Official Anime Recommendation Thread

I just finished watching Canaan (Kay-naan) last night.

It's a solid show with good action scenes and nice over all visuals and good soundtrack. This is what greets you at the start of each episode, Mind as Judgment
It'll take 4 episodes before you start to grasp what is going on, but that seems to be the norm for most 13 episode series lately.
There are a few plot holes, but I think that the writers relied too heavily on the fact people were familiar with the Wii game, 428: Fūsa Sareta Shibuya de, is the reason. You don't need to be familiar with the game to watch it, since the story is pretty much a stand alone that focuses on the main character, Canaan.

Just watched Summer Wars ( movie ) and liked it. Kind of Miyazaki style character animation with strong family themes mixed with a playful out-of control AI that threatens the whole planet. Link (watch in series via the Video Mirrors tab)

My personal recommendations:

BASILISK
Random series quote: "Deception and strategy are brothers in the art of warfare."
Japanese historical anime with a hefty dose of mysticism. Absolutely gorgeous animation, a story that will take you through all the highs and lows and everything in between, music I'd have killed for during the L5R game, and voice acting to steal your breath away. Graphic without being OTT, this one pulls no punches.

BUBBLEGUM CRISIS TOKYO 2040
Random series quote: "Do I have a tracking beacon on my butt or what?!"
Cyberpunk, mecha, and all sorts of anime goodness. My first real ADV Films exposure, and I was hooked from Vol 1. Not to mention that this is the series that I think has one of the creepiest ending cliffhangers in all of anime. The music rocks, the story is cool, and it blew its progenitor BGC out of the water without even trying.

KIDDY GRADE
Random series quote: "You have no right to do that - they're human beings! You don't own them!"
A not-quite-magical girl show that I was fully expecting to be all froof and no substance. Boy, was I wrong. The adventures of Eclair and Lumiere just suck you in, and FUNimation's voice team was totally on their A-game here. Strong all the way from start to finish, and enough intrigue to keep you guessing the whole way through. I STILL catch new stuff each time I watch it.

MADLAX
Random series quote: "How dare you interfere, Vanessa Rene... we could have danced forever..."
Action. Drama. And none of the women are stereotypes. Another show whose trailer intrigued me, and the series proved to be far deeper and more complicated than I'd imagined. Although I suspected its ending about halfway through the show, I wanted to see how they were going to explain it (and more so, what they were going to do with it). They did not disappoint.

PRINCESS TUTU
Random series quote: "I won't give up... because my feelings are my own!"
I kick myself for not having watched it sooner. I like ballet (but don't live for it), I usually hate magical girl shows, and froofiness usually doesn't do it for me. But if there was ever a series that I went into it expecting froof and came out with my heart broken, my spirit uplifted, and my entire supply of tissues in the house gone, this one is it.

SAMURAI 7
Random series quote: "In my life, I've had to step over many an ally's corpse... that is the kind of man I am."
Not only is it based on one of the greatest films of all time, but this series was as damned close to perfect as I could have hoped for in an anime. (The notable exception - the one or two places where a different animation studio did the artwork, and trust me, you can tell.) FUNimation and ADV also pooled their voice talents and got the cream of the crop here.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

So I had no idea there was any anime talk on these boards, I don't know how I missed it, completely oblivious.

That said...

I'm currently watching a few of the "big" ongoing series.. Bleach, Naruto, and Fairy Tail, as well as Kimi ni Todoke and Fractale (which is interesting at least). Although not One Piece as much as my brother has tried to get me into it...

Hakuouki just ended which was absolutely fantastic.

Past favorites have been Fullmetal Alchemist, FLCL, Welcome to the NHK, Hellsing, Gantz, Paranoia Agent, Ghost in the Shell, Darker than Black, Paprika, Nabari no Ou, and Death Note

Requiem for the Phantom, Code Geass, xxxHolic (still need to watch more of this one), D.Grayman, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Mnemosyne, Blood+, Highschool of the Dead, Claymore, Eureka Seven, InuYasha, and Trinity Blood were good ones also.

Cheers.

Just finished the first season of Hell Girl. It was beautifully animated throughout, especially Ai's kimono when she was sending people to hell. Interesting twist in the sixth disc. It starts out very reminiscent of Requiem For The Darkness, IMO, but develops a deeper story by about the third disc. Really like Ai's Japanese VA, especially when she says her "Care to give death a try?" line.

I like Hell Girl too. Odd twist on the Magical Girl formula.

Those final two episodes were deeply disturbing. Overall, every person that was a target for Ai, save one, deserved what they got. There was one episode that made me absolutely loathe the target and didn't sit right with me for the rest of the night...the Pinky episode.

I did find it interesting that most of the revengers were women rather than men.

Just finished Welcome to the NHK. It's an emotionally draining series. Quite good, but man, I need to decompress after watching it. It's the story of a hikikomori (closest Western equivalent would probably be a shut-in) who is also a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). It's pretty much a rollercoaster dealing with some pretty heavy issues like suicide and I would say, mental illness. I can't see myself watching the series again (probably), but it was worth watching at least once. I can find myself identifying with the protagonist on a few levels.

Interesting side note...the first five volumes in the series were put out by ADV, but the sixth is by Funimation. You might get some odd looks if you're buying the series in a brick and mortar store, since the covers of the volumes feature women in very fanservicey clothing that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. The covers are not even representative of what the various volumes deal with.

Tsukihime - To be honest, this is neither a recommendation nor something I've seen recently. I'm only posting about it cos it links nicely into the next series I'm going to talk about. Anyway, Tsukihime is based on a (very, very good) visual novel by Kinoko Nasu (Fate StayNight), and is pretty much the perfect example of how not to do an adaption. Huge, important, parts of the story cut, people acting horribly out of character (when they even retain any form of character at all...), CMoAs just ignored, etc. Frankly, I can't find anything to recommend about this anime - either just play/read the original VN (here's a LP with the full script), or if you want something to watch, try....

Kara No Kyoukai - Another adaption of a Nasu work (an earlier novel that is oft considered to be the prototype for Tsukihime), KNK is, on the other hand, an incredible series. Beginning with strawberry ice cream, but generally tending more towards exploring concepts like perception and memory (don't worry action fans, there's a fair bit of badassery too...), this will probably screw with your mind, but most definitely in a good way. The music's damn good too (well, it is done by a certain Yuki Kajiura...).

Summer Wars

Couple of shows I'm currently watching:

Kore Wa Zombie Desu Ka - The fact that each episode so far has begun with a warning not to try this at home due to the lead character being a zombie should give you a clue as to the kind of show KWZDK is. And if it doesn't, then I'll spell it out: very very silly. Ayumu isn't really a zombie in the traditional sense of eating brains and shambling around, but he was raised from the dead by a necromancer (after being murdered by a serial killer), so it kinda fits. Within a couple of episodes, he's been joined by not just said necromancer (who happens to be a cute girl...) but a magical girl (who loses her powers in an interesting way) and a very well endowed female vampire-ninja. They fight monsters that include a giant crayfish in a suit with rocket claws. Hilarity most definitely ensues...

Puella Magi Madoka Magica - As you might guess, this is a magical girl show. Or to be more precise, a brutal deconstruction of a magical girl show. Giving kids superpowers and asking them to save the world should not be a good idea, and Madoka explores this. A bit of a slow start perhaps, but it picks up very well with the ending of ep 3.

This is my face at the end of every episdoe of Madoka: 0_o My friend that doesn't watch anime is even hooked on it.

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Recently watched Ouran High School Host Club on Netflix streaming. Not a lot of anime can make me laugh out loud, but this series had moments where it did.

That series just makes me smile for some unknown reason. It could be Shojo tropes turned to 11, the fact that the first episode has a glowie, the fact that only Haruhi thinks it's odd every time Renge pops out of the floor, the Dark Magic Club in general or that only Haruhi so effortlessly sees each member's true self.

Still it's much funnier if you first watched some of Hana Yori Dango first. Similar setup "poor" scholarship girl goes to exclusive high school for the rich and powerful and falls in with a group of guys, but in this case is played straight up standard Shojo. It's a good exposure to the tropes that Ouran plays for laughs.

Finished off Excel Saga and continuing through the discs of Cardcaptor Sakura and Eureka 7. Got my re-release collection of FLCL, along with a P! free keychain.

Gonna work on collecting more of the Urusei Yatsura discs, since they are officially OOP now. I've got 5 out of ~50... >.<

I just finished watching Evangelion 2.22, which covers episodes 11 - 19, and it blew me away. All of the work they did to it with the updating of the Eva's, Angels, story line, and the changes to familiar scenes have really changed how the story comes across.

I had no issues with the original series, but there is barely anything used from the original and the emo-Shinji scenes are all but gone, except for a couple.

I will now have to patiently wait for the third one, Q, to be finished.