List of Animated stuff for Chris and others.
POSTED BY: Fremdfirma
UPDATED: Friday, June 26, 2026 16:11
VIEWED: 33711
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This came out of a convo in another thread where I pointed out Sturgeons Law applies equally to animated stuff, and Chrisisall kindly asked for list of that glorious ten percent - so imma dig through my collection of buried treasure here and throw out some reccommendations, with annotations and links if I can find any.
LIST OF RECCOMMENDED ANIMATED STUFF
(not in any particular order)
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BLACK LAGOON. (Action)
http://www.funimation.com/blacklagoon/
Highly reccommended for westerners, probably the best english dub ever, john woo heroic action bloodshed at it's very finest with a truly rocking soundtrack and seriously epic badassery.
LAST EXILE. (Heroic Adventure)
http://www.funimation.com/lastexile/
Beautifully animated, gripping story with a lot of human touches and conflicting emotions, with excellent english dub and high quality soundtrack.
SCRAPPED PRINCESS. (Heroic Adventure)
http://www.madman.com.au/scrappedprincess/
Another well animated piece, full of interesting surprises and questions on perception and reality, with a strong english dub and nice background music, the theme in particular is very catchy.
HELL GIRL (Horror/Mystery)
http://www.funimation.com/hellgirl/
Geniunely spine chilling tale of the horrors of vengeance, with a lot of mystery and mysticism, backed up by one of the best soundtracks ever, a very strong english dub, and achingly beautiful animation.
CODE GEASS (Mystery/Suspense/Action)
http://code-geass.bandai-ent.com/
Epic tale of intrigue, action and manipulation, with plenty of stuff blowing up or going wrong to keep it interesting, and fascinating characters whos motivation isn't quite always what it seems, and a very strong english dub with a quite passable soundtrack and excellent animation.
Of particular note is the main character, and his ability to take over the top melodrama from sliced ham to plates full of awesome.
(You'll have to wait till March for the last installment of R2, alas)
SLAYERS + SLAYERS NEXT (Classic Adventure)
http://www.funimation.com/slayers/
Very much a cult classic, the animation is a bit dated but improves steadily, the english dub is pretty strong, and the style is quite entertaining, but what gives Slayers it's real punch is that the heros are not only something of a set of dimbulbs, they're not even all that heroic!
They could give Hancock a run for his money when it comes to insurance claims.
GUNSLINGER GIRL (Drama)
http://www.funimation.com/gunslingergirl/
NOT for kids, eerie, chilling, with a lot of moral ambiguity backed up by astounding animation, a solid dub and a phenomenal soundtrack, and will play your emotional strings like a guitar solo, seriously, bring tissues.
Doesn't fit well into any category, so taste may vary.
Has a second season and two episode conclusion, but the quality went south in a hurry.
CAPTAIN HERLOCK: ENDLESS ODYSSEY (Horror)
I got this one on the cheap, it's something of a space-pirate ghost story, and it *shouldn't* work, but somehow it does, the animation is a little dated and oddly done, but the dub is pretty solid, with a respectable soundtrack, and lots of atmosphere to set the tone of the piece, although it's quality lies in the story more than the characters, as Herlock/Harlock is pretty unlikeable, but then he's supposed to be.
(He's actually one of the few Anarchist characters I dislike.)
There's a couple more that look very promising, (Planetes and Area 88) but I haven't gotten the chance to watch them yet with my schedule and all.
Honorable mentions
(just stuff I thought worth the money but doesn't make the final cut)
___________________________________________
Rozen Maiden + Traumend.
Elfen Lied.
Azumanga Daioh.
Irresponsible Captain Tylor.
All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku.
Pani Poni Dash.
The latter two are so mindbendingly ridiculous they're roll out the chair funny.
And a specific reccommendation for children 7-10
(Given tha
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Last Exile has caught my eye...
Thanks, dude.
The laughing Chrisisall
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Huge thanks. Always looking for good flicks, animated or otherwise.
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The country is making a big mistake not teaching kids to cook and raise a garden and build fires.
-Loretta Lynn
Smarts are the brains that make America think.
-Will Sasso as Steven Segal, MadTV
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What about Superman: Doomsday? I LOVE that flick! Have you seen it Frem?
The laughing Chrisisall
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Umm, no - given that I've considered DC and Marvel the spawn of the devil ever since they thought selling comics was more important than making them entertaining, and the recent inclusion of contemporary politics to already horribly contrived storytelling didn't do the quality no favors...
And those soul crushingly bad movies which one of my cohorts has properly dubbed "The Mighty Marvel Reach Around" ain't helped my opinion one bit.
That said, Iron Man weren't half bad, and the TV Animated Batman was surprisingly good, but those seem exceptions rather than the rule.
On another note, if you do wind up dealing with Amazon, two things to know, especially when dealing with new/used anime.
Do NOT deal with "pieceofmindmedia" - even if it *IS* fulfilled by Amazon, what they did is relabeled a bunch of low value stuff by putting a sticker over the barcode and sold it off to amazon as higher value stuff, I had to return both items ordered from them because of that, and there's no question of it being deliberate - while the process is fairly streamlined, dealing with a (I kid thee not) call center rep in india who didn't speak hardly no english didn't help my patience with the matter whatever.
Amazon made good on it, even tossed me the difference in price as credit so I could just order from them, but it was still a hassle.
On the other hand, "GoHastings" is a pretty good source, with extremely fast shipping, but they have a few bad habits, one of which is listing quality as "very good" regardless of actual quality, and once they shipped me a used item that had been listed as "new" (that seemed accidental and it was in almost pristine condition).
So far they've been pretty solid though, which given how much chicanery exists among anime sellers, that says a lot.
Stay AWAY from FoxAnime, GreatAnime, YesAsia, etc etc - generally found at the top of search engines and shopping "reccommendations", they're all prettymuch the same group of pirates, and IF you get it at all (instead of them running to the bank giggling with your credit card number) you'll probably get a cheesy bad transfer that may be in the wrong language or not even work.
If you want real dirt cheap, and plan to buy a boxfull, hit up RightStuf
http://www.rightstuf.com/rssite/
They have a HUGE bargain bin where you can pick up many individual DVD's for as low as $3-6 USD, and I've nailed a couple full box sets for $12-20 USD.
(In fact there's where I got Slayers/Slayers NEXT, for $13 USD a set)
They also have free shipping on larger orders and weekly specials.
Good luck!
-F
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I enjoyed Death Note.
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In case anyone is interested, there is now a Live Action Yamato movie coming out in December.
In the US, it went by the title Star Blazers. Along with Macross (Robotech) and Akira, sparked my interests in Anime and the subsequent loads of Manga that I have read over the last couple of decades.
Here's the Yamato trailer.
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*droools*
Oh man, thanks for the headsup, Haken - dude, you rock!
I actually climbed on the roof and hand built a seriously cracked brained antenna to pull in channel 43 all the way in PA (from central MD) just so I could watch that show, hell yes.
Re: Death Note.
Didn't see the Anime, did read the Manga, good stuff, though a *very* sharp slide in storytelling quality towards the very end, with a lot of obvious plot railroading - still pretty good though, and from clips I've seen of the Anime it's likely not bad neither, only Mello can make the act of eating chocolate both scary/creepy AND awesome.
And if you liked Death Note, you'd prolly Loooove Code Geass - very much a similar work in tone, on a much broader scale.
ETA: Ryuk + Keith Richards, distant cousins, or seperated at birth ?
Me, I'm not quite sure..
-F
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Why do the interesting threads only happen when I'm up to my eyeballs in work and on a 48-hour deadline?
*bumps*
Sticking to series ('cause movies are easy to find), and looking for the not-widely-known gems and must-see-prerequisites, here's a not-at-all comprehensive list of some of my favourites:
Non-Anime:
Disney's Gargoyles:
Easily the best animated series to come out of Disney studios in. . . ever. It's a Saturday morning series, but it gleefully references Shakespeare (several characters read and quote the Bard, and we actually get flashbacks to the events of Macbeth, and Macbeth himself, Oberon, Titania, Puck, and the Wyrd Sisters are recurring characters), Westerns, and Film Noir alongside meta-references to Disney's own canon (Beauty and the Beast imagery around Goliath and Elisa). It also features my two favourite "Princesses:" Elisa Maza, an NYPD detective (who kinda reminds me of a certain transgenic with an attitude 
), and Demona (explicitly identified [in a kids' show] as Goliath's ex-lover, and mother of his child, and one of the series' Big Bads). And the Big Bads. . . There are no "Good Guys" and "Bad Guys" here. The heroes are rough, vengeful, and tragic, slaves to their deliberately Shakespearean passions, and the "villains" are all "justified" (to themselves, at least), all fumbling along their roads to redemption.
Avatar: The Last Airbender:
From Nickelodeon, the series that overthrew Gargoyles in my heart as the single best animated series ever produced anywhere. Words can barely express how eye-bleedingly, gut-wrenchingly, heart-breakingly AWESOME this show is. A planetary romance (a "fantasy" set on another world), set on a world divided between four nations, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, the Water Tribes, and the Air Nomads, each with its own culture, traditions, and a proprietary style of magic called "bending." The Earth Kingdom is based around Han China, and uses Kung Fu-based Earthbending, the Fire Nation are a blend of Korea and Japan, and use Firebending based on Northern-style Shaolin, the Water Tribes are Inuit, and Waterbending is based on Tai Chi, and the Tibetan-looking Air Nomads use Bai Guai to Airbend --all drawn from actual martial artists performing for the animators. At the centre of all of this sits the Avatar; Master of all four elements, continually reincarnated, duty-bound to preserve balance. Long ago, all four nations existed in harmony --then the Fire Nation attacked. The Avatar was killed, and Air Nomads were wiped out. A hundred years later, a Water Tribe girl and her brother discovered Aang: the last Airbender, and the reincarnated Avatar --if he can master the other three elements before the Fire Nation manages to conquer the entire world. There's also the Fire Nation prince, in exile, desperate to regain his lost Honour (yet struggling to define what Honour is). The series is broken into three "books" (Water, Earth, and Fire), each increasingly breathtaking. The animation, the character dynamics, the writing, the story. . .
Transformers Animated:
Yeah, I know what you're thinking; the "Transformers" brand has been slapped on a lot of crap over the years, from sub-standard, incoherently-written, horribly-dubbed anime to Michael Bay's shakeycam-and-pee-jokes, but Animated is when we've been waiting for since the 80s. It is hilarious, epic, dramatic, exciting, and creative, with human characters who are actually interesting, Transformers with actual complex personalities, and even Autobots who are not cardboard cutouts of Heroism. They even talk about PTSD and abandonment issues in a children's cartoon. There's no need to be a fan; this is a completely new universe, with an Optimus Prime who isn't leader of the Autobots, but just the captain of a battered old repair ship, with a crew of wash-outs, has-beens, and outcasts, who gets destiny dropped into
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I've actually seen a couple episodes of K-on, and did like it, while none of the concepts are new, it has a sweetness - but then I liked Azumanga Daioh too, which a lotta folk find boring.
The draw for me was Osaka, who's wiki-walk thought process is enough like mine to amuse me greatly, and Yui from K-on is a lot like that too.
The one that laid me on the floor was the "censorship" of Mio's little "wardrobe malfunction", it woulda been funny enough as is, but how they carried it off left me on the floor clutching my stomach, hehehehe.
-F
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