anime

[kantor1003]

just watched my first anime series. From previous recommendation threads I deducted that deathnote definitely was something to watch... so I did.. I blew through all episodes almost in one sitting (bad timing considering I'm supposed to study for exams).. and I am now wondering if you could recommend anything else, anime, along the lines of deathnote? I'm looking for something dark and intelligent. Preferably not consisting of too many episodes.. as a great anime with 100+ episodes would really hurt my already severely limited productivity considering me being a lazy, procrastinating internet addict.

Thanks

 

[Luminates]

Elfen lied, although there are a few comical scenes, but so was there in Death note.

Darker than black, which I find to be really suitable for those in favor of DN. The first season is much better, but to understand the history behind it even more, watch the 2nd season.
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni- Now first off, this show isn't very similar as DN when it comes to the story, plot, and character background. However, it is very physiological and deeply disturbing. Not much of a good story, and I have no idea what the creator was thinking, but it is truly dark and sinister.


Code Geass- not nearly as dark, but the main characters, the story and background information is nearly the same, except code geass takes place in the near future. It's a ingenius show that has earned it's superiority as being one of the best, next in line with DN.

I'm still looking for shows very similar to DN, there are a few more, but i'm not getting to detailed about this. If I was to go in order from greatest to least on the ones listed above;
1.Code Geass (both seasons, 2nd one is better)
2.Darker than black
3.Elfen Lied
4. Your psycho show.
that is in order of similarity on DN though, not best overall.

Oh and all shows except Code geass run in on 20-30 episodes, code geass is 2 seasons of 25 episodes each making it a total of 50. Darker than black is also the same, but season 2 isn't completely needed in order to understand it's story and concept.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Code Geass, Legend of Galactic Heroes. The latter two are especially similar to Death Note. LoGH is 110 episodes, but probably the only series of that length worth the time. I'd write about these three series in greater detail, but... lazy.

 

[Luminates]

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Code Geass, Legend of Galactic Heroes. The latter two are especially similar to Death Note. LoGH is 110 episodes, but probably the only series of that length worth the time. I'd write about these three series in greater detail, but... lazy.

same reason why I didn't get to detailed about Code geass or Higurashi no etc. etc....

 

[Kuu]

How is Code Geass similar to Death Note?

And how on earth is the 2nd season better?


... mhmm I have no particular recommendations.

How dark is dark and how intelligent is intelligent?


EDIT: For short length... maybe Serial Experiments Lain.

 

[s0nystyle]

pro-tip: go to the top 10 animes list and look for the shows that show up consistantly in people's lists and watch those

 

[Anthile]

pro-tip: go to the top 10 animes list and look for the shows that show up consistantly in people's lists and watch those

Most of these are horrible.


I recommend Monster, Megazone 23 and Bokurano.

 

[Words]

I 2nd LOGH. 1. War 2. INTP main character. 3. Chance to learn control.

Serial Experiment Lain--Lain is also INTP?

I 2nd Monster---INFP main character.

 

[Enne]

Katanagatari.

 

[y4r5xeym5]

Darker Than Black? Ewww...not a fan, and I tried hard to like it. I'd recommend Speed Grapher.

 

[s0nystyle]

katanagatari is pretty to watch, but the story is so.....blah

 

[Enne]

When I'm sleepy I like to watch the dynamics of their relationship. It seemed I___P / E___J to me.

 

[kantor1003]

Ahh, so many to choose from!!

Edit: have chosen "Monster" for the time being. I'll probably get through most of the suggestions listed here eventually though.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Monster is overrated, in my opinion. It's not bad, but everything that Monster does, LoGH does better, with the exception of the art. They are very similar in that they're both about relentlessly holding on to one ideal, but LoGH does it with an intricate, engaging, sprawling plot whereas Monster just trudges along with not that much really happening.

Monster is a 74-episode animé with barely enough plot for 30 episodes, LoGH is a 110-episode animé with more than enough plot for 300 episodes.

Anyway, I will post some information about the animé I've previously recommended, as I'm feeling less lazy right now. Death Note is the best animé I've ever seen (yes, I even liked the second part) and I've spent a long time looking for animé that rivals it. I have found some that are kind of on the same level, but none that I could actually call better.

Legend of Galactic Heroes
This is probably my second favourite animé of all time after Death Note. I already wrote in detail about this series on another forum, so I'll just quote myself:

Legend of Galactic Heroes is an OVA that ran from 1988 to 1997, with a total of 110 episodes.

The series is set ~1500 years into the future, although in terms of technology, it's basically the present but with spaceships and flashy guns. This is most likely horribly inaccurate, but I believe it's intentional, because the series deals with many themes that are relevant in our present reality and these themes would lose their impact if the show was set in an unrecognisable future.

In this distant future, humanity has colonised hundreds of star systems and divided into two factions: The Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance. These two factions have since been at war for centuries and the OVA centres on two catalytic characters on opposing sides: Reinhard von Lohengramm of the Galactic Empire and Yang Wenli of the Free Planets Alliance, but there are many more characters of importance; the series is notorious for having an extremely large cast, as pictured on top of TVtropes article for the Loads And Loads Of Characters trope.

This animé is awesome. I'm a little less than 1/3d through, but if it keeps this level of quality up the whole way through, it'll be one of my favourite animé of all time, along with Death Note and Code Geass. They are kind of similar in some ways, too. Much like in those two series, the main conflict is not between a hero and a villain but a hero and a hero.

I have given it a 9/10 on myanimelist, for now. The main reason why I haven't given it a 10/10 is because the art isn't very good. And it's not that I mind that it's old. There are a lot of repeated animations and scenes that are just unnaturally still as if the animators couldn't be bothered to put motion in them. And even when the art isn't plain bad, it's just not very remarkable.
Plot-wise, it's a 10/10 though. It's just my kind of plot - it's intricate and detailed as hell, thought-provoking, full of allusions to historical events, and it echoes the sentiments of ancient philosophers beautifully. Moreover, the classical soundtrack is very tasteful and fitting. I wouldn't call it one of my favourite soundtracks but I just can't complain about it because it fits.

If there was any more I had to say about it, I forgot it. Highly recommended animé.

I finished it. All 110 episodes, but it felt longer because of how damn eventful it was. So I'll try to give you my final verdict...

Well, there probably is no such thing as a flawless animé, let alone one that's 110 goddamn episodes long. And although I had a few issues with Legend of Galactic Heroes, I won't hesitate to call it a good candidate for my favourite animé of all time. As seen in the above post, I expressed great appreciation for this animé after having seen only the first third of it, and I can safely say that it's only gotten better since.

For one thing, the cast. One of my early worries was that most of the many hundreds of characters in this animé wouldn't really be that interesting and that the series would have an issue of quantity over quality. That turned out not to be the case. Some characters take a while to grow interesting, and while there are some dull characters, they don't have that much screentime (with the exception of Mittermeyer, and even he has great moments) and as an added bonus, minor characters have a tendency to enter the spotlight, commit deeds of awesome and then disappear into obscurity or death.

I actually think this series has one of my favourite casts of all time, and it feels strange to say that, because there's not a lot of development going on. Most characters remain the same as they were when introduced, but... it works. Somehow. I could probably, without the aid of anything but my memory, name one hundred different characters from this series (although I might not remember all their names) and for every character come up with at least one reason why that character is totally awesome.

And the art gets a lot better over time, too. It's never spectacular, though. Although some of the melee fight scenes are nice.

But as I said, there are flaws. I have a few issues with the plot that I won't bring up for spoileriffic reasons, but they are outnumbered by all the things I loved about the plot. More importantly, although the series tends to get better and better up until the end, the ending itself is rather underwhelming, but also very fitting.

Probably the biggest flaw of the series, even bigger than the crummy art in the first half, is that a lot of the tactics in this series is bullshit. It's not in-depth enough for the viewer to understand the advantages, disadvantages and general meaning of different manoeuvres, but yet it's in-depth enough for battles to take normally at least 2 episodes to conclude. And Mittermeyer is given the nickname "Gale Wolf" for his quickness in battle, which I don't get. What makes his fleet quicker than others? Do the ships in his fleet have better engines than the ships in other fleets? Why is that? Maybe the quickness refers to his ability to make rapid decisions in the heat of battle, but although our perception of time tends to get a bit warped, battles often take hours or even days and commands that are only minutes apart to the viewer are often actually hours apart to the characters. Moreover, we never really see Mittermeyer being quick or anything - he's just referred to as being so. The general nonsense of the tactics make the battles the most boring parts of the series (with a few exceptions, most of them involving Yang Wenli) although the battles aren't that many and not that frequent and the aftermath is usually interesting to see.

Tired of typing... Yes, I love this. Go watch it.

...Err, I was going to write about Code Geass next, but laziness returned. Will have to leave a cliffhanger...

 

[s0nystyle]

code geass is great if you can get past the cheesiness of some action sequences.

 

[kantor1003]

.

Thanks for sharing your LoGH review. At the same time, damn it! I'm going to be occupied with anime for a long time. I have already started on monster, watched 3 episodes, so I will try to finish that one. Maybe I'll start checking out LoGH at the same time, but I prefer keeping all my attention at one series at a time. Please don't tell me that Code Geass is awesome as well. Sigh, I'm gonna rot in front of my computer for sure

 

[Cavallier]

Sigh, I'm gonna rot in front of my computer for sure

*cue evil laughter*

Once you get sucked in you can never get out! I don't even watch anime regularly but I still get caught by a series or two and end up spending all my time watching them. *sigh*

 

[kantor1003]

.

I wonder how I managed to escape this plague for so long

I guess you are as me then. Once I get sucked into a good game, a great book, or as now; a great anime, I can't do anything but indulge, trying to get my obsession over with as quickly as possible. However, this might be a problem seeing how much anime there is out there.

Hmm.. Fuck.

 

[s0nystyle]

pro-tip #2: user your computer as a media server to stream to your TV. A couch is much more comfortable than a computer chair imo. Also, if you can try to get the 1080p MKVs so you get full HD

 

[kantor1003]

Full HD would be really sweet
I don't sit in a computer chair though. I use a laptop so I can pretty much watch wherever I want. Usually, I either lay in bed or sit in a really strange position on my couch

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Thanks for sharing your LoGH review. At the same time, damn it! I'm going to be occupied with anime for a long time. I have already started on monster, watched 3 episodes, so I will try to finish that one. Maybe I'll start checking out LoGH at the same time, but I prefer keeping all my attention at one series at a time. Please don't tell me that Code Geass is awesome as well. Sigh, I'm gonna rot in front of my computer for sure

Code Geass is amazing, too. But I would say it's more entertaining than artistic. It's fanservice-y, bounces between genres wildly to entertain the viewer and doesn't have a coherent mood like Death Note, Monster or LoGH. It's an amazingly fun animé, but it feels... I dunno, adulterated?

Both Monster and LoGH are significantly less addicting than Death Note and Code Geass, at least to me, but I don't think that's a flaw. I think it's merely because they're less dependant on suspense.

 

[Words]

I think it's merely because they're less dependant on suspense.

I just realized how dependent I was on this emotional manipulation. To think that I actually believed that I was interested in the "intellectual" aspect of the shows.

There is only a few learning in this form of media. If it's "fun", fine. But what is the purpose of fun? Productivity is the result of ambition. Ambition is purpose defined generally as "worthy".

 

[kantor1003]

Both Monster and LoGH are significantly less addicting than Death Note and Code Geass, at least to me, but I don't think that's a flaw. I think it's merely because they're less dependant on suspense.

Judging from the 5 episodes of monster I have watched, the cliffhangers, in general, seems to be less potent then the ones in death note... and no, I wouldn't consider it a flaw. Too many series rely to heavily on cliffhangers... resolution, laying the foundation for the cliffhanger, cliffhanger - then repeat. The story doesn't even have to be so good as long as you plant the desire in the audience to "find out what happens".. I find it wrong, as a director, to put more emphasis on the "what happens" then having a good story - I think the motivational factor for continued viewing should be because of the inherent quality contained within the individual episodes themselves, not because of the "what happens"... as I am sure you would agree.

 

[Cavallier]

pro-tip #2: user your computer as a media server to stream to your TV. A couch is much more comfortable than a computer chair imo. Also, if you can try to get the 1080p MKVs so you get full HD

Ah yes, the beautiful beautiful things you can do with a "media" computer and a nice tv. But sadly that takes money.

 

[Oblivious]

If you have any pride as a nerd at all, you will want to watch Genshiken.

Manga: http://www.onemanga.com/Genshiken/

 

[tikru]

My favorites are Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Kaiba, Ergo Proxy, and Fantastic Children.

If you're looking for unique and intelligent anime, I'd recommend anything made by Studio 4c. I really enjoyed the movies Mindgame and Tekkon Kinkreet made by 4c. The visuals are very different from the norm and the plots are sort of surreal. They've also made like ten anime shorts. Their series, Kaiba, is probably my favorite anime ever so I really recommend checking that out. The animation is a little cartoony, but I think it fits the themes of the story.

Oh and if you haven't seen Akira yet, you're really missing out. The soundtrack is amazing and the story is pretty sweet as well.

 

[Mondorius]

Pure anime? Well, I still have a lot to watch but here's a few that I'm surprised I haven't seen mentionned.


D. Gray Man:
Not very dark, especially in the beginning, but it gets better. Intelligent? Well, it's not dumb, but it's not particularly impressive either. Industrial era-ish fantasy.

Samurai Champloo:
Dark? Quite a bit. People die. Often. Some funny moments. One of my favorites. Intelligent? Well, it's interesting if I may. It's also short & sweet so watching it in one sitting won't take as long as death note. Samurai should get you a clue about the genre.

Witch Hunter Robin:
Dark? Yes. Intelligent? Yes. It takes a bit to start though... Also short enough. Near future/present day-ish, fantasy.

Ghost in the Shell, SAC 1 & 2:
Dark? Not that much, but it's definetely not yaysauce. Intelligent? Quite! Among my favorites, too. I love it, can't figure out why it's the fourth one I name. Near future, science-fiction.

Blood+
Dark. Can't say masterpiece, but I did watch it to the end. Present day, some fantasy and sword stuff.

Innocent Venus:
No, it's not ecchi. I'm serious. It's kinda short and dark enough, story isn't stupid. Near future, mecha.

If you're into manga, too, here's a few more that aren't animated yet or that I know of:

Vagabond:
Dark? Sure. Intelligent? Depends on your criteria, but I do think it is. Bloody? You bet. Historical Japan setting.

The Breaker:
Nothing in particular, it's not yaysauce nor *gasp* OMG story but it's good enough.

 

[Subotai]

Any recomendations out of these shows?
They're the only ones I can watch on my Ipod.

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[Mondorius]

What kind of anime are you looking for anyway?

 

[kantor1003]

What kind of anime are you looking for anyway?

I've got more than enough suggestions, so I think this will do for a pretty long time. I didn't know exactly what kinda anime I was looking for because my only frame of reference was deathnote.

 

[Mondorius]

Sorry, I was asking that to subotai.

 

[Subotai]

Something like code Geass, DN or elfen lied.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Any recomendations out of these shows?
They're the only ones I can watch on my Ipod.

YouTube- David Lynch on iPhone

 

[Subotai]

YouTube- David Lynch on iPhone

I just can't buy a laptop yet.