Give me a good anime.

[Keta]

I dare you to give me a good anime to watch. Requirements: <53 episodes (preferably 26 or less), and created after 2002 (I dislike most old-style animation, and I'd like to be up-to-date with more current things).

I have a lot downloaded, but I'll take my chances and let y'all decide something for me, because I'm shamelessly lazy. With any luck, your pick may be within my downloaded list.

Also, let's make this a game. Try to name a series I haven't watched yet. :D

And please don't throw cheese at me like Asu no Yoichi or H2O~ Footprints in the Sand or Kanokon or This Ugly Yet Beautiful World. I hated those shows with a burning passion, and I doubt those shows have garnered any fans who can truthfully say that the series affected their perspective on life. I want to hear from you, what show(s) inspired you, and why they are godly, and why I must watch them.

Convince me.

 

[Adriane]

Did you ever watch Utena? :( I mean I know it's pre-2002 but it is lovely

 

[surskitty]

I'm going to ignore the bit about dates and say you should watch Slayers if you want something ridiculous and awesome and D&D-y. The third season's pretty awful, so skip it; that means there'd be two 26-episode seasons from about ten years ago and two seasons of a length I do not know from maybe a year ago that I haven't watched. It's pretty cool though, even if the art's a bit dated.

 

[Clover]

ヒャッコ！ It's twelve episodes, all subbed on youtube, 2008-09, and has the catchiest theme song. IT'S ONLY LOVE~ DEMO AI GA NAKYA HAJIMARA~NAI~

Have you ever seen .hack//legend of the twilight bracelet? Also twelve eps, also available on youtube, also late-2000 era. I'm linking to the dub cause that's what I grew up watching, but udewa densetsu shouldn't be too hard to find either.

... All the rest of my anime are either nostalgia-nineties or I know you've seen them before. 83

 

[Ether's Bane]

K-on, K-on, K-on, K-on, K-on, K-on, and K-on. Oh, and K-on.

 

[Storm Earth and Fire]

Have you seen Angel Beats!? My favorite anime of 2010, and we've still got plenty to go, but honestly I have yet to see anything else this year that stacks up. It's by Key, which is always a good start. Pulls off a good mix of comedy and drama, mixing supernatural with school life. The cast is mostly enjoyable. The action scenes are slick. And I love the music. At the very least, it's got guns and guitars.

For romance, try Myself ; Yourself. In the end, I think it was closer to a typical harem than I would like to think, but it's quite well done. I like the character designs.

.hack//legend of the twilight bracelet could've been more compared to the manga.

One of my favorite anime ever. Actually, maybe my favorite ever, is Aria. The 3 seasons and OVA combined to make 55 episodes, but I can't suggest actually watching too much of it at once, the series is best taken slowly. It's a pure slice-of-life, with no real plot, little character conflict, and not enough comedy to, well, justify calling it a comedy. Someone on MAL put it best when they said every episode made them feel like they were on vacation. Great show to just unwind with, since you don't really have to concern yourself with anything or think too hard. It's not for everyone, I'll admit, but I say give it a try if you've got nothing.

 

[fresh fruit for Adol]

I'm going to ignore the bit about dates and say you should watch Slayers if you want something ridiculous and awesome and D&D-y. The third season's pretty awful, so skip it; that means there'd be two 26-episode seasons from about ten years ago and two seasons of a length I do not know from maybe a year ago that I haven't watched. It's pretty cool though, even if the art's a bit dated.

You mean Slayers Revolution, and Slayers Evolution-R? Those are both around 12 episodes each. That said, Slayers is a lot of fun, and the last two seasons are actually pretty good. Revolution and Evolution-R were apparently localized sometime last year, and I didn't find out 'till this summer >.> it's pretty cool that they got all of the original voice actors to reprise their roles (Not counting two particular characters, since the first voice actor for one disappeared after episode 11, and I guess they couldn't get the original for hte other...)

Okay, first of all, you need to watch Cowboy Bebop if you haven't seen it before.

It's about 50 episodes long, but I do recommend The Law of Ueki. It's silly in perspective (Turning trash into trees lol), but it's actually really good, and starts to really pick up after the first twenty or so episodes. Darker than BLACK is also a personal favorite of mine.

No idea how long it's supposed to be (It's on... 19 now, I believe), but check out Heroman. It might end up being a 50 episode series at least. Not only is it made by the Lagann team, but Stan Lee is one of the creators :o

It's not an actual series, per se, but DO look at the Kara no Kyoukai series of movies. In addition to having some excellent animation, and wonderful soundtracks by Kajiura Yuki, it's got a pretty interesting, and awesome main character, and the plot of each movie, and the series as a whole, while it can be confusing, are actually pretty good. Bear in mind that the series was actually adapted from a book by Kinoko Nasu, the same guy who created the visual novels Tsukihime, and Fate/stay night. If you saw the anime adaptations of those and didn't like them (Who didn't? They were terrible), don't let that sway you from watching them; Nasu actually oversaw the production of each movie, and having actually read the book, I can honestly say the adaptation is nearly spot on and as good as the book.)

If you're into comedy, Arakawa Under the Bridge is hilarious. And Ookami-san is probably the first really good romantic comedy I've seen. It's on episode 6 now, and it's supposed to run for about 12, or 13, I think, but do give a thought.

Oh, and Fullmetal, even though I'm sure you've watched the first anime, and Brotherhood.

Baccano! is an excellent choice of anime; it's perfect for the kind of person who likes those sorta gritty mob stories, and it's got a cast of uniquely likable characters, and branching stories and scenes that all come together in the end, and a really fun soundtrack (Nowhere near the league of Cowboy Bebop, but it's still good), and the Opening's catchy :o The dub's actually really good too! I also dare you to find a character you don't like in it.

 

[Storm Earth and Fire]

It's about 50 episodes long, but I do recommend The Law of Ueki.

It's 52 episodes. I quite liked The Law of Ueki. Silly, but in some ways, it managed to parody the shounen action genre.

Baccano! is an excellent choice of anime; it's perfect for the kind of person who likes those sorta gritty mob stories, and it's got a cast of uniquely likable characters, and branching stories and scenes that all come together in the end, and a really fun soundtrack (Nowhere near the league of Cowboy Bebop, but it's still good), and the Opening's catchy :o The dub's actually really good too! I also dare you to find a character you don't like in it.

And along those lines, Durarara!! is a lovely show by the same authors along the same lines, though in a Japanese rather than Western setting.

By the way, I hear nothing but negative press about H2O (At best, 'brought down by some massive flaw'), but the game seems to be good...

 

[surskitty]

You mean Slayers Revolution, and Slayers Evolution-R? Those are both around 12 episodes each. That said, Slayers is a lot of fun, and the last two seasons are actually pretty good. Revolution and Evolution-R were apparently localized sometime last year, and I didn't find out 'till this summer >.> it's pretty cool that they got all of the original voice actors to reprise their roles (Not counting two particular characters, since the first voice actor for one disappeared after episode 11, and I guess they couldn't get the original for hte other...)

Yes! (omg SOMEONE ELSE HAS SEEN SLAYERS why is it apparently obscure) I haven't seen them yet.

Does David Moo still voice Xellos in the dub? Say no.

 

[fresh fruit for Adol]

Yes! (omg SOMEONE ELSE HAS SEEN SLAYERS why is it apparently obscure) I haven't seen them yet.

Does David Moo still voice Xellos in the dub? Say no.

Slayers might be obscure, I dunno; not many people I know have heard of it, but I don't know why it's considered so (Maybe partly because I grew up with it...). Do check out the last two seasons! They're just as awesome and out there as the series has always been.

And no, he doesn't. Xellos is voiced by Michael Sinterniklaas now.

 

[surskitty]

Slayers might be obscure, I dunno; not many people I know have heard of it, but I don't know why it's considered so (Maybe partly because I grew up with it...). Do check out the last two seasons! They're just as awesome and out there as the series has always been.

And no, he doesn't. Xellos is voiced by Michael Sinterniklaas now.

And they're pretty! I will watch them at some point.

That is wonderful, wonderful news; I liked the dub for everyone except Xellos. Whyyyy David Moo whyyyyyy

 

[Chopsuey]

I don't know anything at all about anime, but my anime-addicted friend is a huge fan of one called Hell Girl, if that helps?

 

[Superbird]

Have you tried jap. subbed Lucky Star yet? I like it, and just over 20 eps.

 

[goldenquagsire]

not sure quite what you're looking for, but a few suggestions can't hurt.

have you watched Soul Eater yet? it's 50 episodes long, but the art style is pretty unusual. low-brow shonen fare, yes, but very entertaining and slightly oddball. especially the batshit-mad antagonists and the very competent female lead.

also, although it was released in the 90s, Macross Plus is short (only 6 episodes) and has extremely high-quality animation (arguably better than a lot of stuff released now). it's also got a rather mature storyline (relative to the majority of anime anyway) with utterly non-bishie/moe characters, great soundtrack and plenty of mecha-porn, if that's your thing.

those are just two ends of the spectrum, really; medium-length shonen manga adaptation or mecha OVA. if you're more specific about what you're looking for then I could give more suggestions (or alternatively I could just list a million Gundam shows :P). and keep an open mind about older stuff! particularly OVAs, there are some short-run shows from ages ago that are absolutely beautiful to watch.

 

[Zuu]

I enjoyed Neon Genesis Evangelion but you've probably already seen it. I need to see the movies.

 

[fresh fruit for Adol]

Ignoring that bit about age, watch GaoGaiGar. It's epic, and easy to where Gurren Lagann came from, if you've seen the latter, and how the ONE WITH THE MOST COURAGE IS THE VICTOR. The Super Robots have nothing on Lagann's galaxy sized mechs, but it's hard to stop watching once you get past the first 20 episodes.

 

[Clover]

プレゼント·ディ

プレゼント·タイム

ハハハハハハハ

 

[spaekle]

The only recent-ish anime I've seen that fits your criteria and that I liked (edit: disregarding things everyone's seen like Death Note and TTGL) was Kuroshitsuji. It takes place in Victorian England and is very silly; the manga might be better but I haven't read a whole lot of it.

Most of what I watch is cheesy shounen shit that's only really good for some lulz.

 

[hopeandjoy]

AiR TV's pretty good, if you don't mind crying like a baby at the end. Though, the beginning has actual jokes, at the end of any arc you get progressively sadder and sadder bittersweet endings, ending in one of the greatest tearjerkers ever.

But if you can put up with all that, it's a very sweet series/OVA.

 

[fresh fruit for Adol]

Generic shounen is generic. And stupid, 95% of the time.

(Also, I'm probably the only one who's never seen Death Note >D)

Oh yeah, in the same vein as Slayers, check out Sorcerous Stabber Orphen. It's sorcery, like Slayers, but not quite as D&D inspired, and not as comedic. It takes an actual serious tone to itself, with a bit of humor here and there, but only watch the first season. Season 2 is okay, but compared to the first season, it's garbage, but at the same time not bad (you know what I mean, right?) and has none of the charm the first season had. It's more or less the generic fantasy/action/comedy with monster-of-the-week stuff, and while it does it well, we've all grown up with it, so we've seen it.