my first anime was naruto and I loved it. then I started watching blich and it was good.
at last I watched one piece and this anime is astoundingly awesome. it's concept of a new world pirates and marines are mind blowing. I liked the store to find one piece. every character has great and emotional back stories. kuma's back was the best out of all of them. I love the words of doflamingo:
"I'm just an ordinary man with an ordinary heart. I'll change the world by becoming the Pirate King! No, by becoming someone greater than any Pirate King! Someone who conquers the sea and usurps the very heavens! No matter what you say, or what anyone else says, I am going to become the greatest! That's what I've decided! I don't give a damn about conquering some worthless seas. Men's dreams will never die! Children who have never seen peace and children who have never seen war have different values! Those who stand at the top determine what's wrong and what's right! This very place is neutral ground! Justice will prevail, you say? But of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice!"
there is so much I can add about one piece but I will keep it short.
I would love to hear about your opinions about your favourite anime
Death Note was my first non-Toonami anime (dbz/voltron/etc). It's the only anime I could get my wife to check out. Truly awesome. I was 20 when I first watched it and thought Light was awesome. Watching it now 16 years later and man does it hit different. I now view Light as a complete psychopath and actively root against him. Love that my view of the characters is a complete 180 from my early years.
Legend of Vox Machina is freaking incredible and is probably my most re-watched "anime".
yes, Death note is truly awesome but I quit watching if after L's death. I really hated Light from the beginning and loved the character of L. when after killing L Light goes to L's grave and he laughed at his grave it was painful to watch it was a very dark scene.
Bebop is the first anime I watched, and I was introduced to it by friends dragging me to a movie theater to watch the movie.
My mind wasn't just broadened, it was split right open.
I agree about champloo as well, I've rewatched shampoo a couple times now and have been musing over rewatching it again because it's been a couple years.
One punch man is super interesting to me. It takes the shounen genre and turns it on its head. How can the main character possibly improve, when they are already the strongest in the whole universe? Well, turns out raw strength is not all that matters. And OPM is a funny way of looking at this conundrum our society has prepared for young men. Definitely one of my favorites as well.
OPM is so refreshing. In other animes, it's stressful to watch sometimes even though you know the main character is going win in the end but with OPM, it's a fun ride the whole way through.
I felt like it was this at first, but eventually it becomes more of your standard Shounen "which guy is strongest? Find out next week" sort of affair. All the side characters and filler really distracted from the point of the show for me. More than just providing context and justification for the main plot, it took away from it IMO.
I'm in the middle of the mage exam arc and right now I'm severely disappointed with it. I know people tend to say this arc is the worst in the series, but it's really starting to wear on me. Hoping it gets better.
I would recommend Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Madoka Magica, as well as Planetes if you’re into sci-fi. Girls Und Panzer is super fun as well.
Dr. Stone. It's not for everyone, but if you're into STEM, it's probably the closest you'll get to media accurately portraying science and technology.
It also puts into perspective just how much knowledge, expertise, and experience went into basically everything that we take for granted today. Makes you at least a bit hopeful for the future of humanity
Dr Stone had some really great moments and I enjoyed it greatly. I finished the manga, and I'll say at some point most of the science kinda goes out the window as far as them explaining stuff, and people seemed split on if they liked or hated the ending. Was good overall, but kind of lost some of the charm for me when they started building modern tech.
The biggest tragedy of the anime vs the Manga is the art. Boichii is fucking world renowned for how he draws anatomy and it's a huge focal point in his works and they just missed the whole mark there. Reminds me of how they fucked up junji itos works too. If anyone is interested in actual good low budget animations check out komicant communicate, they do so much with so little that you don't realize it's lower budget.
FLCL has to be watched multiple times. Once to enjoy the ride, again to figure out what was going on the first time, a third time to connect all the dots and realize how deep it actually is, and a 4th time to spot all the Easter eggs.
yeah, it's very good anime. the plot twist in this anime is crazy! when I saw reiner is an armored titan and bertolt was colossal titan I was shoked and this anime is kinda dark. in the end when eren died I though it was not a good ending but after some time I think it was the best ending for eren. when mikasa was sitting near eren's grave and then she said "thank you for wrapping this scarf around me" I literally cried.
When I saw the post title, I was going to say One Piece. I checked out some random episodes years ago, and it was too weird just jumping in the middle (where they met Chopper at the time) so I gave up on it, and then it got too big to get into. My friends finally pressured me into picking it up, and I read the manga in about 6 months and now I'm 3/4 through the anime and love it so much after over 20 years of anime watching. It's just such a fun world and I love all the characters, good and bad alike. How it's still so exciting after all this time is amazing and it's so awesome that all the plotlines keep intersecting like it's been planned out all along.
Since we've already got that one checked off, I love Steins' Gate as a sci fi fan. Go in blind for the best experience.
Gintama is amazing, but it starts pretty slow and doesn't seem like it's going anywhere, but then you really get hooked on the characters and the world like with One Piece. Eventually though, it turns into something HUGE and it's like it's gradually evolved into something epic. It's got a ton of anime/manga references, which will make it even funnier once you've seen more shonen stuff. I love it, but it's totally not a show for everyone, but I watched it all through Covid lockdown and it was one of the best rides of my life. It's One Piece-ish, but in a very smartass way. They break the fourth wall, make fun of you for watching, there's many disgusting bits, the reuse animation on purpose, the characters are totally insane. Replace One Piece's pirates with aliens, the MC is a mix of Luffy and Zoro, and instead of searching for a treasure, they're fighting an epic space war.
your friend is a legend for pushing you to watch One Piece. It's a great anime and Oda really made this anime the best anime. I don't know that you have caught up to recent manga chapter so I won't give you any spoilers but I want to tell you so much about what happened in the story.
I didn't watch Gintama but I have seen reels on instagram of this anime. It's looks really fun to watch. I will definitely start watching it after some time. In instagram reels I see different anime references like dbz, bleach, one piece, naruto etc.
Have you watched jujutsu kaisen? what are your opinions about it? I haven't read it yet but It seems cool
I'm totally caught up on the OP manga. I'm at the end of Dressrosa in the anime.
If you know enough to get those Gintama references, you should be good to go. The first like 40ish episodes (up until the first movie) it's pretty much a Seinfeld show-about-nothing type of thing, but it sets you up with many of the huge cast of reoccurring characters and sets the baseline for all to come. By the last few seasons though you won't recognize anyone as you have so much backstory to everything going on and their mundane adventures of trying to afford their next meal have scaled up so slowly to a space epic. You really grow with them all so much along the way, and I feel the world is even more fleshed out than One Piece if you can imagine. If you know some basics of Japanese history in regard to them losing their isolation with outside countries and some basic shogun/samurai/shinsengumi history you will get some of the deeper and IRL cultural references as well. Some 10 minute Youtube videos will give you more than enough. Some characters are historical figures, parodies of course, but knowing that they were real people will make it funnier as well. I wouldn't call this historical fiction at all, but a very light alternate history wouldn't be inaccurate.
I watched season 1 of JJK, liked it enough to pick up the manga, but dropped both. I'm in my 40's now, so it has to be a standout shonen to get me into it at this point. It just felt like it went more teen than adult to me as it went on. I dropped it for Chainsaw Man and I stick by that decision.
That reminded me, I was going to say Steins' Gate is seinen so it's directed more to adults, and that reminded me of another awesome and underrated show: Golden Kamuy! It follows and Ainu girl (aboriginal Japanese) and an ex-soldier on a treasure hunt where the map is tattooed on vicious killer escaped prisoners! It is very much historical fiction, but full of gags and comedy, but you learn a lot about the Ainu people which I though was outstanding stuff I had never heard of. The story was awesome too. Lots of alliance shifting and backstabbing and plots, and nice brutal combat scenes and some great villains! If you want something more adult but still with juvenile humor (nudity jokes, poop jokes, penis jokes) this is what you want. English dub is great too IMO, that's the one I watched. It was the first manga I read because I couldnt wait to find out what happened next. Amazing storytelling and historical research. If you read the manga, each ends with notes going over the real history of the people and places in that chapter. It even earned a museum tour near the end of its run!
AKIRA and the stuff by Hayao Miyazaki, like Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Nausicaä. Can't really decide between those. Most other anime look like cheap quality productions to me in comparison.
Cased Closed/Detective Conan is by far my favourite anime, which is even older than me. But is far from the best for many, many reasons. I'd say FMA Brotherhood is the one i could say it's the best. And i'm currently watching Your Lie in April, which, in the episodes i've watched so far, i find awesome and it will probably end up in very close to FMAB.
I like solo leveling so much. I have watched 2 episodes of anime and I really liked it. It's was taking too long to release a single episode. I was impatience so I read the manga and It was great.
Samurai champloo is a classic and contributed a ton to anime style, but maybe doesn't hit as hard with plot as more recent creations. Fun and campy meets dark and gritty
Inuyasha is another classic feudal Japan and magic environment
May as well mention Afro Samurai if I'm gonna have a string of feudal Japan anime
Most people look like they mentioned Cowboy bebop already
I'm a huge Neon Genesis Evangelion fan, but originally watched it in the early 2000's as a teenager with divorced parents so there's probably a big nostalgia factor
I absolutely loved cyberpunk edgerunners, but it's only 10 episodes (watched this probably 5x already)
The animated witcher movie + Castlevania (not nocturne though) were really good.
Arcane + DOTA I found to be really enjoyable as well.
Plus one to samurai Champloo and arcane. Really all of your list is top notch and worth a watch. Samuel l Jackson is amazing in afro samurai. Dudes super into anime and hentai lul.
My favorite is Hunter x Hunter. I love the explanation of their powers and growth. The way things are thought through and broken down is so cool. The plot is full of intrigue and surprises. And it's a really fun world to get lost in.
Sailor Moon and Ronin Warriors! The former sparked my love of short-haired pixie cuts on women (Sailor Mercury, I think) and the latter sparked my love of redemption arch in storytelling!
(In know these are not the type of anime referenced in the question, but these were my first experiences with anime and stick with me like my first lay.
A lot of decent ones have been mentioned so I'll add a few I didn't see:
Keep your hands off Eizouken: I can't express my love for this one enough; it's beautiful, touching, funny, and just one of the most lovely things I've ever seen.
Bocchi the Rock: very funny, and extremely uncomfortable for introverts but in a good way
Delicious in Dungeon: extraordinarily good adaptation of the manga; this one isn't done yet so who knows but it's wonderful so far, and Studio Trigger's animation won't disappoint
BNA: another Studio Trigger, lovely animation. I love how this one almost makes a point several times and then just glances off of it; it's a bizarre one
Edge runners, erased, code geass, death note, monster, Boku no hero academia, one piece, azumanga daioh, banana fish, re:zero, steins:gate, Hunter x Hunter, mob psycho
This list will keep you at the edge of your seat for a year
Any of Satoshi Kon's works (Paranoia Agent, Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, etc). IMO, he's one of the few animation directors who really takes advantage of everything animation has to offer.
There is no such thing as "the best anime", all you will hear are peoples personal biased opinions.
With that being said, ill give you multiple options for different genres, cause ya know, the above.
Animation: that one goes to akira for me, quite breathtaking gorgeous visual, form the backgrounds to the silky smooth characters, special shoutout to the dude who had to draw tetsuos mutated nutsack.
Fun factor: Ben-to, from the makers of tje jojo animes, smooth action, impactful sound effects and just straight fun seeing people beat the shit out of each other for price reduced food
Action: Claymore, that one might ruffle some feathers, but love it or hate it, the fights are high octane, brutal and had me at the edge of my seat despite knowing the manga (especially teresa vs the other 4)
Mystery: Gosick, basically little female sherlock homes, the cases she solves are an intriguing watch if you like that sort of setting
Feeling like a child again: Little witch academia, have you ever had the feeling when you watch something it made you feel young again? be it for the setting, the feeling or just straight of nostalgia? for me LWA gave me a glint of a childlike wonder i havent felt in many years
cute girls doing cute thing: None can come even close to Girls und Panzer, adorable character design, next to zero fan service, accurate panzer action (for the most part) and the battles are just generally SUPER good
and lastly: Bawling your eyes out: Ano Hi Mita (the flower we saw that day), an estranged group of friends lost oen of their people, years later they find common ground again by trying to fullfill their lost friends last wish, i still bawl like a little baby girl who just saw spongebob dry out on the fishermans table at the ending
for anyone who finds something new to watch with this, my job here is done
Patlabor movies 1&2: extremely realistic mecha and pretty deep story, though they are really slow and don't have the explosive pace most action animes bring. I love them still. There's also a very good abridged version of Patlabor 1 on YouTube, it's hard to remember the actual movie after watching it.
Ghost in the Shell movie, GITS Stand Alone Complex and Second Gig are also extremely good. In a way they are one of the definite sources of modern cyberpunk - though hardly the first, the inspiration they brought can be only compared to Star Trek imo. There have been GitS stuff since, but they never managed to recapture the same heights.
And if you like more modern stuff, 86 is one of my favorite shows of late. The base story isn't bad - it clearly has a lot of thought put into it, but it feels somewhat bland in parts - but the way they brought it to anime was just sheff's kiss. It's ridiculously well directed. That said, you need to have a certain appreciation to bleaknees and some (melo)drama to really enjoy it.
That's just the most popular ones frankly. There are exceptions, but the popular anime tend to follow tropes more closely than the less popular ones.
Anime is more of a medium than a genre, though there are certainly tropes that you'll find in the vast majority of shows like over-acted dialogue and facial expressions, over-explaining, slow pace, etc.