Anime for people who hate anime

also, a lot of the shows mentioned itt originally aired as part of fuji tv's noitamina block, which is specifically dedicated to programming that appeals to ppl outside of the young male demographic. the noitamina lineup is a p good place to look for "mature" anime in a bunch of different genres

reporting back

PING PONG

Watched all of this one - the animation is obv incredible but what surprised me about it is the persistent and convincing bittersweetness, which helped offset how predictable many/most of the plot/character beats really are. Into it.

KIDS ON THE SLOPE

Also watched all of this, liked it less. The musical sequences are incredible and kept me going. As w/ many shows like this (regardless of genre) the relatively subtly homoerotic friendship >>>>>> the neverending tedium of the actual "romances." (Tho I admit that I have a problem w/ series wherein 100% of the long-running conflicts could be solved with one frank conversation.)

tried UTENA but it's just too mid-90s for me. a couple eps into MUSHI-SHI - animation's gorgeous, stories seem a bit intert? will keep trying.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-AHo-_XEV6E

Maybe most of you guys know all this stuff but its just a little video about the difficulties of making anime.

good timing on that as it frequently refers to Manglobe (Champloo, Michiko) who finally filed for bankruptcy the other day

Just finished watching Gosenzosama Banbanzai, a pretty bizarre and funny six-part OVA from the late 80s. It's one of Mamoru Oshii's more obscure efforts (like that odd "Twilight Q" short), about a girl who travels back in time to live with her ancestors. The whole thing is presented like a stage play, making it pretty unique.

I know Oshii made a big splash with Ghost in the Shell, but I actually think that was his last really good film (though I haven't seen his live action stuff, and discount Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, which he wrote but didn't direct).

so uh toonami is producing two new season of flcl

Nice!

brave new world

oops. didn't realize this was a 3 month revive

I've just started the new anime version of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, and it really defies description (although Merritt Kopas's phrase "Twink Peaks" is pretty apt, as long as you bear in mind that it also involves spectral combat and Gauguin-like color clashes): an escaped serial killer has just been fused into a living statue by a vengeful high school student after attempting to infiltrate the student's house as a malign spirit in rainwater, and this is two episodes in. Idk what kind of relation to anime the ideal viewer would have, but it's certainly distinctive.

Jojo is so batshit, i love it

Neo-Tokyo was really good

finishing up 'puella magi madoka magica' after reading that it rivals evangelion (it doesn't, but i still have a few eps left so maybe it will!)
it's on netflix with or without subs so check it out!

though in the spirit of this thread, i think people who hate anime would hate this one

yeh Madoka is hella anime. You have to put off watching the last two episodes for two months to get the authentic original release experience!

the crossover hit this year in Japan had been the new Shinkai (5cm/second, Garden Of Words) film Your Name.
It's already the 7th highest grossing film at the Japanese box office and looks like it's going to overhaul Howl and Mononoke soon.
Sounds like it became an anime for people who don't normally watch anime!
Looks like it's getting a very limited release in the West though.

Mamoru Hosada's latest The Boy and the Beast will be released in DK next month. Checking his stuff out, the plots are quite intriguing, and Summer Wars was in Locarno. I have no idea what is hatable and non-hatable anime, though. Are people mad at Miyazaki? Or Ghost in the Shell type stuff?

neither i think, just really specific genre stuff i'm guessing. madoka is magical girl for instance

incidentally i gotta see madoka, report back diamonddave

little witch academia y'all

been meaning to watch madoka for ages but the animation style really puts me off

cosign little witch academia. dennou coil is another good one

I loooove Mindgame! And as often as it veers into utterly silly and corny porny territory I find it really inspiring. The whole "live your life to the fullest" theme is for some reason really infectious (which for me translated to getting off Facebook for a few days and getting a jumpstart on errands and chores to free up time for making music and catching up with friends, not exactly an epic adventure but a net plus)

Has anyone here seen Ergo Proxy? It felt like some kind of cross between Book of the New Sun (not saying it's anywhere near the brilliance, just some similar vibes) and the hazy memories I have of Final Fantasy plots from countless hours I used to spend watching friends play while not totally knowing what was going on. It's probably my fav anime series after NGE.

I think the reason Madoka gets compared to Evangelion is that both shows approach their respective genre in unconventional ways; if Eva is a "deconstruction" of giant mecha shows, then Madoka is the same for magical girl stories.

And yes, the two Little Witch Academia films are great!

yall weren't kidding about Mind Game. that film was incredible.

finished madoka, the final episodes were excellent: poignant while also attempting to reach for the stars in those confusing and mind-bending ways that we love anime for

watched the first episode of kill la kill last night and i'm torn. on the one hand, it has the most over the top insane, funny, frantic animation i think i've ever seen. on the other hand, waay over the top fan-service to the point of absurdity

it's not fan service, it's a parody of it

I haven't seen it but according to fans it does at times fully embrace plain fanservice.

Can you call it a parody if it's indistinguishable from the thing it's supposedly parodying?
e.g. Nisioisin plays around a lot with tropes and stereotypes in the Monogatari series but sometimes falls flat on his face, leading to some incredibly gross scenes. I keep watching because there's some great stuff in there but goddamn it goes off the rails in awful ways sometimes.

See Xtreme 90s American comics doing affectionate parodies of their own work.

idk just watch it it's all explained and makes sense as a part of the plot (seriously)

kill la kill is one of the most stunning anime series ever imo

fanservice isn't any less fanservice if it's explained or justified by the plot—the plot and setting of a given piece of fictional media aren't givens that exist outside of the control of the creator

No, you see these upskirts are ironic

Anyway I've watched all of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure up to the current point over the last couple of months or so and all I can really say is that it's probably the most accurately named thing I've seen in my life. I don't think this series has been as good as the one before it but now that shit's getting real it's seriously compelling

i've been meaning to read jjba for years and years but could never bring myself to get into a series with decades' worth of plot. i should probably just watch the show

wow, the golgo 13 manga has been going for 48 years

I don't read manga (not out of principle, just never got round to it I guess) but I can definitely recommend the JJBA anime as long as you can get past the first ten or so episodes (not bad but the prequel is very different in tone from the rest of it).

Jojo has separate parts that can mostly be taken separately. And unless you're going to go for fan unauthorized versions, there's only three parts available so it's not overwhelming at all. The third part is where it really gets going, you might even start there.
I was never interested in any of the anime versions because they don't come close to Araki's drawing, which is sometimes really brilliant.

Check out those house keyrings
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/jjba/images/e/e1/Jojo6251.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110530230310

I've never read Golgo 13 but isn't it only short self-contained stories featuring the same guy?

idk i haven't read it either, i was just looking at a list of the longest-running manga

Yes Golgo 13 is episodic and as it's long running some stories are good, some terrible, some are hilariously weird - usually when they intersect with real life events - Golgo gets hired to assassinate Princess Diana, was in prison with Mandela and cost Al Gore the 2000 election.

Knights of Sidonia S1 is for people who hate anime; S2 is... not.

Unless you can dig a pervert's spin on the tiredest of anime romcom cliches, and why would you, as an anime hater.

ahahaha yeah that was a weird one

apparently in the manga they get married

I could handle a romance between a human and a foul-smelling mutant with a talking dick, but the mutant having the personality of a little girl crossed a line imo.

In other news, an adaptation of Nihei Tsutomu’s opus magnum Blame is coming to Netflix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwy806RC2-Q

There's a decent discussion of this thread's subject in a comment thread here:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/11/wot-i-think-recettear-an-item-shops-tale/#comment-508137

I downloaded the first episode of pretty much all of them and.. have to get back to that project. But Akagi, a nerves-of-steel thriller about games of Mahjongg, is absolutely amazing.

Paranoia Agent is very good - one note is that the first episode contains an awful lot of people refusing to believe a young woman's account of events.

I have gotten somewhat more into anime over the past year or two, and really into anime over the past month or two. Here are my thoughts on everything I've watched lately:

Serial Experiments Lain: this was fun and everything I hoped it would be (stylized, super 90s, v cyberpunk, confusing). I felt like it was one of those shows where I could just take it all in and appreciate it aesthetically and not pay SUPER DUPER close attn to what was going on bcz even if you do it's still confusing as hell.

Genocyber: This was bad. I saw this mentioned a lot when I was researching cyberpunk anime, it is hyper violent which also intrigued me but the violence is sparse and really clunky, everything about it is poorly executed (animation, acting, writing, etc), and it quickly offset the novelty of the whole thing. It's a slog to watch and not even worth it for the shock value.

Battle Angel/Battle Angel Alita/Gunnm: This was cute, I liked this a lot. I wish it was longer than 2 episodes and I suppose I could read the manga (or a summary of the manga) but I'm fine just leaving it at this nice little 50-minute adventure. This def scratched my cyberpunk itch more than Genocyber did

Sekko Boys: The premise of this is that this woman is a manager for an idol group but all the members are marble busts, I thought this was the funniest thing ever and I laughed out loud a lot for the first few episodes but then the joke kinda wore off. I expected it to be more of a pointed commentary than it actually is.

OjiSan and Marshmallow: This is a series of 3 minute episodes about this adorable daddybear-looking dude who loves this one brand of marshmallow and this weird coworker who has a crush on him who keeps taunting him w them. It is super adorable but also the woman is like REALLY thirsty for him and it's a little wacky at times, but I'm really enjoying it

Polar Bear Cafe: I just started watching this yesterday and I am hooked so hard, it is about this anthropomorphic polar bear who runs a cafe and his regular customers who come in, set in a world where people and animals coexist w/o question, one of the characters is a panda and gets a job at the local zoo to just be their panda??? it's very humdrum slice of life and it is very soothing and SOOOO charming. I can't believe how in love with this show I am.

Ping Pong: Wow this is gorgeous!! I appreciate the simplicity of it bcz most of the anime I've watched is full of like ACTION or MYSTERY or INTRIGUE and this is just abt some students who play ping pong.

Next on my to-do list, in no real order:
Armitage III
Bubblegum Crisis
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Cowboy Bebop (I've seen the first 1/4 or so but never finished it)
Mononoke (just Mononoke, not Princess Mononoke)

I think I used to have it in my head that most anime was shounen and that I liked the exceptions to the rule that were not shounen, but I have come to realize that sooooo much anime is not shounen, and I actually like a lot of it??? I don't like meandering 100+ episode-of-the-week type stuff that doesn't really go anywhere, fan service, romance/excessive sentimentality, but I think I am open to most everything else, especially stranger weirder stuff.

Ping Pong really is incredible, a modern classic
don't know Armitage III but the others on your to-do list are all solid picks

Katsuhiro Otomo announced he is making a movie, "Orbital Era", only his third after "Akira" in 1988 and "Steamboy" in 2004.
Akira is getting a 4K remaster next year, good timing to tie in with the Olympics I guess.
More controversially there is also a new Akira "project" in the works covering the whole manga story, no word if it's TV or movies.

now I'm trying to think what a real Modern Classic Anime list would look like

yurucamp

the new akira thing is gonna be a tv series not a movie

i'd say it's "singular" in kind of the way a show like evangelion is "singular" - i mean sure there's nothing else really _like_ utena but it's also pretty hugely influential. basically any sapphic/wlw anime out there is likely to take some influence from utena. partly it's that utena is good and partly it's that, like, the stereotype that lesbians love swordfighting has some basis in reality.

Angel cop sounds pretty good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Cop

it's fun in an old school gross anime way, and then it takes a bizarre antisemitic turn

Sigh :-(

The anime club I attend did a showing of Angel Cop and yeah, that was a strange turn--as if all the right-wing stuff wasn't enough. The host mentioned the show has an extensive and lovingly detailed page on the Internet Movie Firearms Database. At least that crap made it memorable, I suppose--a lot of those action 80s anime featuring buff character designs and explosions blend together in my mind.

just started on City Hunter and wow, there is a lot of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abYdoXUSQ4s
Bonus videos are fun too

ok mostly i've been watching anime for people who love anime, i.e. the original "hokuto no ken". i love this because of how stupid it is. it's the apocalypse and ken is a total bruce lee knockoff who also, like, defeats his enemies with acupressure? i didn't realize this before, he's, like, shiatsuing these dudes to death. also, he can use his acupressure powers to, like, heal the lame and restore eyesight to the blind. literally he does both of those things in the first 13 episodes. so his jeet kune do acupressure techniques give him jesus powers. who needs fight scenes when you can have him sticking his finger up to a dude's head and saying "you're already dead"? and then five seconds later everything becomes shadow puppets so you can't see the blood and their head explodes. yeah i would've _loved_ to pretend to be ken as a kid, because god knows i can't actually fight. apparently there's a new one and apparently it also sucks, or at least, i haven't heard anybody gushing about how great it is, which i feel like people would if it didn't suck.

but i got sucked into watching a little of this show called "kirio fanclub". it's these two high school girls gushing about how much they love this guy kirio, and we never actually see kirio so we don't really have any idea what's so great about them except through what they say, and what they say doesn't really help much. i think it's a great take - there are a lot of these anime protag guys where all the girls want his dick and one can't help but be like, "why?", cuz he seems to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. idk why it is but removing the actual guy from the equation makes it so much more fun. my friend mara is like "are you sure they're not actually lesbians who are way way way overcompensating and in denial about how into each other they are" and it pisses me off because no, not everything with two girls talking to each other is lesbian.

the thing i love about it is that kirio seems like kind of a dork but the girls are also kind of dorks, like... just girls being friends and they can be dorky around each other without it being gay or anything. a lot of anime has this really idealized notion of particularly high school girls, everybody's a fuckin' waifu, and neither of the main characters in this anime are waifus, there's no question to me of calling any of them a "best girl" or whatever.

i've gotten used to anime where 15 year olds act like adults because you have, like, three anime featuring adults in any given season, and as an adult, i guess the closest i'm gonna get to stuff that reflects my needs is 15 year olds who somehow have the wisdom and maturity of people my age. of all the problems with an entire medium where most of the characters are younger than 20, to me it's them as _role models_ that gets to me. a show like this where kids get to act like kids and i have fun laughing while not thinking of them as role models, cuz they're _kids_ and i'm very much not... idk. it's a relief, somehow.

re: Kirio Fanclub have you seen See You Tomorrow at the Food Court? very similar setup, just two girls meeting up at the mall after school and talking about whatever, both letting loose with their real characters after putting up appearances at school (honor student & gyaru). a fun hang and occasionally quite funny.

I've been doing a deep dive on 80s/90s OVAs I hadn't seen before over the last couple of weeks and the collision of Deeply Problematic subject matter and incredible animation has been bracing to say the least.

re: Kirio Fanclub have you seen See You Tomorrow at the Food Court? very similar setup, just two girls meeting up at the mall after school and talking about whatever, both letting loose with their real characters after putting up appearances at school (honor student & gyaru). a fun hang and occasionally quite funny.

I've been doing a deep dive on 80s/90s OVAs I hadn't seen before over the last couple of weeks and the collision of Deeply Problematic subject matter and incredible animation has been bracing to say the least.

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Saturday, April 25, 2026 3:59 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

re: food court - no! i'll have to check that out, it sounds really neat.

i'm with you on '80s/'90s "otaku" culture. it's difficult because i am a white american and i don't want to, like, do some fucking bullshit cultural imperialism, i just, like, know a _lot_ of people who _were_ CSA victims and it makes it _very difficult to navigate_ the culture sometimes, even some of the words they use in japan to talk about fashion can get extremely triggering to some people i know.

i feel like maybe i've talked about this before, but there's this seinen manga that had a really deep effect on me called "bokura no hentai". it's not a hentai, but it deals pretty unflinchingly and explicitly with some harsh material, including the sexual exploitation of "cross-dressing" kids. despite me being a white american i feel like some of the stuff it portrays are very relatable for me, having grown up with only these, like, really flawed labels to work with. but the only copy i've read is an old fanslation that uses some inaccurate derogatory language in the translation. i'm not sure you _could_ publish it in america. i think there is a lot of awful shit that's part of a lot of different cultures that one maybe wants to not confront directly. maybe it's for the best, idk. i mean i'd rather openly acknowledge this stuff, but it does get me into a lot of trouble, so....

mostly the old anime i know is from hazel's YT videos... i've mentioned her here before i think, she just has these amazing takes on weird, obscure, old stuff. like "california crisis", i think she did a video on that one. your description of "food court" makes me think of her amazing video ranking anime denny's. it's just... idk, i guess one of the things i think is cool about watching anime is that i have to come to it with a sort of "beginner's mind", let go of a lot of my ingrained cultural preconceptions, which is how i wind up watching something like the original "hokuto no ken" in the first place... it's not a show i ever thought i would willingly watch haha.

all that to say, i'd love to hear your take on some of the deep dive OVAs. even if it's Deeply Problematic there's a lot of _interesting_ stuff in there. particularly like... i want to get a firsthand historical perspective on this stuff, but a lot of it is stuff that i, uh, wouldn't really want to watch firsthand, _because_ of the subject matter and how it's portrayed.

Can I ask, do we have a J-Drama version of this thread?

I just watched a really entertaining one-and-done series called 'Rebooting' (possibly not too dissimilar in tone to the Food Court anime) and was wondering if there were any really great non-crime/action-based dramas that didn't involve schoolgirl romance or glacially slow unrequited love stories.

i say just put 'em in here! it's complicated. i'm on one discord and they spend all their time on the anime thread talking about manga. there's that great manga called "she loves to cook, she loves to eat", which was adapted to live-action... in korea! so i think there's room for flexibility.