Are there any animes or TV shows you can’t stop recommending?
Scavengers Reign. One of the best pieces of sci-fi I’ve ever seen. They managed to create a world that feels truly alien, and the environment has such complex cause/effect relationships. Highly recommend!
I’m always trying to get people watching Konosuba it’s just funny but yeah I liked it so much I read the novels and spinoff.
Undone, it’s created by the same guy who made Bojack Horseman.
I think most people haven’t seen/heard of it because it’s an amazon streaming exclusive, but you can watch it (and most other things) for free here: https://hydrahd.com/
I second this. I started watching “Undone” randomly while scrolling through the catalog, and I’m so glad I did. Absolutely loved it! The art style is nice, and I think Rosa Salazar is a great actress (she gives me huge Aubrey Plaza vibes too, which is cool).
Little Witch Academia: a passion project and it shows, a witch school with a colorful cast of character and an even more colorful cast of villains, alternative name: lesbian hogwarts
Girls und panzer and its movie, while it does fall into the cute girls doing cute thing type of genre, GuP is one of the ones who really popularized it, its a series thats just plain old fun to watch how they fight their tank battles, especially the movie
Ben-to, another series thats just plain ol fun, people beat the snot out of each other for the privilege to buy price reduced food, animated by the people who went on to do jojo
that just be my top 3 to show everyone
Honestly, Cowboy Bebop. The universe it builds feels lived-in, and the animation style is incredibl, but the music is really the star.
Be aware, however, that while there are happy moments, it is an anime about bounty hunters, and there are very few happy endings. Beautiful endings, poetic endings, satisfying endings - but never happy.
I’ll throw in my most recent guilty pleasure is Space Battleship Yamato. I didn’t grow up with the original so I’m currently re-watching the 2012 remake. But for fun at the start I watched episode one of the original Yamato, Star Blazers (70s American localization) and the remake in the same day just to compare, which was a cooler experience than I expected it to be.
Great show if you think One Punch Man would be better if Saitama was a spaceship
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
- Death Note
- The Apothecary Diaries
- Ranking of Kings
All of these animes have a fantastic story that even people who don’t regularly watch anime’s will love.
Cowboy Bebop, trigun and hajime no ippo
Steins;Gate, can’t believe I haven’t seen anyone mention it yet. It’s good, but do watch at least halfway before you judge it.
Yeah this one takes several episodes to set the hook and understand some behaviors. But once it does it’s binge worthy
Andor, best piece of SW since the 80s
Anime:
- Pluto (Dark alternative story of Astro Boy)
- Banana Fish (heartbreaking, hard to forget. Don’t get spoiled too much looking it up)
- Heavenly Delusion (brother gets brain transplanted into dead sisters body; interesting plot and characters but only one season so far)
Cartoon:
- Bojack Horseman (great mix of realistic depiction of depression and comedy)
- Arcane (almost makes one want to play League)
TV:
- Atlanta (surrealism and critique of society, also I just love Donald Glover)
- Dark (the one German show that is not ass)
- The Expanse (great sci-fi and politics, only gets weaker in the later seasons)
- Severance (one big black mirror episode, I am so hyped for season 2)
I recommend watching Undone especially if you liked Bojack Horseman; it’s created by the same guy.
You can stream it for free here: https://hydrahd.com/ or check out the c/piracy wiki for one that suits you.
Heavenly Delusion was a trip. I enjoyed it a lot
Oh man so many. Most of which others are already mentioning. And I’m sure I’m forgetting many that have been constants througj the years. But these stand out.
Anime: Your Lie in April, Mushi-Shi, Scavenger’s Reign, Violet Evergarden, One Punch Man
Anime but it’s more of my selfish mention than a masterpiece: Tomo-chan is a Girl, The Wrong Way to use Healing Magic (English dub is really well done and I can be a sub snob most of the time), Bartender: Glass of God, Mashle:Magic and Muscles, Goblinslayer
Live Action:The Expanse, Midnight Diner, Midnight Diner:Tokyo Stories, The Goes Wrong Show, Blood Machines, How It’s Made (I know, not likely what is being asked for but I thoroughly enjoy the show)
I have a really hard time getting into Live Action shows because too many of them either drag on, or they are just too predictable or forumlaic, or too samey, or it’s all about people being horrible to each other. And there is also a severe lack of laid back story telling or unique story options. Hollywood is berift of interest for me 99% of thr time.
Your Lie in April
Such a great show! It slows down a bit in the middle, but gets going again!
If you like that one you should check out “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas” weird title, sweet movie. 🙂
Monogatari series. I must have watched that entire series like a dozen times already. I absolutely love the VA’s performance. Finally reading through the Light Novels now.
Hajime No Ippo. Manga is still a blast and the anime was incredible too.
I had a good time with Blue Lock as well.
Delicious in Dungeon!
I recommend this to non-anime fans too! The episodes are so good and non-anime tropey.
Another one that I found gave a kinda similar feel is Dr Stone.
Though instead of diving deep into fantasy mechanics, that one is based on real world physics (well, other than some characters having super-human levels of skill) and rebuilding a modern society from scratch.
I find them similar due to their attention to detail and using their environment to build up their capabilities. The overall plot is very different and DinD has a bit more charm. Not that Dr Stone doesn’t have charm.
If I could choose which one I want to see one more season of right now, I’d pick DinD. If I could choose which one gets seen through to the end, I’d pick Dr Stone.
I just couldn’t get into the groove with Dr. Stone. I felt it required a much greater degree of suspension of disbelief since the setting is rooted in our reality, but they hand-wave over a lot of infrastructure needed to create the technologies they produce. When they got to cell phones/radios I just had to stop.
Tap for spoiler
Yeah, I think they shouldn’t have called them cell phones, they looked like just AM radios, which aren’t that complicated. Just need a microphone (membrane attached to a magnet), amplifier (they used vacuum tubes), and an antenna (whose length would determine the frequency). Receiver is the same thing but backwards (with adjusted geometry on the mic/speaker, but they are electrically the same). If they had the vacuum tubes, copper wire, and magnets (which they could make more of once they had one), then I don’t think that part was that far fetched (though I could be missing something big tbf). But a cell phone is a lot more than a 2-way AM radio, even if you’re talking about a simple phone with no display.
Biggest issue I had with suspension of disbelief was when they used a vehicle without a road system. Roads came before cars in our history and had to be good enough for horses to pull carts. Using a two stroke steam engine to generate enough torque for offroading with those basic tires was a big hand wave IMO.
Oh also the whole using a celebrity impersonation to convince some of the other side that the US was back up and running was a weak tactic. Like I’m glad they had it immediately get noticed, but a better way to do that bluff would have been to just have other “radio chatter” going on to make it sound like they had joined up with others, at which point they could have talked about all kinds of technologies that might have taken the fight out of people from the modern era.
This one is great. I was skeptical the first three episodes, but around ep 4 it picked up and the plot just went into overdrive. I really enjoyed it!
Thanks for your comment, I gave it 2 episodes and stopped. I’ll give it another go.
I’m the same. Watched the first two and was like this isn’t for me. If you continue and like it, let me know
Yeah, around ep 4 they stop making it like a cooking show and it starts to get interesting. They still have those little cooking montages, but it stops being the focus.
Those montages and deep dives into monster mechanics and biology are my favorite parts of the show.
I love that peeling away the layers of fantasy. It feels like a DnD campaign where the players wanted to get really weird with stretching the rules while staying within them and the DM enthusiastically agreed and joined the party with their dwarf that had been doing that for years.
Lately Slow Horses on apple+
Very good UK agent/crime show.
