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Comment by honkycat | Hacker News Reader

Serial Experiments Lain is everything wonderful about anime. It is violent, dark, scary. In summary: ADULT.

Anime tells stories in a visual format that for years and years you simply could not get anywhere else. Adult genre fiction was not well represented in American media. Even today, adult American cartoons are almost entirely "sitcom" format. They don't want to ever end, and they do not want to tell a story, they want to make more episodes.

Today, people are spoiled with their options for genre fiction. Cowboy Bebop blew my mind as a kid. Berserk was also one of my favorites. I did not think anything could be cooler than Vampire Hunter D. This was before Game of Thrones or The Expanse or any number of other amazing science-fiction or fantasy media we have today. Coming from a small town, it felt like a secret that nobody else knew about and I loved immersing myself in this grim, beautiful, foreign worlds[0].

A lot of anime has a lot of gross "fan service" that objectifies their female protagonists, and that is something I was never a fan of. It was something you tolerated because there wasn't anywhere else to go.

Lain is a great example of all of this. Where else are you going to get a gorgeously rendered cyberpunk-horror series?

0: Probably at a younger age than I should have been allowed to. Though honestly I don't see myself censoring everything from my kids. Part of the draw was the adult nature and feeling like I was getting away with something.

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A month or so ago I finally watched the Neon Genesis Evangelion series after hearing about it for more than 20 years. After slogging through a few episodes of predictable awkard-teenagers-pilot-giant-robots-to-save-the-world it finally reveals itself as a stunning exploration into the minds of troubled youth who are, effectively, subjected to a barrage of traumatic crises. It's a deep, rich world with complex characters, all with Herculean responsibilities and human weaknesses.

I'll have to watch Lain now, thanks to your comment.

I enjoy the usual suspects: Akira, Ghost in the Shell (including Standalone Complex), and Cowboy Bebop immensely. I like Robotech, though much of it is nostalgia. But I've found straying from the essentials to be challenging for my very Western tastes.

I tried to watch Stein's Gate and thought it was very clever, but the awkward romance and over-the-top characteristics of the main character were a bit too much. Knights of Sidonia and Attack on Titan got too weird, too quickly. I was too old for Dragonball. There's a lot of Western-focused, Japanese-animated options out there, but they almost universally lack the depth of their anime counterparts.

I'd love some recommendations if you have any, whether they be newer stuff or classics that I've overlooked.

Anything by Satoshi Kon is great, and in line with what you've been watching. If I had to pick, Perfect Blue for movies and Paranoia Agent for series.

In the lighter more children spectrum, Mamoru Hosoda does beautiful things like Summer Wars or The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

The Tatami Galaxy is another great one

If you liked Robotech and Evangelion, you might want to check out some of the Universal Century timeline Gundam shows. Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta Gundam are the classics, but for something with gorgeous modern animation, check out Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, it's a prequel series that follows the main rival character from the original through his childhood and up to the start of the war that's the setting for the original Mobile Suit Gundam.

Oh, and check out Legend Of The Galactic Heroes. It's an epic along the lines of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, with like 30 'main' characters and maybe 300+ named characters throughout its run. Huge in scope and scale, but always willing to take a couple minutes and reflect on philosophy, politics, and the horrors of war. It's a seriously adult show.

> Oh, and check out Legend Of The Galactic Heroes. It's an epic along the lines of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, with like 30 'main' characters and maybe 300+ named characters throughout its run. Huge in scope and scale, but always willing to take a couple minutes and reflect on philosophy, politics, and the horrors of war. It's a seriously adult show.

Would echo this recommendation. It's a massive commitment to watch fully (even just the main series, not including spinoffs), but it's quite good.

Words of warning though - if you watch Legend Of The Galactic Heroes (or read the novels), read Webers Honorverse books as well some of the space battle material on Orions arm 99% of warship depictions in SF will look to you unrealistically small-scale and mundane in comparison.

Like who goes in to battle with less than 20 thousand warships (LotGH), closes to less than 100 000 km before firing (Honorverse) or starts a campaign without god-AI driven relativistic autowar swarms of death (Orions Arm)? ;)

> Legend Of The Galactic Heroes

I only recently found that it was a cartoon originally.

I read it as a novell like 20 years ago.

Novel is original, cartoon is delivered.

Did you read it in original Japanese or translated?

Chinese translation

(To be clear where I'm coming from: I'm not what you'd call an otaku, haven't watched many things of this kind. I really detest over-the-top stuff. I prefer realism to fantasy but can enoy it if it helps with the plot. I've watched and enjoyed Evangelion (wasn't enjoying it at all in the beginning but when it started getting "psychological" I loved it) and Ghost In The Shell, still haven't but want to watch the others you mentioned. I also watched Stein's Gate and felt exactly the way you did.)

Death Note is awesome, especially the first half. There's a bit of cringy overconfident adolescent personality going on, but I think it's all for the best considering the plot.

Monster is one I'm torn about. The themes it touches on are just perfect for a great dark story, but I feel like it under-delivers by always making it sound like it's gonna get really dark but never making it so. There's quite a bit of "semi-filler" episodes. Thought-provoking but never goes as deep as I'd like.

One movie I'd recommend is Perfect Blue. Realistic psychological suspense/horror with great animation.

Not at all the same genre, but Welcome To The NHK is pretty nice if you want some realistic "light-hearted dark humor" (if there's such a thing), but maybe not if you don't relate to being a hikikomori (or social recluse in general). There's over-the-top characteristics, especially in the first episodes, but it gets better. Watch, say, 10 episodes; if you don't love it by then, it may not be for you.

EDIT: Oh, I also watched Ergo Proxy in an overnight binge so I honestly can't remember much about it. A lot of people like it, I found it really boring and felt too grandiose for what actually happened in the end. There's an interesting story behind it all, but I had to resort to reading fan theories to get it.

EDIT2: For the sake of completeness, the show I actually love the most is Avatar (The Last Airbender. I'm right now watching the sequel and still making up my mind on it). Possibly because I was a kid when I first watched it, but it still really moves me. And yes, I said before I prefer realistic stuff, but this is one of the greatest exceptions. It's also not dark by any means - it's a kid's show after all -, plenty of light-hearted humor and all, but there are many many things I'd say even an adult can get from watching it.

>EDIT: Oh, I also watched Ergo Proxy in an overnight binge so I honestly can't remember much about it. A lot of people like it, I found it really boring and felt too grandiose for what actually happened in the end. There's an interesting story behind it all, but I had to resort to reading fan theories to get it.

The most common reaction to it I saw at the time actually was "really boring and felt too grandiose for what actually happened in the end". (That was my reaction, too.) It just has a lot of other characteristics that make it appealing; it's arguably still the best-looking anime I've seen, despite being 15 years old. Especially since I'm a fan of that kind of dark aesthetic. And it starts out really promising and curiosity-grabbing.

If you haven't watched End of Evangelion and the sequel movies, those are my favorite parts of the series.

Gurren Lagann is a wonderful homage to other mecha series. The series evolves in a REALLY interesting way, it blew my mind. Is worth sticking it out to the end!

Berserk (2016) is awesome, though I go back and forth on weather it transcends it's own violence. I'm probably just being a prude though, since nobody else seems to care haha.

DevilMan Crybaby(2018) is worth a watch. It is a gorgeously animated edgelord anime, run through a modern filter to make it more palatable.

Dorohedoro (2020) is bizarre and nihilistic and is written by a female author which is cool.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (2012 - present) suffers from being the product of a "less woke" 80's and 90's but man... I love it so much. It is so dumb and fun. There is a LOT of it but you just have to go along for the ride.

One Punch Man (2015) is great fun.

I tend to follow individual studios and directors.

Hiroyuki Imaishi has been consistently excellent.

Satoshi Kon is a legend, pick ANYTHING by him and you will not be disappointed.

Shinichirō Watanabe. I'm especially fond of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.

Studio Trigger makes great stuff.

[cracks knuckles, adjust sunglasses]

Kick reason to the curb and do the impossible!

Sorry.

Gurren Lagann, paired with Evangelion, remains one of my favorites. Though it’s a different production crew, it is the same studio, and it’s fascinating to watch them as a counterpoint. There is an obvious point where the main character in Gurren Lagann could, and perhaps should, break, but hope comes through. It’s the optimistic version of NGE.

Also, their ridiculous explanation for where all this mass-energy comes from, and the consequences? Fun.

I still find Kamina's repeated urging for Simon to "believe in the me that believes in you" to be something really compelling. The exact wording is a little awkward and stilted - translations almost always are - but the sentiment is gold, especially for the teenage audience this kind of stuff tends to attract.

Sure, you don't believe in yourself. You tear yourself down all the time. But you also believe in your best friend, you think the world of him, and here's your best friend saying he believes in you.

I found it to be a better version of "believe in yourself"... anyone that needs to hear that phrase is very likely to have problems doing just that. You nailed the context though; believe (your best elder-brother figure) who believes in you; they thought you could, prove them right.

I only watched the 1997 Berserk. I tried to watch the continuation, but I couldn't get past that awful CGI animation. Is it worth it?

If you liked the subversion aspect of NGE, then Puella Magi Madoka Magica might be up your alley.

EDIT: Add Revolutionary Girl Utena to the list, although it might be considered somewhat repetitive and way too symbolic.

The most galaxy brain moment is when you realize that the repitition is not only purposeful but thematically crucial.

Yeah Utena takes stock footage designed to make the show cheaper a la Sailor Moon and turns it into symbolism which informs the narrative.

I'd suggest Inuyashiki. It's somewhat robot-y and explores responsibility and human weakness in a different way from Evangelion. I think it's on Amazon Prime.

Eureka Seven is a great scifi anime that gets missed due to some similarities to NGE.

Mushishi is an excellent philosophical supernatural journey.

Samurai Champloo is very accessible samurai stories (Samurai X is less accessible but good)

Soul Eater (and pretty much anything by the Bones crew) is great unqique fantasy with some interesting themes. Wolf's Rain is another thoughtful one.

> It's a deep, rich world with complex characters, all with Herculean responsibilities and human weaknesses.*

Planetes was recommended in the recent HN thread about space junk, and I ended up watching the whole series over the course of 4 days. It's similar to Evangelion, in that the first few episodes are goofy and awkward (except they're in their early 20s instead of teens). But by the end of the show I was blown away.

It's effectively an adult coming-of-age story, set against a sad, beautiful near-future world in which everyone is just trying to live their lives and get by. The space debris stuff is fun and maybe metaphorical, but from a plot perpsective it's almost parenthetical. I'm too young and immature to have words for the journey it took me on, but (much like Evangelion) it was exactly what I needed at the time in my life when I first saw it.

Survive through the "ninja" episode (you'll know which one I mean when you see it), and you will be rewarded.

Edit: apparently the anime and manga diverge significantly because the show was finished first. I intend to read the latter after I've had a chance to cool off from the former!

> Attack on Titan got too weird, too quickly

It picks up and starts to tie together. I almost didn't watch the second season, but a friend convinced me to and I don't regret it at all. Apparently the show and manga track closely together in plot, so you don't need to read if you've already watched, or vice versa (unless you want to read the last 20-ish chapters if you don't want to wait for the last season of the show to come out).

Don't expect profundity like Evangelion, although the plot is clearly inspired by Evangelion in some ways. But do expect high drama, long threads of intrigue, and whopper plot twists. It's one of the most exciting TV shows I've ever seen.

> I was too old for Dragonball

Too old to take it seriously, maybe! But it's still good fun, just like Space Ghost and Looney Tunes. If I ever have kids, I plan to watch it with them (although IIRC there were some racist and sexist moments that would best be elided).

> Western-focused, Japanese-animated options

I also have to recommend Avatar: The Last Airbender! Its target audience and Western origin belies its depth.

Cannot recomment Planetes enough! I'm watching it again with my girlfriend, and after some initial skepticism, she was very much onboard. And we haven't even gotten to the really good stuff yet.

I really should get around finishing that.

That series was done dirty by the fansubbing community: When it originally aired back in 2003 only the first couple of episodes were translated, then it was dropped and no other group stepped up to keep translating it.

For EVA I had quite an interesting experience. When I watched it I streamed it but was dubbed in cantonese. I can only understand a little but still need to rely on chinese subtitles. The tone of cantonese is of course different from the original Japanese voicing actors. But, surprisingly I was so immersed in its world it felt it was just the language that attach whatever emotions to the characters. The voice of Shinji e.g never felt displaced or making me associate with people from south part of China. They sound genuine and the monologues are so expressive and powerful to make my mind forget it actually is cantonese.

If you're looking for series that really focus on the "character study" aspect, then I would recommend Welcome to the NHK and Tatami Galaxy. Both series deal a lot with regret, hopelessness, and isolation, which I think are themes that might be especially potent given this past year. NHK in particular is a very intimate look inside the head of a deeply flawed person. Sometimes it's hilarious, other times extremely tragic and moving. I happened to come across it at a point where I was very depressed and struggling to find direction in life, and it affected me deeply. Fair warning - the subtitles in Tatami Galaxy can sometimes be hard to follow because the characters talk so damn fast. The very first scene is especially bad offender, so give it a couple minutes before giving up for that reason.

A lot of great recommendations have already been made, but I wanted to throw out Kuuchuu Buranko (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Welcome_to_Irabu%27s...) as a personal favorite that doesn't get named as much as I think it deserves in this sort of conversation. Much closer to Tatami than to Lain.

While I'm at it: speaking of Tatami, you should also check out Yuasa's Kaiba: it's a lot more abstract than Tatami but ultimately ticks a lot of the same boxes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descending_Stories:_Showa_Ge... is arguably the best character-focused drama of the last few years.

Satoshi Kon has also already been mentioned, but I'd specifically call out Paranoia Agent as it's often less prominent than his feature films, yet (imo) is the most incisive of his stuff.

>Satoshi Kon has also already been mentioned, but I'd specifically call out Paranoia Agent as it's often less prominent than his feature films, yet (imo) is the most incisive of his stuff.

ignoring the good story and psychological elements, Paranoia Agent is worth watching for the sheer style and drawing methods.

Satoshi Kon was always stylish, but Paranoia Agent is one of the best examples.

Also Mitsuo Iso (one of the lead animator) off-time animation technique is quite rare.

So many recommendations, but no Trigun yet. Starts off very silly, but goes to some good places over its single season run. At least, I sure felt it did when I was 13.

It's a western/sci-fi set in a vast desert-dwelling society, focusing on the legend of the mysterious criminal Vash, with a 60 billion dollar bounty on his head, usually called by the nickname "Vash The Stampede", who wreaks destruction and mayhem wherever he turns up.

We follow around a goof who looks just like him.

The bit towards the end with Millie and Wolfwood makes me cry.

The heartfelt moral questions the series poses ("the spider and the butterfly") are nothing short of profound, all the more because they may not be resolvable. One of my favorite series ever, aesthetically, narratively, and thematically: I've seldom seen anything so simultaneously silly, and gut-wrenchingly poignant.

Welcome to the N.H.K is an interesting exploration of the hikimori phenomena.

Mushishi is a bit "standard anime fare" but I found it surprisingly wholesome and emotional.

Samurai Champloo is a very well drawn, animated, and stylish show with an amazing soundtrack by nujabes.

Fullmetal Panic! is very mecha shonen, but probably my favorite of the genre without having to delve into the more massive franchises like Gundam with it's bazillion different shows.

Also: Check out Satoshi Kon's stuff like Perfect Blue or Paprika.

I also enjoyed Ergo Proxy, Texhnolyze and Planetes. Ghost in the Shell is still the only movie I revisit every now and then (out of all movies ever). They are all slow, I want to take the time to watch them again some day.

Very different but I also enjoyed Naruto as I grew up myself. It's long (but you can skip all fillers) but sometimes very deep. I enjoyed Kenshin but never finished it.

As mentioned below Samurai Champloo is also nice and Steins Gate (nice, strange atmosphere) and Death Note: very psychological: He thinks that I think that he thinks and I'm smarter so... Love that. And One Punch Man, puts a smile on my face.

If you want weird: FLCL. What was that about?

Ergo Proxy seems to suffer from translations/subtitles not conveying details/subtext/terminology sufficiently. I think it gets a bit underrated accordingly.

As one of the many people who was disappointed by the show when I watched it ages ago (despite its amazing aesthetic and visuals), I can totally believe that. In hindsight it's obvious, but after watching things from different subtitlers, I realized what a difference subtitle quality makes.

It's especially annoying when you naturally start to pattern match and pick up certain common words (if you've watched a lot of stuff for years) and see a short subtitle that seems like an extreme simplification or ham-fisted watering down of what a character just said. Subtitle timing and duration can also make a difference.

It makes you really appreciate good subtitling, at least.

>If you want weird: FLCL. What was that about?

Post-EoE Gainax staff letting off some steam (heh). It is unironically Evangelion through a mirror goofy; a coming-of-age story where fraught filial relationships, older women who come on wa~y too strong, and more robots than you would expect c. 2000 figure in heavily. Just assume that anything you don't immediately understand is a metaphor for pubertal dysfunction and you'll be right 90% of the time.

Now, if you really want to be confused, pick up Revolutionary Girl Utena.

for something more recent, I'd def recommend Keep Your Hands of Eizouken; it's basically a love letter to animation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj7sZlNQB7w

(also affirming all the kon and yuuasa recommendations)

In regards to Steins;Gate and the main character being "over the top": this probably won't make his antics any more bearable but maybe put them into some much needed context which the anime is kinda bad at providing. After his childhood friend, Shiina Mayuri, lost a grandparent she fell into a kind of PTSD, which caused him to assume the persona of a mad scientist, claiming he'd take her hostage because he didn't want her to go/leave. This helped her get over that death somehow but he still regularly lapses back into that persona.

I'd recommend trying to watch a bit more of Steins;Gate and Attack on Titan. They both get very rewarding as they go on. (For the latter, it's a bit more hit-and-miss, but the hits don't ever stop. Unlike the Game of Thrones kind, where there's a sheer drop-off starting Season 5 that only gets worse and never better.) And, as another commenter wrote, there's something much deeper and more nuanced about the main character's over-the-top personality in Steins;Gate than initially appears.

Psycho-Pass. Finish season one, which tells a complete story. There was a drop in quality in season two. Psycho-Pass is about two layers of futuristic police, "inspectors" with full citizen rights, and "enforcers" who are treated as "latent criminals". A brain scan from the end of a cop's weapon, which takes a second to complete, may determine your fate. The lead female character is initially very keen and eager to be an inspector, but soon questions the system and society. It's fast-paced and a great show.

I dunno whether these count or not, but I enjoyed the hell out of Kid Cosmic, Steven Universe, and Adventure Time.

These maybe aren't the same kind of show as your traditional animes, but they all really resonated with me during Covid times.

I have fallen in love with Adventure Time. Not only is it something my son and I can watch together, but tells real coming of age stories that are relevant to both kids and adults.

Adventure Time is deeply empathetic to the human condition. To communicate this connection it rewrites all the rules about how the world works and forces you to navigate them with no explaination.

To a child this is taken as a mater of course, to them that is how the real wold works. Children have to discover the world on their own and learn to navigate it, hopefully with the guidance of parents, family and teachers.

Most lessons are hard won and come only through experience. As the story progresses you see the characters in Adventure Time strugle to learn these lessons, sometimes succeeding sometimes failing.

As an adult this show opens me up to all these lessons again and gives me a chance to reevaluate my experiences as well as consider those my son is or will go through and how I cam be there for him.

Agreed with everything you said. Also you should check out Steven Universe, if you liked the feeling of Adventure Time. It hits a lot of the same emotional beats, and tells very powerful stories about family. You'll take different things from it than your son, but you'll both like it.

One of the Adventure time animators (and maybe creators?) is also behind Hilda, a book series and now a fantastic Netflix cartoon adapted from them. It’s a made for children 8 and up, and genuinely enjoyable as an adult too. The world is beautiful, the soundtrack is great, and the adventures are lots of fun.

Gundam is its own brand of weird, and while each series falls prey to toy commercial necessities (nary a protag old enough to drink), there is plenty of substance and a whole lot of flash to be found, and the focus on (critiquing) militarism means that most series is grounded in a way many series aren't.

8th MS Team, 0080: War in the Pocket, and Iron-Blooded Orphans are good to start with (even if you don't understand everything right off the bat, just flow with it). The first, because it is THE most grounded of all the series; the second, because it's by far the most moving, and the last because it's probably the most self-assured execution of the franchise's "child soldier" trope (with a fully-formed conception of just what kind of world produces that horror).

Mob Psycho 100 may seem out of left field and extremely Japanese at first, but it's such an effortlessly insightful, and universal, exploration of purpose, motivation, and the lies we tell ourselves about each, make it an easy recommendation, especially for someone who presumably might need some healing from Eva.

The Great Pretender will remind you a lot of Cowboy Bebop.

Edit: Oh, duh, Kon. Anything by Satoshi Kon.

magnetic rose by otomo. one of my faves.

oh, and perfect blue.

If you aren't turned off by the girly aspect of it (The director previously worked on Sailor Moon) Revolutionary Girl Utena is comparable to Evangelion in terms of being ambitious and Avant-guard. (The movie is meant to be watched after the show. There's a fan website with a bunch of essays analyzing the show still active, there's a lot of subtle stuff going on in it, it was also partially inspired by japanese avant guarde theater in the 70s counterculture era.) I feel the dub hurts the material because the actors sound like they are doing children's theater so it's best watched subbed.

Big O is also a good show though it gets better as it goes along. It gets kind of abstract and embraces a sort of "theater of the absurd" sort of atmosphere so don't go into it expecting a typical narrative to the story.

If you like American superhero movies or comics at all Tiger and Bunny is a great Japanese show with a unique take on them.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica was sort of described as a "deconstruction" of Sailor Moon type shows, a writer with a horror background does a grim and gritty story that starts off like a Sailor Moon sort of thing and goes somewhere else.

The great thing about animation is that once you accept the cartoonish caricatures as real people, you get all of the special effects for free. You don't have that jarring disconnect between the actors and the (bad) special effects, and you don't need to husband your special effects budget carefully, saving it for a few big scenes. You can fill each frame with impossibilities that are just as real as the people filling them.

This is also why the Star Wars animated series (3D) are such a joy to watch: Clone Wars and Rebels have hands down some of the best space battles ever made in the Star Wars universe.

It also lends itself to an odd bit of realism: because its cheaper to animate characters without faces, people actually tend to wear helmets in situations they obviously should.

Serial Experiments Lain felt very much like a dark dream when I watched it. And because it was so different from the mainstream stereotypical anime which can easily fit into well defined (and IMO overdone) categories.

But I also think it's different from the sort of 'aim at western audience' type of anime (to be frank the appeal is a bit different from asia perspective, at least for me). The dark universes of Akira and Ghost in a Shell have some equivalent in the cyberpunk genre in the west, e.g elements of a dystopian society, which do not feature too often in the Japanese anime world. In that sense Lain really experiments with the genre and rebel against the typical characters and gave it a unique style (hence the name I guess :)

Growing up, i was a lot like you. The stories, artwork and animation in a lot of those darker, more adult animes blew my mind. I remember the first time I saw Akira, like you when I was probably way too young, My mind just couldn't even really grasp what i was watching. I'd never seen anything like that before. I ended up somehow watching a dubbed version of ninja scroll that came on TV some time after that and i was pretty hooked.

I find though, I can't get into newer anime, or a lot of newer animation in general these days. I really miss the old style of animation and artwork, both western and Japanese. Every series or movie had its own unique style, some of the artwork was so fantastic and just mind blowing. Some of the landscapes and scenery created in older animation could take you to some of the most amazing or terrifying or strange places you couldn't even imagine.

I find a lot of animation to look generic and overproduced these days and in general, the format's become fairly formulaic and nothing really stands out as special in the ways a lot of those older animes did. Don't get me wrong, i have seen some fantastic modern animation. I was speaking more in general.

I keep hoping that we'll have this Renaissance of artists who want to go back to the traditional ways just to break this new mold animation seems to have gotten itself stuck in.

Getting into anime in the US in the early 00s via friends who got into it in the mid-to-late 90s, there was a lot of filtering that had already happened here in the US. So something sort of missed was the realization that Sturgeon's Law (ninety percent of everything is crap) still applied to anime. It's just that in the US most of what had made it here was generally the better quality by some measure (better animation quality, better story, better characters, etc.). Not universally, crap still made it through, but it wasn't 90% crap.

Fast forward to today, you have access to the full gamut of anime series and movies. Completely unfiltered by others unless you specifically only watch things that others (that you have some trust in or similar taste to) have watched and promote. And thanks to legit streaming services and less than legit streaming services and torrents, you can much more easily be one of the first people in the US to watch something so it's now much easier to find the crap if you don't specifically go through the filtering process of time or critics or peer group taste and recommendations.

In Canada it was a little different than the US. We had some early animes that were actually dubbed up here you guys didn't have. We also had a totally different version of Dragonball up here originally.

I noticed back then too, watching different dubbed versions of different animes, the censoring would be different depending on whether it was American or not.

We also didn't really get much funimation stuff until later on, which as far as i know, whatever you think about their early work, was pretty fundamental in popularizing anime in the west.

Honestly, back then most of the anime I watched were fan translations of varying qualities I found on file sharing programs i watched because I found them recommended on websites.

Once I found out the anime we got here was often heavily altered compared to its original form, I kinda just focused on what was recommended online. My friends weren't really into anime or anything so it wasn't really something I could get peer recommendations on or anything.

I never really got into a lot of those popular ones of the time. I just kept searching out the weird obscure stuff that never made it here.

These days though, there's so much, I honestly wouldn't even know where to begin. I guess the last 'anime' I watched was Castlevania, but I'm not even sure if I would have classed that as anime back in the day.

It went digital and they got cheaper, I agree 100%.

There is still a void, which various artists could fill these days. Sadly, if they did I don't think I would hear about them due to the volume of content on streaming platforms.

Japanese studio anime follows a formula that you might have noticed. This formula is still unnecessary to western audiences, which has learned to tolerate it. It includes characters with certain hair colors having certain behaviors and relationships to the protagonist, it includes a filler episode at a sauna.

Something like Cowboy Bebop would be a hit in the west, for the same reasons that The Expanse - which is not anime - is a hit. But Japanese studios gravitate towards portraying fantasies only relatable and comfortable to a socially awkward viewer, while Western studios don't invest heavily enough into what fans of the medium and anime art-style would like, and still target children.

> Even today, adult American cartoons are almost entirely "sitcom" format.

Agreed. Check out Final Space. It relies a bit on comedy in the beginning but grows into a drama. Give it a few episodes.

It's amazing to see mainstream America discover, with our television Renaissance, what most otaku knew and took for granted since the 90s. I hear family talk about the latest It Show, and it's almost word for word what you would have found on the more polite anime forums back in the day. Even the premises echo: of Record of Lodoss War and all its derivatives in Game of Thrones, of Gundam and Cowboy Bebop in The Expanse. Don't think for a second that TV producers aren't mining the rich veins of both conceptual and visual "basic research" anime creators have done on what "works" for the extended fiction format and action-oriented television.

The one thing I will say is that, as an anime watcher, you do start to pick up on the repetitive tropes that might have felt fresh in your first few series, and with the aforementioned unsavory pandering towards the figma crowd, American TV that apes anime definitely has me less fatigued or concerned about sharing my enthusiasm with any particular show with F&F.

> Even today, adult American cartoons are almost entirely "sitcom" format. They don't want to ever end, and they do not want to tell a story, they want to make more episodes.

Check out Infinity Train for something different. Ostensibly aimed at kids, but, uh, honestly, I seriously question that based on some of the content in that show [0]. Between that and Over the Garden Wall, Cartoon Network's contributed some great work to American animation in recent years.

Amazon's Invincible is having a good run so far, on the side of things definitely made for adults.

[0] MASSIVE MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUgeSJhXNeQ&t=64

> They don't want to ever end, and they do not want to tell a story, they want to make more episodes.

For the opposite experience, have a look at UK dramas. They're often mini-series with as few as 6 episodes, well defined story and aren't afraid to try new stuff.

For example "Behind her eyes" (not a cartoon) is a recent good one. (don't be deceived by the first episode, it's not as simple as it seems)

I see no mention of Gunnm (battle angel alita) OAV was nicely done even though short. The manga has lot to offer somehow.

The manga goes where edgy mainstream sci-fi wishes it had the fortitude to venture. We're talking VanderMeer and Cixin and Dick all mixed in with Peele's brand of politically-aware, existentially-fraught dark humor. People attach their heads to rockets to serve as targeting systems; the genetic engineering virtuosos of Venus eat babies; the most efficient form of assassination is arguably of either the "space karate" or "massive kinetic bombardment" varieties.

There's a lot. It's like Tim Burton's Seveneves.

This same effect can be seen in Japanese games from that era—I didn’t watch much anime, but I was absolutely consumed by Japanese RPGs. Xenogears changed my life.

KOS-MOS needs to be cleaned - with fire.

(I wonder if someone still knows that refferrence, even I can't find it online anymore. :P )

The story of how the Xeno franchise just... keeps dropping the ball is not a happy one. Boy, did they knock it out of the park with the one battle theme in the entire first game, though.

I watched one Japanese cartoon once in my childhood.

There was a flying robots flying killing everybody. Do you know its's name? I always wanted to rewatch it, but have no idea what's its name.

I'm trying to piece together what I watched in childhood.

Since a few years ago, people who are more into cartoons cued me on that:

Blue alien who shoots lasers from its bra is Guyver, and that it's not an alien, and is a guy.

A communist coup in space is Ryvius, and on a closer look, communists were actually high class cadets with parents in high up places, and not the other way around.

European comics and novels did that before Japan ;). And with far more mature and adult themes.

I'm talking about specifically animation, though. There are plenty of examples of excellent novels and comic books from all over the world. However, they represent a completely different tier of production cost. Comics and novels are cheap. Animation takes a team of sometimes hundreds of animators, sound designers, art directors, etc.

>Comics and novels are cheap

Manga too, but in Japan it's much better praised than anime.

Most anime is nothing more than advertisements for the manga anyway. That's why most of it never gets a second season.

Have any good adult animes come out these past few years? There's always been a lot of gross stuff but I'm starting to lose faith in the medium when I see stuff like Mushoku Tensei being praised as wonderful in the mainstream, the latest few seasons have felt like complete garbage.

I quite enjoyed Castlevania. Other than stuff I watched with my kid (Dragonball, Avatar, Princess Monoke, etc) I don't know anything about anime.

Adult as in serious and less mindless tropes and entertainment to touch on more philosophical topics?

Wonder Egg Priority comes to mind but due to production delays the final episode won't be coming out until a few months so it will leaving you hanging for the conclusion. In this age of gatcha-game, manga or light novel anime adaptations it's a rare anime only series. It follows teenage girls fighting what are essential nightmares with poppy color and well animated scenes but it's a symbolic battle with serious issues such as hikkomori, homosexuality, sexual abuse and suicide.

"The Promised Neverland" if you stick with season 1. Heard season 2 went in a different direction from the manga unfortunately.

I've stopped following anime for several years now. The trajectory of one punch man from it's humble doodle-like beginnings to mainstream speak volumes about the state of commercialization these days IMHO.

The isekai genre is definitely overused at this point, just as slice of life got done to death before it.

Lately, I've been having more luck w/ manhwa (Korean manga). If steampunk sci-fi with social commentary plot is your cup of tea, I've been finding Leviathan enjoyable.

> The isekai genre is definitely overused at this point

Yet somehow we can't get enough of it!

I mean, I know I'm a sucker for isekai. Some of it is poorly animated with terrible stereotypes (for anime) and far too much fan service but it's not isekai that's cliche it's the story that's being told inside of it that could be.

I'd argue that isekai is one of the best and truest forms of sci-fi: Instead of just "drama, in space!" or "drama, in the future!" isekais are (normally) answering the question, "what if?"

Like, what if you were reincarnated in another world but you weren't human? What if you were a monster? Or a machine? Or immortal? Overpowered because of nature or overpowered because of nurture (i.e. the ability to carry forward knowledge from this world)? The possibilities are endless!

There's so many great isekai anime that explore these and other questions. Some get quite detailed and realistic (in terms of emotions or the sorts of problems one might run into) while others are more about comedy or relationships (again, "drama, in <another world>!").

Some of the more interesting aspects/concepts of isekai anime that I've watched:

    - Main character is not the only one that was brought to another world *but the others who also came are from completely different alternate universes* (Shield Hero).
    - An *entire group of people* get sent to another world (Arifureta, So I'm A Spider, So What?, Grimgar)
    - The other world is *super early* feudal-ish (so primitive they don't know how to make paper or even crochet... yet) and the main character remembers all the arts & crafts stuff her mother and grandmother taught her (Ascendance of a Bookworm).  Hehe: How well do *you* understand the process of making paper (think you could figure it out in that situation? =)
    - What if your mom came to the other world with you? (this one is actually so over the top and ridiculous but the question itself is kind of interesting: Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?)

Some of those aren't the point of the anime but they're interesting questions/situations nonetheless.

I'll admit that I do like the premises of various isekais - kumo desuga nanika (I'm a spider so what) and honzuki no gekokujo (ascendance of a bookworm) that you mentioned are in fact two of my favorites - but it's worth remembering that these are light novel adaptations. Personally I think there's a bit of loss of "magic" directly attributable to bringing the story out of the text-based medium, particularly in the case of honzuki no gekokujo. I thought there was something very special about how Myne was sickly and could not physically go see how Parue was harvested, and how her family's description of the process was as bewildering to her (as an other-worlder) as it would be to any of us. It's a really clever storytelling device that masterfully helps convey the protagonist's situation.

Another example: the orc arc of moonlight sculptor was an absolutely epic read in text format; I don't think the cartoon format can really do it justice.

The Isekai genre goes deep, very very deep. Anime adaptations only really cover the often good and/or mainstream series.

If you start digging into Isekai manga, there at least one order of magnitude more works to choose from. Then if you look into light novels, there is even more stuff, again with just a fraction getting manga adaptations.

But the real breath of Isekai are web novels - that's where most of the current hit novels started, on websites like "I'll become a novelist" (https://syosetu.com/) where people just type away their fantasies with minimal friction, one chapter at a time and often with lots of direct feedback from the community.

That can result in even more original/crazy ideas being explored, such as:

- What if you were transported to a fantasy world with your solar powered camping vehicle ? (Himekishi to Camping Car)

- What if you became your game character in a fantasy world that has a different gender (female) and is a total glass cannon ? (Alice Tale)

- Whats more fun than raiding dungeons ? Running them! (Lazy Dungeon Master)

- What if there is stable gateway between the other and the modern world and you can go back and forth ? (quite a few series actually, even some mainstream ones like Gate or Isekai Shokudo)

- Fantasy is nice but steampunk and heavy industry is even better! There are quite a few rather non-mainstream series that introduce robots and guns into an Isekai setting. Yet there are others that set out to industrialize the whole thing as including building stuff like railroads.

- What if magic was just a foreign language or alphabet the locals aren't good at but you are, as it's your native language ?

- What if you are the only one who can see the GUI in an Isekai world ? Nothing better than meeting a famous aristocrat with "class: vampire" blinking above his head telling you about mysterious kidnapping cases in the vicinity. Or "goblin shaman [invisible]" floating in the air of dark cave. (Skill Takers World Domination")

- What if due to some mistake no one person gets reincarnated as a son of poor aristocrat but 3 - a high school student, a salaryman and Nobunaga ?

- What if you actually got reincarnated to the buggy mess of an MMO you helped to develop (Death March) ?

- What if a modern Aegis cruiser or even the full Japanese archipelago (including some disputed islands, no less ;-) ) gets transported to an Isekai ?

Really the possibilities are endless. There is definitely a lot of repetition and series that frankly are not any good (especially between web novels, thanks to the same zero entry barriers that enable so much creativity in the first place) but there are many gems to be found if you search a bit. :)

> Aegis cruiser

Destroyer! But thanks, I laughed really hard at the realization that Zipang is indeed an isekai of sorts.

Thanks to that show, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daqing_Oil_Field is one of my favorite historical counterfactuals.

Actually, there is a real isekai series with an Aegis class destroyer going to another world other than Zipang: :) https://www.novelupdates.com/series/rune-troopers/

Yes, that's an elf, an Aegis class destroyer and a dragon on the picture. ;-)

I haven't read this series yet but it seems to be doing good with 10 light novel volumes out so far. :)

While I haven't seen that that yet but an Isekai series based around a nuclear submarine would be cool. Being nuclear powered it could be rather independent from the now missing modern infrastructure. They could also include dramatic elements such as the submarine hiding underwater during a nuclear Armageddon only to surface later to find out they have been somehow transported into a world of swords and magic instead of the radioactive wasteland they have expected. Not that it would make it any less dangerous and their adventures any less epic. ;-)

BTW, tracked down the Japanese-island-chain-in-Isekai as well: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/nihonkoku-shoukan/

"Basically, the Japanese version of Island in the Sea of Time.

For clarity: The summoned area of Japan are the four disputed Kuril Islands, Japan Home Islands, and Ryuku Islands"

Can we just get away from the otaku-pandering JRPG fantasy world archetype, already? I feel like Konosuba and Re-Zero should have ruined the premise for all time. I know the Japanese love them some Dragon Quest but enough is enough.

As long as pumping out isekai stories continues to be profitable (and the target market which is otaku enjoys them), they will continue to proliferate.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I've read far too many isekai manga/manhwa than I should have (not super into anime).

Shield Hero was good but FFF-Class Trashero probably tops the lot for me. Really good storytelling and incredible character development.

If you like FFF, you may enjoy Master of Gu.

Recently? Attack on Titan might be one of the best. It's a little too shounen-ish at times, but the setting is pretty mature and has absolutely no fan service. I've heard Vinland Saga is also great. The Promised Neverland is not about adults, but it's a very serious show and I personally liked it a lot.

Unfortunately, the rest of my backlog is mostly just older shows I've been meaning to watch for a while. Golden Kamuy is probably one of the newest and it's still not that new. Same for Parasyte, which has some of the best body horror I've seen ever. High on my list is also Shin Sekai Yori, which I've heard nothing but praise for.

For a recent anime that's a pretty good nab I'd actually suggest RE: Zero - it also starts out a little bit too shounen-y but gets really interesting in its exploration of both our relationships with others, pain and death. As someone who really enjoyed philosophy in uni it poses some really interesting questions.

I'm also interested but not yet totally committed to Tower of God - there's some really neat stuff there, along with a lot of shounen - but I think it's a pretty solid production all together.

First of all, I'd slightly push back on the way you've framed your question. I agree there's a ton of crap in the world of anime, but whether a show has been created with care and thoughtfulness doesn't necessarily correlate with whether or not it contains "adult themes" that make it unsuitable for kids. I mean, Evangelion is considered a classic despite being aimed at a teenage audience.

With that caveat, and bearing in mind that preferences are extremely subjective, here are a few recent shows that I'd suggest checking out:

The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl (a surreal interpersonal comedy/drama movie, from the writer and director of The Tatami Galaxy)

SSSS.Gridman (a very loose reboot of a 90's live-action tokusatsu series, with a lot of stylistic homages to Evangelion; has a sequel, SSSS.Dynazenon, which is currently airing)

Girls' Last Tour (a slow, contemplative journey through the ruins of a post-industrial civilization)

Thunderbolt Fantasy (although it's debatable whether this one counts as "anime"; fantasy puppet wuxia, from the writer of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass; it's deliberately kind of over-the-top, but with a great command of pacing and characterization)

Psycho-Pass. Sci-fi future where everyone's got a psychological profile built & monitored by a computer system, used for all the things you'd expect it to be, including to nab criminals before they crime. Our protagonist is a young, idealistic woman who's become a cop, basically. She'll be leading a squad of people whose profiles are considered dangerously outside the norm, whose job it is to catch other deviants (can't have normal-psych-profile people exposed to that kind of violence, after all, and anyway it takes a deviant to think like a deviant). It goes from there.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica if you're into Anime-deconstructing-Anime. "What if Magical Girl... but actually, when you think about it that's entirely horrifying". There've been a bunch of other attempts at similar things, usually not as successful.

Vinland Saga for heightened, violent historical drama.

Mushishi if very-very-Japanese things aren't a turn-off. Largely episodic series about a guy who deals with dangerous spirits. Which I know reads like it'd be terrible or "oh my god not another one of these shows", but it's not. Slow-paced, brooding, bittersweet.

Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day. Short slice-of-life series about kids, but actually about accepting loss. IDK how "adult" it is, but it's pretty good (I mean actually-good, not anime-good).

Carole and Tuesday. Again, not sure how "adult" it is but it's just charming and heartwarming, while also not being terrible, which is a rare enough combo in any media to be worth a look, I'd say. From the creator of Cowboy Bebop, and also heavily music-focused.

May not look like it from this list, but I don't actually watch that much anime. I know there's a fair amount of really good stuff I haven't seen, plus a huge pile of OK-but-not-great. I keep up with a couple ongoing series I didn't put on this list because they're definitely not aimed at adults (My Hero Academia, for instance). I find it's really hard to find good recommendations for anime unless they're personal recs from a person I know well—but I also find that's true of most other genre-fic sorts of things. Recommendations from Internet randos or "best-of" lists of fantasy are often (IMO) full of garbage, and sci-fi's barely better. Ditto comic books.

I would say quite a few, but they don't really seem that way.

Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasuka? Isogashii Desuka? Sukutte Moratte Ii Desuka? - might look like another lightweight fantasy harem story but actually has one of the best romantic pairs recently and handles some pretty hard topics.

Actually I would say a Shield Hero is another one. It might look like yet another cookie cutter isekai show, even with some of the heroes being summoned taking it like if it was just a game. But it turns out it's a real and rather brutal feudal world where your actions have real consequences and a lot of people have very insidious evil and inhuman agenda.

Hell, I would actually even call Kemono Friends (series 1) an adult series. What looks like a funny child series with anthropomorphic animals turns out into something much deeper once all the various hints and fragments of information start to fall in place.

Assuming by "adult", you mean an R rating and not an NC-17 rating, check out Dorohedoro. I think it's on Netflix.

I'm depressed by the state of anime. It seems the industry has generally taken "adult" to mean violent. I grew up watching the gruesome stuff. But the industry still seems to be in that edgy teen phase 99% of the time (3 decades later) and they have no idea how to handle adult themes without copious amounts of blood.

Stuff like Time of Eve or Planetes are like beacons of light in a sea of shit.

I'd recommend Megalobox 2: Nomad as a rare gem, much more so than its first season. It takes a classic underdog story then asks: What happens after the hero wins?

It's an adult story. A story of homelessness, of community; of addiction, of compassion; of parenthood, of adolescence. And there's some boxing.

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