So I'm getting old and bored with... anime

[smoothvirus]

Which is sort of odd because I used to love watching anime shows and movies.

So, I'll let everyone know that I turned 40 about 5 months ago. Which would make me a Gen Xer and a guy who went through his teenage years in the 1980's. When I was in high school we did have anime shows like Voltron or Transformers, and even in the 70's when I was little we had Speed Racer and Star Blazers.

But to most kids those were just "cartoons" - I'd say that 99% of kids did not know what the word "anime" meant. And since I grew up in a small town only turbo-super nerds knew anything about the genre. In fact the only reason I knew anything about it was we had a PC in our house with a modem so I had access to computer BBS's.

Two events happened in the 1980's which really turned me on to anime: Robotech came out on TV, and it blew my mind, especially the Macross part of it. Here was a TV show with more realistic characters that actually had emotions, did things like fall in love, and even .. gasp.. DIE IN A WAR! This may seem blase now but back then you NEVER saw anything like that in an animated TV show because "cartoons were for kids." Hell, even the BAD GUYS were depicted with emotions and second thoughts, to the point that some of them switched sides! I had never seen anything like that in a "kids show".

The second thing that happened was HBO started playing Miyazaki movies - ok it was the godawful English re-dub of Nausicaa titled "Warriors Of The Wind". But the incredible artwork and animation was enough to get me past the dumbed down story. Trying to find out more about Warriors Of The Wind led me to go to the BBS's, only to discover that a lot (um, make that ALL) of the anime's we had in the USA were heavily edited and dumbed down, against the wishes of the Japanese creators who wanted Americans to enjoy the full and rich storylines!

So that's the way things were until about 1990 or so, when I had just started college and we rented this movie called "Akira" - which as we all know blew the lid off of everything. From then on anime grew to be a huge fad in the USA and you ask any high schooler about anime these days and they can rattle off all their favorite shows and characters...

Which leads me to my dilemma. I still like the genre but my interest has waned. The last anime series that I really enjoyed, and which, frankly, is my all time favorite, is Cowboy Bebop. That said, I did watch FLCL and liked it, but not nearly as much as CB. The last anime movie I watched and enjoyed was "Memories". I did watch the first episode of "Planetes" and it looked like something I would really like but I haven't got around to watching it yet. About two years ago I actually sat down and watched all of the original "Space Battleship Yamato" and was actually moved to tears by its anti-war message.

The problem: all the stuff I like is OLD! Cowboy Bebop is 13 years old now, and the newest one I'm even interested in - "Planetes" is from 2003. I'd like to find something new - but these days all the animes seem to be aimed at the teenage crowd, and at 40 years old things that teenagers find interesting are boring to me. A lot, and I mean a LOT of the stuff I see is very formulaic. Basically, "a bunch of teenagers in a futuristic military academy don power armor to fight aliens!!" I'm not too interested in animes about high schoolers - I'm much older and my tastes are more sophisticated.

I'm not interested in variations on groups of Japanese high schoolers, pocket monsters, or uber muscled fighters with superpowers that fly around and fight each other with energy balls. And frankly the endless variatons inspired by "Star Wars" are somewhat boring these days.

Any suggestions out there on stuff you think I WOULD like? I do enjoy the animes that are more hard sci-fi, with more realistically drawn characters. Or at least a drawing style that gets away from the giant bug-eyed kids with green hair motif. Super bonus points for mind expanding plotlines. There's so much chaff out there these days that I don't know what's good anymore.

 

[OCGuy]

Congrats Timmy! Your body will start going through several changes. Your voice will deepen, and you will notice hair where you never had it before. You will find yourself more interested in the opposite (well, 90% chance) sex.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

What exactly have you watched. I havent watched anime in a long time, but i enjoyed (what i can remember) 3x3 Eyes, Hellsing, Trigun, FLCL, Bebop and Samurai Champloo back in the day.

 

[smoothvirus]

Congrats Timmy! Your body will start going through several changes. Your voice will deepen, and you will notice hair where you never had it before. You will find yourself more interested in the opposite (well, 90% chance) sex.

Ahh yes, I recall back in the pre-Internet days when hentai was only a rumored whisper. If only we knew then that pretty much all of it was crap. lol

Alas, hedonism is not the subject here.

 

[KingstonU]

You mentioned Macross but said the newest anime you like was made in 2003, so have u seen Macross Zero (2004) and Macross Frontier (2007). Zero is absolutely a masterpiece, Macross Plus (1994) is great, Macross 7 is horrible.

Anything by Studio Ghibli is very well made to magnificent, they have over 20 titles from 1986 to 2011.

 

[KingstonU]

Also Afro Samurai 1 & 2 are extremely recommended.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Recommend Planetes. Watch it. Very good series, extremely realistic in terms of depiction of astronauts and a good rendition of what life in space might be like.

As for more sciency shows

It's really really really old, but Legends of Galactic Heroes might be a good bet. Good old fashioned space battles, lasers, more "realistic" style of space cap ship vs cap ship warfare. I think the art and animation has aged quite well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_au5752IXY&feature=related

But frankly you won't get much today. 99% of shows today are absolute shit with no redeeming qualities at all.

I suppose the best you could do for current quality animation would be the new Gundam Unicorn OVA series. It has some of the entire teenage kid stuff, and some of the scenes and dialogue is facepalm worthy. But at the same time the Animation is gorgeous, the fights are extremely well (Holy shit grunts are depicted as competent soldiers who actually cause damage to a main character, who would have thought.)

Also, there is actually a good amount of political intrigue and discussion about the right for independence, freedom, and justification for wars. It's quite nicely done even though there are only two episodes at the moment. It also has a nice soundtrack.

If not Sci Fi, you could always try Cat Shit One. Black Hawk down with rabbits and camels. It is quite awesome.

 

[smoothvirus]

What exactly have you watched. I havent watched anime in a long time, but i enjoyed (what i can remember) 3x3 Eyes, Hellsing, Trigun, FLCL, Bebop and Samurai Champloo back in the day.

I watched some of Trigun, thought it was pretty cool but it didn't pull me in.

Like I said I've seen the aforementioned Bebop and FLCL, on Adult Swim, but I don't stay up that late anymore.

stuff I really liked that I didn't mention:

Wings Of Honneamise
The Animatrix
pretty much anything by Miyazaki.. except Howl's Moving Castle.. haven't seen that yet
Galaxy Rangers (not really an anime but it was animated in Japan)
Batman TAS (once again, produced in the USA, animated in Japan, probably my second favoirte animated series of all time)
Robot Carnival (movie)
Ghost in the Shell (movie)
Blue Gender (Adult Swim again)
Macross Plus (rented it, mid 90's.. the stupid store only had the first one though!)

there was an animated short that used to come on, Liquid Television on MTV (I think). I dont remember the title but it was about this racing arena in the future. This driver goes crazy, wipes out all the other flying cars, then starts racing this ghost car until he goes so fast that he melts.. it IS on the Internet and I've seen it fairly recently.

 

[zinfamous]

good for you. about 25 years late, I'd say, but you're never too old to grow up!

 

[Anubis]

Any suggestions out there on stuff you think I WOULD like? I do enjoy the animes that are more hard sci-fi, with more realistically drawn characters. Or at least a drawing style that gets away from the giant bug-eyed kids with green hair motif. Super bonus points for mind expanding plotlines. There's so much chaff out there these days that I don't know what's good anymore.

Finish Planets

Monster, its not scifi but i think you would enjoy it. it starts off slow however
FMA Brotherhood,
TTGL (however its pretty comical and such),
Hajime no Ippo - watch both runs its amazing however not scifi at all
NGE im assuming you have seen but if not it might be up your alley, the new "rebuild" movies are very good actually
Freedom - 6 or 7 ep series that i know you will like

also

http://myanimelist.net/topanime.php

lots of stuff you wont like listed but its pretty easy to just look around and find things you might

checking out the GITS series is worth it if you liked the movie(s)

 

[DominionSeraph]

Well if you want a kick in the pants, watch Elfen Lied.

 

[smoothvirus]

good for you. about 25 years late, I'd say, but you're never too old to grow up!

Who said anything about growing up?? lol

(pay no attention to my fiancee doing the face palm in the background!)

 

[smoothvirus]

But frankly you won't get much today. 99% of shows today are absolute shit with no redeeming qualities at all.

You're not kidding there. One could almost say that having anime grow from a very underground scene to the huge thing that it is today is almost a bad thing.

 

[DominionSeraph]

fiancee

Hmmmm... Elfen Lied may not work with that situation. It's very intense, with graphic violence and nudity (although not sexual).

 

[smoothvirus]

Hmmmm... Elfen Lied may not work with that situation. It's very intense, with graphic violence and nudity (although not sexual).

I'm a big boy, I can handle the violence and nudity.

Fiancee does not like anime - or even sci-fi for that matter. She reads trashy romance books and watches 2 and a Half Men.. lol.. we are pretty different in some ways. I suppose opposites attract.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I'm a big boy, I can handle the violence and nudity.

Fiancee does not like anime - or even sci-fi for that matter. She reads trashy romance books and watches 2 and a Half Men.. lol.. we are pretty different in some ways. I suppose opposites attract.

It's not in a good way though. It does it mostly for shock value rather than actual story line issues. Watching that series was a complete waste of time. From the meh animation, blood and nudity for the sake of nudity, and just overall meh of the series.

 

[busydude]

I started watching anime's pretty recently.. and among the ones I watched.. I recommend:

Death Note
Full Metal Alchemist
Samurai Champloo

Also, I am big fan of Samurai Jack..

 

[Bryf50]

Legends of Galactic Heroes

That's my recommendation if you haven't seen it yet. It seems exactly like something you would like. Unfortunately it's not available officially in English but fairly recently a group named Central-Anime finished giving the whole series the subtitling it deserves.

 

[DominionSeraph]

It's not in a good way though. It does it mostly for shock value rather than actual story line issues. Watching that series was a complete waste of time. From the meh animation, blood and nudity for the sake of nudity, and just overall meh of the series.

??
It needed the violence and nudity. What was Nyu without that background?
It was the reality of what the Diclonii were.

You apparently missed the main plot point.

 

[uhohs]

Legend of Galactic Heroes (銀河英雄伝説 Ginga Eiyū Densetsu)

 

[bfdd]

Paranoia Agent was quite amazing imo.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I recently watched the Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C series on Netflix. That was good stuff.

I've tried to watch Blood+ but I just can't get in to Animes where the main characters are highschool kids anymore.

 

[Matthiasa]

Stating that Monster starts off slowly is more then a little bit a of an understatement...

It often moved at a glacial pace.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

I dont really know what youve watched already so Ill just throw out some of the "mature" animes I enjoyed the most followed by short description

Gungrave - Random delinquent and his friend rise from nothing to boss of the mafia (important: start on episode 2, youll thank me later)
Akagi - Underground mahjong, very psychological, with lots of narration and inner thoughts
Legend of Galactic Heroes - The star wars of anime
Casshern Sins - A robot awakens in a post-apocalyptic world with no memories, tries to find out who he is etc
Ergo Proxy - Post apocalyptic setting, humanity now live in "domes", HEAVILY philosophical, can get very confusing
Eve no Jikan - Set in a future where robots are commonplace, its about their relationship with humans
MS Gundam 0079 + Zeta - Yes, I know, whiny teenage lead etc, but if you can get past that, the two first Gundams are VERY worth watching
Monster - Renowned brain surgeon basically throws his life away because of one "wrong" decision
Samurai Champloo - Episodic in the style of Cowboy Bebop, great main characters, great setting
Terra e... - Probably the best space anime after LOGH
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 - Title says it all... Very emotional anime

 

[Fayd]

The problem: all the stuff I like is OLD! Cowboy Bebop is 13 years old now, and the newest one I'm even interested in - "Planetes" is from 2003. I'd like to find something new - but these days all the animes seem to be aimed at the teenage crowd, and at 40 years old things that teenagers find interesting are boring to me. A lot, and I mean a LOT of the stuff I see is very formulaic. Basically, "a bunch of teenagers in a futuristic military academy don power armor to fight aliens!!" I'm not too interested in animes about high schoolers - I'm much older and my tastes are more sophisticated.

LOL.

hating animes about "high schoolers" takes some really awesome animes out of the bunch. a good example of which would be bakemonogatari.

as for you, you might find spice and wolf interesting.

not so recent, but i recently watched Gankutsuou. it's the story of "The Count of Monte Cristo", as told from Alfred's perspective. it was really good.