Looking for rental recommendations.

[Half Pain]

Okay, so I'm going to be signing back up with Netflix in hopes of getting to see more anime that I can actually buy. I have purchases planned out for 2006, but I'm more into renting at the moment for shows that I'm not sure about. Anyways, I don't care what the genre is. I'm willing to give anything a shot as long as it's good. So recommend away! /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

[Collectonian]

Well...what do you have planned to buy and what do you already have?

You're welcome to use my rental queue (http://eclectic-world.com/myaddictions/videocollection/rentals.php) for inspiration (it has anime and non-anime though)

For past rentals, I enjoyed the first 2 volumes of Avenger and I wish they had sent 3 instead of The Gift. If you haven't seen it yet, Gungrave! I rented it, loved it, and will acquire it during the next DDD sale. /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

[JJMatthews]

Collectonian: Did you roll your own PHP to read the Netflix rss feed? I've been thinking about coding something similar myself, so I'm glad to see it's possible... (assuming the answer is "Yes" to my question. /images/graemlins/happy.gif )

Half Pain: Yeah, some idea of what you consider "good" would be helpful. When I first signed up for my rental account, I just went to town and threw anything that even vaguely caught my fancy into the queue. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

I'll put in a plug for some of my pet favorites that I first saw through rentals:
- Kino's Journey
- Infinite Ryvius
- Kurogane Communications
- Boys Over Flowers
- Haibane Renmei
- Blue Gender

[Collectonian]

No, I'm using the free version of CaRP (http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/) to do it (two instances, one for the current rental and one for the queue). It is possible to code myself, but didn't see a need to rebuild the wheel ;-)

I've been trying to think of rentals that I liked so much I bought. So far I've remembered:

Fruits Basket - often spoken of here, and I was suprised I liked it cause I thought, from the description, it would be a dumb comedy

Gungrave - just kicks butt enough that I'm actually willing to pay $80 for the set /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Rurouni Kenshin - good series, though personally I say avoid all the Samurai X crap except maybe the one that's about Kenshin's past

Pretear - also good and nice not to have a heroine who isn't super cute to everyone /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

Legend of Himiko - not spectacular or award winning, but I think its a good solid series and at a great price now

[Half Pain]

Well, here are a bunch of shows that I've seen (either I've watched them on TV, own the DVDs, or plan to finish up/start collecting the DVDs). I figure that there's a lot that I'm missing, but I can't list EVERY anime that I've ever seen or liked:

Samurai Champloo
Cowboy Bebop
Wolf's Rain
Witch Hunter Robin
RahXephon
R.O.D. The TV
Gungrave
Gantz
Fafner
Gundam SEED
Inu-Yasha
Last Exile
Paranoia Agent
Heat Guy J
Fullmetal Alchemist
Akira
Ninja Scroll
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
FLCL
Samurai 7
Yu Yu Hakusho
Dragon Ball / Z / GT
Naruto
Hellsing
Big O
Blue Gender
S-Cry-Ed
Lupin the 3rd

Those are what comes to mind. Should help some.

Also, here are the three discs I just got from Netflix:

Cromartie High School Vol. 1 - Loved what I saw on G4.
Please Twins Vol. 1 - Finally giving it a try.
Yu Yu Hakusho Vol. 27 - Finally continuing the series into the last story arc after finishing up Chapter Black back in July.)

[Puppet Master]

Baki the Grappler, Fighting Spirit, and Tenjho Tenge are all pretty good. Though Baki and Fighting Spirit are the best of the three. If you like darker anime theres always Gilgamesh and random thoughts Yugo the Negotiator and Mermaid Forest.

[porkchopexpress]

Personally I would just rent anything and everything with a three or four star rating and above. If you don't like the first disk, move on to something else. I've also recently figured out a little trick with Netflix. The dvd envelope sometimes will have insanely far away return address'. I live in upstate NY and sometimes the disks will have a return address of Texas, California or Washington. That would take a good week for them to get my disk back and send me another. But sometimes the disks have return address' from Syracuse, maybe 40 minutes away. I drop my disk in the mail on Monday, I get a new one on Wednesday. For those envelopes that don't have Syracuse address', I just cross them out and write the Syracuse address in. Then they get it back the next day.

[MattSzczerba]

[porkchopexpress]

[ QUOTE ]
MattSzczerba said:
hey, let's name every good anime there is. can't you just read the reviews on this site? or would you rather everyone just list titles with no further explanation? Here's my two cents: Berserk, Kimagure Orange Road, and Kaleido Star.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've got a few recomendations for you. There is this great anime called "Reply to the original poster, dumbass". Oh, and they have both seasons of "Why do you always post like a hatefull prick?". Those Japanese with their wacky Engrish titles.

[Redcoffin]

Man, I've rented so much anime from Netflix I couldn't list it. Their anime selection used to be terrible, but a couple of years ago they saw the light and now almost the only thing they don't reliably have is porn -- which I'm not into anyway. I've asked them to stock things they didn't have, and both times they added the title to their catalog. If you want anime porn, go to someplace like Greencine.

Lacking ANY idea what you like, I'll say this: go for LONG series. Stuff that would be expensive and hog a lot of space to buy for yourself. I Netflixed my way through all of Card Captor Sakura and all of Revolutionary Girl Utena, for example, and I am chugging through all of Urusei Yatsura. Go for anything you're not sure you want to buy. I figure it's only worth buying an anime if I still want to watch it again AFTER I've seen it all on rental.

Depending on where you live, check out one of the other rental services that specialize in Anime. But only go for them if you live in the same town where they are.

Frankly, I found Netflix's suggestions put so much anime in my face that I was never at a loss for something to put in my queue. I have 187 animes in my queue right now -- it would take me over a year to see them all.

[Half Pain]

Yeah, Netflix is pretty awesome. If it wasn't for being able to rent the DVDs, I wouldn't have been able to see all of Yu Yu Hakusho from the beginning (going into the Three Kings Saga now), and I wouldn't have gave shows like Gantz and RahXephon a chance. Both shows are now in my collection and are favorites of mine. I do agree that it's best to rent stuff you aren't sure about and longer series. That's why I blazed through Yu Yu Hakusho last year. It, too, became an all-time favorite of mine. Hell, I just rented Please Twins and was really surprised by how much I liked it. It'll probably result in a purchase much like Gantz and RahXephon.

Sometimes I see Netflix as a means of previewing a series I want. Heh. /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif