Or Baccano. If you're into the standard ecchi/harem/comedy thing there'S also Kore wa Bokutachi.../etc. (its name is too long). But if you haven't watched it yet I strongly recommend Baccano. It's awesome.

 

Hunter x Hunter is my favorite at the moment. I'd recommend that.

 

These are my recs:
1) Code Geass
2) Stein's;Gate
3) Tiger and Bunny
4) FMA (honestly, the manga is better - I'd really recommend that you read that rather than watch the anime)
5) Gurren Lagann

Yeah, I can't imagine you'd have enough time to clear all those 5 in the short term, so I'll leave it there. You can't really go wrong with any of these, to be honest. They're all great.

EDIT: I forgot Fate/Zero, which I fucking love. It's a prequel, but I think it's pretty accessible nonetheless. Don't watch the Fate/Stay Night anime. It's crap.

 

I'd recommend Eden of the East quite a lot. The production values are incredibly high, and the plot has a lot of interesting twists.

 

I'd say the only 'you haven't lived until you've seen these animes' are the following:

Shows:

1) Bebop
2) Evangelion
3) FMA: Brotherhood
4) Ghost in the Shell
5) Steins;Gate
6) Code Geass

Movies:

1) Akira
2) Summer Wars
3) Spirited Away
4) Princess Mononoke
5) The Girl who Leapt Through Time

If you haven't watched any of these, finish them before you get too deep into anything else.

 

Start with these:

Code Geass is a good rec. First season especially. But you'll come out of it (particularly the second season) feeling it should have been better. But nonetheless, one of my favorite anime.

Fate Zero - this is in my top five of all time, though most people don't seem to agree with me. But I think it did a very good job of taking a very interesting concept and implementing it without a single issue (which I think is rare for an anime - they always have minor or major failings).

Baccano - (and its sister series, Durarara) quite popular due to its interesting and non-chronological storytelling style and really big range of interesting main characters (and there are a lot of them). Brilliant anime.

tragicmat1, Gurren Lagaan is 26 eps in line with Stein's and whatnot. =P

Some top notch movies as well:
Eve no Jikan
Rurouni Kenshin: Reminiscence (prequel)
Sword of a Stranger
Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo
Rebuild of Evangelion movies (though if you can be bothered, watch the series first)
Kara no Kyoukai movies (understanding the first one is boring as hell).


On another note, I finally got to finishing some anime from last season. Here's two recs to add to this thread:

Zetsuen no Tempest - an average plot in a terrible world/setting with awesome top notch characters. Seriously, they turned this anime from something that could have been bad into something quite decent. If the other aspects were less retarded, this would have been way more awesome.

Shinsekai Yori - whoa. It starts dull, it then becomes intriguing but random bits of information and events that seem to have no cohesive structure thrown at you. And then in the last arc it all comes together so well. I feel I could do massive English essays on this - it very much deals with complex themes as a focus (rare for an anime). And it has an ending that has no closure that leaves you uncomfortable and anxious for ages (a week now grrr...). But yeah, certainly one of a kind and I'd highly recommend this to anime watchers. You'll have never seen something like this before.

 

^I would say that Durarara really tails off after the first half. I loved the first half though.

I feel you on Fate/Zero and Kara no Kyoukai - and on Code Geass.

More people need to watch Tiger & Bunny though. It really is very good. Great premise, art, setting, plot, characters, comedy, action, animation - it's really got it all, and it's not too long either. I watched this and Stein's;Gate over the span of a week and, trust me, that was a great week.

 

Yeah Tiger & Bunny was pretty awesome. Obviously, less of an anime-style thing and closer to a Western comic, but it made the concept unique and different nonetheless.

Stein's Gate was another good one with a good build up and climax. I guess I found episodes ~18-21 to be unnecessary and break the momentum though.

Loved both of them, but wouldn't put either in my top 10 probably.

Same with Brotherhood as well. It was still very much awesome, but I don't rate it as high as other people. The issue I found there was it seemed to treat characters inconsistently (making one character weaker to make the other look stronger. Eg, Scar is epic at the start, but then when fighting Envy, is useless - to allow Mustang to show off).

I would agree with Khaan's recs of Akira and Spirited Away. Forgot about those.

Also tragicmat1, didn't realize anyone else here really watched shounen sports. Loved Cross Game and have rewatched it quite a bit. That is, the first 30 episodes. I refuse to watch anything after that Wakaba lookalike appeared. But yeah, that chilled, slice of life atmosphere is certainly unique in that genre.

 

I will never understand the obsession with Akira, Cowboy Bebop, and Death Note. I've stopped trying. Even so, I'll try to throw out some recommendations.

FLCL. Deceptively complex anime. It's easy to enjoy at face value, but you'll notice somethings that get you thinking.

Black Lagoon. An action drama without the bullshit.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. You'll laugh; you'll cry; you'll have a really good time.

xxxHOLiC. Supernatural existentialism with Clamp's wonderful art.

Hellsing Ultimate. Vampires done right. Raw action with characters you'll end up loving.

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (shortened to AnoHana). A truly moving anime about the trials of adolescence. You will cry, but you'll love every second of it.

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. All the things that made 90's cartoons great, bumped up to TV-MA. Side-splittingly hilarious.

Anything by Miyazaki. Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in particular.

Ghost in the Shell. My all time, number one movie. Cyber-punk at it's absolute finest.

There. That's a little bit of everything.

 

Because Akira is awesome and still looks really good for being 25 years old. Because Cowboy Bebop is twenty-six flavors of cool with a Yoko Kano soundtrack.

Death Note was okay.

 

And here I was wondering what I'd be doing for my summer holidays. :awesome

 

Code Geass, Black Lagoon, Hellsing for reason mentioned above.

I also like One Piece, it is the only ultra length anime/mange that I still follow and I like to think that it avoids most of the bullshit that come with Naruto or Bleach.

Spice and Wolf is a great anime if you want to try something different.

For the Sci-Fi part.. Most of the good anime in that genre are old and didn´t age that well.

 

I actually thought Death Note was really good for the first half. Then the second half happened and it became complete trash. Gotta love it when that happens.

As for suggestions, most of my suggestions are things that have already been pointed out, so I'll just throw out one. I hope I haven't already suggested it in the thread, but I probably have.

Tsuritama is an anime about a kid who, thanks to moving around a lot and his own extreme nerve issues (which are the cause behind a tendency to make Getter Robo faces), had some trouble making friends. Then he met an alien and learned to fish. This anime is short at around 13 episodes and is relentlessly feel-good. It was an absolute blast to watch as it was coming out. I strongly suggest having a look. I also really enjoyed the Getter Robo faces. They're great.

 

^I totally agree with you on Death Note, though I did like the ending. First half was top notch, second half was eh.

 

You are seriously, seriously missing out if you stopped at episode 30. The Wakaba lookalike was a big wtf, I agree. But the story is just so beautiful by the end that it's a shame not to finish it. I think you should at least go through the manga if you don't want to deal with the fake Wakaba too much (but, seriously, finish it if you have time )

Also, I totally forgot Tengen Toppa was that short, I just remembered it was two seasons

Responding to some recs here, while Bebop and Evangelion are great, I personally don't recommend them any more since their artwork is somewhat outdated and not as pretty compared to newer stuff.

Anyways, some recs for some obscure genres.

Horror: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (if you see Kai, it's the second season). One of the most confusing, scary animes I've seen.

Biggest WTF is going on anime: Chaos Head

Romance: Clannad? (There's too many in this category)

Survival: High School of the Dead

 

That's an extremely shallow reason not to recommend them.

 

LOL, that is a pretty shitty reason, I agree.

I'm nearly finished teh first 24-25 episodes of Code Geass, enjoying it so far. It's definitely very complex and interesting. I love the morality side of it, it's well done.

I'm also very surprised at just how much Japanese I still understand. I took it in Highschool for a while, and I can definitely pick up a bit here and there.

I found myself interested in what Tragic just said about the end of Cross Game being beautiful. Are there any... feel good(?) animes out there? Ones that just give you that nice warm fuzzy feeling and make you smile.

I'd be interested in taking a look if so.

The other question I have, I remember having a vague look at Hellsing in the past, but I'm not sure what exactly I should get in terms of Hellsing. Or where to start actually. Any ideas?

 

Normal Anime first and then the OVA (Ultimate)

 

Going to throw out Princess Tutu for mood whiplash and

Spoiler

making them earn their feel good

ending. Plus, classical music is always good.

 

Don't know what the fuck you're talking about, bro. Bebop's action sequences are still smother and prettier than 90% of the newer computer drawn/framed stuff. In Bebop, there are almost always multiple objects moving per frame, which is a rarity when it comes to anime.