Good Anime

[Rinel]

is there any good anime with women, not teenage girls, as protagonists

[Solstice]

Off the top of my head:

Aggretsuko - The comedic chronicles of an intensely overworked red panda being grist for the mill of Japanese Office Culture. The only way she gets through it is by screaming her heart out at karaoke because she's secretly a deathmetal enthusiast.

Black Lagoon - A band of mercenaries who work for the highest bidder. There's a bunch of dudes, but Revy Two-Hands absolutely steals the entire show and makes it her own.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Or just the movie. Cyberpunky setting, and I shamefully haven't watched it yet, but everyone tells me it's great and I believe them.

Recovery Of An MMO Junkie - An MMO Junkie... attempts to not be so addicted to MMOs. She does this by gradually meeting up with people she meets online. Relatable.

Shirobako - A group of friends all vow to break into the anime industry, as writers, producers, voice actresses, and artists. Success is not guaranteed. Hard work, and good sneak peek of the industry, with some obvious artistic license to not show as much of the dismal wages.

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku - Two sets of friends who are dating one another, all of whom are geeks in their own right. Hard core gamer, anime-addict, Slash Fanfiction author/fanatic, a smattering of cosplay. Adults having adult relationships and hanging out with adults.

[Cupcake]

@rinel

[Elspethne]

@rinel Servant x Service is a cute, slice of life comedy about civil service employees.

I also recommend the previously mentioned Recovery of an MMO Junkie.

[Songtress]

This ia good list.

If you want Magical Girl Action, I vote :

Symphogear: here is the first open and ther are 5 seasons. It's EPIC .

LISTEN TO MY SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOXaWCRv_68

[Jennkryst]

@songtress SYMPHOGEAR IS 100% MY SHIT, AND I AM MAD I ONLY FOUND OUT ABOUT IT 3 WEEKS AGO.

Edit to add: Their magical girl robot transformations and attacks are all powered by music.

As in they literally sing, diagetically, and cannot talk to each other and plan because... SINGING.

And when the song stops, so do their attacks and magical girl invulnerability powers. BECAUSE SINGING!

[Ominous]

@solstice

Upvote for Aggretsuko. I had forgotten about that show and it is very good and very funny. It also crosses cultural boundaries pretty well, so you don't have to worry about not getting some bit of humor that deals with the nuances of the Japanese workplace.

[Ominous]

Double post to espouse the merits of Odd Taxi. It's a good mystery and the climax has a good pay-off, while also leaving things on a bit of a cliffhanger. It can be somewhat predictable if you're astute. For instance, I predicted ***Spoiler***

click to show

the protagonist's illness, the actual murderer, and who was hiding in the closet,

but it was still satisfying watching it all unravel. A Youtube anime reviewer compared it to a Tarantino film in how it uses dialogue, and I can sort of see that.

Anyways, good anime. I recommend.

[Solstice]

More than happy to glow about that show at length. Everything is so tightly written in that show. Already rewatched it once and the attention to detail is fantastic.

Especially love the translations of the accompanying Radio Dramas that are being released that all focus around ***=Spoiler***

click to show

a particular pen that shows up often throughout the course of the show, and quite prominently in the final episode.

Lots of additional context, and an even deeper layer of easter eggs.

[Solstice]

The Summer season has finally kicked off! And that means a new batch of me watching almost every single episode one that exists and then whittling it all down into what's remotely watchable, because otherwise I might miss something worth watching.

I don't have a review site I personally trust, so watching everything is the only way.

Had to be me.

The story so far:

Sequels

If you enjoyed Beastars (finally out of Netflix Jail!), My Hero Academia, My Next Life as a Villainess, To Your Eternity, or Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, you'll continue to do so. These seem to all be in solid shape in maintaining their quality for their continuing seasons. The latter is thriving under a new director after the former director was killed in the senseless arson attack at Kyoto Animation's headquarters, and it's good to even see a Season 2 at all, let alone one with ludicrously high production values for what is just a (lightly servicey) slice-of-life comedy reel at its core.

What's New and Good According to Solstice

Eesh, gonna level with you... not much this time around, so I'm glad for the sequels. There is an awful lot of generic isekai garbage and pandering crap this season, so not much has managed to break out of that yet except for...

• The Aquatope on White Sand - A burned-out idol who got all but shoved out the door of the industry can't bring herself to go home just yet, and after doing some soul-searching about where she wants to be and what she wants to do, decides that the place she'd most like to be is... working at an ailing aquarium staffed by an energetic and passionate young owner. The direction is on point, and the artwork is colorful and clean. PA Works doing PA Works things.
  
  

• Kageki Shojo!! - The deeply competitive, highly exclusive Kouka Acting Troupe is known for putting on some hecking good shows, and our main character has always wanted to play one of the male leads in the shows they put on. Standing a head above her other classmates, our lead character is oft-ridiculed for her gawky appearance at a ludicrously tall 5'10" (snerk), but is unabashedly putting her all into showing the other girls that she's got the stage presence it takes to make her dreams come true. It's so unabashedly shoujo and I just love it. It's not the deepest story, but I watched two episodes in a go and was ravenous for more.
  
  

Honorable mentions that have redeeming qualities but aren't for me:

The Dungeon of Black Company seems like a goofy little show that might hit the mark for some folks, Remake Our Life! seems a fun romp into the 'what-if' genre of what you'd do if you had a chance to redo college, Sonny Boy is arthouse and weird and crude, and I have no idea where it's going yet.

Dishonorable Mention:

Wonder Egg Priority's delayed final episode was a messy stumble across the finish line that was an utter disappointment. If Odd Taxi was a case study into how to finish a show, this was how not to finish a show.

So yeah. I really thought this post would end up longer, but hey. Not every season is a winner, and at least I narrowed the field. Nothing wrong with coasting on the existing franchises!

ETA: A million small gif formatting tweaks.

[De Villefort]

I'm a filthy casual. I wouldn't have picked any of these.
I'll give some of them a try but I'm more of a KonoSuba, Interspecies Reviewers, Sword Art Online (Abridged on youtube) kinda guy.

I finished off Overlord and My Hero Academia but I had to skip a lot of the blahblahblah.
The sheer amount of empty dialog and whining in most anime drives me crazy.

After thought: Trese and Castlevania on Netflix were good. Didn't need to skip for them.

[Ominous]

@de-villefort said in Good Anime:

The sheer amount of empty dialog and whining in most anime drives me crazy.

It's padding to delay the eventual catch up of the anime to the manga.

[Solstice]

@de-villefort

I mean, that hardly makes you a filthy casual. Anime is a medium. People find things to jive with inside of it, and no two tastes are alike.

Personally, I'm at my happiest when I can get people to realize that saying 'I don't like anime' is akin to saying 'I don't like sandwiches.' Getting ahead of the crew who are gluten-allergic, intolerant, or legitimately don't like sandwiches, I mostly mean that there's a slew of people out there who think of anime as a monolith, that they must love or hate in its entirety. Sure, you might not like a ham sandwiches, but you might like this peanut butter and jelly, or some avocado toast, or a bagel with cream cheese (Let's not lie to ourselves. Totally a sandwich).

Interspecies Reviewers was an unabashedly perverted masterpiece that knew what it wanted to be and didn't hold any punches.

Konosuba is some of the hardest I've laughed at a show!

Accessible and family-friendly? Fuck no. But worthy of mention for their own merits, and enjoying them doesn't make you basic or anything.

[Ominous]

@solstice said in Good Anime:

Interspecies Reviewers was an unabashedly perverted masterpiece that knew what it wanted to be and didn't hold any punches.

I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure it wanted to be stream-able.

[Solstice]

@ominous

Mmn. Anime is most often produced right down to the final hours before airing. They could have swerved any time, and instead doubled down.

[De Villefort]

@solstice

You really sound like you would love Sword Art Online Abridged.
A lot of people never knew about it because it's a fully voiced and edited version of SAO made by fans. It is freaking hilarious.

Youtube SAO abridged playlist here <---

[Derp]

@de-villefort said in Good Anime:

@solstice

You really sound like you would love Sword Art Online Abridged.
A lot of people never knew about it because it's a fully voiced and edited version of SAO made by fans. It is freaking hilarious.

Youtube SAO abridged playlist here <---

I liked the first season -- season? Or whatever, of SAO. The guns and stuff in the follow-up messed with me.

[Solstice]

Hoo, boy. So. In concept? Sword Art Online's initial arc is conceptually fine. It's just tinged with the author's immaturity, which is evident in the pacing and the treatment of female characters. The Aincrad arc was tense and exciting, despite being objectively stupid. It had stakes.

The decision to cut that short to explore other MMO settings was frankly foolish, and something I'm pleased that the author is trying to remedy in his 'remake' of the Light Novels, which essentially go floor by floor.

Still not thrilled with the trashy harem-esque elements, but I am basic and do enjoy the 'If you die in the game, you die in real life' trope, as a long time MMO-player. I enjoyed it in Hack/Sign, and I enjoy it whenever it comes up. I just wish it didn't often come hand-in-hand with an overpowered self-insert protagonist and a slew of tropey conquests to fight over him.

[Ganymede]

@solstice said in Good Anime:

I just wish it didn't often come hand-in-hand with an overpowered self-insert protagonist and a slew of tropey conquests to fight over him.

I think this is what keeps me away from anime these days, honestly. I just don't get this, at all.

Which is a shame, I suppose, but I love older anime, like Macross and Perfect Blue.

[Solstice]

@ganymede

Honestly, I'd say it's been getting better. It's by no means gone, but it's gotten way, way less pervasive.

Pretty much nothing I've recommended in this thread contains that trope, though. Just sayin'.