Go watch PlanetES. Immediately.

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PlanetES is a space-age story set in the year 2077, a future where space development is both ongoing, and being threatened by the growing amount of dangerous space debris in the Earth's orbit.

The story revolves around the crew of a debris collection ship called the DS-12 "Toybox", and more specifically, on the efforts of their opinionated EVA specialist named Hachirota "Hachimaki" Hoshino.

This is hard sci-fi at its finest, driven by realism and a very well put-together setting. There are no superpowers, there is no mysterious, magical new energy source for cheap and easy space travel. All of the technology is plausible for what we might have 60 years down the line, albeit from an outdated early-2000's perspective.

PlanetES is a character driven drama that explores issues such as the commercialization of space, the ever-increasing gap between the rich and poor, racial and economic discrimination, and many more very real problems in our current world. It's also one of my favorite pieces of drama period, televised, published, or otherwise.


EDIT:

Missed this bit of your post, Khan. My bad.

 

If you haven't seen it yet, consider watching Ghost in the Shell (in its various forms). Compared to the aforementioned anime, it's a lot more politically/ethically driven, but no less awesome.

 

Definitely recommend both Ghost in the Shell movies. I just watched Innocence again the other night.

As far as Stand Alone Complex goes, it can be a little hit or miss, IMO. The first season in particular. In season one, the episodes relating directly to the Laughing Man case are great, but the independent case episodes can sometimes fall flat. I thought the second season was a vast improvement in many ways to the first, though again, the independent cases sometimes just didn't feel like they had the same amount of work put into them.

Still, I recommend both seasons of the show regardless.

 

Is the nicha rainbow anime worth my time ? and although I am going to look it up, what happened in Japan that had adults scared of teens?

 

Although it's early on I'm going to throw Psycho-pass out there. I'm freaking loving what I've seen of it so far. So much so I just sort of want to stop watching until it's finished so I can marathon the whole damn thing.

Anyone else keeping up with it?

 

Psycho-Pass is great, definitely can't wait for more. It's like the love child of Ghost in the Shell and Minority Report. Definitely traces of Cowboy Bebop as well.

Also gonna go ahead and recommend Highschool of the Dead. It has a ridiculous amount of fanservice and for the most part it's not exactly deep but if you're a fan of the zombie genre this is a must see.

I'm usually a fan of subbed anime over dubbed but this is one of the few cases where I'd go dub, it takes itself a lot less seriously and adds in a coouple good pop culture references.

 

The character designs in this are amazing. I've never seen people in an anime look so real.

Thanks for the recc, watched the first episode so far and enjoyed it immensely.

 

High School of the Dead... or as I like to call it:

"Tits McJiggle, Ass Galore, Pink Tsundere, and Giant-Breasted Teacher Take Every Possible Opportunity to Expose their Sumptuous Assets. Also... Zombies!"

Not a particularly concise title... but infinitely more accurate.

 

Yeah I'd hardly recommend Highschool of the Dead. First episode I absolutely loved - from the fact I was in a zombie hype at the time, to the awesome use of the 28 Days Later theme as a tribute, to the way the ED was used, and how it ended. I was so pumped for the second episode and then instead I was given an ecchi harem instead that basically didn't venture even slightly into any of the interesting stuff you could have on that topic.

 

Come on, action scenes weren't half bad. Dat bullet dodging scene :awesome

 

I wouldn't go as far as to say HSotD is bad. It just doesn't meet it's potential and is ultimately a let down. If the fast-paced action and the truly heart-wrenching drama wasn't convoluted with jiggling jello tits and an obscene amount of panty-shots, it would make for a really great anime.

Most ridiculous HSotD moment:

 

I read the HotD manga up until they met the police officer in the mall. While there was definitely a lot of fanservice, I didn't think it necessarily got in the way. Maybe the anime ramped it up a notch? I haven't seen it yet. Though I also haven't read the manga in a while.

 

Pretty sure the scene Khan threw out was in the manga too. This show is so freaking over the top that I can't take it seriously, nor is it really meant to be anyway.

 

Even if you put aside the ridiculous ecchi scenes, the anime had a lot more potential that wasn't quite lived up to.

Everyone from the outset is way too badass. From the first episode, where Rei sees a zombie teacher stumbling towards her, and her first instinct is to whip our a spear and beat him to death. The fact that someone like Shizuka (the school nurse) basically plays the aloof, dumb as fuck blonde takes away pretty much all the good drama scenes her character could potentially have.

It takes everything good about a zombie survival story, removes everything but the action and then adds lots of boobs.

 

Even if you put aside the ridiculous ecchi scenes, the anime had a lot more potential that wasn't quite lived up to.

Everyone from the outset is way too badass. From the first episode, where Rei sees a zombie teacher stumbling towards her, and her first instinct is to whip our a spear and beat him to death. There's no transition from 'normal life' to 'survival mode'. There's nothing really about them trying to come up with solutions on how to survive - they're handed a house full of assault rifles, a Hummer and later, a fucking fortress with a standing army on a platter. And they're all skilled fighters already.

The fact that someone like Shizuka (the school nurse) basically plays the aloof, dumb as fuck blonde takes away pretty much all the good drama scenes her character could potentially have.

It takes everything good about a zombie survival story, removes everything but the action and then adds lots of boobs.

Yeah I remember reading it back in 2007 and don't remember the ecchi scenes being this blatant.

But maybe I'm just remembering it wrong.

 

I'll throw Gunbuster on the pile. It's pretty old and kind of rough by today's standards, but it's from the same man behind Evangelion (if you're familiar you can clearly see a few concepts in it that would be used in NGE later on), and has a few awesome moments if you watch it till at least the third episode. The ending was pretty neat as well.

 

To keep on the Gainax Train, Royal Spaceforce: The Wings of Honeiamise is one of the best anime movies made in the 80's, and easily the second best thing Gainax has ever produced.

 

Sequel's not half bad either.

Gunbuster is also the anime responsible for the patented "Gaina-Dachi", or "Gainax Stance". You know. That badass, arms-crossed, no-shits-given stance that every epic robot anime to come out of Gainax has ever used.

 

Truth. It's essentially a proto-Gurren Lagann, so if you liked that then Diebuster is a great next step into totally fucking metal giant robot anime.