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

[Julius Terrell]

Movies:

The Black Lion
demon city Shinjuku
Jin Roh
Millennium Actress
Metropolis
All 3 patlabor Movies
Tekken
Fatal Fury Movies
Darkside Blues
An angel's egg
Vampire Hunter D and the sequel
Grave of the Fire flies (Does this even need mentioning?)
Akira
Appleseed (the 90s movie)
Ghost in the Shell (obviously mentioned)

TV series:
Rorouni Kenshin TV
Kikaider
Fist of the North Star
Cassern Sins
Blue Gender
Monster
Serial Experiments Lain
Boogipop Phantom (one of my all time favorite series)
Paranoia Agent
Heroic Age
Legend of Galactic Heroes (already mentioned)
The Devil Lady (So love this series)
Kaiba
Planetz (already mentioned)
Cyborg 009
Blue sub 6
His and Her Circumstances(Kare Kano) (I only put this because it's really well done show about high schoolers.)
Cobra the Animation
Avenger
Berserk (You probably knew that already)
Bubblegum Crisis 2040 (My fav)
Claymore
Grappler Baki (Shounen, but it's still quite a show)
Armored Force Dairugger
Voltron
Legend of Condor Hero
Bokurano (already mentioned)
Patlabor TV
Fantastic Children

OVAs:
Doomed Megaopolis
Secret of the Necranomicon
Samurai X OVAs
Violence Jack
Macross Plus

Ok.....I can understand that you're probably pretty young and new to Japanese anime. There are PLENTY of shows for us adults. I'll probably say they are still in the minority compared to all the shows about kids and teens. It is certainly something I dislike about anime in general. You have to dig really deep to find them, and then there are some shows that mature into adult shows(Naruto). I also avoided mentioning all the cliché titles that everybody have been mentioning, because I'm sick of hearing everyone mention the same old shows. I'm sick of hearing about elfin Lied and I'm especially tired of hearing about Cowboy Beebop. Glad I could help.

Edit: I'm sick of hearing about Hellsing, because Vampire Hunter D is so obviously a better show if you want vampires.

 

[Amakusa]

Hmm lets see,
Some of it might of been mentioned already.

Bubblegum Crisis and Crash (not the 2040 series, i hated that)
Fist of the North Star
Gintama
Peacemaker Kurogane
Rurouni Kenshin
Claymore
Excel Saga
Samurai Deeper Kyo
Louis the Rune Soldier
Patlabor
Gunsmith Cats
Vandread
Slayers

(will edit and add more when i think of them)

 

[spartan231490]

Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom.

Maoyu Yuusha(I think that's how it's spelled)

Claymore

I tend to watch a lot of shounen so most of what I've seen is in a school setting. You could try Air Gear, they're in middle school, but very little of the show actually occurs there. Same with High School DxD believe it or not(to a lesser extent).

Similarly, Prince of tennis occurs almost entirely on the court, so you might like that.

That's about all I can think of that I would actually suggest.

 

[Silenttalker22]

Aside from most of the gems mentioned already Like Evangelion, Deathnote, etc:

Chaos: Head is a good recent one. I think he does go to school at like two points, but it's all about the very dark, mess-with-your-mind, plot as bad things unravel around him and he tries to figure out what's going on.

Kiddy Grade; if you're into distant future sci-fi setting with some lighter tone that gets pretty serious later.

Slayers is a sword&sorcery series mostly from the late 90's, and a recently-released 4th season. Very light of tone and a fun watch.

Someone said Berserk. Seriously can't recommend that one enough.

Hellsing Ultimate: Considerably better than the original Hellsing series. As someone mentioned; likewise Vampire Hunter D for Vampire action with great characters. Both are great; unlike the above poster suggests. No reason to go one or the other. We don't have to go Team Alucard or Team D here.

I've seen Cowboy Bebop mentioned a lot. Dunno about that one. Sorry for the derail but I've never understood the ravenous appeal of CB. Aside from a few great eps, almost all the series makes me go "Meh, I've got less random, more fun, ones to watch".

 

[SimplicityComplex]

Rin - Daughters of mnemosyne - short series about 6 hours long that deals with an immortal female detective. It's on netflix and I watched all of it in one day, great characters great action great story. Is VERY NSFW so if you aren't 18 don't tell your parents.

 

[Moderated]

Elfen Lied
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni
Clannad
Sword Art ONline
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Mirai Nikki(Technically they are highschoolers, but other than the first episode the highschool scenes are during a terrorist bombing and the show isn't about highschool life)
Deadman Wonderland
Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo
Oda Nobuna no Yabou
Welcome to the NHK

 

[Hugh Wright]

Asked this question to my regular anime board after a few years away, but also threw in the caveats that it had to have roughly equal gender ratios and not be as depressing as my love life. For thier answers follow the link [http://forums.animeuknews.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17539&start=0], but i was a little dieheartened as most of the recomendations are five years old or more. Curse the Moe fandom.
My own additions are
Erin [http://www.crunchyroll.com/erin]- while it deals with a child and she goes to a 'school' it is set in a non European or Eastern medieval kingdom and has some of the best understanding of biology, ecology and natural history I've seen a show.
Yugo the Negotiator - very good drama about a hostage (mostly) negotiator
Mushishi- a bit episodic, but since supernatural investigation show.
Last Exile- Leads are kids but it's got a good bit of war, politics and dog fighting.

 

[FearlessFaber]

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.

 

[Dwarfman]

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.

Was going to say Bebop but you cut me of...okay here we go...

Trigun
Wolf's Rain
One Piece
Monster
Macross/Robotech
Black Lagoon
Bubblegum Crisis
Samurai Champloo
Initial D
Afro Samurai

 

[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.

 

[Ushiromiya Battler]

If you want confusing as fuck go for Baccano or Umineko no Kara ni.
They're also insanely graphic, so if you don't like limbs being thrown around or faces scratched you should pass on those too.

Gurren Lagann (best mecha anime ever)
Welcome to the NHK (confusing stuff)
Black Lagoon
Darker Than Black
Planetes (space garbage-men, surprisingly good)
Maoyuu Maou Yuusha

 

[Fractral]

All the best anime are about kids in high school.

I'll throw in a vote for Hunter X Hunter, although it got pretty weird by episode 40 or so with this magic stuff being introduced. I gave up about the time they left the battle tower, but the first part where they're doing the hunter training is solid.
I'm currently burning through Attack on Titan, and if you're one of the few people who haven't watched it you should go do that now. The battles are great to watch- fast paced and gorgeous- the characters are great and the story is gripping. Plus it has a pretty good soundtrack.

 

[SantoUno]

Hopefully the OP and other people will still see this post.

Digimon Tamers.

Seriously, if you decide to just watch ONE series of the Digimon anime franchise, please watch Digimon Tamers, in Japanese with English for the love of god, please.

The reason why? Because this is one of those rare series that completely departs from a previous iteration's canon and takes its universe and tropes to an entirely new level. Don't get me wrong, the first two seasons/series, Digimon Adventure and Adventure 02 are still great. Real fun, and full of great, emotional, and realistic character development. But Tamers takes the majority of those succeses and breaks their boundaries completely. This is a children's anime that heavily references philosophy, the history of computer technology and landmark advancements, the human condition and experience, and foreign cultures. But the best part is that it absolutely is not afraid to jump into kid-unfriendly and extremely dark, gritty, and heartbreaking territory. I mean, the ending. THE ENDING. I seriously do not remember any ending that has really made me cry so much. Even thinking about it now makes me want to tear up. In terms of sadness-inducing tragedy/joy, it blows Toy's Story 3 ending out of the water.

Oh, and I really, REALLY advise you to watch the original Japanese version instead of the English dub. There's just absolutely no way you will appreciate the full effect of this series with the dub. While not an atrocity, the dub still severely downplays a lot of the series's best and most heavy moments.

Hope this peaked your interest and you will decide to check it out! Let me remind you that this series is set in an entirely different canon that it's predecessors, so you will have absolutely no sense of unfamiliarity. It's basically Digimon built from the ground up when compared to the previous ones.

Oh and to prove just how much more vast and deep Tamers is over it's predecessors:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/DigimonAdventure?from=Main.DigimonAdventure

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/DigimonAdventure02

And now here is Tamers:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/DigimonTamers

The TV tropes for Tamers is two or three times as long as the Adventure/02 pages!

 

[Lord Rothschild]

MEZZO DSA is a good one
REQUIEM is also good alittle wierd
basicaly any GUNDAM seires thats set in universal century
MOTHER FUCKING ZOIDS

 

[Cpu46]

... Takes deep breath.

Shows not based in a school:

Eureka Seven
Gurren Lagann
Blue Submarine No.6 (OVA)
Gundam (ALL OF THEM)
Hellsing Ultimate (OVA)
Spice & Wolf
Kurokami
Last Exile
Marian Successor Nadesko
Tenchi Muyo
Sengoku Basara
The Devil is a Part Timer
Attack On Titan
Log Horizon

Shows set in or around a school you should still check out:

Soul Eater
Asura Cryin
Kill La Kill

 

[The White Hunter]

Got a week or so to kill?

One Piece.

It's pretty much the only long running shounen series worth partaking of, though the manga is far better.

On the shorter side at the moment I would recommend watching Baccano, and watch it in english as the dub is very good indeed.

 

[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.

 

[CriticalMiss]

One Piece! It's got pirates. And some of the pirates have massive boobs! It's all you need to know... Oh and it's a really long series, so you'll want to set aside a few days to watch it all. The animation apparently gets a bit crap at times because it's so popular people will watch it regardless of the quality. But the story is good if you like piratey things. I prefer reading the manga myself but I occasionally watch the anime and always watch the movies too (which are hit and miss).