For the next part of the multiple anime discussion, I decided that I would like to show you guys what my favourite shows from Japan are. There are dozens of shows out there but these days they don't have the same great experience that some shows have now. Pretty much every day shows rely on fanservice and the same type of genre over and over and as we know, anime fans want a show that has a great story, great characters and good replay-ability. Even though I have only watched a few shows, I have enough to give out good examples of what new and existing otakus can enjoy. These are in no particular order from favourites, instead the order I have watched them (just to show how I got into anime).
Death Note
Episodes: 37 + 1 Special
Death Note has an interesting concept. The story starts with a bored high-school teenager, Light Yagami, who notices a notebook falling from the sky. The notebook 'Death Note' can kill anyone as long as that person's name is written on the page. Light, realising the notebook is not ordinary, decides to rid the world of evil people and call himself a god. Now there has been a lot of discussion talk regarding how the story progresses. The first 25 episodes focuses on the first arc of the story, where Light goes on a cat and mouse chase against the great detective L, and this is pretty much the highlight of the series and where a majority of the fans want this kind of mystery and suspense throughout the whole series. The second arc is as good but not as superior as the early episodes. The animation itself is great and since I only watched the dub version, the acting compared to other dubbed shows is above average for anyone who wants to watch the show in English rather than Japanese. Adapted from the manga (I've read the first two volumes just to point out) and it plot follows exactly how it was made. This is a great show to start off for any newcomer and an essential title to add in anyone's list.
Cowboy Bebop
Episodes: 26 + 1 Movie
Known for it's sexy jazzy music from the Seatbelts, Cowboy Bebop is one of the best anime shows of the 90s. The story follows a group of freelance bounty hunters Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed and Ike as they wonder off all over the galaxy. Bebop has a interesting plot behind the usual episodic villains where Spike is searching for his past. Other than the plot itself, the dub is fantastic and one of the best around. The characters are great to get along with and the music is just full of epic-ness. The series also spawned a film not long after, so there's plenty of action with the crew to enjoy for a long time.
Nichijou
Episodes: 26 + 1 OVA
Now where to begin with this one. I discovered this series from various scenes on YouTube and when I watched the series, it became one of my favourites. Nichijou, known in translation 'My Ordinary Life' focuses on various people in school life. There is no plot to this, so it's a basic slice of life series. The irony with this series is that these characters are not living an ordinary life. Explain how it's ordinary when there's a girl who has a robotic piece on her back? or how about that posh student who rides a goat to school? and what about the principal wrestling that deer? This series is extremely random and doesn't take itself too seriously. The anime was created by Kyoto Animation and I'm very surprised this is barely popular, but it's understandable that Kyoto's most famous works have better attention because the audience is there for them (for example, K-On! and Haruhi Suzumiya). Nichijou is only available on Crunchyroll and there's no dub available, but Australians can get their hands on this through Madman.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Episodes: 26 + 2 Movies
This anime is an interesting to talk about. Evangelion is a deconstruction of the mecha genre and takes a different approach where it blends the action with philosophy, psychology and some thought. The show starts off with 14 year old Shinji Ikari, who was sent to Neo-Tokyo III by his estranged father to pilot a giant robot, known as Evangelion. The Evangelions are created to stop monstrous aliens known as Angels who want to wipe out humanity and initiate the end of the world, known as Third Impact, since they last appeared 14 years before in Second Impact. Now there are more characters to talk about including the mysterious pilot Rei Ayanami, dedicated pilot Asuka Langley Soryu, head of NERV and Shinj's father Gendo Ikari, NERV's Captain Misato Katsuragi, but there are so many in this series that they even have their own psychological problems. The show became controversial due to budget cuts and the later half of the series became a slight mind-fuck where the answers aren't always there, heck the director Hidekai Anno had to remake the ending due to the amount of death threats and backlash. Other than that, I really enjoyed the series. It's a great show to watch and there's plenty of action to keep the amusement going. The plot may go off the edge but it makes sense after watching it again for the second time. If that's not enough, there's even a manga adaptation still going and the Rebuild of Evangelion (which will be mentioned in my top films list) to keep the excitement continuing.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Episodes: 14 (Season 1) + 14 (Season 2) + 1 Movie
Kyoto's masterpiece as I like to call it. The series is a slice of life comedy which focuses on an ordinary student, Kyon who doesn't believe in aliens, espers and time travellers until he encounters another student, Haruhi Suzumiya. At first she acts as if he is annoying but then ends up dragging him into all sorts of problems such as her new club the SOS Brigade. From that point, the fun is about to begin. The characters get along really well and each have their own stereotypes. There's Mikuru Asahina who is the sweet innocent person who ends up in Haruhi's traps, Yuki Nagato who is rather silent and mysterious similar to Rei in Evangelion, and Itsuki Koizumi a rather calm and cheerful person in the group. The animation and dub are great and the music is rather memorable, most notably the infamous Hare Hare Yukai dance that ravaged the whole anime fanbase. A spin-off Chibi series has also been released and really good to enjoy, keeping the same cast for both the Japanese and English dubs and the same fun humour used in the original series. I am fully aware about the flaws of the series, including the Endless Eight series but at least the animators made their mistake and promised the fans with something better, such as the recent film (more on that later).
Lucky Star
Episodes: 24 + 1 OVA
Another one of Kyoto's shows, Lucky Star takes otaku to a new level with Konata and her friends in this slice of life comedy. Konata herself decides to spend most of her time watching anime, reading manga, playing visual novels and taking these hobbies as discussions to her friends in high school. Lucky Star is also very popular for the anime fans as the shows pretty much takes so many references towards many anime shows, mostly Kyoto's previous piece the Haruhi Suzumiya series. The show's weakest points are the first few episodes but the comedy builds up and is one of my favourite shows to watch. The show's OVA is also high recommended to watch once finishing the series.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Episodes: 64 + 4 OVAs + 16 Specials + 1 Movie
A remake of the original series with more direction towards the manga, the Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood series is by far one of my favourites to appear in anime. The show starts off with Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric who wish to bring their mother back through Alchemy and Human Transmutation. Unfortunately, the result only ends up taking Eds leg and Al's entire body. Ed then loses his arm for Al's soul in which he puts on armoured suit. Thus their journey begins for the Philosophers Stone, a stone that they believe can bring their bodies back. The show can be described as a shonen due to its length but at least the show ends with a bang. The characters are great and the animation is spot on. The music itself is not that bad in general with multiple opening and ending songs to fit the current show's themes. Highly recommended and also includes a great dub.
Elfen Lied
Episodes: 13 + 1 Special
Elfen Lied is a supernatural thriller where one girl Lucy escapes a facility with an accidental split personality, her personality is split between a happy character who can only say 'Nyu' while the other is a relentless being who can murder anyone with her invisible vectors (long arms) that can instantly kill anyone basically. Now the first episode caused a stir because there is a huge amount of violence, gore and nudity. Despite this, the show isn't actually as bad as it seems to be. Like Fullmetal Alchemist, the show got to a point where it could no longer follow the manga and ended with an original ending. Now I've never read the manga so I won't know how much is different in terms of the plot, though the plot itself isn't that bad after understanding Lucy's past. The characters are okay to start off with, with one of them having some importance to Lucy's past and another is related to Lucy in terms of their species. The music 'Lilium' is such a masterpiece, it fits the tone of the show really well and shows the amount of pain that Lucy suffers throughout the series. There is a dub but I heard it's not as powerful as the subbed version.
Clannad
Episodes: 23 (Season 1) + 24 (Season 2/After Story) + 2 Specials
Clannad is a romantic visual novel anime which is very touching to me. For starters, the main focus of the series is about family and friendship, between Tomoya and Nagisa. I highly recommend this show because the character development is very good and the story arcs for each heroine is very intriguing and doesn't overlap each other, allowing the audience to understand one person then another after the first has ended. There is also some comedy added to the mix, therefore preventing the show becoming a complete tragic love story. The best characters that use this type of comedy belongs to Sunohara (Tomoya's friend) and Akio Furukawa (Nagisa's father), both support this show with humour and joy to the characters. The series itself is split into two seasons, there's the first season which supports the main heroines and the characters lives in school and then the second season, 'After Story' which then moves the setting even further to the characters lives in adulthood. The story gets more tragic in the second season, but it's something that you should understand yourself because it does break a lot of people's hearts after watching it.
Steins;Gate
Episodes: 24 + 1 Special + 1 Movie
Another visual novel based show, Steins;Gate focuses on the mad scientist Rintarou Okabe, also known as HOUOUIN KYOUMA!, who finds out that his microwave can send his text messages to the past. The story for Steins;Gate is genius and has a very good way of fooling the audience during the climatic ending. The show's cast is also spot on for the sub version, the main character's voice actor is very good at making evil laughters (speaking of which, the actor also voiced Light in Death Note) and the rest of the characters are done perfectly, especially Mayuri who makes a perfect TU-TU-RU!! catchphrase for the show. A dub version is also available and from what I hear, it's not as bad as the sub version.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Episodes: 12 + 3 Movies
This was a surprise to me when I was watching the first few episodes. When I heard that this show was very good, I was intrigued to find out how and why it was good. Well, I can take that aside and say that this show is actually really interesting to watch. The genre for this show is Magical Girl and what the show does is make the story even darker by adding mystery and character development to the main cast. I even want to know more about the Kyuubey thing and why 'it' is doing all of this (ever since that scene in Episode 8). I should mention that the music is also very good with Yuki Kajira making interesting songs to fit the theme plus the ending 'Magia' is very epic.
Durarara!!
Episodes: 24 + 2 Specials
Durarara!!, the spiritual successor to Baccano! caught my eye when Podtaku's Gigguk did a video on various characters with one of them originating from this series. Durarara focuses on a variety of characters from a group of high school students to the mysterious dollars group. The plot gets interesting as each episode gives narration and character development for each character while also exploring what life is like for Durarara. It's a shame that some of the awesome characters like Shizuo and Izaya don't get as much screen time as Mikado and his friends, but to make for it we have Celty and Shinra adding some interesting scenes and plot to the mix. The dub is also superb with Crispin Freeman and Johnny Bosch (Kyon and Koizumi from Haruhi Suzumiya) voicing the roles for Shizuo and Izaya respectively. I do recommend this series to anyone and including the Baccano fans.
FLCL
Episodes: 6 OVAs
Like Nichijou, the concept for FLCL is rather random. The first episode of the series has the main character get run over then hit in the head with a Chain-Bass (a combination of a Chain Saw and a Bass Guitar). FLCL is made by Gainax who also worked on Evangelion and this is a rather short but good original video animation with only six episodes. FLCL's animation is stunning in HD and the dub is also as good as the subs themselves. Recommended to anyone who wants a random show to watch.
Berserk
Episodes: 25
Berserk is rather complex to talk about. It's one of my favourite shows and one of the few that I rated 10 out of 10 for a reason. Berserk is adapted from the manga of the same name and focuses on Guts, the Black Swordsman and from here we then get a massive 25 episode flashback about how he gained the title. From the manga's point of view, this is entirely based on the Golden Age arc and is primarily an origin story to the Berserk universe. Guts encounters Griffin and the Band of the Hawk not long after and joins them as they help Griffin earn his ultimate goal. The goal itself is not entirely told to the audience because the mind-fuck occurs about 3/4 into the series. That being said, the ending does resolve a cliffhanger however this was to persuade audience members to read the manga afterwards. Personally I advise leaving the first episode till last in terms of chronological order, but overall a great show and I will look forward to the remake trilogies planned for this decade.
Baccano!
Episodes: 13 + 3 Specials
The latest show I've been watching is Baccano!. As mentioned earlier, Baccano! was made by the same studio who did Durarara!! and the concept for these shows has multiple characters and multiple plotlines. In Baccano! there are three major plotlines occuring at the same time in 13 (or 16 for BD/DVD owners), but the most important plotline is the train setting. Somehow I have no idea where the Flying Pussyfoot idea came from but that seriously fits the train well, especially with the amount of stuff going on in the episodes. Not to mention there's immortality and two comedic thieves involved in the scene. Baccano! is rather mature and gory like Berserk but is still one of the best anime shows around and also includes the best dub for the setting (because the show is set in 1930s America).
Honorable Mentions (because they were either on average or not fully watched completely):
Afro Samurai
Azumanga Daioh
BTOOOM!
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
High School of the Dead
High School DxD
Noein
Samurai Champloo
UN-GO
Well I could go on, but for now I'll leave it to that. The next part will focus on the anime films so I'll get sorted on that as I have indeed watched a lot of them, including almost the entirety of Studio Ghibli and two of Makoto Shinkai's works. See You Space Cowboy!
