Recommend me an anime(that isn't about kids in high school.)

[Julius Terrell]

Planetes
This is the hardest sci-fi I've seen in any medium, it makes 2001: A Space Odyssey look like Star Wars.
It's about a group of astronauts charge with cleaning up space debris.
So yes, its space garbage men... its alot better then the premise suggest.
Also despite the hard sci-fi, its pretty easy watching.
Really goes in depth into the human side of casual orbital space flight, also brings up alot of things that astronauts really experience but you don't really hear much about.

This. I especially enjoyed the first part of the series (episodes 1-17 or something like that). Without giving anything away, those episodes normally focused on the individual characters and their backstories. Just excellent.

No....Wait???....Seriously!?!

There is NO WAY in a million years is Planetz going to compare to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sure it's a good series and all, but isn't earth shattering the way 2001 was. I think Eva comes far closer to coming after that title. Eva has some pretty good sci-fi going behind it.

and While I'm at it....

Gun Grave
Texinolized
You're under arrest
Inyuyasha
Wolf's rain (I forgot that one!)

And to the guy/girl that mentioned Excel Saga. That show is about as mature as fucking sesame street. I tried so hard to watch that show, but it kept giving me that fooly Cooly(sp?) vibe. I hate randomness

 

[Sylocat]

Agree with those who mentioned Last Exile, Spice and Wolf, and Black Lagoon.

Also check out:

Planetes
Outlaw Star
Steel Angel Kurumi
Samurai Champloo
Sword Art Online
Vision of Escaflowne (main character is a high schooler, but trapped in another world far from home, &c., no high school involved)
Fullmetal Alchemist

And so on and so forth.

 

[Platypus540]

First ones that come to mind:
Attack on Titan (aka Shingeki no Kyojin)
Gundam 00
Samurai Champloo (same studio as Cowboy Bebop)
The Sky Crawlers (a movie, not a show)
Gurren Lagann
The Devil is a Part Timer (aka Overlord at Work)

 

[Brotha Desmond]

My personal favorites include:

Fate/Zero (great action oriented anime)

Steins;Gate (anime about time travel, not an anime with time travel)

Death Note (Yes, the main character finds the note book while in High school, but for most of the series he is either in college or an official Police officer)

Blood lad (A short, 10 episode fighting anime)

 

[SinisterDeath]

Okay, at this point I'm sure these have been mentioned before.

Attack on Titan.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan
Black Lagoon
D.Gray Man.
Monster*
Uchuu Kyoudai (Space Brothers)
Hajime no Ippo**
GunGrave
Moonlight Mile***
Beserk****

* Monster,
is incredibly slow paced, and has a huge number of episodes. But if you stick with it, you may be surprised. I like it for its depth and maturity. If you can stick it out for 30-40 episodes, it will grow on you. OR you'll just go insane and kill someone..

** Hajime No Ippo,
is an anime about Boxing. Your criteria stated not a high school anime, about characters in high school. Well, this isn't a high school anime. Though it does start with a character in High School, but it goes beyond that, into graduation as he continues his career in boxing. I saw one episode of the '3rd' season, and enjoyed it so much, I marathoned the rest of the series in a week. I really, really enjoyed this show.

*** Moonlight Mile.
Okay, many of you have probably never heard of this epic masterpiece of awesomeness.
This is one of those superbly RARE anime, with an Adult Cast, that does adult things, without it degrading into hentai or echi comedy fan service crap.
It is full of combat, action, sex, loss, adventure, you name it. I highly recommend anyone who wants something mature without degrading into the realm of hentai to watch this series.

**** Beserk
Is a very gorey anime, not quite elfen lied, but its still worth a watch.

 

[ThatQuietGuy]

Kaiji, it's about a gambling addict who get's in way over his head to pay off his debts. If you liked the battle of wits aspect of death note you'll probably like this to an extent at least. The second season is especially good.

 

[Julius Terrell]

No....Wait???....Seriously!?!

There is NO WAY in a million years is Planetz going to compare to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sure it's a good series and all, but isn't earth shattering the way 2001 was. I think Eva comes far closer to coming after that title. Eva has some pretty good sci-fi going behind it.

He was commenting how realistically technology and the physics of space is portrayed in Planetes, and in that regard Planetes is exceptional. Most of the technologies presented in that show are either within our reach today, or not far off from being developed and thus feasible.

Eva (I assume you're talking about Evangelion) is a good sci-fi show, but hard sci-fi it is most definitely not.

I can agree with that.

I feel like a total dunce for not mentioning outlaw star. I remember watching that show the whole time it ran on toonami. I also can't forget G-force or it's original name gotchaman. Danmn I couldn't get enough of that show. Also, fucking Ronin warriors!! I haven't seen that show in quite a while. Good stuff indeed! Most of these shows I'm mentioning and in my other posts had GREAT English dub tracks. I think back then companies cared more about providing a good dub. I know central park media had a good track record for English dubs. I'm rambling now, but yup.

 

[DeltaEdge]

Basically the title,and yes that also excludes anime with high-school esque academy settings(like Infinite stratos.)
Also just to save you some time,i've seen pretty much all the anime thats aired on adult swim so you can skip the obvious ones like cowboy bebop and FMA.

*Looks at how many people recommended Cowboy Bebop in the thread*

OT: A lot of big ones have already been covered, so I'll keep my list short to a couple of anime that I am currently invested in right now.

Spoiler: Hunter x Hunter(Watch the 2011 version because it's fast paced and doesn't have any filler, except for maybe 2 recap episodes early on)

A Shonen, but probably the best one I have ever seen. It's centered around a kid named Gon Freecs and the initial premise of the story is that he wants to become a hunter, Hunters being an exclusive group of certified people that have many priviledges that normal people don't, and must be extremely capable in order to do so. He wants to become one because his father, who he has not seen since early childhood was one, and he's deeply curious about what exactly about being a hunter was so important to his father, that he essentially left the family in pursuit of his own ambitions.

There are a few big things that really draw me into the series that I feel definitely separate it from other shonen anime. For one, I find the characters to be very interesting. Like the assassin Gon meets early on in the story, Killua. Even though he obviously has no qualms against killing people coldly, he refrains from doing so by choice to be friends with Gon, but is by no means changed, and can still just as easily kill people he doesn't like, but still enjoy hanging around Gon and the other guys in the group like a normal kid. Basically, he is able to compartmentalize his killing and his honest desire for friendship, which makes him an interesting character for not following the typical anime trope of having to choose between one path or the other.

And while Gon is a cheery protagonist like many, is definitely an innocent character, but not so innocent that he is unable to accept that some people kill other people and make a moral tirade against each and every murderer/criminal that he meets.

Another thing about the series I love is that it has a solid supernatural power system. This doesn't come up until around episode 30-35, but the series definitely does not by any means take a turn for the worse when they introduce supernatural powers. It introduces a lot of interesting characters and mechanics, and the system itself is very detailed, making all the kinds of powers that people develop seem very reasonable, and pretty much no deus ex machina power ups because a character is angry or sad.

I could probably keep on writing until I've written an entire book on why I think this series is great, so I'll just end this right here, and beg you to watch it. (please watch it, I am begging you, it's great)

Spoiler: Magi

Imagine Aladdin, but anime-fied This anime is centered in a world with magic, created from Rukh, the spirits of the deceased. Normal people are capable of using magic in limited amounts, and then there are Magi, that have a nearly unlimited amount of magic at their disposal that are different from other humans, and are destined to choose kinds to help guide humanity down the proper path. The main protagonist is a Magi named Aladdin, and his king's candidate, Alibaba.

It's definitely a very interesting series so far. It has a lot of light-hearted moments, but also gets pretty dark at times, namely with the introduction of black ruhk, and I'd recommend it because the series definitely has a lot of interesting characters, a very interesting world, and a good story too. Please don't think that because this was short, that I don't like the series, because I think it's great! I just can't help myself but to ramble on and on about Hunter x Hunter whenever I get the chance, but I am really enjoying watching Magi right now, which is currently airing its second season, and I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

 

[Raine_sage]

If you have netflix there are two anime on instant play which are pretty good if a little cheesy in spots.

Ghost Hunt: Does star high school students but does not deal with highschool drama and the only other time they go into a school is when it's being haunted. Basically take all those ghost hunter shows on the sci-fi channel, use eastern spirit mythology instead of western, and have the ghosts be real instead of a bunch of idiots jumping at shadows. It's kind of silly in spots (ok a lot of spots) and features a 19 year old blond australian catholic priest who preforms exorcisms. If that line doesn't make you want to watch the show there's not a lot more I can say.

Requiem From the Darkness: A young man who thinks of himself as a writer when really he's just kind of a lazy rich kid runs into a group of people who travel the land punishing people who have committed grave crimes. The art style on this one is weird, very 90's pulp and not the clean high production stuff you see today which I think lends to its charm. I should warn you it's pretty graphic, but good if you just want to watch something visually interesting without getting too caught up in character drama.

 

[SirDeadly]

70 posts before someone mentioned One Piece, that is quite disappointing. One Piece is my favourite by far, I love the story and the characters.

People around here tend to prefer shorter series and turn their nose up at One Piece because it's long running shounen without every giving it a chance or watching more than a few episodes. And the sheer length at this point is dawning, hence I recommend the manga over the anime these days.

Shame the one piece group on here is so freaking dead.

They don't know what they are missing! If they can make it to the grand line arcs and beyond they will be hooked!

 

[VodkaKnight]

Gurren Lagann, Panty and Stocking with Gaterbelt, Baccano, Boku no Picu, Attack on Titan, and Black Lagoon.

 

[dl_wraith]

I'm very suprised Gungrave and the epically OTT Hellsing Ultimate took so long to appear here. Given that Hellsing made the recommendations I'm suprised Blood+ didn't.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'd avoid One Piece. I despise the suuposed humour in it and the jarring changes in tone. My friends love it, I don't. There are, in my opinion, much better Animes out there that deserve your attention first. By all means have a go at One Piece (after all, I do seem to be in the minority surrounding this one) but consider the other possibilities before you resort to it. I'd be using this one as the back-stop, so to speak, but that would be my own personal preference in the matter

There's been some excellent suggestions thus far and I'd heartily recommend these two as a first stop:
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Darker than Black

Much to be loved there and plenty to go at.

Once you've checked some of these out I'd also recommend:
Claymore
Appleseed XIII (follows the same animation style as Aplleseed ex-machina)
Wolf's rain
Fullmetal Alchemist
Trigun (don't any of you dare say if I like Vash's antics then I should be good with One Piece.)
Beserk

Plus a couple of left-field suggestions:
Devil May Cry - a nice 12-part series following the Dante's exploits from the earlier DmC games. Follows a completely different story arc, however and a little slow to start.
Bubblegum Crisis - If you want your anime a little more old-skool. Just be sure to avoid Bubblegum crash! It was terrible!!
Dragonaught: The Resonance - not quite sure how I feel about this one yet. Worth a look.
Ninja Scroll

There's enough great suggestions in this thread to keep you going for quite some time. A few of these I may take up myself, too

 

[The White Hunter]

70 posts before someone mentioned One Piece, that is quite disappointing. One Piece is my favourite by far, I love the story and the characters.

People around here tend to prefer shorter series and turn their nose up at One Piece because it's long running shounen without every giving it a chance or watching more than a few episodes. And the sheer length at this point is dawning, hence I recommend the manga over the anime these days.

Shame the one piece group on here is so freaking dead.

They don't know what they are missing! If they can make it to the grand line arcs and beyond they will be hooked!

Making it to Arlong Park I'd say will get it's teeth in you.

Although it may be wise to skip the damn filler before the Grand Line, it's all terrible.

 

[Captain Anon]

Attack on Titan.
Sword Art Online.
Hellsing Ultimate.

no schools related stuff anywhere and there is lots of blood in two of them, one more than the other

 

[greatcheezer2021]

Case Closed
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
Gundam Wing
Samurai X
Mind Game

 

[bigwon]

If you want a laugh get golden boy (make sure you don't get the english dub its awful!)
fun stuff!

 

[Julius Terrell]

All the best anime are about kids in high school.

I just had to comment about this particular post.

HHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! ROFL! ROFL! ROFL! ROFL! LMAO! LMAO! LAMO! LAMO!

I never got that memo. I was exposed to adult shows waaay before I ever started watching TV shows about high schoolers. They just can't compare. It's like comparing apples to hot sauce!

 

[Nikolaz72]

Spice and Wolf. (Medieval, Romance, Economics.)
Fate Zero. (Grimdark, Grimdark, Grimdark)
Daily Lives of Highschool Boys (lol)

 

[Snotnarok]

Outlaw Star, sci-fi with spaceships that have arms to swing axes or fire guns at eachother, samurais, guns that fire magic, gangs that use magic, really fun show, just make sure you see it uncensored as it's not exactly brutal or vile but it's just better seen uncut.