episodes of anything I ever seen. Then 24 is good again, but 23 is completely atrocious. Still, I vastly enjoyed the other episodes. And it also includes one of the best tracks in any anime ever. So I can still recommend it, but 23 is terrible. Like seriously.
Monster ~ Their is a big difference between this one and practically everything else on my list. This one is realistic. Nothing supernatural or unbelievable, though some critics argue Johan is. It's again, one of those anime's that tend to subvert a lot of tropes generally considered with anime, and it's also seinen not shonen (I.e. it's target demographic are [mature] adults, not teenagers). This show has one of the greatest cast of characters ever, there are so many of them and I can't think of any two that are really alike. Several of them will make it onto my favorite characters list, and several of them have some of the best development I've seen in any show. The series is 74 episodes long and to be honest at first this worried me. Generally shows, especially ones the focus on one over-arching plot like this one, can keep up quality for all episodes. Hell Death Note, a series which is compared to Monster for both being mystery/thriller genre, and both being excellent (except Death Note is more well known and uses supernatural elements). However, Death Note loses my, and a lot of peoples, interest after episode 25 and the following episodes until the last one (which is incredible and one of the best finales period), but the rest are terrible (okay the one before the finale one isn't). Considering that Monster is double the length of Death Note, I thought I was in for trouble. However, the series never drops in quality from where it starts, and with maybe one exception only gets even better. But the final portion of the myth-arc is amazing and before that pretty much everyone is better than the portion before. The one problem I can see is that it has a slow start. For example, the synopsis I was given, it took about three episodes to get to. But even then I enjoyed it. On the technical side, the OST is great, and one of my favorites in anime.
Mushishi ~ This series is the only completely episodic series I'll be recommending. Only one episode in the entire series make reference to any of the past episodes. So you can basically watch in any order, especially since the anime didn't even adapt them in order. Mushishi revolves around Mushi, a life form that comes in a large variety of forms and have plethora of different effects on the humans they encounter. These life forms are also ones that very few can see, and even less known about them. Those who do, and specialize in study them/dealing with them are Mushishi. We follow Ginko and for 26 episodes experience 26 different cases of Mushi he's had to deal with. Similar to Kino's Journey in that vein for those who've seen both. However, what makes it different Kino's Journey, is a much greater focus on the one-offs who deal with the Mushi. Unlike in Kino's Journey where a lot of episodes revolved around the people in the country's being oversimplified to make a point, it also made the whole thing less realistic to me. Mushishi doesn't fall into this problem, as instead of the episodes focusing on Ginko, they actually normally focus around the people effected by the Mushi and just have Ginko there to give advice/fix things when he can. Hell, on at least one occasion, Ginko only appears in the last five minutes of an episode. Though that certainly isn't the norm; Ginko is heavily involved, I'm just saying the emphasis of the plot isn't on Ginko, he just tends to be the solution. What this does is make all the people he meet feel real, you're able to connect with them and Ginko at the same time, you slowly learn more about Ginko. And I love Ginko, he's one of my favorite anime characters ever.
While I'm not sure I explained everything in the previous paragraph correctly, or giving it justice, let me say I know that it seems like this series wouldn't have a lot of variety but trust me it does. The series produces a ton of fantastic episodes that are all diverse from each other though that's not to say it doesn't have bad ones. Sadly, the last two episodes of the series are the two worst episodes of the series in my opinion. The OST is great again, especially since each episode has their own ending track; which gives it an OVA-esque feel to me. The art has a problem of making a lot of the characters look different (something Monster doesn't do, and it has a much larger cast) but the Mushi are animated well enough to make up for it. If you're looking for action though, don't look here, as only one episode off the top of my head contains action, and it's very brief. Still fantastic series.
Trigun ~ First off, the OST is good again, and the art is good. I'm sick of talking about those things at the end. Trigun is a series that starts off almost completely comical with some gun action thrown in there until around the half way point when Cerebus Syndrome kicks in and it starts getting more serious. The funny episodes are really funny and the serious episodes while do have some laughs to and much better action scenes, do include some of the most memorable and sad scenes found in anime. In fact, probably the saddest scene for me in anime history comes from Trigun, it's a scene that I've seen individually enough times to fill up enough space for three episodes. The characters of the series are the real charm here, as believe it or not, I actually have quite a few problems with the story. But Vash is wonderful, and one of my favorite technical pacifists (Oh, here's one good thing about Trigun, unlike the many other series focusing on technical pacifists; this show does a great job of showing the down side to not killing the bad guys). Nicholas Dokonokuminomonjawaresumakinishiteshizumetarokakora Wolfwood is one of my favorite characters ever. Milly is entertaining too. Meryl . . . I don't like her. But Nicholas & Vash are really awesome.
Wolf's Rain ~ One of my favorites of all-time, being one of only three series to receive a ten from me (Monster & Bebop being the other two). Technically the OVA's got a ten for me, but I'll get to that. I'll be honest, I'm getting a little tired of writing all this shit down, so I'm not going to bother getting into the plot, which would take awhile since there's a lot to it. However in it's simplest form, it's about Wolf's and their search for paradise (to note, this is not episodic though that short summary may imply otherwise). The action is brief but nice. The animation is awesome. The OST is my favorite OST in anime history. The story is fantastic, the characters are all great, Darcia is one of my all-time favorites villains (funnily enough, both characters I mentioned as that are voiced by Steven Blum). Their are a few low points, I didn't entirely care for the humans part of the story up until the episode that focused majorly on them, episode 13 (one of my favorites), but that isn't that big of a problem. The real problem is the show has four recap episodes in a row, episodes 15-18 if I recall correctly. These are terrible for obvious reasons, and it happened because production shut down for a stupid reason and they already bought air time so they decided to throw something out or had to contractual. Either way, it's a big problem. To remedy this, and finish the story, they released a four episode OVA. The OVA's are basically the same quality, on the technical side. The ending is also one of my favorites ever, and it's also one of the most controversial endings in anime ever.
Yu Yu Hakusho ~ I only was going to suggest anime's that got a 9 & 10 (for the record, I only rate shows I've completed [thus not Case Closed] and my rating system isn't based solely on personal enjoyment) the only exception to that being Kenshin, but since the OP mentioned DBZ, I had to throw YYH out there. If you liked DBZ, you should love YYH. Most people who like DBZ like YYH. YYH's like a better DBZ, better character/character development, better plots, better/more complex villains and it's arguable on which series has better fights but I'd go with YYH as no battle took nineteen episodes to finish. Chapter Black arc (possibly my favorite Shonen arc ever) contained plenty of battles that simple fisticuffs wouldn't win. I'm getting lazy, and have been for awhile typing up this post, so I'll cut off there.
Mustafar Reginald said:
How far are you in Detective Conan? I've been trying to catch up and I've made it to like 535. Some episodes seem to amaze me, especially the Black Organization ones. Although they seem do too much of the sealed room cases.
Also have you seen One Piece? I stopped watching it two years ago but I hope to continue after Detective Conan. I would highly recommend it if you haven't.
Britanica said:
Just noticed you made a thread about Anime and you've only watched DBZ and Sailor Moon. -.-:idontcare:
CM Punk said:
Nowhere near as far as you. I've only seen like 3/4ths of the ones dubbed. I personally can't get into subs, something about having to read while watching the things play out just take me out of the show, you know? It doesn't help I'm already so use to the voice cast. I will and have watched them in the past for certain things, but I can't imagine it doing for 400+ episodes. Though if/when I learn Japanese, I'll probably get into those episodes. Or I could get into the manga (though I don't know if it's still being translated and I much prefer anime). I do plan on watching all the English ones sometime in the future, but I only like watching two anime's (one long-runner and one normal length) at once and I already have my next long-runner after Kenshin . . .
[segue]
. . . One Piece. I've read the manga up until the Alabasta arc but never got into the anime because 4Kids was dubbing it at the time I was interested in anime. I took a break on anime for a couple of years and now I love it more than ever and can't wait to watch One Piece. Heard the Enies Lobby is being released dubbed soon, and since I've heard nothing but absolute praise for it, so I can't wait.
But yeah, Case Closed is normally something I'd recommend for anyone looking for any show to watch really, but I wanted to limit my post there to only a select few so I either focused on ones that gotten high scores from me or ones that excel in the shonen-fighting genre that I've at least seen most of.
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Dr. CM Punk CPR Expert said:
You like boobs watch Elfen lied. Right from the get go the chick/alien is naked. I almost didn't finish it because of all the boob in it but they toned it down. It was a good story. Kinda girly but I enjoyed it.
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Dr. CM Punk CPR Expert said:
In the beginning it is boring then it kinda pulls you in if you stay with it. There aren't many episodes, which is why I watched it. lol I was bored and wanted to watch some new anime and decided I'd try a short one.
I have yet to find one that tops DBZ for me though.
Britanica said:
Which Darker Than Black; the first series; the OVA's; the second series; two out of three; or all three? I assume just the first one though, or at least the first one. Personally, I thought the first half of the first series was for the most part awful, with only one or two two-parters (they're all two-parters pretty much for those unaware) being actually good. I had so much problems with it, like how Hei is the main character but it takes about eight or so episodes before he can get any development or we can really get to know him because they'd rather spend the beginning episodes focusing more on recurring characters or characters who'll never appear outside of their respective two-parter. It started getting better after the downright terrible Yin backstory episode and got really great but I really don't like the first half.
The OVA's were pretty good and in my opinion, necessary to watch before series two despite whatever the hell production order says. The second series, DtB: Gemini is great all-throughout (got an 8 for me) and the character development Hei undergoes (which build heavily off the OVA's) and the fact that he becomes much more of an absolute bad-ass actually solidified him as one of my favorite anime characters ever. I also liked the ending, which I know a lot of people didn't, and I didn't hate Suou.
And I hate Elfen Lied. The story, at least Lucy's side of things, is atrocious. I'm going to do this with as little spoilers as possible, like most of my posts in here, they'll just be vague descriptions. So, this story to me fails mainly for the fact that instead of crafty a well-written plot they just throw out every depressing, disturbing, cruel backstory they could possibly think of for their characters just to evoke an emotion. Hell, everything in the story is done out of any narrative purposes, it's just to get a certain reaction out of the viewers, like the excessive nudity, gore and the incest. Or However partly because of this, those scenes didn't impact because they didn't come across naturally but moreso as just a cheap trick to try and lure viewers in. The other part is because quite honestly the characters don't react naturally either. There are so many scenes and the show where I just couldn't empathize for the characters because they didn't quite react like normal people would, Kouta (which I don't think I spelled right) being a prime example. Hell, one of the reactions actually got me to laugh and that was probably one of the most important scenes in the series.
Also, when it pertains to not being able to empathize with our characters it doesn't help that the voice acting is horrendous. The English dub, outside of like two or so characters, is god awful. Kouta and Kouta's Cousin were by far the worst, though again only two were actually passable, and those two got the most lines. I really wanted to strangle whoever voiced Kouta's Cousin ever time she opened her mouth. But outside of voice acting, what else is wrong with the characters . . . well most just aren't important and can just be switched with another as their sole purpose is to spout exposition.
However the biggest thing about the characters that fail for me is Lucy. I don't know about you, or anyone who watched it, but I was under the impression that by the end I was suppose to be on Lucy's side. And granted, one time, ONE TIME, I was. It's also the only cheap tactic they resort to that actually did effect me, and for a brief moment I was actually rooting for Lucy. Outside of that no, she's the villain of the show. I didn't feel she was justified in her actions unlike with a character from another anime which I can't mention because it's a spoiler for that one. But anyway, I understand the straw that broke the camel's back but I mean come on, along with how those scenes happened I just wasn't buying it. Besides, either way she's still the villain of the series. She's not the anti-hero, she causes practically every single problem within the series, and she only feels bad for one of those. And not even for committing it but really just because it depressed the one person she cares about.
Another problem I had with the series, and this is more story than character, is the complete lack of subtlety. Like if their's any kind of character development or any act that would reveal something about the character; don't worry about having to pick it up yourself, because other characters are just going to say it out-loud no matter how freakin' obvious it is. The perfect example would be the seashell thing from the first few episodes. If you saw it you know what I'm talking about. They didn't need to explain that, anyone watching could've of picked it up, and I'm pretty sure they had it explained twice. I mean, what's a guy got to do to get some indirect characterization here? But back to subtlety the only instance I can think of comes at the ending which I actually liked.
And there are other stuff I liked, I mean it did receive a five from me and I'll talk about those because without getting into spoilers I don't think I got much more to cover. I liked Kurama's story. I liked his portion, I liked his character (as a matter of fact, he's probably the only one I did), and I love the plot twist in his story as it's the best kind of plot twist. The ones that you never see coming but once you see it, it's make perfect sense and the other alternatives seem stupid. Also, the OST, despite severely lacking variety (it's like one track with two different versions and the ED) is very nice and fits the series tone. And I did like the very few fights scenes we got, well the Diclonius (don't know if it's spelled right, don't care).
I'd give a sum up line here but I'm lazy, I kind of just got out of hand there (like I always do when posting) and I don't really think I came come up with something eloquent that wouldn't just be me copying and pasting from something I wrote earlier in this post. I guess, I'll just say, I'm not a fan of Elfen Lied.
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