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.