So about a month ago a friend of mine told me to watch the anime: Death note; now I had never watched anime(or read a manga) in my life(only pokemon as a child). So I was pretty skeptic about the whole thing, my view of anime was; that it is weird for the sake of being weird(which is true for some) and that anime in general is pretty lame form of entertainment.
Boy was I wrong, after watching Death note I was astonished about its bold story, never had I seen a story where the main character is completely evil and at the same time the story expects you to sympathize with him. This was very refreshing as I love playing evil in RPGs and I had never seen that done in an actual story, this to me was a wakeup call that I had been dulled to sleep by mediocre stories.
Now during this month I am supposed to work on my bachelor thesis which I turned in yesterday, which of course means that instead of doing that, I kept watching animes ><, at this point I have seen quite a few and I wanted to share my opinions as well as my experiences to others that also consider watching anime.
Before I talk about the animes I have watched I want to go through some common traits I?ve noticed that keep appearing in animes.
Protecting = Love
For some odd reason instead of characters saving I love you, instead they?ll say something like I promise to protect you. My guess is this is something is lost in translation or maybe Japanese people really value protection.
Men > women
In anime however strong, independent or cleaver a female character may be their biggest dream is always to become a house wife by the side of a man and all characters in the anime assume this to be true. Maybe it is because animes are written by men, but to me it always comes off as a bit strange from what I am used to from western culture. For instance there was a wife in the anime death note that asks into a murder case, because she might be able to help after which her husband responds something in the lines of: ?Stupid female you accepted the role of wife so now you shouldn?t bother your little head about it?. Then when he dies you find out she was 10 times more badass than he was.
Anime people and real people
In anime the main characters are often distinguished by having crazy hair style/color and/or crazy personalities. Other people in the story acts like this is perfectly normal, the better animes don?t do this as much but they are all guilty of it.
Western people = aristocrats
Whenever there are western people such as the British, they are always high born noble aristocrats sipping tea in big castles. They are generally treated as a fascination in anime, since they are treated with respect in terms of how they interact in the story, such as they are not always arrogant and most of the time are very likable, but also bound by rules of conduct. I don?t know if this is just coincidence or if Japanese actually thinks this to be true, however I find it quite hilarious and it always puts a smile on my lip
Main characters are often underdeveloped
Some of the animes which has potential to be truly great wastes it all by having really dull one-dimensional main characters that has one wish and then does everything in his/her power to fulfill that wish, as such the story finds contrived ways for the character to get involved in the main plot and this often take you out of the experience.
Most romance in anime is awful and often feels robotic
Now there is nothing wrong with romance in general. However anime has an overreliance on simply making the two characters(female and male) look at each other while looking embarrassed, this is especially bad when the scene is mercilessly drawn out to about 10 mins. Often what will happen is that something/someone ?accidentally? pushes the female or male character into the other character; the two characters will then share with you, what feels like an hour of them looking embarrassed at each other shown by having red lines drawn under the eyes. This is done over and over throughout almost all animes and adds nothing to the anime except I have to skip ahead until it is over. Personally I got the feeling(after continually having to endure this) that anime almost takes a very childish approach to romance since things like kissing rarely happens which baffles my mind.
Season 2 Sucks
Very rarely is the second season of any anime good, for some it is but mostly it is like someone bludgeoned the writers in the head just before they started writing the second season. As such some of the recommendations I am going to make will specifically only be about the first season.
--- My List of animes I have watched ---
I have sorted the animes I have watched into tiers since ranking them would do them no justice as it would be like ranking your offspring. However before I go through these I will shortly explain what kinds of entertainment I like so that you get an idea of where this is coming from.
I am generally a lover of character pieces I love the way in which a certain character views the world and how that view affects his/her actions, as such I love RPG games/DND since it often focuses on the understanding of a character. Furthermore I love medieval settings and SCI-FI settings, but general I like medieval settings more. I prefer a good story to good visuals however when animes succumbs to cartoonish reaction drawings of faces(you know Big water drop to indicate they are nervous or the head being bigger than the entire body when they are yelling) it always takes me out of the story and as such I try to avoid animes that does this, for some odd reason the comedy tag is often thrown on an anime that is simply doing this, even if it has no actual comedy.
 
--- TIER 1 --- GOD TIER animes even people that think they hate anime should watch
Death Note:
Yes the anime that go it all started for me, it?s a brilliant and very exciting story with very interesting characters. Now the show do dramatically decrease in quality in season 2 where the writers completely missed an opportunity to progress the story and instead chooses to restart it with a worse cast of characters, however it was still very entertaining.
Steins; Gate:
The first 6 episodes are kinda boring, however they were meant to explain the characters in the story and as such I can?t fault them too much. What comes after however is a very cleaver very exciting tale, its hard to describe just how awesome it is but if you want something great you should definitely watch this. Furthermore it rarely/never becomes stereotypic and the romance in the anime is very well done, as well as pleasant to watch(unlike almost all other romance in animes).
Code Geass
This is the second anime I watched after death note and I momentarily believed all animes was of this quality. The story is very epic and very expansive with a ton of well-defined, well developed characters. Even the stupid stereotypical anime characters serve a purpose and add meaning to the story. At times when I watched it I thought how were they ever going to resolve this story without lames excuses but the writers actually manages to pull off an ending as epic as the story itself. If I were to point out some bad things then it would be that the story has an over reliance on boring mech battles to pad out the story where it is never explained who can beat who and its always some techno babble that decides who win or loses. Even so you should 100% watch it since you will like it.
Puella magi Madoka magica( or Madoka magica)
There is a saying that goes: ?never judge a book by its cover?, and I can?t think of anything more fitting to say. The anime starts out by tricking you into thinking it?s going to be really really lame, only to rip the heart out from your chest and hammer it until it?s cold and empty. The story is incredibly sad and even a hateful person such as myself had wet eyes after watching this masterpieces of a story. The only thing I hate about this anime is that it has forced me to watch many episodes of really bad animes, in hopes they would turn around and become as great as Madoka magica. If you watch 4 episodes and still don?t like it then maybe you can stop but I doubt you will. Oh one more thing, the music in this anime deserves a special mentioning as it some of the best I have heard in a while.
-- Tier 2 --- Recommend all of them
The Melancholy of suzumiya Haruhi
Looking at this anime it looked like it would be really lame, however I am pleased to inform that it is actually really enjoying to watch. One of things I immediately noted was its main character is voiced by Crispin Freeman(Voice of ?Gannayev-of-Dreams? from NWN2 mask of the betrayer), his voice over adds much to the character, and makes the anime that much better. Furthermore the anime is actually really funny with one crazy thing happening after each other. The reason why I placed it as tier 2 is because the show takes a nose dive for the worse after about 7-8 episodes, because it wastes all the potential that it had on becoming an epic tale and instead just becomes about high school life instead of elevating the story above its original starting point like(Death note and code geass does). If you do watch it however I would also recommend that you go watch the movie(the disappearance of haruhi suzumiya) since it is everything that season 2 wasn?t.
Monster
I overall really liked this anime and all its very diverse and interesting characters, the only problem with this anime is that it is just a few 10-15 episodes too long for its own good, and as such drags its feet from time to time. However the best thing about this anime is its opening theme, I personally think I could listen to that theme all day long and not get tired of it. Furthermore the visual style and other music in the anime is also of a very good quality.
Spice and Wolf
When I started watching this I thought I was going to hate it, stupid furry fan service animes is not my cup of tea. However I was completely surprised at how much I actually enjoyed the anime itself. It?s one of those: What would happen if, stories; only in this case it is about a Man and a Pagan god traveling together. I love it when the characters act natural to how their background story/Nature is and doesn?t hold back just because it?s politically correct to do so( this is also why I love death note so much). Now everything good that can be said about season 1 is turned into something negative in season 2. The second season was un-describable in how bad it was, every minute of it was excruciating to watch. It was basically the poster child for how really really bad romance in anime is done. And I wouldn?t even force my worst enemy to watch it.
Phantom: Requiem for the phantom
After watching madoka magica I looked up the writer and saw he had also written this one, which instantly made me want to watch it. The story is really interesting; it takes you to a completely upside down world without becoming so unrealistic that you have to suspend your sense of disbelief. That is season 1 does this, season 2 not so much, for instance in season 2 the main character goes back to high school at the age of like 25-30 and a kid he met earlier comes a fully grown women in like 2 years, also in season 2 bullets stop killing people unless the plot says they can. So I would recommend that you watch the first ten episodes of this(since the story also have an ending here) and don?t bother with the rest.
--- Tier 3 --- Recommend somewhat, but don?t expect much
Claymore
A lot of animes from here and below could easily have been tier 1 material if they hadn?t wasted all their potential. Claymore is one of those, it?s a very cool setting with some interesting characters that are much more than just jaded zealots as it tries to portray them as. Only thing I disliked early on was the name of the claymores? power which is called Yogi and everytime I hear them say it I can?t stop thinking about yogi bear ><. There is also a stupid, really annoying kid luckily the story gets rid of him quickly and only uses him as a reward for the main character. That said even if I do like season 1, season 2 sucks a lot it?s some of the most dull anime I have watched, where an entire episode would be nothing but a really boring fight with monsters that had no weight in terms of the story.
Black lagoon
This anime I don?t understand, I don?t understand why I like it so much, there is little to no story and it?s filled with meaningless battles. I think I just find the cast of characters too enjoyable; the anime is true escapism and it romanticizes the pirate life a lot where by the end you?ll find yourself dreaming about living like that. I think it very much depends on the person whether they like this or not.
Fate/Stay night
This is one of those with a lot of wasted potential, it has one of the worst main characters that are more akin to a brick or a wood stomp meant to be dragged around, while awesome things happen. The plot is kinda stupid but it does it all with a straight face and as such you can?t fault it too much; it respects its characters and makes it so things that happen has consequences. I overall liked it but also annoyed it didn?t become what it could have been.
Darker than black
This anime is so silly that it is like the embodiment of silliness. The plot is that something happened, that made people gain xman like powers. However as a twist whenever they use these powers they have to do something silly, like smoking a cigarette or gargle water. People who have these powers lose all their emotions, and won?t shut up about how much they don?t care, about people they used to care about. Problem is it is inconsistent sometimes they have emotions and sometimes they don?t without any explains, other than that the power of emotions are so great that it defines plot points. Which kind of reminded me of a movie I truly hate: Wall-E where robots fall in love(Seriously how stupid is that). Anyway to sum up the anime; it?s a fine piece of entertainment which I am sure most would find enjoyable.
Elfen Lied
Great story; awful main character(the male), the good thing is the main character does get an explanation of why he is so tedious, but that does little since you are still force to keep watching him. Other than that, the only other problem is the constant display of naked children which becomes tedious very quickly. To me the anime is saved because I personally liked to see how the female character called lucy grew and developed throughout the story. Even though lot of the time you are stuck with an annoying version of her :/
Fate/Zero
Another anime written by the writer of madoka magica, it?s a prequel to Fate/Stay night but with an almost a completely new set of characters, the cast this time around is really good and it even has voice acting by Crispin Freeman :O. I have only watched 9 episodes so far since it is only now being English dubbed. But from what I have seen it is really great and I think I would move it to tier 2 once I saw the rest.
--- Tier 4 --- Recommend only if you really need an anime
Angel beats
This is one of those weird anime where all the characters are fun and exciting to watch but the rest sucks, the exact reason why I put it so low is because, its setting is so awful and meaningless that it feels almost pointless to watch. The basic story is that unhappy young people that have died, have had their souls trapped in purgatory which takes the form of a high school and are forced to stay there until they are happy and ready to move on to heaven(Pretty stupid right?). Thus the world they are in have no meaning to it and there are basically no consequences of failing, once you learn this then all excitement is taken out of the story and you are left with only the character stuff(which is good I?ll admit, but not good enough to carry the anime on its own).
Black butler
This anime is like the hybrid of two animes, one very serious and enjoyable and one that is completely obnoxious with ruined cartoonish anime drawing and really boring and tedious slapstick humor. I think I would like this one if not the parts I just described which is sad as the good parts are actually pretty good.
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
A very stylish anime, that does everything in its power to confuse you, for instance it is the year 5000 but Europeans(that are aristocrats of course) still drive around in horse-drawn carriage. Secondly the main character is more an observer of the story than a participant which makes his story arch rather meaningless in perspective to the overall plot. But the plot is actually fine I just wish that we could have seen it from the perspective of the count of monte cristo himself :/
Welcome to NHK
This is the latest one I watched, as I have watched some animes by now I was able to get a lot of the Meta humor that is presented in this anime. My problem with it is: it does all the things that it makes fun of other animes for doing(Girl randomly obsessed with main character). Which makes it somewhat of a hypocrite. A part from that I have only watched a few episodes of the second season but I can already feel how awful they are and I doubt I will be able to sit through them all.
--- Tier 5 --- Don?t recommend these but I didn?t straight up hate them
C ? Control
Imagine if you combined pokemon with wallstreet, you think that sounds stupid? Then you haven?t seen anything yet. This anime hurts my brain so much when watching it. The things you will hear is stuff like: Sell your stocks! Take out a loan! Or use your capital investment power; during really silly fight scenes. Luckily this world has two worlds: one normal world where things make sense and where you can appreciate what is happening and where things that occur have weight on the characters. And then the other world where the characters fight with pokemons(called their future(GET IT?? HAHAHA)) and must battle to destroy the future of other people, using economybabble(didn?t think this was a word but it is now) which I mentioned above. The good thing is this show only has 12 episodes so it never manages to be truly awful, but I don?t think I would recommend this one unless you are truly desperate.
Kaze no stigma
Sadness is the word I can best use to describe this one, it has a really awesome setting and some really well defined characters just waiting to be explored. However after watching the entire anime I was really sad as there is basically never once a meaningful plot, the anime consists of many meaningless plot after each other. There was only main plot throughout the entire thing which was really creepy: basically there are two main characters in the story( a boy and a girl). And the father to the girl desperately wants the boy to get into the panties of the girl, so that he will join his house since this boy is very powerful. So powerful in fact that nothing in the mini plots is ever at stake. All in all I almost put this on my dislike list but the characters were just enjoyable enough that I didn?t.
--- Tier SUCKS --- Animes I disliked
Ghost in the shell
Dull really really dull, I am the kind of guy that loves Star Trek(next gen in particular). But this anime just couldn?t keep me interested, I have heard people say it is visually impressive but that has practically no bearing on me and as such I was completely bored. There is basically no story to speak of and only vague hints of it, I gave up on the 6. episode since couldn?t keep the concentration anymore.
A certain magical Index
I saw someone call it ?A certain shitty anime?, and I very much believe it, when I first started watching it I was completely confused, people had crazy magic lighting powers, and the main character?s teacher is a beer drinking 12 year old girl which the students make sexual comments to. Only by searching the net did I find out that it was explained in the manga that the teacher had been part of an experiment to stop the aging process. It was also never explained why people with godlike powers were allowed to roam the street uncontrolled. I mean normally people like that have to hide their powers so that the government doesn?t find them, but in this world they just go to school like everyone else and occasionally destroy something when they get mad and what not. The other problem is the stories told have zero and I do mean zero weight nothing that happens ever amounts to anything. For instance the main character loses all his memory and you think ?hmm this could get interesting? but no instead he just acts like himself and it rarely comes up again and when it does it is only for laughs, like him meeting his parents for the first time. All in all this anime is really bad and shouldn?t waste your time with it.
Fullmetal alchemist/ FMA:brotherhood
Okay please someone explain why this is so good, everywhere I read it?s always like: FMA is amazing, you should watch FMA. I don?t get it first off the anime does that stupid thing with its drawings where it makes it all cartoonish. Secondly I watched about 6-7 episodes and I saw no plot and what I saw was some small pretty dull adventures, watching it reminded me a lot of pokemon and while I loved pokemon as a child I don?t think it would be very interesting now.
Gantz
I really don?t like this anime, all its characters fills me with hatred every moment they are on screen. Every scene is mercilessly drawn out and the plot moves at a snail?s paste. The anime itself panders heavily to a male anime watching audience to the point of disgust, for instance in the story this mysterious girl comes out of nowhere telling the male character she?ll do anything to help him and that she thinks people that are otaku(A word for people that like manga/anime) are the best thing ever. When he then replies well I?d like some sex then if you don?t mind, she proceed to have sex with him right there. This was also where I turned this shit off as I feared for the brain cells left in my brain. Maybe if this was a porno it would be fine, but for a serious story it?s embarrassing.
TL;DR: I am new to anime, anime is quite different from what you are used to, You should watch: Death Note, Code Geass, Steins; Gate and Madoka Magica. You should stay away from Gantz as it sucks hard.
PS: If anyone has any animes they can recommend based on my list I would be eternally thankful
Boy was I wrong, after watching Death note I was astonished about its bold story, never had I seen a story where the main character is completely evil and at the same time the story expects you to sympathize with him. This was very refreshing as I love playing evil in RPGs and I had never seen that done in an actual story, this to me was a wakeup call that I had been dulled to sleep by mediocre stories.
Now during this month I am supposed to work on my bachelor thesis which I turned in yesterday, which of course means that instead of doing that, I kept watching animes ><, at this point I have seen quite a few and I wanted to share my opinions as well as my experiences to others that also consider watching anime.
Before I talk about the animes I have watched I want to go through some common traits I?ve noticed that keep appearing in animes.
Protecting = Love
For some odd reason instead of characters saving I love you, instead they?ll say something like I promise to protect you. My guess is this is something is lost in translation or maybe Japanese people really value protection.
Men > women
In anime however strong, independent or cleaver a female character may be their biggest dream is always to become a house wife by the side of a man and all characters in the anime assume this to be true. Maybe it is because animes are written by men, but to me it always comes off as a bit strange from what I am used to from western culture. For instance there was a wife in the anime death note that asks into a murder case, because she might be able to help after which her husband responds something in the lines of: ?Stupid female you accepted the role of wife so now you shouldn?t bother your little head about it?. Then when he dies you find out she was 10 times more badass than he was.
Anime people and real people
In anime the main characters are often distinguished by having crazy hair style/color and/or crazy personalities. Other people in the story acts like this is perfectly normal, the better animes don?t do this as much but they are all guilty of it.
Western people = aristocrats
Whenever there are western people such as the British, they are always high born noble aristocrats sipping tea in big castles. They are generally treated as a fascination in anime, since they are treated with respect in terms of how they interact in the story, such as they are not always arrogant and most of the time are very likable, but also bound by rules of conduct. I don?t know if this is just coincidence or if Japanese actually thinks this to be true, however I find it quite hilarious and it always puts a smile on my lip
Main characters are often underdeveloped
Some of the animes which has potential to be truly great wastes it all by having really dull one-dimensional main characters that has one wish and then does everything in his/her power to fulfill that wish, as such the story finds contrived ways for the character to get involved in the main plot and this often take you out of the experience.
Most romance in anime is awful and often feels robotic
Now there is nothing wrong with romance in general. However anime has an overreliance on simply making the two characters(female and male) look at each other while looking embarrassed, this is especially bad when the scene is mercilessly drawn out to about 10 mins. Often what will happen is that something/someone ?accidentally? pushes the female or male character into the other character; the two characters will then share with you, what feels like an hour of them looking embarrassed at each other shown by having red lines drawn under the eyes. This is done over and over throughout almost all animes and adds nothing to the anime except I have to skip ahead until it is over. Personally I got the feeling(after continually having to endure this) that anime almost takes a very childish approach to romance since things like kissing rarely happens which baffles my mind.
Season 2 Sucks
Very rarely is the second season of any anime good, for some it is but mostly it is like someone bludgeoned the writers in the head just before they started writing the second season. As such some of the recommendations I am going to make will specifically only be about the first season.
--- My List of animes I have watched ---
I have sorted the animes I have watched into tiers since ranking them would do them no justice as it would be like ranking your offspring. However before I go through these I will shortly explain what kinds of entertainment I like so that you get an idea of where this is coming from.
I am generally a lover of character pieces I love the way in which a certain character views the world and how that view affects his/her actions, as such I love RPG games/DND since it often focuses on the understanding of a character. Furthermore I love medieval settings and SCI-FI settings, but general I like medieval settings more. I prefer a good story to good visuals however when animes succumbs to cartoonish reaction drawings of faces(you know Big water drop to indicate they are nervous or the head being bigger than the entire body when they are yelling) it always takes me out of the story and as such I try to avoid animes that does this, for some odd reason the comedy tag is often thrown on an anime that is simply doing this, even if it has no actual comedy.
 
--- TIER 1 --- GOD TIER animes even people that think they hate anime should watch
Death Note:
Yes the anime that go it all started for me, it?s a brilliant and very exciting story with very interesting characters. Now the show do dramatically decrease in quality in season 2 where the writers completely missed an opportunity to progress the story and instead chooses to restart it with a worse cast of characters, however it was still very entertaining.
Steins; Gate:
The first 6 episodes are kinda boring, however they were meant to explain the characters in the story and as such I can?t fault them too much. What comes after however is a very cleaver very exciting tale, its hard to describe just how awesome it is but if you want something great you should definitely watch this. Furthermore it rarely/never becomes stereotypic and the romance in the anime is very well done, as well as pleasant to watch(unlike almost all other romance in animes).
Code Geass
This is the second anime I watched after death note and I momentarily believed all animes was of this quality. The story is very epic and very expansive with a ton of well-defined, well developed characters. Even the stupid stereotypical anime characters serve a purpose and add meaning to the story. At times when I watched it I thought how were they ever going to resolve this story without lames excuses but the writers actually manages to pull off an ending as epic as the story itself. If I were to point out some bad things then it would be that the story has an over reliance on boring mech battles to pad out the story where it is never explained who can beat who and its always some techno babble that decides who win or loses. Even so you should 100% watch it since you will like it.
Puella magi Madoka magica( or Madoka magica)
There is a saying that goes: ?never judge a book by its cover?, and I can?t think of anything more fitting to say. The anime starts out by tricking you into thinking it?s going to be really really lame, only to rip the heart out from your chest and hammer it until it?s cold and empty. The story is incredibly sad and even a hateful person such as myself had wet eyes after watching this masterpieces of a story. The only thing I hate about this anime is that it has forced me to watch many episodes of really bad animes, in hopes they would turn around and become as great as Madoka magica. If you watch 4 episodes and still don?t like it then maybe you can stop but I doubt you will. Oh one more thing, the music in this anime deserves a special mentioning as it some of the best I have heard in a while.
-- Tier 2 --- Recommend all of them
The Melancholy of suzumiya Haruhi
Looking at this anime it looked like it would be really lame, however I am pleased to inform that it is actually really enjoying to watch. One of things I immediately noted was its main character is voiced by Crispin Freeman(Voice of ?Gannayev-of-Dreams? from NWN2 mask of the betrayer), his voice over adds much to the character, and makes the anime that much better. Furthermore the anime is actually really funny with one crazy thing happening after each other. The reason why I placed it as tier 2 is because the show takes a nose dive for the worse after about 7-8 episodes, because it wastes all the potential that it had on becoming an epic tale and instead just becomes about high school life instead of elevating the story above its original starting point like(Death note and code geass does). If you do watch it however I would also recommend that you go watch the movie(the disappearance of haruhi suzumiya) since it is everything that season 2 wasn?t.
Monster
I overall really liked this anime and all its very diverse and interesting characters, the only problem with this anime is that it is just a few 10-15 episodes too long for its own good, and as such drags its feet from time to time. However the best thing about this anime is its opening theme, I personally think I could listen to that theme all day long and not get tired of it. Furthermore the visual style and other music in the anime is also of a very good quality.
Spice and Wolf
When I started watching this I thought I was going to hate it, stupid furry fan service animes is not my cup of tea. However I was completely surprised at how much I actually enjoyed the anime itself. It?s one of those: What would happen if, stories; only in this case it is about a Man and a Pagan god traveling together. I love it when the characters act natural to how their background story/Nature is and doesn?t hold back just because it?s politically correct to do so( this is also why I love death note so much). Now everything good that can be said about season 1 is turned into something negative in season 2. The second season was un-describable in how bad it was, every minute of it was excruciating to watch. It was basically the poster child for how really really bad romance in anime is done. And I wouldn?t even force my worst enemy to watch it.
Phantom: Requiem for the phantom
After watching madoka magica I looked up the writer and saw he had also written this one, which instantly made me want to watch it. The story is really interesting; it takes you to a completely upside down world without becoming so unrealistic that you have to suspend your sense of disbelief. That is season 1 does this, season 2 not so much, for instance in season 2 the main character goes back to high school at the age of like 25-30 and a kid he met earlier comes a fully grown women in like 2 years, also in season 2 bullets stop killing people unless the plot says they can
. So I would recommend that you watch the first ten episodes of this(since the story also have an ending here) and don?t bother with the rest.--- Tier 3 --- Recommend somewhat, but don?t expect much
Claymore
A lot of animes from here and below could easily have been tier 1 material if they hadn?t wasted all their potential. Claymore is one of those, it?s a very cool setting with some interesting characters that are much more than just jaded zealots as it tries to portray them as. Only thing I disliked early on was the name of the claymores? power which is called Yogi and everytime I hear them say it I can?t stop thinking about yogi bear ><. There is also a stupid, really annoying kid luckily the story gets rid of him quickly and only uses him as a reward for the main character. That said even if I do like season 1, season 2 sucks a lot it?s some of the most dull anime I have watched, where an entire episode would be nothing but a really boring fight with monsters that had no weight in terms of the story.
Black lagoon
This anime I don?t understand, I don?t understand why I like it so much, there is little to no story and it?s filled with meaningless battles. I think I just find the cast of characters too enjoyable; the anime is true escapism and it romanticizes the pirate life a lot where by the end you?ll find yourself dreaming about living like that. I think it very much depends on the person whether they like this or not.
Fate/Stay night
This is one of those with a lot of wasted potential, it has one of the worst main characters that are more akin to a brick or a wood stomp meant to be dragged around, while awesome things happen. The plot is kinda stupid but it does it all with a straight face and as such you can?t fault it too much; it respects its characters and makes it so things that happen has consequences. I overall liked it but also annoyed it didn?t become what it could have been.
Darker than black
This anime is so silly that it is like the embodiment of silliness. The plot is that something happened, that made people gain xman like powers. However as a twist whenever they use these powers they have to do something silly, like smoking a cigarette or gargle water. People who have these powers lose all their emotions, and won?t shut up about how much they don?t care, about people they used to care about. Problem is it is inconsistent sometimes they have emotions and sometimes they don?t without any explains, other than that the power of emotions are so great that it defines plot points. Which kind of reminded me of a movie I truly hate: Wall-E where robots fall in love(Seriously how stupid is that). Anyway to sum up the anime; it?s a fine piece of entertainment which I am sure most would find enjoyable.
Elfen Lied
Great story; awful main character(the male), the good thing is the main character does get an explanation of why he is so tedious, but that does little since you are still force to keep watching him. Other than that, the only other problem is the constant display of naked children which becomes tedious very quickly. To me the anime is saved because I personally liked to see how the female character called lucy grew and developed throughout the story. Even though lot of the time you are stuck with an annoying version of her :/
Fate/Zero
Another anime written by the writer of madoka magica, it?s a prequel to Fate/Stay night but with an almost a completely new set of characters, the cast this time around is really good and it even has voice acting by Crispin Freeman :O. I have only watched 9 episodes so far since it is only now being English dubbed. But from what I have seen it is really great and I think I would move it to tier 2 once I saw the rest.
--- Tier 4 --- Recommend only if you really need an anime
Angel beats
This is one of those weird anime where all the characters are fun and exciting to watch but the rest sucks, the exact reason why I put it so low is because, its setting is so awful and meaningless that it feels almost pointless to watch. The basic story is that unhappy young people that have died, have had their souls trapped in purgatory which takes the form of a high school and are forced to stay there until they are happy and ready to move on to heaven(Pretty stupid right?). Thus the world they are in have no meaning to it and there are basically no consequences of failing, once you learn this then all excitement is taken out of the story and you are left with only the character stuff(which is good I?ll admit, but not good enough to carry the anime on its own).
Black butler
This anime is like the hybrid of two animes, one very serious and enjoyable and one that is completely obnoxious with ruined cartoonish anime drawing and really boring and tedious slapstick humor. I think I would like this one if not the parts I just described which is sad as the good parts are actually pretty good.
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
A very stylish anime, that does everything in its power to confuse you, for instance it is the year 5000 but Europeans(that are aristocrats of course) still drive around in horse-drawn carriage. Secondly the main character is more an observer of the story than a participant which makes his story arch rather meaningless in perspective to the overall plot. But the plot is actually fine I just wish that we could have seen it from the perspective of the count of monte cristo himself :/
Welcome to NHK
This is the latest one I watched, as I have watched some animes by now I was able to get a lot of the Meta humor that is presented in this anime. My problem with it is: it does all the things that it makes fun of other animes for doing(Girl randomly obsessed with main character). Which makes it somewhat of a hypocrite. A part from that I have only watched a few episodes of the second season but I can already feel how awful they are and I doubt I will be able to sit through them all.
--- Tier 5 --- Don?t recommend these but I didn?t straight up hate them
C ? Control
Imagine if you combined pokemon with wallstreet, you think that sounds stupid? Then you haven?t seen anything yet. This anime hurts my brain so much when watching it. The things you will hear is stuff like: Sell your stocks! Take out a loan! Or use your capital investment power; during really silly fight scenes. Luckily this world has two worlds: one normal world where things make sense and where you can appreciate what is happening and where things that occur have weight on the characters. And then the other world where the characters fight with pokemons(called their future(GET IT?? HAHAHA)) and must battle to destroy the future of other people, using economybabble(didn?t think this was a word but it is now) which I mentioned above. The good thing is this show only has 12 episodes so it never manages to be truly awful, but I don?t think I would recommend this one unless you are truly desperate.
Kaze no stigma
Sadness is the word I can best use to describe this one, it has a really awesome setting and some really well defined characters just waiting to be explored. However after watching the entire anime I was really sad as there is basically never once a meaningful plot, the anime consists of many meaningless plot after each other. There was only main plot throughout the entire thing which was really creepy: basically there are two main characters in the story( a boy and a girl). And the father to the girl desperately wants the boy to get into the panties of the girl, so that he will join his house since this boy is very powerful. So powerful in fact that nothing in the mini plots is ever at stake. All in all I almost put this on my dislike list but the characters were just enjoyable enough that I didn?t.
--- Tier SUCKS --- Animes I disliked
Ghost in the shell
Dull really really dull, I am the kind of guy that loves Star Trek(next gen in particular). But this anime just couldn?t keep me interested, I have heard people say it is visually impressive but that has practically no bearing on me and as such I was completely bored. There is basically no story to speak of and only vague hints of it, I gave up on the 6. episode since couldn?t keep the concentration anymore.
A certain magical Index
I saw someone call it ?A certain shitty anime?, and I very much believe it, when I first started watching it I was completely confused, people had crazy magic lighting powers, and the main character?s teacher is a beer drinking 12 year old girl which the students make sexual comments to. Only by searching the net did I find out that it was explained in the manga that the teacher had been part of an experiment to stop the aging process. It was also never explained why people with godlike powers were allowed to roam the street uncontrolled. I mean normally people like that have to hide their powers so that the government doesn?t find them, but in this world they just go to school like everyone else and occasionally destroy something when they get mad and what not. The other problem is the stories told have zero and I do mean zero weight nothing that happens ever amounts to anything. For instance the main character loses all his memory and you think ?hmm this could get interesting? but no instead he just acts like himself and it rarely comes up again and when it does it is only for laughs, like him meeting his parents for the first time. All in all this anime is really bad and shouldn?t waste your time with it.
Fullmetal alchemist/ FMA:brotherhood
Okay please someone explain why this is so good, everywhere I read it?s always like: FMA is amazing, you should watch FMA. I don?t get it first off the anime does that stupid thing with its drawings where it makes it all cartoonish. Secondly I watched about 6-7 episodes and I saw no plot and what I saw was some small pretty dull adventures, watching it reminded me a lot of pokemon and while I loved pokemon as a child I don?t think it would be very interesting now.
Gantz
I really don?t like this anime, all its characters fills me with hatred every moment they are on screen. Every scene is mercilessly drawn out and the plot moves at a snail?s paste. The anime itself panders heavily to a male anime watching audience to the point of disgust, for instance in the story this mysterious girl comes out of nowhere telling the male character she?ll do anything to help him and that she thinks people that are otaku(A word for people that like manga/anime) are the best thing ever. When he then replies well I?d like some sex then if you don?t mind, she proceed to have sex with him right there. This was also where I turned this shit off as I feared for the brain cells left in my brain. Maybe if this was a porno it would be fine, but for a serious story it?s embarrassing.
TL;DR: I am new to anime, anime is quite different from what you are used to, You should watch: Death Note, Code Geass, Steins; Gate and Madoka Magica. You should stay away from Gantz as it sucks hard.
PS: If anyone has any animes they can recommend based on my list I would be eternally thankful
![[Kira Must Die]](https://eg-forums-escapist-data.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/avatars/l/68/68539.jpg?1620622912){kind=avatar}
