Some anime I would recommend -
Fantasy: Slayers ~ Lina Inverse is a powerful sorceress, does she help fellow man with her power? She steals from the rich to give to herself!
Romantic Comedy: Fruits Basket ~ What happens to the Sohma household when Tohru Honda moves in? Would be fine, if they weren’t cursed by the spirits of the Chinese Zodiac.
Action/Fantasy: Inuyasha ~ Kagome is transported to feudal Japan where she kust team up with the hot head, half demon Inuyasha to reclaim the broken shards of the Shikon Jewel.
Historical Fiction: Samurai Deeper Kyo ~ Yuya is a bounty hunter searching for her brother’s killer. What trouble has she gotten herself into when she tries to bring in Kyoshiro, a medicine peddler, who turns into Demon Eyes Kyo when trouble occurs?
Comedy: Azumanga Daioh ~ follow the exploits of a group friends as they go through high school. Their characteristics range from brainy, to clueless, athletic to lazy.
Shoujo: Pretear ~ When the Dark Princess escapes from her imprisonment, it is up to Hayate and the other Leafe Knights to find the Pretear and return balance to the world.
Shounen: Cowboy Bebop ~ Meet the crew of the Bobop. They right wrongs and bring justice to the planets . . . for the right price.
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Article comments
1 - Ashok K. Banker
Nice review. The recommendations are especially nice, as I haven't come across several of them, but will check them out now. I can see we have at least one fave in common - Cowboy Bebop!
2 - Sterfish
Great post! Your recommendations are spot on. Three of my all-time favorite shows, Fruits Basket, Azumanga Daioh, and Cowboy Bebop are on you rlist. I hope you contribute more anime reviews in the future.
3 - Chris Beaumont
Welcome to the fold!
4 - with karate ill kik ur ass
cowboy bepop is crap. Dragonball z is the best.
5 - Nancy
At last! Someone I can ask questions of; all I ever wanted to know about anime but couldn't find anyone to corner & ask! Thanks.
First question: I've noticed that in most (if not all - I haven't seen a whole lot) anime, most of the characters have 'western' features: pale skin, big round eyes, little noses, light hair, etc. while the villains - or more particularly, the clowns & comic relief, have features more obviously oriental. Classic case of this is "Princess Mononoke". Why is this? Many thanks.
6 - Lindsay Beaumont
Each creator/ art director, I suppose? has their own style of animation. If you watch Miyazaki films (Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away etc.) and then compare to the character designs of Yutaka Minowa of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (gorgeous animation, one of my favorite movies) They're really different. The animation style anyway. Character features though, the only thing I'm sure of is how the Big Eyes came about. Back in the '60's an anime was born by the name of Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka. He was influenced by Walt Disney (Bambi '42, Pinnochio '40 etc.) to use the Big Eyes. Tezuka had a tremendous affect on the animation industry and the Big Eyes was here to stay. Skin and hair, I believe I read somewhere, Japan has a homogeneous population, thus the light skin. But also to get variety in anime you have the funky hair-do's and colors instead of all black hair.
7 - Sterfish
Just to add on to what Lindsay said, I've heard various theories behind the characters having pale skin. One of them says that it is due to early shoujo manga. A lot of early shoujo manga had stories that took place outside of Japan. Even as more stories took place in Japan after this, the pale skin of the characters stayed.
Another thing to note is that a good portion of anime doesn't even take place in Japan. Cowboy Bebop takes place across various planets while Slayers takes place in a fantasy world. Settings like these make it very easy to justify characters that don't "look" Japanese.
8 - Akido Bonsai
What genre do you like? You have got to be kidding me; It is a cartoon! Oh, oh, yeah thats right, I was a big fan of the sphinct-unen (or was it sphinct-oujo?) Bullwinkle and Wonder Dog genre. With its pastiche about societal ills while paying homage to the action characters of the American comic book lifestyle.....blahdee blahdee blah.
What your waste of a book fails to cover is the dichotomy of blatant western ripoff mixed with a slap in the face apocalyptic central theme. Will the jap artisite culture ever get over the fact that we dropped the big one? No! Just like they will never get over the fact that they wanted to drop one on us....Thus every japenese animation (that is not flat out porn) will feature a wonderful climatic scene of some nutty version of a really big explosion. Whoo whee.
Just stop telling me that this is supposed to be 'high art'. Give me a break - this is the culture that believes Ninjas were Real! Boshido that for a while. And give me any Pixar any day versus Cowboy Bebop - Buzz Lightyear will kick their rice burning butts.
ps: Akira Kurosawa hated this crap.....
9 - Lindsay Beaumont
Anyway, Nancy, I would recommend anythng by Miyazaki. Think of his films as Japanese Disney. They're sweet coming-of-age stories. My favorites of his are Spirited Away and Kiki's Delivery Service, and Castle in the Sky. There are series that I would call historical fiction like Rurouni Kenshin and Samurai Deeper Kyo. Kenshin is good but a bit long so you might want to try Kyo first. These 2 do have violence (not extreme in my opinion but it's there) in them. These series are all up on amazon.com so there are further descriptions. Hope this helps!
10 - Chris Beaumont
Intelligence abounds. Guess it takes all types....
11 - Nancy
I've seen those, thanks, and very familiar w/Kimba, Astro Boy, et al. I'm just puzzled as to why anime/Japanese seem to have a fixation on westerners' features in the characters, instead of Japanese, and when one DOES see Japanese, they seem invariably to be clowns or villains - or am I the only one to notice this seeming psychological foible?
12 - Chris Beaumont
Can't say I've really noticed it, but I don't watch as much as my sister.
13 - Lindsay Beaumont
ok, I think I found something that may or may not be helpful with Nancy's question. I was flipping through The Anime Companion, the one I mention above and on found out that according to the book page 101, Japanese consider themselves "wet" (crying, nosebleeds, sweat etc). They mean by this that they put higher priority on emotion. So maybe the Japanese looking characters are the more emotional ones. On the other hand the book continues, Americans are "dry" by making reason a higher priority. So the more serious characters could have more Western features. That's all I could find. Hope it helps!
14 - Temple Stark
Video Editor Joan picked this his pick of the week. Go HERE to find out why. And thank you very much.
15 - ugly bitch
omg i love anime so much i love it