School me on Anime and things related to it.

[elbandito]

All I know is that Ninja Scroll, Ghost in the Shell and that movie with Tetsuo in it were all awesome. I don't know the difference between Anime and Manga and I only learned tonight that Hentai is anime cartoon porn. I know a bunch of ppl here love this kinda stuff (I'm looking at you, MM. ), so I'm hoping that this will be my one-stop school of Japanese animated awesomeness.

All this stuff IS Japanese in origin, right?

[colin]

I'm in much the same boat as you. I've watched, and enjoyed, the movies you mentioned but that's about the exent of my anime knowledge. Although I did recently buy Cowboy Bebop, good show. The only newer anime I've seen are some of the movies by the guy that made Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.

[elbandito]

oh yeah! I forgot about Cowboy Bebop. I once owned all the DVDs of the series and the movie but ended up lending some of them out and they never came back. That's a seriously great cartoon.

[Mudfuzz]

Yes this is all Japanese. but the influence has spread though all over the planet.

a few highlights....
Anime is animation. For supper classic old school stuff check out Astro Boy. You will see how that is very much like early american cartoons... Then stuff like Speed Racer and lupin the 3rd came about and then Taro dragon boy and then Hayao Miyazaki did Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind... and then Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo and then Ghost in the shell and so forth

Really you should be checking out the anime thread for more stuff... but I'll more then likely post more here anyway...

Manga, you would not have anime at least everything that makes it anime and not "cartoons" with out manga. Manga are Japanese comics in short. Almost always in B&W and mostly read back to front, right to left. I'll have more to say on this later..

Here is a quick list of anime I like:

Ghost in the shell [everything]
FLCL
Serial Experiments Lain
Die Buster
Dagger of kumai
Samurai Champloo
Akira
Blood The Last Vampire
Cat Soup
Dead Leaves
Hellsing OVAs
Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Ninja Nonsense
Requiem From The Darkness
Spirited Away
Taro the Dragon Boy
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Here is a quick list of manga I like:
So... Manga [Japanese conics], I love manga, more then anime anymore actually... so here are some I feel are must reads...
GUNNM ~ KISHIRO Yukito [Also known as Battle Angel Alita]: This is what got me hooked, This is the shit! Post-apocalyptic earth, Cyber Punk, Si-Fi, martial arts, awsomeness!
Koukaku Kidoutai ~ SHIROW Masamune [also known as Ghost in the shell ] Cyber Punk, Si-Fi, Cyber Punk post WW3, Cyber Punk, Cyber Punk. If you have watched the anime [and you all should, right now!, yes stop what you are doing and go watch it!] the manga will blow your mind.. not at first but it will when you realize it's all in there...
Elfen Lied ~ OKAMOTO Lynn: Si-fi, horror-ish great mix of dark and light sour and sweat moe and psychotic.
Hellsing ~ HIRANO Kouta: Vampires and Nazis do battle
Franken Fran ~ KIGITSU Katsuhisa: Horror, comedy. This alway makes me LOL hard, cool twisted shit!
Blue Drop [all series] ~ YOSHITOMI Akihito: Alien lesbians have taken over the earth... si-fi, yuri, post-apocalyptic earth...
Mirai Nikki ~ ESUNO Sakae: Horror, mindfuck, Parallel Universe, Play or Die Situation, Yandere. I find this very endearing.
Island ~ KOMI Naoshi: One shot, READ IT, post-apocalyptic earth type thing as well...
Goth ~ Otsuichi and OOIWA Kenji: Dark mystery type thing, really hart warming.
Yakuza Girl MASAKI Motonaga and YU-GO Okuma: Weird fucked up oddness... from what I remember...
Personant ~ KOMI Naoshi: post-apocalyptic earth type cyber puck like thing...
Nana to Kaoru ~ AMAZUME Ryuta: S&M
Black Lagoon ~ HIROE Rei : Do you like violence? one liners? then read this.
Nononono ~ OKAMOTO Lynn: Cross dressing girl wants to be a Olympic ski jumper...

Yeah I cut a pasted it... it's late...

Soon you will learn of words like Otaku... and Yuri... and Moe

[SPACERITUAL]

AND DONT FORGET: if you make a mistake, put yourself in "be-happy mode" and try again!

[smile_man]

Here is a quick list of anime I like:

Ghost in the shell [everything]
FLCL
Serial Experiments Lain
Die Buster
Dagger of kumai
Samurai Champloo
Akira
Blood The Last Vampire
Cat Soup
Dead Leaves
Hellsing OVAs
Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Ninja Nonsense
Requiem From The Darkness
Spirited Away
Taro the Dragon Boy
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

When reading this list I felt that I shoud be reading R-L.

[CBA]

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION



I'm not into anime, but NGE is one of my favourite works of art ever. I love love love it. Everything that anyone who loves sci-fi and weird biblical prophesy and intense human condition psychology could ever want.

Do it!

C

[Achtane]

I highly recommend Last Exile as something to start with. It's devoid of in-jokes that you would only get by watching lots of anime and isn't full of cutesy stereotypical stuff.

And also you will dig it if you like the steampunk aesthetic.

[Toonster]

I found season 1 of Astroboy on Youtube, official release, so I guess I don't need torrents for that
http://www.youtube.com/show/astroboy1980

And found a few of other anime series over here:
http://www.youtube.com/shows/animation_cartoons?feature=sme_genre_link

[nieh]

I found season 1 of Astroboy on Youtube, official release, so I guess I don't need torrents for that

hmmm... I kinda want tabs for that little guitar solo in the theme song.

[Mudfuzz]

I highly recommend Last Exile as something to start with. It's devoid of in-jokes that you would only get by watching lots of anime and isn't full of cutesy stereotypical stuff.

And also you will dig it if you like the steampunk aesthetic.

I like this enough to own it...

While on the subject of steam punk:
Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Howl's Moving Castle
Otomo Katsuhiro's Memories
Steamboy


Also a must watch [to me] are the works of the late great Satoshi Kon. That is if you like intelligent, well written and incredibly animated stuff...

Perfect Blue
Millennium Actress
Tokyo Godfathers
Paranoia Agent
Paprika

[foomanfat]

Howl's Moving Castle

I back this 100%. I love this jam.

I'll toss out My Neighbor Totoro. It's unearthly cute and one of my favorites.
You've probably seen Totoro around and didn't even know it.

Series-wise, I don't know about everyone else, but I always really enjoyed Outlaw Star.

[Houdini116]

Afro Samurai and Cowboy Bebop were the very first ones I saw, and they were the only ones that I really liked. I honestly hate anime though

[Mudfuzz]

I don't like spots, or cop dramas or reality TV or game shows or well lots of stuff so eh.. you like hat you like...

But I think YOU should defiantly watch Kannagi in it's entirety, maybe Azumanga Daioh as well

[Christopher]

K-ON!!

It is an anime about a blonde schoolgirl named mugi who trains to be a samurai after school


also there is some parts about music and tea