I don't have the connection to watch anime on the net, nor the money to buy much, so most of what I've seen is courtesy of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

FLCL (Fooly Cooly: six episodes of pure, fucked up genius. You'll need to watch it over and over to get everything, but you'll have fun doing it. There are probably numerous ways to interpret it. The little guide that comes with the DVD set is nice, if you aren't getting the cultural jokes.)

Last Exile

Elfen Lied (if you don't mind violence, nudity, soul-crushing plots, oceans of blood, and a dash of child abuse... despite the way it sounds, it's very good.)

Gunslinger Girl (only recommended if you're looking for more violence and child abuse because Elfen Lied didn't crush enough of your soul. I'm sitting on the fence.) :mrgreen:

Metropolis (that soul crushed enough for you yet?)

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex (and SAC:2)

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Though, not having drunk the Kool-Aid, I think it falls apart towards the end, so watch the movies too.)

Cowboy Bebop (The first really good anime series I saw, and still one of the best. Don't forget to watch the movie)

Blood+ (On top of being well above average, I like all of the opening and closing themes, save one, and it is rather beautifully animated. I've never seen the original movie, Blood: The Last Vampire)

Eureka Seven (beautiful animation, great music, but sometimes the immaturity of the hero, the emotionally stunted brutality of his mentor, and the trio of cockblocking little kids make me grind my teeth. There's some stuff in there, too, that will only truly make sense if you grew up in Japan).

Big O (Personally, I like it, though the new DVDs have a redone theme song that bites sooo much ass. If the show doesn't make enough sense for you, blame Cartoon Network for refusing to fund a third and final season, whilst throwing away money on utter garbage like Time & Eric, 6 Oz. Mouse, Stroker & Hoop, Squidbillies, Assy McGee... the list goes on)

Ninja Scroll (is considered a classic by many. The movie, not the WTF!series)

Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). You may be interested in other films by the same studio if you like this.

Samurai Champloo

Full Metal Alchemist

I suppose you could watch some Love Hina, just so you know what people mean when they describe an anime as being 'like Love Hina'.

Vampire Hunter D = some people call it a classic... I don't see it.

I've never seen the original Record of Lodoss War, but the sequel ROLW: Chronicles of The Heroic Knight wasn't bad (if you like D&D, this was based on the creators' campaign. Sadly, it's hard to get a hold of on DVD, though the original seems readily available ).

I've only seen the first few episodes of Fate/Stay Night, but it looks good and I like the design of the characters (who doesn't like Saber?).

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan is another one I haven't seen but would like to, it seems to have exploded in popularity recently (Of course, so did The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi).

Sigh... Trigun... I don't know, Vash annoys the piss out of me but I still have the McFarlane action figure of him.

I have nothing but hate for Dragonball Z.

Hehe. Also known as Please Teacher. It's silly but is considered a 'classic of anime' by many.

I haven't seen much of Outlaw Star, but even so, I can tell you that comparing it to Elfen Lied is like comparing oranges to typewriter keys... they're nothing alike.

 

I forgot completely about Outlaw Star, I have the series on DVD. Hrm, I haven't watched it in a while either...

I haven't seen Elfien Lied, so don't know how to compare Outlaw Star to it.

Rather than post the wall of text I'll just link to the Wiki page.

It's a great series if you get a chance to watch it. Of course anything with ninja space pirates is going to be cool! Outlaw Star had the poor luck to be in competition with Cowboy Bebop, though, so the series was cut short.

 

I'll say this-the animation of F/S Night is absolutely perfect. The creators did an excellent job on it.

Now...Everything else in the show=one of the biggest crocks of shit I've ever seen.

Picture an idiot human, who thinks he has to protect a freaking GOD OF A PAST HERO,who wields an 'invisible sword'. Really, you think Potter was stupid, wait until you see the main character of F/S Night. Add in Wanna be harem action, a little loli thrown in for that little pedophile in all of us, and oh yes-an incredibly stupid plot where characters suddenly gain powers you've never seen. After the first few fight scenes. it gets so predictable you can pretty much say whats going to happen. It's like a formula, Fight trouble +new character ability X=win fight.



/Okay sorry bout the rant, but the series annoys me to no end. With such brilliant animation, I wish there was a good anime to go with it.

 

If you're looking for something funny, try Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei. It's awesome, nigga.

 

That's disappointing to hear. Sadly, this and its reverse are often the case. All style and no substance, or all substance and no style.

On a side note: Way back when anime first started catching on in the US, the local video store had a few titles (on VHS, as that's all there was back then) and they obviously knew jack shit about anime, because they had them right next to the children's section.

A lot of it could probably be chalked up to the attitude some people have that anything animated = kid's stuff. This way of thinking seems particularly prevalent in the baby-boomer generation. Younger people don't see it that way, and older people (those that are still alive) can remember the earliest cartoons, which were often adult oriented and sometimes rather raunchy.

Anyway... They had stuff like Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Vampire Hunter D, Armitage, Record of Lodoss War, etc. right next to stuff you actually could show your six-year-old. I'm surprised some soccer mom didn't rent Ninja Scroll to keep her pre-teen son occupied, in lieu of real parenting, then run screaming back to the store, in horror, to threaten a lawsuit.

I had already seen most of them, so I rented something called Fencer of Minerva.

To my surprise, it had nothing to do with any Minerva I've ever heard of, and nearly nothing to do with fencing. It DID, however, have lots of sex scenes with a princess that gets kidnapped and molested, lots of slave girls, more rape, more sex, more slaves. It was a bit light on plot... and actual visible nudity, which in the days prior to my internet connection, was more of a disappointment than finding out it wasn't about sword fighting.

Don't even look it up out of curiosity, it sucked. I'm still wondering how a chain like Video Safari got a hold of it, why, and how they could put it next to the kid's stuff.

 

Surprised no one said BLEACH. One of the animes where you definitely want to skip the filler, but the main plot is pretty sweet. Other than that I think everyone pretty much said everything I have seen/recommend, though I will admit I do have a soft spot for anything Gundam.

 

Doh! Forgot Bleach. I agree about the filler, it's excruciating having to wait for them to get back to the freakin' main plot.

I thought it was okay. The costume design is a bit of a guilty pleasure, since I enjoy it, despite the fact that even Hagrid would look like a little kid wearing shit with cuffs, collars, and hats the size of what people are wearing in this anime. It is a fairly good looking show and I like the closing theme song. I don't know if they'll be making any more of it, since the original creator died (if I'm not mistaken).

The main character, Abel, has the same thing going that pissed me off about Vash: He acts like a dipshit most of the time, then turns on the badass after he's let shit get totally out of hand (because of their decidedly pacifistic bent). Somehow I can tolerate it more from Abel than I ever could from Vash.

Spoiler

Actually, there are a lot of similarities between Vash and Abel, now that I think about it, what with them both being genetically engineered test tube baby pacifists who can kick ass when they feel like it.

(Incidentally, the tiny snippet of closing theme song that you hear at the end of Wolf's Rain is the only good thing about that pointless angst-fest of a show, IMHO).

 

Welcome to the NHK. You will watch it and you will watch it NOW. It goes a long way to preventing any and all possible weeabooification.

 

Somebody, I think Jon, maybe,posted the beginnings of a HP/Black Lagoon crossover. Got me interested in BL, but I haven't found the time to watch it.

 

I've heard NHK is good, but I haven't had the chance to watch it. It may be interesting, being that I'm practically a Hikikomori myself.

O RLY?
It's funny how many things I've read/watched because I read a Harry Potter story that crossed over with it. I got started reading Anita Blake (for better or for worse), because of Mhalachai's Inevitable.

After watching Elfen Lied I actually found a HP/Elfen Lied crossover, but there are only a few short chapters and it only updates once in a blue moon.

Any links anyone has to HP stories that cross over with rare anime would be appreciated. DBZ, Naruto, and Ranma 1/2 need not apply, there are tons of them and they pretty much universally suck (plus I don't watch the shows anyway). There are a few semi-tolerable HP/Bleach stories.

Not necessarily anime, but Devil May Cry crossovers also suck without question. Always. As with most anime crossovers, Harry ends up with silly uber-powers (super-powered Harry I can tolerate but super-anime-powered Harry is always so... fail), a bad attitude, uber-magical swords/guns/etc. Blah.

Sadly, I've found that my willingness to overlook the shittiness of a Harry Potter fic is directly proportional to the rarity of its pairing and/or what it's crossed over with. "What, you mean there's only one story like that? Then I'll leave it on my alert list... dammit."

 

This is probably one of the bleach ones you're talking about http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4004012/1/Monstruo. Another by Case13 or Fosfor called Frozen Ring is pretty popular, though I'm kinda irritated by how repeated his plot points get in his stories.

Series wise Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is the definition of over the top, it is pretty great though. Samurai 7 isn't a half bad show though I never finished it.

I'll assume you've seen Full Metal Alchemist so moving to other non action categories.

Yamato Nadeshiko Shinji Henge is indeed a shoujo anime, on the plus side you get a crazed goth girl dressed in a nazi uniform wielding a chainsaw.

Finally my personal favorite is Yakitate Japan, no action whatsover and it is indeed about making bread however its pretty funny.

 

Berserk! But the Anime is not as good as the manga

 

I was going to list my reccs, but there's already too many in this thread. Instead, I'll list what others have recced, but is actually not worth shitting on. I've only seen about 3/4's of what's been listed.

EPIC FAIL LIST

Paranoia Agent (too weird and incomprehensible, even for me. I usually like those qualities)
Dragonball Z & GT (the original is excluded because the manga was pretty funny)
Yu Yu Hakusho
Eureka Seven (kiddies sky surfing with giant robots, wtf)
Full Metal Alchemist
Bleach
Naruto

If you can stand DBZ, then you'll probably like everything below that. FMA, Bleach and Naruto may be somewhat entertaining in early episodes. That's just a trick to lure you in and hope you don't notice the approaching fail. If you like mindless television, put them at the top of your list.


DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS

D Gray Man
Claymore

I've only watched the first eps of both series. They looked like they were headed for nowhere impressive, but I haven't seen enough of them to be certain.

 

I can almost understand why you would not like FMA, but why the hate for Paranoia Agent.
Paranoia Agent, you say you like weird and incomprehensible but you can't understand Paranoia Agent? Paranoia Agent was really simple in the message, what did it show that you didn't like.

I don't mean to be insulting there, but I loved Paranoia Agent. I want to understand what you thought made it bad.

 

Elfen Lied is the most fucked up thing I have ever seen! That said, watch it.

 

...Dang it. Elfin Lied got me actually depressed. -_-

Spoiler

But gotta love Mariko eviscerating her "mommy". That was hilarious.

Outlaw Star less so, but

Spoiler

Why'd they have to kill off Hilda that early?