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Isn't anime just japanese school girls getting banged by aliens?
Sigh...as I doubt chris will ever venture over here or much of the anime section...since most of them go pretty much straight to the forum I'll chime in. Really the sex stuff is really easy to stay away from just stay away from anything with hentai in it. Yes there will be fan service at some point but not nearly anythin up to the level of legend of the overfiend...shiver...that is some NASTY stuff. I am an anime fiend and it is nasty to me. Most anime is no where NEAR that level. Really most of what makes anime good for me is the intelligent plots that actually make you think.
Several suggestions, if you are looking for good thought provoking action pick up Ghost in the Shell the first movie, great stuff and very thought provoking. If you like that move onto the series Evangelion but be prepared to spend a lot of time scratching your head.
For comedy some of the best stuff is El-Hazard. Incredibly funny and not to over the top. Head over to the AOD recommends section for some great reccomendations on various types, we are always willing to help people find good stuff on the forums as well. Do tell us what you watch and what you think of it, would be an interesting conversation driver and interesting to see it again for the first time through anothers eyes.
Zaldar, thanks... I really thought there would be more recommendations. ~ Robert (column writer)
So now I will open it up to all you Maniacs: What are some really good Anime movies and series to get into?
The most important thing to understand about anime is it is not a genre but a medium made up of many genres (some that are unfortunately not well represented in the US such as anime geared towards a female audience) I can understand being shocked by something like Legend of the Overfiend (I personally have never seen it as I avoid titles like that but I know of it). But judging anime by that would be the same thing as someone who never saw any live action movies and the first one they saw was some pornographic movie and thinking all movies are like that. You see what I am getting at.
Anyways some good introductory titles: Cowboy Bebop, Any Studio Ghibli Movie (just look it up on Wiki for a full list) Fullmetal Alchemist seem to be good things to start with as they are pretty mainstream and accessible. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is also a well done movie that recently came out.
As for something that is less mainstream but good and very realistic science fiction try Planetes
A good fantasy/romance adventure series combined with mecha from the 90's is Vision of Escaflowne. Although it does seem to be a hit or miss with many people. But then again that is true for pretty much every anime. Contrary to what some people might think anime fans opinions vary quite a bit.
If you like philosophy or a series that is more than meets the eye Kino's Journey is a very good one.
Mushi-shi is also a fairly recent well done series that explores man's relationship with nature and his environment. It is a slow moving series as a warning but it is definitely very original & unique and feels very much like a Japanese folk tale. You can actually watch this Online for free on Hulu.
Well I hope those suggestions help. There is no guarantee that you will like these series/movies but I hope they help demonstrate that anime is actually very diverse and not just Pokemon, extreme violence or animated porn.
The only anime I've ever enjoyed is Kenshin Himura Legend of the Wandering Samurai aka Samurai X.
That shit was hella sweet.
Kirarakim already mentioned a good variety of anime titles, so I just wanted to add a few thoughts on getting into anime.
I started into anime seven years ago. I didn't saw pokemon, sailor moon or any other show on TV before that. Anime was almost non existing for me.
So what got me into anime was an internet search for a music video. I never found what I was looking for, but I downloaded a few anime music videos for fun. "Tainted Donuts" was at fault. :-) The music video took pieces of tho anime shows, Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, and I was thinking: "Hey, this looks interesting!"
So, looked up a few fan subs and... was sold! It only took me two days to consider it and I bought both collection boxes of Cowboy Bebop and Trigun. (About 400$ at that time! *gulp*)
But I never regreted my decision. My husband and I were sold on anime, completely! We bought about 800 DVDs in the last seven years, and I'm still looking for new interesting titles to buy.
I also got a few friends into anime. Cowboy Bebop and Trigun worked really well for them too. But it really depends on personal preference. Some titles are great, but you will only understand them after watching other anime titles.
In the end anime is not really a genre, but more of a medium. Using animation anything is possible from comedy to horror to science fiction to slice of life shows and so on. You just have to find the right title for you. (And as pointed out earlier, the list of kirakarim is great way to start out.)
So, just give it a try, it's really worth it! :-)
As Kirarakim said, Anime is a medium. Just like US TV has a variety of different types of shows, so does Anime. It is not limited to just a few genre's, it encompasses many different ones from Action to Romance to Horror. There are thousands of discs available and that doesnt even include the Hentai stuff. I've got over 800 different titles and there isnt a single hentai disc in the entire collection. We have an entire forum dedicated to that here at Mania. Just drop down the Anime/Manga tab to the Forums.
Indeed narrowing down what someone would like or recommend largely depends on one's tastes in shows, not just what is "good" or "bad" as one person's good is another person's bad.
Pretty much any of the Studio Ghibli movies are good for starters though. They are among the best of the movies. But there are also OVA's that are similar. An OVA is simply 1-6 episodes that may range from 20-60 minutes in length. Occasionally you have longer OVA series, but most are short. One of the better ones is Gunbuster which is an almost classic science fiction story. Voices of a Distant Star is another good movie, this one in fact made by a single guy on a Macintosh alone over the course of a few years. He has several other movies out such as Place Promised in Our Early Days and 5cm Per Second. Voices is a movie about love across both space and time. Place Promised is a story of fulfilling a promise made between friends. And 5cm is a coming of age story. They're all different and liking one does not necessarily mean you'll like the others, but many hold up to shows like UP or even Wall-E.
You have TV shows that talk about Existentialism like Ghost in the Shell. Shows that look at what it is to be human, is it how you talk? How you act? Can a machine be human? In many ways very Bladerunnerish. And there are other shows like that as well.
Did you want horror? Ghost Hunt is pretty much classic horror with a fair bit of humor mixed in appropriately. It has a X-Files feel to it while keeping the horror aspect. Then there is When They Cry which at first glance is often taken as a cutesy type show but is really horror/mystery as it runs through multiple arcs where the characters do things slightly differently over the same month period and end up with different results. Very much like a horror version of Groundhog's Day. With bats and machete's.
Have you ever wanted that insane teacher that none of the other teachers like, but somehow makes going to school fun because mentally he is your age? Great Teacher Onizuka is just that. An ex-gang member who just wants to get laid and make enough money to live on. While imparting no life lessons on his students other than to live for themselves and not for some weird expectation. Which may be the greatest and hardest lesson to learn.
You have real drama shows like Rumbling Hearts which is about a guy and his girlfriend who gets into an accident and is in a coma for 5 years. And how he and his girlfriend's best friend copes with it, and how his girlfiend has to cope with a new reality when she finally wakes up. No punches are pulled in the show as mistakes are made and the consequences have to be faced later.
You have shows like Utena which focus less on the plot and more on symbolism. In a manner that even many Indie films still struggle to this day. David Lynch probably does not do it as well as Utena did.
You have your bloody blow them up type shows like Gantz and Elfen Lied. You have romance shows like Emma which is set in the Victorian age between an upper class gentleman and a lower class maid, and the types of prejudice they have to face and the pressures from society and family. You have shows like Aria which are just meant to be fun and cute and literally put you to sleep with a smile. Crazy energetic shows like School Rumble or Azumanga Diaoh which are shorts that are just generally insane and comedic. You have shows like Zegapain which is very much like the Matrix, but with more emphasis on what it means to be human, and loss. Then there are shows like Zipang which is much like the old movie Final Countdown except from the Japanese point of view. If you were a Japanese naval officer in command of a modern Aegis class destroyer and were sent back to World War II what would you do? Knowing that Japan is better off today than it would have been, that the world is better off for the most part, but also knowing hundreds of thousands of your countrymen will die? What would you do?
Then there are the shows like Death Note which is very much like a Sherlock Holmes mystery with two masterminds battling it out, both convinced they are both better than the other and on the side of right. It is shows like this that shows the true face of evil. Very much like how Darth Vader was not evil because he killed a lot of people, a bear can kill a lot of people, but it was his belief that he was right and how his beliefs were subverted that really made him evil. Not beyond redemption of course, but evil in a way a mindless killer never could be.
So yes, Anime runs the gamut of dozens of genres and there are literally hundreds of titles to choose from within those genres. None of which may have to do with sex or tentecles or porn, or are even for kids. Many of these shows are not for children even if there is no sex or blood just due to the situations and the resolutions. It's all entertainment of course, but even entertainment can have serious sides.
I'll second Kellory's post even though it was long, but then, there's a lot of issues here to talk about--
Some longtime fans may giggle at the article (no offense!), since it displays EVERY cliche of the First Time Anime Fan who's gotten a bum steer for advice and media perceptions--Let's review a few of the classics:
Perception #1: "I've heard of anime...I remember Battle of the Planets and Gigantor!" - Well, I remember Battle of the Planets too--It was thirty years ago. And Gigantor was forty. (And Bubblegum Crisis was twenty!) Think you may have guessed, things have changed a little since then, and if you only want to watch what you saw as a kid, well, that's on disk too.
Perception #2: "Anime?...Isn't that, like schoolgirls and tentacles, 'n stuff?" - Boy, haven't heard those since the anime-scare articles of the mid-90's, back when the mainstream didn't know what to make of anime, but assumed it had to be just as evil and foreign as Pokemon... ;) Fact is, like bad Skinemax direct-video thrillers make up a small and embarrassing percentage of American movies, "hentai" makes up a forgettable and very crappily made percentage of anime, since "real" anime is normally intended for movies and television, just as our animation is. That's how industries work on both sides of the Pacific--Just that one makes a cooler shock-story in the news, and louder giggles from those who haven't heard about it. (And if anyone recommends it to a first-timer, oh please, that joke went out years ago...)
Perception #3: "Anime?...Cool, is it going to be all bloody, with samurais and ninjas 'n stuff?" - Maybe. Or it could be sci-fi, or sports, or romantic drama, or kids fantasy, or even insane comedy. Since it's just as big corporate industry as comics, anime is in the business of having Something for Everybody, and boy, does it ever.
And now that we've gotten those cliche's out of the way, let's talk about the bad recommendations:
Bad recommendation #1 - "Have you seen Akira/Ghost in the Shell yet?" - Some fans are permanently trapped in 1996, back when only six or seven titles were on disk, and fans hypnotized themselves into believing this was the Required Reading list for anime, even into 2009. Maybe they are classics...But there's a lot more on the shelf now, don't feel you HAVE to rush.
Bad recommendation #2: "Have you seen Metropolis/Paprika/(bad inscrutable Sony arthouse movie) yet?" - Unfortunately, when fans get recommending, there is still a lot of the Blind Leading the Blind--Some fans haven't even gotten into DVD TV-series yet, and still believe that Anime is whatever arthouse movie Roger Ebert gives a 10 to. Let's just say it's not a representative sample: Since anime is "commercial", Japanese directors want to do "Art" for their big-budget features. And sometimes, you just want good old fashioned mainstream genre junk food. (The one thing the movie-onlies will also auto-recommend is the entire string of Disney-dubbed Studio Ghibli films by Hayao Miyazaki, and don't worry, they're okay--Absolutely painless, not to mention classics. And while Disney owns Spirited Away, they don't happen to own The Castle of Cagliostro, so don't let that one slip by.)
Bad recommendation #3: "Are you watching (insert Cartoon Network show here)" - Yes, you can get some anime for free on late-night CN. I'm one of those fans who thinks what they get is not very GOOD: CN tends to have only one taste, for noir action (since Bleach and Full Metal Alchemist are their ratings leaders), and tend to ignore all other genres..When CN does a comedy, they want it to be as stoner/pottymouthed as their own Swim shows, and probably aren't aware of some of the "normal" shows out there. It's a pretty darn skewed sample on their channel too, and frankly, something about their "wacky" title cards suggest they don't seem to wild about the genre either.
Okay, so what CAN fans recommend?
Since it's mostly action and Blockbuster rentals on your list, we've had some good suggestions for Ghost Hunt and Death Note; they're as "American" genre as you can get and still stay in the Cool Anime zone.
And since nobody's recommended comedy yet, I'll throw in Azumanga Daioh (or "What if Charles Schulz wrote an anime, and turned the Peanuts gang into Tokyo high-school girls?)--In addition to being cute and silly, the gags in this one are maniacally original...Highly addictive, and just about the best ambassador for "Anime that still looks Japanese" out there.
(And in September, keep a lookout for Sgt. Frog, possibly one of the most insane G-rated anime comedies ever made. Period. And while it helps to know a few of the old-school robot-fleet epics like Gundam and Robotech aka Macross to truly appreciate the jokes, being geezer enough to remember Star Blazers should get by.)
Oh, and did we mention that Mania.com also hosts one of the legendary anime websites AnimeonDVD.com? Yeah, we were the experts long before you had your site, pal, and when the call went out, its fans responded. We've been helping first-timers from way back. :)
well, since I'm here (and maelstrom isn't) I'll have to speak for him and myself when I spit out FINAL FANTASY ADVENT CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! ON BLU-RAY!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOO!
I posed a very similar question to Mania some months ago, movielord.
The Anime: Enlighten Me Please blog still has all of its comments where Jakester, Maelstrom, mbeckham and I had our back and forth.
Maelstrom and Mbeckham had a lot to say on this...plus a few related ideas.