Favorite Animes

[LordSlithor]

I have to admit that I'm not as much into Anime like I used to. Once the floodgates opened in the 1990's and it became easier to find, I just found myself overwhelmed by content. And it became harder to find the really good stuff, or shows that appealed to me.

The only new Anime I've found myself really getting into has been Attack on Titan. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders I've also been enjoying. More recently, there's Yamato: 2199, which is a reboot of Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers that is really, really good!

Thanks to outfits, though, like Disco Tek Media, Sentai Works, and Right Stuff, I've been able to check out Anime from the 70s and 80s that I missed out on the first time, had always heard about, but never seen, like Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Mazinger Z, and the Gatchaman series that includes not just the original Science Ninja Team, but also Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter.

 

[Stingray]

I've always been a casual Anime fan myself. I'm always more into the story than the artwork. In the past couple of years I've seen Sword Art Online (the first one) which I really liked. I actually flew through it in 3 sittings. It's basically about people trapped in a multiplayer online RPG. There is a second season which I have not yet seen but I've heard it deals with a group trapped inside another video game but this time it's a shooter instead of a fantasy role playing game.

The story has been done before in .Hack and .Hack//Sign and maybe even before that but SAO is worth a watch in my opinion. If anyone has seen season 2 I'd like to hear their opinion (no spoilers though).

Along the same vein about being trapped I'd also highly recommend Grimgar Of Fantasy And Ash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimgar_of_Fantasy_and_Ash

Very much feels like a Dungeons and Dragons party will the different members and has a real party feel dynamic with the characters. I've only seen season 1. No idea if season 2 is out or will be coming out but I liked this a lot and I believe it was less than 10 episodes.

 

[LordSlithor]

I know of .Hack. There's also a video game series based on it. You can find it on Steam under the title .Hack//G.U. Last Recode. Anybody ever play it? I've been wondering if it's any good.

The premise of Grimgar sounds an awful lot like another Anime I've seen: Record of the Lodoss War. That also had a very D&D feel. But I'm to understand that RotLW was itself based on an RPG.

 

[Stingray]

I've not played the video games myself. But I have heard pretty good things about them. For some reason I want to say there was a PS2 version of one of the games too. I think I have some credit on Steam. I might have to check out that game.

Recrd of the Lodoss War was something I always looked at in the video stores back in the day but it was also so expensive to buy (on VHS) and it just fell off my radar after all the years. Grimgar is a pretty quick watch - maybe 5 hours total or even less.

 

[Gandalf42]

I haven't watched too much in the way of anime. I really liked Ghost in the Shell (anime) from back in the day. I really thought that explored some deep concepts of how you define humanity. Ninja Blade was just a visual tour de force- great artwork with generous lashings of Ultraviolence. Akira was great and violent and depressing. I really got into Naruto in the mid 2000's.

I'm going to track down Grimgar..

 

[Stingray]

I think I would suggest Grimgar over Sword Art Online. I really like it and it's fun. I don't really stay up on much of that stuff so I don't know if a season 2 is coming out or not but I would be very surprised if you didn't like it.

Fate / Zero and Fate Stay Night : Unlimited Bladeworks are also pretty good. Plot deals with mages battling each other through various avatars from history (King Arthur, Alexander the Great, etc) with some interesting twists on the characters.

I'd also really suggest Steins Gate - it's mainly about time travel and even works in the John Titor BBS story from the early 2000's...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor

 

[LordSlithor]

I really can't promote Yamato: 2199 enough. If you ever watched and loved Star Blazers as a kid, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

What's more, they just announced that the follow-up series - Yamato: 2202 - is going to be shown later this Spring!

Here's one of the trailers:

You can watch 2199 on either Funimation (where it's dubbed) or Crunchyroll. 2202 will also be shown on both when it premieres here.

 

[Gandalf42]

Excellent. I loved Star Blazers... watched it every morning while I ate my breakfast before heading to school. I'll definitely check Yamato: 2199 out.

 

[Stingray]

I really can't promote Yamato: 2199 enough. If you ever watched and loved Star Blazers as a kid, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

What's more, they just announced that the follow-up series - Yamato: 2202 - is going to be shown later this Spring!

Here's one of the trailers:

You can watch 2199 on either Funimation (where it's dubbed) or Crunchyroll. 2202 will also be shown on both when it premieres here.

This is now on my list to watch. I loved Star Blazers. I didn't love watching it on my 12 inch black and white tv. My parents bought a kerosene heater during the Star Blazers years and of course the box it came in was my new toy. I would crawl inside and fire my very own wave motion gun that I had drawn on the box with magic marker.

I don't really watch much stuff that is sub titled. How far behind the release dates do the dubbed versions usually run?

 

[LordSlithor]

Well, Yamato 2199 came out in Japan in 2012, where it was originally released in a series of five movies, then shown on TV in half-hour episodes. Like the first season, there were 26 in all. Then followed two movies: A Voyage to Remember, which was a condensed retelling of the story, and Ark of the Stars, which serves as a both bridge and a preface to 2202.

Consequently, 2199 has been finished for a while. Funimation got the rights and started showing the episodes late last year, releasing them once a week on both their streaming channel and Crunchyroll. I believe all of them should be out by now.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when they announced they would start showing 2202 here in the Spring, because it's still being produced! Evidently, we'll be getting a simulcast of that, as we'll be seeing new episodes here around the same time as they'll be debuting in Japan.