OK, so I have been watching a lot of anime lately. Like any other genre of entertainment, some are good, some are great and some aren't my cup of tea. Oddly enough, in the realm of anime I find my tastes are greatly different than what I normally would watch. You'll never catch me watching The Notebook, but find me a well written, sappy romantic anime and I'm hooked. But as a guy, giant robots and explosions also work very well.
I blame [adult swim] and Toonami for really getting me to watch anime. I watched Speed Racer and Voltron when I was a kid, but DragonBall Z was really the first series I had to watch. Lately, Bleach has earned a half-hour of my time on Saturday nights. And I was really starting to get into Deadman Wonderland on Toonami, when they suddenly stopped showing episodes. I haven't bothered to see why. Anyway, Netflix has/had a pretty decent collection of anime and I have attempted to watch most (again, some good, some not so good...in my opinion.)
So without further ado, here is MY Top 5 anime series...again, just my opinion.
5 - Highschool of the Dead
Zombies, makeshift weapons, zombies, tones of blood, zombies, interesting character back stories, zombies, a budding love triangle, zombies, fanservice...
The only thing wrong with this series was the length. One season only. The original manga it is based on goes a bit further into the characters quest to find their parent during a zombie apocalypse, but it too was cut short, which might explain there only being one season of the show. It's worth checking out though, if you don't mind the never resolved cliffhangers.
4 -Gurren Lagann
OK, nothing I have ever seen has ever been more over the top, stupid and loud. And I loved it. This is a perfectly written story with everything you could want. Action, romance, drama, comedy, giant fighting robots, animal people, space fights, end-of-the-universe disasters and so may lines you'll catch yourself repeating. Would be higher on my list if it wasn't for that "realm of anime" thing I mentioned before.
3 - Strawberry Panic
First and foremost, you have to suspend your beliefs a bit with this one. Ignore the fact that this is a romantic story set in three all-girls Catholic schools that share a dormitory and attended by more schoolgirl lesbians than some major cities. I'm a straight heterosexual male and I was able to ignore that fact. At it's core, this is a very good story and the characters are interesting. Eventually you do begin to ignore the fact that this is a sapharric romance tale and begin to just focus on the individual characters and the plot. Plus, it anime. Most guys in anime look like girls anyway.
2 - Shuffle!
You're going to see a pattern with these last three, and no it's the lesbian thing.
Shuffle! is one of the first romance/harem series I ever saw and it has stuck with me. The plot is dumb and pretty boring, but it's based on a Visual Novel/Game where your whole point is to just pick a girl, so I guess I can't bitch too much about the plot. But I can say that once you get past the sugar sweet, diabetes inducing first half of the series, the second half get much, much darker. It's worth the wait too. (The first half does have some good comedy)
1 - Clannad, Clannad-After Story
I have to do these two together since they make up the whole story. Again, romantic storyline, and even tries to act like a harem series, but it's pretty clear from the start who the two main characters are. Clannad is a typical high school anime with hints of harem and mystic forces thrown in for good measure. After Story is an emotional rollercoaster...(rollercosters go up and down and twist and do loops and shit)...this is more like one of those rides that lifts you 100 stories in the air than drops you straight down. If you watch this series and can't even shed one manly tear at some point, you are an emotionless robot, or dead, or not watching the right series.
