Top Ten Favorite Anime

[Nathander]

I was wondering for all you fellow anime fans out there, what are your top ten favorites, and why? Mine are (in ranking order):

10. Azumanga Daioh: An adorable, witty, and entertaining show that chronicles a group of female high school friends and their school years. A cute, and often endearing, series.

9. Hellsing (Original Television Series): While it pales in comparison to the manga and the OVA series, the original TV run still holds a special place in my heart for introducing me to the series. Worth a watch, but your money would be better spent on the superior manga and OVA adaptation.

8. Excel Saga: One of the most entertaining anime series I've ever seen. An incredibly irreverent, and often crass, poke at Japanese and anime pop culture, it's definantely worth a watch for hardcore anime fans.

7. Cowboy Bebop: An innovative and daring anime series, as well as one of the first shows put on the Adult Swim cartoon run. It's art direction is top notch, and it has some of the finest stylized fight scenes I've ever seen.

6. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: To a degree, you could describe this series (translated to "Fairwell, Despair Teacher", or, more often, "So Long, Mr. Despair") as "warped" Azumanga Daioh. It has a much darker, cynical sense of humor and artstyle, yet still manages to be endearing on its very own.

5. R.O.D.: The TV: A stunningly well done sequel to the OVA series Read or Die, the series follows the adventures of a group of Papermasters (people who can control paper and form it in any way they wish) and struggling author Nenene Sumigawa.

4. Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis: A superb adaptation of one of Osamu Tezuka's early works. The art direction and style is utterly impeccable, fitting with the retro-techno decision Tezuka so adored, and written by Katsuhiro Otomo, the genius behind Akira.

3. GANTZ: A dark and extremely violent series about a machine known as GANTZ that "resurrects" those who recently died violently to have them play a vicious game for its own amusement. While it suffers the same fate of the original Hellsing anime in not being as good as the manga, it avoids the same amount of disappointment and provides a satisfying ending, unlike the former series.

2. Phoenix: A television adaptation of what Osamu Tezuka called his (ultimately unfinished) masterpiece, Phoenix adapts five of the eleven story cycles from the manga series. They are beautifully animated and written, and every anime fan should see it.

1. Hellsing Ultimate OVA: One of the single most stunning and faithful adaptations of a manga I have ever seen. The OVA fixes several of the problems of the first series (such as returning personality to the characters of Alucard, Integra, and Father Alexander Anderson, and getting rid of Incognito) and improves on it in nearly every regard except for the soundtrack. If you enjoyed the Hellsing manga, or the first Hellsing series, this is definantely a must buy.

[frankie_fan]

I've unfortunately haven't seen enough anime to put up a top ten, but let's see how I go:

8. Burn Up Excess - The boy's guilty pleasure. Still, funny and great.

7. Pokemon The Movie 2000 - My favourite out of all the Pokemon movies. Funny ('He's a boy and he's a friend, but he's not a boyfriend!!') and a great childhood memory.

6. Kiki's Delivery Service - Very charming and very cute.

5. Spirited Away - One of Miyazaki's greatest hits. Incredibly designed well and wonderfully made.

4. The Cat Returns - Some of the best music I've ever heard.

3. Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis - What can I say? It's undoubtably wonderful, and the climax is, in my opinion, one of the best uses of music in film history!

2. Gunsmith Cats - Who doesn't love two sexy girls fanatic about guns AND grenades? Great action sequences too, and it all takes place in Chicago.

1. Cardcaptors - The first anime I ever saw, and wonderful character designs.

I hope to see more anime, NGE in particular.

[Zeitgheist]

Since I dislike anime.. can I have a Top 3 list only?

1. Excel Saga
Old school anime <3 I hate people who don't "get it" because it relies so much on references to other shows and cartoons... it's a great series with a lot of humor, especially the LAST episode "Too Far". I still own the DVD's

2. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
I love both the novels and the anime. It has the most amazing animation I've seen since... FLCL. Truth to the gods. It was also a very clever analogical build-up to climax the series after the first few episodes, making them the last

3. FLCL
As mentioned above, great animation. I like the manga more for the action sequences, but, the message can still get through to everyone: PENISES. Seriously. It's ALL about the penises <3 XD

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Actually FF nearly all of those are movies, except for Burn up Excess which is an anime series I rarely hear people talk about. I LOVED that show and it's nice to see a fellow fan of it . Here's my top ten list in ranking order:

10. New Dominion Tank Police: An old fashioned future techno cop show about a war torn future policed by outrageous characters who fight crime in tanks. It's a short series but one of the first anime I saw that got me into it. I love the music and I find the characters absolutely charming, fun, and clever.

9. Digimon: While it is a TV anime, this show really one of the more well done series. The cast of characters is incredibly vast and in depth, there's a lot of awesome monsters here and great villains/storylines for deeper anime fans to enjoy. It's hardly a Pokemon knock off.

8. Samurai Pizza Cats: The first anime series I ever saw and a classic in my opinion. A hilarious little parodied show about 3 armored anthro pizza making cats who fight crime and poke fun at their own show. It's a hilarious anime with tons of jokes and my god the cats are just TOO cute not to like.

7. Sailor Moon: Everyone pretty much knows this anime. It may be a girls show but I've loved it right from the beginning, a wonderful cast of characters with a beautiful love story that always is interesting and never gets old. Sailor Moon is part of anime history. Some of the villains were lame and the monsters got repetitive, but this truly is a magnificent show.

6. Dirty Pair: I was debating whether to place this below or over Moon and truth be told, I really do love this series. It's about 2 beautiful babes who are secret agents who blow the bejesus out of everything and everyone during their missions. Kei and Yuri I love in both incarnations (Flash and Original) it's an easy show to get into and enjoy. Lots of explosions, UNIQUE plots, and great leading ladies.

5. Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi: Truly the greatest "new" anime series to come out in ages. Its about a young boy and girl who wind up in random versions of their own world like dinosaurs, medieval times, trying to get back home. There's LOADS of anime parodies, it's super funny and its the freshest new anime I have seen in a long time. Highly recommend it.

4. Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water: It's a little long but my god this series is something else. It's about a African girl named Nadia who goes on a quest with a inventor boy named Jean to discover her family ties to Atlantis. This series starts off simple and turns into something insanely complex and deep, the characters are fleshed out 100%, it's a truly moving anime series.

3. Bubblegum Crisis 2040: Another starter series that hooked me in, about 4 women who don cybernetic suits to protect the future from renegade robots. There is some magnificent story telling here, there's an excellent cast of characters, in depth inside and out and the music is incredible.

2. Trigun: One of the best series ever created. I don't care if it's been on TV forever, it's brilliant. Vash is one of the greatest anime characters ever created, the villains and music are some of the best I've ever seen in a series. Trigun is a classic that I never get tired of watching, never get tired of hearing about and never stopped enjoying.

1. Dragon Ball Z: I know lots of people hate this show, are sick of it, or think its crap, but I truly think its the greatest anime series I have ever seen. The universe of characters, alien races, powers, and planets in this show is so vast, I cannot begin to describe how amazing i think this series truly is. I don't think any anime series has fights that come close to the eye popping battles DBZ puts on. It's a long, well tied in series that has a little bit of everything.

Comedy, drama, romance, adventure, sci-fi and so much more. I also think DBZ comes up with the best anime villains ever. Every form, show, movie, and game of DBZ I enjoy and have loved. I don't think my love for this series will ever die and I even if it can, I hope it doesn't.

[cartman414]

Trouble with DBZ is the overly long, oft-flashback laden fights with several "I was holding back!" type reversals. The series could have been a fraction of the length had they trimmed the fat. I preferred the original Dragonball, as it had more comedy, and a far more climactic showdown between Goku and the original Demon King Piccolo.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Originally Posted by cartman414

Trouble with DBZ is the overly long, oft-flashback laden fights with several "I was holding back!" type reversals. The series could have been a fraction of the length had they trimmed the fat. I preferred the original Dragonball, as it had more comedy, and a far more climactic showdown between Goku and the original Demon King Piccolo.

Pokemon could have skimmed down their length too since a lot of their episodes seem to be the same as well. Funny you mention Goku and King Piccolo because it was their fight, as well as Piccolo (Jr.)'s fight with Goku that escalated Dragon Ball into the inevitable future it was to have in Dragon Ball Z.

Actually most of the DBZ fights don't have those flashbacks, holding back stuff. Only a couple did and I think most people who speak of these things are most likely referring to the fight with Frieza. Frieza was the first super, colossal, big time villain they ever fought, even bigger then Vegeta.

Frieza's fight is the only one that has gone on that long, it holds the record for longest fight: Goku vs. Frieza, 20 episodes. And while it did drag on a lot (and sometimes Buu did) I felt it was totally worth it for the built up finale fight with 100% Frieza and Super Saiyan Goku. Now THAT was kick ass!

That's one of my favorite fights, the pounding Goku gave Frieza both verbally and physically was incredible and one of the series shining moments. Vegeta's fight lasted a while too but that one I think needed its long length because Vegeta was a great villain and probably the best character DBZ ever created.

[cartman414]

I did like the Goku vs. Frieza fight when it finally got to Goku angering over Krillin's (then seemingly permanent) death from Frieza and going Super Saiyan. Before then though, there was too much time spent on the buildup.

Even if it didn't have nearly as many flashbacks, the Cell conflict also took too long, and could be split into multiple sub-arcs.

[jekylljuice]

Coming up with a top 10 list might be a little tricky for me, since there are only two anime series I'm presently into - Wolf's Rain and Weiß Kreuz (which, as I mentioned in the "Cartoon Crushes" thread, I'm kind of a newcomer to). Wolf's Rain I'm attracted to for the engaging, complicated stories and characters, and the beautiful artwork and character designs, particularly the wolves themselves, who are magnificent creatures. My online rental service has been sending me the various DVD volumes pretty intermittently over the past several months, and I currently only have one more to go before I reach the conclusion. It's been quite a ride.

As I've mentioned, at least part of my enjoyment of Weiß Kreuz is of a derisive nature - the animation quality certainly has nothing on Wolf's Rain, and it is quite fun to chortle at the cut-price techniques they often dip into (on top of which, the stories can be a tad melodramatic), but I'd say it has something more going for it than just as a Mystery Science Theatre experience. The series follows the exploits of a group of nocturnal assassins who work as florists during daylight hours to cover their operations, with several entertaining twists and turns along the way. It's pretty violent for my normally very squeamish tastes, but since they rarely ever show any real blood or gore (presumably because the budget wouldn't allow), I can just about handle it. And I do quite like Schuldig (whose name means "guilty" in German). He took a while to show up, despite being in the opening credits sequence from the start, but he's a fun antagonist.

There's a very small handful of anime series I used to watch in my mid-teens but haven't really had anything to do with since. Like Sailor Moon for example. Used to watch it a while back when it was on Fox Kids, now I don't remember much about it at all. I wish I could come up with something useful to contribute to the new Sailor Moon thread...but the only thing I think I really paid attention to were those talking cats. I do love talking cats.

[Pawbah]

So... anime series, not movies right? OK

10. CardCaptor Sakura

9. Sailor Moon- The first season is still my favorite.

8. Dragonball Z- The first anime I fell in love with. Goku and Gohan... I will love them forever.

7. Pokemon- What can I say? I fell in love with that too.

6. Kodocha- A very awesome, yet seemingly unknown show.

5. Last Exile- A very beautiful series.

4. Escaflowne- This was one of the first anime series that I watched and to this day there are very few things that I like better.

3. Rurouni Kenshin

2. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle- Reallly just because I am in love with the characters.

1. Fruits Basket

[Medikor]

I don't know if I can name ten that I like enough to put on the list. Let's see...

1: Naruto

2: Full Metal Alchenist

3: Le Cavalier DeLeon

4: Inuyasha

5: Samurai Pizza Cats

6: Transformers Victory

7: Saber Rider (most awesome theme song ever!)

8: Beast Wars II

9: Hamtaro

10: Robotech