Favourite Anime Movies/TV Shows?

[andrew_]

I've been looking to get back into anime after a long hiatus from the platform and was wondering if there was anything in particular people would recommend. A movie or TV show with an English dub would be preferable but is by no means essential. For me I can't go past Studio Ghibli and the majority of their works as my personal favorites, in particular Howls Moving Castle and Spirited Away. So recommend away! Everything from dark themes to fan service/romantic shows welcome. :)

[Welease Woger]

Best Movie: Spirited Away.

Best TV show: Death Note (although Season 2 kind of sucked)

[Baelor Swyft]

I don't watch a whole lot of anime but I rewatched Neon Genesis Evangelion a few months ago and it was even better than it was when I was 12 years old. Such a brilliantly intricate show. As a kid I assumed they were bullshitting you for half the time but as an adult I can really connect the threads and see how much sense it all makes.

I'm also still fairly fond of Gundam Wing and the first three seasons of DBZ. And Serial Experiments: Lain and Hellsing.

[Born Sinner]

BERSERK!!!!!!!

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte]

Toradora....

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte]

Don't judge me

[Procrastimancer]

I'd recommend Gosick, but since Bandai stopped producing new home media right after they bought the rights, I believe the only option is watching the subbed release online. It does, however, have dark themes and romance.

The World God Only Knows is about a guy--long since divorced from reality thanks to his obsession with dating sims--who is forced, by threat of decapitation, to romance girls in real life in order to free loose (demonic) souls from their hearts. It is hilarious and manages to gain at least a little depth as the series progresses. This does have an English dub, but I haven't seen it.

In the realm of mysterious, seemingly omnipotent forces getting bored and fucking around with a group of teens for entertainment, there is Kokoro Connect. The four episodes they later made to finish the series won't be released until next month though.

Toradora....

I was just about to start watching this the other day, but got sidetracked by Kokoro Connect and Yowamushi Pedal. Thanks for reminding me... I'll have to watch it sometime during my weekend.

[Chise]

hmm... fav anime u say....

Evangelion reboot movies are good (sorry orig series, you are a clusterfuck. Once a lot of that is boiled out in the movies it has a much better impact)

Sword Art Online is fun times (the only series I'm gonna list), but only the first half! Once it goes Fairy Dance, everything that made it good melted away into cliche-ridden fanservice

if you haven't watched Berserk back in the day (dear lord, how long ago were the 90s?!?) watch the movies now! It retread the same grounds, just in shinier colors

Summer Wars, Wolf Children and Girl who Leapt thru Time are must-see!! Mamoru Hosoda is my new fav director, and should be yours too!

what else what else... ahh yes, watch some Makoto Shinkai works. His stories aren't perfect, but boy does he make them look good (and he does a very distinct melancholy flavor to them all). Start with Voices of a Distant Star (a movie he fully animated himself) and then dabble in others like Garden of Words or 5cm per second

[Galactus]

Kokoro Connect is great. Not sure if it's a favourite, but it's a very good show.

I'm not too fond of the movie-format, so I have a hard tim picking a fave.

For TV shows:

RahXephon: A weird kind of mecha-romance with excellent plotting. (the creators described it as wanting to make a "puzzle-box" style show, where revelations makes sense in one context, and then, once yo et new information, that context changes and th revelations still make sene)

Infinity RYvius: Aka. Lord of the Flies IN SPAAACEEE! A space cadet school gets trapped on an alien ship, in the process getting declared as terrorists. So they basically have to run their on society and it goes badly.

Revolutionary Girl Utena: Crazy mind-bendingly weird story involving lots of fairytales, gender issues, weird symbolism, and for some reason, toasters.

Princess Tutu: It's about a duck fighting raven using ballet. Way more awesome than it sound.

Plantes: Garbage collectors in space. Way more awesome than it sounds.

[Galactus]

Evangelion reboot movies are good (sorry orig series, you are a clusterfuck. Once a lot of that is boiled out in the movies it has a much better impact)

Awww, but that's the entire point! If it's not a clusterfuck it's not EVA and might as well watch RahXephon instead, since it's better plotted anyway :p

[Procrastimancer]

Summer Wars, Wolf Children and Girl who Leapt thru Time are must-see!! Mamoru Hosoda is my new fav director, and should be yours too!

what else what else... ahh yes, watch some Makoto Shinkai works. His stories aren't perfect, but boy does he make them look good (and he does a very distinct melancholy flavor to them all). Start with Voices of a Distant Star (a movie he fully animated himself) and then dabble in others like Garden of Words or 5cm per second

I pretty much ignored movies in my post because I don't watch them all that often, but yeah, I have to second Summer Wars, Voices of a Distant Star, and 5 Centimeters Per Second.

Kokoro Connect is great. Not sure if it's a favourite, but it's a very good show.

I pretty much just listed the anime I enjoyed recently. While there are some shows that I am very fond of, I don't think there are any that I consider favorites.

[Chise]

Princess Tutu: It's about a duck fighting raven using ballet. Way more awesome than it sound.

Ha ha, I know right! Princess Tutu is impossible to explain without it sounding utter fluff! you go in thinkin "oh, fluffy shoujo like Cardcaptor Sakura, yeah?"but then you get into it and WOAH! Its like the 2nd coming of Utena in fairy-tale terms, but it uses ballet symbolism

One of my absolute fav DVD bonuses was they took the time to explain which specific ballets were referenced in which episodes, thus adding an extra layer of understanding

also seconding The World God Only Knows!

It takes all the moe & harem tropes but keeps 'em entertaining!

A rare time even the subs involved people doing their damn jobs and not just leaving things like "kami-sama" or "hagoromo" untranslated for the weeboo purists. Nooope, the show dutifully translated everything, so Elsie yells "Divine Brother!" or "Exalted Brother" etc..

On same vein of tropes used lovingly - WataMote (No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys Fault I'm Not Popular) or Genshiken (The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture) are very fun otaku series! Or rather, a series ABOUT THE OTAKU done not as "ha ha, look at those geeks" but in a more "we know that feel man.. we know that feel" understanding

The former is about the super-awkward just-hit-HighSchool girl into otome games and geeky thing with zero people skills, the later is about college kids otaku club (cosplay, Gunpla, video games, ecchi doujin... name something otaku~ish, its in here)

[andrew_]

I watched Tales from EarthSea last night for the first time, while it wasn't all bad, it definitely wasn't as strong as their other projects. It had great voice casting, a great score and a intriguing and encapsulating first act, the story however stagnates after roughly the first 45 minutes and becomes and extreme drag. I did find out it was based on a series on fantasy novels that are fairly well acclaimed which I will definitely look into reading.

Planetes has an intriguing premises and looks to be pretty well received, I think I'm going to start with this.

[Nictarion]

I'm not really into anime, but one I did like was Ninja Scroll.

[Azzanadra]

I don't watch much anime what from what I have seen:

Movie: Spirited Away(or anything studio Ghibli for that matter)

TV Show: Attack on Titan as of late

[Galactus]

Ha ha, I know right! Princess Tutu is impossible to explain without it sounding utter fluff! you go in thinkin "oh, fluffy shoujo like Cardcaptor Sakura, yeah?"but then you get into it and WOAH! Its like the 2nd coming of Utena in fairy-tale terms, but it uses ballet symbolism

I'¨ve found the best way to explain is to just Show the music video.

[JonArryn]

Ghost in The Shell 1 and Ghost in The Shell 2 are complicated movies which may make you scratch your head, but I found them to be quite good movies. The first one especially, the second wasn't as good.

Edit: If you like The Matrix it's worth checking out, they are similar and Matrix drew inspiration from the first movie.

[StormWolf]

Even though I really enjoy anime, I don't have much knowledge about them. I eventually catch the really popular ones that come along and get media attention like Princess Mononoke and the Cowboy Beebop movie. I'll watch this thread with interest in hopes of catching some I haven't seen yet. A few I remember from my teens that left an impression are:

Vamipre Hunter D Trailer

Vampire Hunter D : Bloodlust Trailer

Ninja Scroll Trailer

[DaarioKnowsBest]

All my favorites are probably outdated to most.

All 80s and 90s

Nothing will ever top Fist of the North Star to me

Ninja Scroll was great,

Sailor Moon by far my favorite for shows, it really tapped into my adolescent perversions on top of being a great show

Followed by Robotech

[Sword in Flames]

Akira is an all-time classic. Would also recommend Memories.

Fist of the North Star is also great bloody fun.

There was an old anime film from the '90s called Dagger of Kamui that I used to love. I originally had an old VHS copy of a 90 minute English dubbed edit (the full version is well over two hours). I think it was called Revenge of the Ninja Warrior and watched it all the time. Got my hands on a rental full Japanese version and then never saw any other copies show up on DVD. Maybe a trip to Amazon is in order.