Recommended Anime/Manga?

[Observer]

BTW does anyone know any good Mech anime? or Mech-Girl? (you know where it's a girl with like a half a mech suite, think Triggerheart Exelica)

For mecha musume, what you are looking for, look no further than Infinite Stratos. A recent anime from this season and pretty much that. Actually, I kind of felt it was like Triggerheart Exelica but with harem influences.

That or Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040. Pretty damn awesome show.

You might also wanna play/get the doujin game Valforce, which is a Virtual-ON clone with mecha musume.

As for mecha-mecha, you have perhaps Patlabor (old but nice, the movie is great and very serious business), the almighy Macross (the movie is as badass as it gets I love it and has Kawamori at its finest), Macross Plus (awesome, if not even better!), Macross Frontier (if you can stomach the songs and such), Genesis Climber Mospeada (used in Robotech as the 3rd Generation)... and Bounen No Xam'd. But I don't know if the series can be considered "mecha", it's more like Miyazaki-meets-mechs with high doses of weirdness. Awesome, perhaps one of the best series I've seen in a while, great music too.

That and Kishin Taisen Gigantic (GIGANTIKU!) Formula. Pretty generic but it delivers and the whole premise of "the World Wisest War" truly made me laugh. Same designer as Gatekeepers, which I also kind of recommend. And Nadesico! The Aestivalis designs are just plain fucking badass.

And when nothing else works, it's just Hokuto No Ken all the way. Motherfucking Fist of the North Star!

[Obiwanshinobi]

And Nadesico! The Aestivalis designs are just plain fucking badass.

Fine show indeed.

[greg]

BTW does anyone know any good Mech anime? or Mech-Girl? (you know where it's a girl with like a half a mech suite, think Triggerheart Exelica)

Along these lines, I wouldn't recommend Sky Girls. It was boring, shallow, and predictable. There's even an episode where they find a large-cupped bra, and the girls go about trying to figure out who it belongs to. Thrill at this edge-of-your seat bra owner-searching action! Even putting the Vic Viper in the show didn't seem to help much. Cool robot frames the girls fly around in, but other than that, dumb. Not terrible, just dumb. And boring.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Speaking of mecha-musume, there is that Saikano show too. Tacky melodrama which I kinda liked because it was like a footage of somebody's dream. Vaccinated me against cringe-worthy scenes in anime to an extent.
I believe the doujin horizontal shmup Angel Destroyer to be based on Saikano.

[apple arcade]

BTW does anyone know any good Mech anime? or Mech-Girl? (you know where it's a girl with like a half a mech suite, think Triggerheart Exelica)

Along these lines, I wouldn't recommend Sky Girls. It was boring, shallow, and predictable. There's even an episode where they find a large-cupped bra, and the girls go about trying to figure out who it belongs to. Thrill at this edge-of-your seat bra owner-searching action! Even putting the Vic Viper in the show didn't seem to help much. Cool robot frames the girls fly around in, but other than that, dumb. Not terrible, just dumb. And boring.

I liked Sky Girls. Much more so then Strike Witches. Kind of bummed SW blew up when SG didn't.

[ryu]

Eureka Seven.

tough one i believe. when i saw eureka seven 3 years ago i had thought it was absolutely brilliant, so much that i had rewatched it several times in a row.

so i was about to give it a nother whirl just a few months ago, and couldn't really stand it anymore. the pacing is too slow and renton's become a really annoying main character.

the extremely shitty animation quality doesn't help it either.

[Obiwanshinobi]

the extremely shitty animation quality doesn't help it either.

Couldn't disagree more. Eureka Seven remains the best animated TV show of this length I've seen to date.

[ryu]

Could it be you're mixing up art direction and animation quality?

Last time I watched I had found the show's many still images to be pretty embarassing. I know every anime has those, but it was pretty bad with Eureka Seven iirc.

[apple arcade]

BTW does anyone know any good Mech anime?

Eureka Seven.

I'll check it out. I think I put it on my Amazon want list a while back which often serves as a things to torrent list.

Noir (series) - Awful
Gunslinger Girl (several episodes) - Weak
Mezzo Forte - The director has real animation talent, it's a shame he's relegated to (admittedly well done) hardcore porn.

I dislike just about anything that's all female based because they can't create established female heroes the way they used to with stuff like Bubblegum Crisis or Geobreeders, needless and intrusive fan service, annoying generic characters thrown in to accommodate weeaboo fanbases.

Reading your closing statement and seeing you list Noir as awful just doesn't make sense to me. I thought Noir was awesome and while they do go a bit off the deep end with Chloe, Kirika & Mireal are totally awesome.

Gunslinger Girl. If you dislike this type of stuff, why are you watching it? It's a bit of a confusing show because at times it's very adult oriented and at others, very child oriented. I wouldn't call it weak, just not for every one.

Mezzo Forte...Ummm yea. I liked Kite Liberator but for the most part his work isn't "well done" porn. Have you seen Kite?

BTW does anyone know any good Mech anime?

What are you looking for? Something more like GaoGaiGar, or NGE, or Mazinger, or Gurren Lagann, or (the fabulous) Code Geass?

Given what you've already said you like, watch Code Geass (esp. if you like Clamp noodle-people) or Gurren Lagann.

I tried to watch Code Geass but only made it an episode in before becoming bored. I know it's not fair to judge anime off one episode so I'll give it another shot. I don't mind Clamp noodle people I like Rayearth, Kobato, & Muki-Chan in Wonderland but didn't dig XXXHolic.

I've never heard of GaoGaiGar could you go into detail about it? Same with Mazinger? NGE was one of the first things to get me into anime. I saw Rei Ayanami's artwork and had to check out the show. It was rather confusing at first (I just bought the VHS with her on it, doesn't really explain much of the story) but I still am very fond of the show.

I keep hearing the name Gurren Lagann so I guess I should check it out but I hear that it's sort of over the top Shounen which I don't enjoy at all.

BTW does anyone know any good Mech anime? or Mech-Girl? (you know where it's a girl with like a half a mech suite, think Triggerheart Exelica)

For mecha musume, what you are looking for, look no further than Infinite Stratos. A recent anime from this season and pretty much that. Actually, I kind of felt it was like Triggerheart Exelica but with harem influences.

That or Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040. Pretty damn awesome show.

You might also wanna play/get the doujin game Valforce, which is a Virtual-ON clone with mecha musume.

As for mecha-mecha, you have perhaps Patlabor (old but nice, the movie is great and very serious business), the almighy Macross (the movie is as badass as it gets I love it and has Kawamori at its finest), Macross Plus (awesome, if not even better!), Macross Frontier (if you can stomach the songs and such), Genesis Climber Mospeada (used in Robotech as the 3rd Generation)... and Bounen No Xam'd. But I don't know if the series can be considered "mecha", it's more like Miyazaki-meets-mechs with high doses of weirdness. Awesome, perhaps one of the best series I've seen in a while, great music too.

That and Kishin Taisen Gigantic (GIGANTIKU!) Formula. Pretty generic but it delivers and the whole premise of "the World Wisest War" truly made me laugh. Same designer as Gatekeepers, which I also kind of recommend. And Nadesico! The Aestivalis designs are just plain fucking badass.

And when nothing else works, it's just Hokuto No Ken all the way. Motherfucking Fist of the North Star!

Infinite Stratos is already in my torrents queue. I hope it cures the fix!

I'll look into Valforce. (I know there is a PSP game called Shinki Battlers also) I've wanted to see BGC2400 for years, I have no reason as to why I haven't yet. I like Macross, but I haven't got real deep into it. I have Macross Plus on VHS, I downloaded Do U Remember Love & the new one something about the false Songstress. I need to watch them thoroughly still.

Tell me a bit more about Bounen No Xam'd?

Also are those Appleseed Cast movies any good?

Speaking of mecha-musume, there is that Saikano show too. Tacky melodrama which I kinda liked because it was like a footage of somebody's dream. Vaccinated me against cringe-worthy scenes in anime to an extent.
I believe the doujin vertical shmup Angel Destroyer to be based on Saikano.

I saw the cover of this one and it looked pretty iffy to me. Would you recommend it?


Thank you to everyone for the responses. I do appreciate them.

Any more Mecha Musume anime or games would be awesome.

[greg]

OK, so there are two LOGH Gaiden series. The second one is called Spiral Labyrinth. I just watched a few minutes of it, and the voice actor for Yang Wen Li was changed! Oh man, this will take some getting used to.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Could it be you're mixing up art direction and animation quality?

Last time I watched I had found the show's many still images to be pretty embarassing. I know every anime has those, but it was pretty bad with Eureka Seven iirc.

Um, it's not about things it kept still, it's about things it animated. If you ask me, the animations were strikingly human, for lack of a better word. "Incredibly shitty" sounds like a MASSIVE overstatement. They don't have as many frames per second as Miyazaki films (obviously - not that kind of budget), but they capture intricacies of human behaviour just the way I like. I mean, the whole chemistry going on in families - children, teenagers, adults, old-timers - it's all there. What ~50 episodes show comes anywhere near it?

Speaking of mecha-musume, there is that Saikano show too. Tacky melodrama which I kinda liked because it was like a footage of somebody's dream. Vaccinated me against cringe-worthy scenes in anime to an extent.
I believe the doujin vertical shmup Angel Destroyer to be based on Saikano.

I saw the cover of this one and it looked pretty iffy to me. Would you recommend it?

Well, if it made you cringe right off the bat, I can only say "yes, it's that cringeworthy all the way through". That said, it nails the "girl with metal parts siticking out of her" fetish dead on, and the dream-like quality of it is fairly unique.
If anything, you won't waste much time watching it as it's only 13 episodes. Also, that shmup scrolls horizontally in fact (my mistake).

[Barrakketh]

I tried to watch Code Geass but only made it an episode in before becoming bored. I know it's not fair to judge anime off one episode so I'll give it another shot.

I wouldn't be a fan of Nanoha if I dropped that after the first episode of the first season (or the first four episodes, really)

Give it a little time...personally, I marathon'd it after the first season of Code Geass aired simply because R2 sounded interesting and watched to catch up on the previous season, probably a month or two before the second season. Due to a time slot change the second season is a bit...different. A new audience and a change of plans in how the second season was going to proceed, with the end result being a fabulous entertaining train wreck that I thoroughly enjoyed (for different reasons than why I liked the first season).

If you make it to the second season you won't quite have the fun of post-episode discussions on your favorite forum that were entertaining in their own right, in no small part due to the fact that basically every episode ends on a cliffhanger.

I've never heard of GaoGaiGar could you go into detail about it? Same with Mazinger?

Given your comments about what you've heard about Gurren Lagann, I don't think you're the kind of person who is going to enjoy a "traditional" super robot series. I was mainly trying to gauge whether you wanted a mecha series aimed towards people who really dig that sort of thing, of you wanted something that is going to be more appealing towards casual viewers.

I keep hearing the name Gurren Lagann so I guess I should check it out but I hear that it's sort of over the top Shounen which I don't enjoy at all.

It's over the top, but it's not like a shounen series in the vein of...well, anything you'd expect from an anime targeting the same audience as Bleach or something.

You might like Macross Frontier. I'm not quite sure about Gundam 00, or Gundam Unicorn if you happen to like the U.C. Gundam series. I'd guess "no" about the latter two, though a certain mech nut I know hates Gundam 00 because he thinks it's the embodiment of everything he hates about new mecha series, meaning that it is more accessible to someone not big on the genre.

the pacing is too slow

I think that's true for the first 20 or so episodes. After that it picks up enough that it doesn't bother me.

the extremely shitty animation quality doesn't help it either.

Does not compute.

[Observer]

Eureka 7 might have a pretty weird character design (I don't like it personally) and the "surfer mechs" idea could be stupid but this has Kawamori's trademark manly mechs of awesome, Itano Circus, pew pew, explosions and a big final battle. Yeah, Rento/Eureka might not be everyone's cup of tea (and boy those little kids were annoying) but the whole thing was pretty well shaped.

Maybe it does not have the "finesse" of things like Last Exile, Cowboy Bebop or Blue Submarine Nº6 (everything is better with giant talking sharks and underwater Itano Circus, it's like I'm playing In the Hunt!) but Kawamori's mechs, stylish battles and crazy stuff were nice enough for me.

And, obviously, you don't always get a Mushishi or a Gankutsuou all the time. In fact, I wish there could be a second season of Mushishi with all the material missing from the manga...

apple_arcade> Bounen No Xam'd truly is Miyazaki-meets-mechs with awesome music, great characters (special attention to the captain that looks exactly like the Bayonetta bitch, in fact, I was screaming that the game ripped off the character design! Oh, and special attention to Nakiame, which is pretty much a gigantic homage to Nausicaä/Mononoke Hime and maybe more) and excellent animation, a step quite above the standards most of the time. I think it was renowned to be one of the first HD animes or something like that, dunno if it's true. It's absolutely underrated, same deal with Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula (come on, it even has computer genius loli, it's nothing to "wow" about but it was damn solid).

As I said before, if nothing else works, the original Cobra, Hokuto No Ken, Akira and all the '80s glories will do the trick. Even the original Transformers Movie with all the glam and heavy metal. Kickass as hell. Vince Di Cola owns.

[Zeether]

Sgt. Frog is another great show. They toss in Gundam references in nearly every episode because Sunrise worked on it. I liked the red Zaku horn on the vacuum cleaner in one episode.

[greg]

Sgt. Frog is another great show. They toss in Gundam references in nearly every episode because Sunrise worked on it. I liked the red Zaku horn on the vacuum cleaner in one episode.

The anime is cool, but the manga is way better. Perhaps due to licensing issues, they are only able to spoof Gundam in the show. While in the manga, there are tons of references to other stuff like Macross, Evangelion, Mazinger, Ultraman, Dirty Pair, Lupin III, YAMATO (how cool is that?) and even some Miyazaki stuff IIRC.

For example, in the anime, there's the episode where they go on a dental mission to fight cavities. They're shrunk down and they launch like Gundams from a miniature White Base to go into somebody's mouth... I forget who's mouth... Natsumi's? Anyhow, in the manga, they're dressed up like Macross Valkyries and are holding the Valkyrie gunpods rather than the Gundam beam rifles. There's still plenty of Gundam references in the manga, but there's just so much more there.

What's interesting is that the manga had a lot of T&A for the first several volumes, but once it became an anime marketed to children, the manga cleaned up quite a bit and the characters would even reference the fact. So, not so much gratuitous shots of Natsumi and Aki.

Unfortunately now that Tokyopop is going belly up this is one more series I won't be able to collect anymore.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

GaoGaiGar is a pretty cool hand drawn anime series for it's time. There is the GaoGaiGar Final OVA (Original Video Animation) companion piece to watch to see what further adventures await the crew. The female side character known as "White Swan" featured in the GaoGaiGar series has that typical very well stacked blond gal with a sexy hourglass figure to sate the T&A fans -- or a bit of fan service if you will. White Swan even has a single GaoGaiGar episode in which she's the main character of the hour. There were two boxed GaoGaiGar DVD sets that were released for the U.S. DVD market back in 2008 courtesy of AnimeWorks.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Zeether]

Sgt. Frog is another great show. They toss in Gundam references in nearly every episode because Sunrise worked on it. I liked the red Zaku horn on the vacuum cleaner in one episode.

The anime is cool, but the manga is way better. Perhaps due to licensing issues, they are only able to spoof Gundam in the show. While in the manga, there are tons of references to other stuff like Macross, Evangelion, Mazinger, Ultraman, Dirty Pair, Lupin III, YAMATO (how cool is that?) and even some Miyazaki stuff IIRC.

For example, in the anime, there's the episode where they go on a dental mission to fight cavities. They're shrunk down and they launch like Gundams from a miniature White Base to go into somebody's mouth... I forget who's mouth... Natsumi's? Anyhow, in the manga, they're dressed up like Macross Valkyries and are holding the Valkyrie gunpods rather than the Gundam beam rifles. There's still plenty of Gundam references in the manga, but there's just so much more there.

What's interesting is that the manga had a lot of T&A for the first several volumes, but once it became an anime marketed to children, the manga cleaned up quite a bit and the characters would even reference the fact. So, not so much gratuitous shots of Natsumi and Aki.

Unfortunately now that Tokyopop is going belly up this is one more series I won't be able to collect anymore.

There's always the chance it gets rescued. Also I'm pretty sure the anime spoofs on other series.

[greg]

[There's always the chance it gets rescued. Also I'm pretty sure the anime spoofs on other series.

the Keroro Gunsou anime does spoof some other anime, but nothing compared to the manga. I really hope that the Sgt. Frog manga could resume with another publisher....

[chempop]

And, obviously, you don't always get a Mushishi or a Gankutsuou all the time.

I don't think I'll ever see another series as good as either of those again. Although I haven't started Denou Coil yet, or seen much of Monster, which from what I have seen was AAA+++

[apple arcade]

I looked further into Bounen X'amd. Looks interesting, going to have to watch it.

[gct]

It has been mentioned several times in this forum (search turns up a number of hits) but I just watched The Venus Wars for the first time and it is bad-ass. It's all action. Giant tanks, fast motorcycles, something exploding or getting punched through with bullets every few seconds... WTF is moe, this is what anime should be about.

[apple arcade]

I disagree. While I started out as a fan of weird and action anime, I enjoy harem and slice of life far more.

I think action anime is a good introduction but you can only see so many explosions. You either venture off into deeper more psychological stuff, darker vampire-esque stuff or you go the sad shounen route. I think the first two lead to character driven genres while the later leads to well being a weabo.

Lastly, have you seen Ergo Proxy? It's bad ass. (trying to point you in the right path!)

[moozooh]

So are harem and slice-of-life deeply psychological or darker vampiresque? :D

[apple arcade]

So are harem and slice-of-life deeply psychological or darker vampiresque?

Some are. Shuffle, School Days are examples of each.

However you miss what I was trying to convey.

When you watch psychological and darker anime you usually check out a show based on the premises but it's the character within the show that drive it and hold your interest. The characters in harem and slice of life typically are what draw you in.

Imagine this; someone follows this route and you can see their taste evolve.

Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal -> Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust -> Ergo Proxy -> Kara no Kyoukai -> School Days

[ryu]

I dunno what kinds of slice of life and harem you watch, but last time i checked most of these had characters as fleshed out as a paper sheets.

although a well written show will often work no matter how shallow the characters may be.

[apple arcade]

^^^aren't you the guy that said Seitokai no Ichizon was everything wrong anime?

Nothing personally, but when your opinion is that for me to try and convince you otherwise would be like arguing with an echo. You already have your mind set in stone and that is fine so why bother trying to change it.

[ryu]

yeah that was a dumb post. ot's a bad habit of mine to occasionally post w/o thinking much. my bad, sorry.

about seitokai no ichizon. it isn't just a generic harem, but a really bad one at that. i gave that one a chance up until episode 3 something and had to drop it mid episode, it was painful to watch.

[Barrakketh]

Kara no Kyoukai -> School Days

I'm not sure why someone would do that to their self. KnK is fantastic, School Days is a thing I (and others) use to torment people. You tell them how bad School Days is, they don't believe you, then they come back after finishing it (after we ask them to post an update each episode, inevitably starting out with "I still don't see what is so bad about this"), ending with something like this:

or

Their reactions are many times more entertaining than School Days.

[apple arcade]

I enjoyed School Days quite a bit. It's one of my top 10 anime.


I think my list would be something like

lucky star
battle angel
blood+
ergo proxy
noir
kara no kyoukai
school days
serial experiments lain
bokusatsu tenshi dokuro-chan
welcome to the nhk

and for caparison purpose some of the worst anime i've ever seen

la petite cosette
daphne in the brilliant blue
happy lesson
kite
gilgamesh
steamboy
final fantasy unlimited
saiyuki
zaion

[Obiwanshinobi]

Soil rocks the socks off.



By Atsushi Kaneko (same chap who played the guitar in The Stalin perchance? He'd be 14 in 1980, though.), evokes vivid memories of Twin Peaks, The Kingdom, Strugatskys books and Buñuel films (such as The Exterminating Angel and The Phantom of Liberty). Best manga I've read since Otaku no Musume-san.