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looking online - Bleach has close to 350 Episodes

I'm only 5 or 6 in but finding the whole "Need a male hero to save the overly emotional female semi-hero" to be really white knightish and annoying ...

as well as the way the series deals with females in general creeps me out a bit, well more cringe than creepy ... but hey.

do further seasons get over this? is it worth bearing for longer.

Cowboy Bebop is amzing and filling the gap at present after I powered through FMAB.

but I need another fix .. SAO was cool, I don't think I can get into Dragonball ... I prefer something slightly more .. adult.. But Devil man Cry baby crossed that line a lot for me ...

any other suggestions?

Have you tried Berserk?

Ghost in the Shell. The original two films are amazing classics; whilst the Stand Alone Complex series is what you could consider a soft reboot (ghost in the shell characters remain very similar and honestly much of the SAC series 1 and 2 could be the prelude to the films if it were not for Togusa who advances up through the series yet is a newbie in the first film). There's also a SAC film and then they've one a second season of films which is a prequel series. It sounds messier than it is

Hellsing - there are (broadly speaking) two anime series of Hellsing. The original is older and the story doesn't go as far (but ends in a logical spot), however I feel that its pacing of each episode and its character development is by far and away the best.
The newer series has much improved animation and takes the story a lot further, but I feel that it rushes character development and it focuses more so on the lead vampire whilst his newly turned assistant almost feels less of a character than in the original (somewhere along the lines she lost some of her independent flare). Both are fantastic to watch and I'd honestly say see hte early one then the newer - whilst the earlier part of the story of both is similar, the latter goes far further into some very epic battles and moments.

Studio Ghibili has some great mature films too - Nausicca, Spirited Away, Laputa, Princess Mononoke, Howels moving Castle and a few others.

Anime side I'd recommend Wolf's Rain, Ergo Proxy, Death Note, Claymore, Attack on Titan, Samurai Champloo, Record of Lodoss War (which has several series attached to it). And then I'd say hunt down mostly any good anime films or series from the 80-90s which seems to be about the golden era for action and serious anime. Sometime around the millennium things seemed to shift into a lot of "cutified" anime and a lot of "its all a school" settings.

In addition to Overread's list, I'd recommend Steins;Gate and Psycho-Pass (Though only watch PP Season 1 and the movie, Season 2 is worthless trash). If you want an "adult" show Made in Abyss would also suit your needs. Also, (not kidding here) Princess Tutu is one of the best shows I have ever watched.

@Reanimation: Bleach is an odd duck in terms of Shonen. It suffers even more than DBZ from the sort of 'sawtooth power curve' that you sometimes get in Shonen, where the protagonists an enemies keep pulling new, unprecedented power-ups out of their asses to counter each other.

The first season/arc, the "Soul Society" arc, is actually really good after the first few episodes. There's significant character growth all around, including for the 'blushing damsel' characters, and the secondary cast is both fun and interesting.

HOWEVER! Bleach's later seasons (or Arcs, as they're normally called, since it's from before the current more standardized anime season system) vary WILDLY in quality, and most of them are considered lower-quality than the first. it's also rife with Filler arcs, which themselves both vary in quality and have changeable relevance to the main arcs.



As for Hellsing- Hellsing Original is definitely the better show, but yeah, the ending is one that was made for the show before the manga finished. It's good, but not much related. Hellsing Ultimate is... meh. it's okay. However, Hellsing Ultimate has an Abridged Series. And the Abridged Series is PHENOMENAL. I'm talking better than both original series, I'm talking more true to the story of Ultimate than Ultimate is, I'm talking better than DBZ abridged. I'm talking you're gonna be quoting it after the first episode. Watch it.

Galas wrote:So basically my problem with season 3 is that I would love to have more of it

If I remember correctly this season will have over 20 episode. And I heard the ride only gets wilder from now on.

CREEEEEEEEED wrote:Also does anyone follow MHA? That fight was something else.

Yup, it was nice and Bakugo finally got some major development. Tomorrow's episode should be fun:

Reanimation_Protocol wrote:Cowboy Bebop is amzing and filling the gap at present after I powered through FMAB.

but I need another fix .. SAO was cool, I don't think I can get into Dragonball ... I prefer something slightly more .. adult.. But Devil man Cry baby crossed that line a lot for me ...

any other suggestions?

Samurai Champloo was already mentioned, there's also Space☆Dandy. Both fit as follow ups to Cowboy Bebop. But what exactly do you mean with more adult? A more serious approach to storytelling, maybe a bit more ambitious when it comes to themes. Do you want good character development, or just more blood and gore?

I liked Bleach in general, but I’m usually easier to please. Did the manga for that end or is it ongoing? I know they didn’t make all of it into the anime but just kind of stopped at one point.

Bleach's manga ended in 2016. Pretty lame ending too. Bleach suffered from the same issue as Dragonball. It took so long for the manga to go anywhere at all that the anime perpetually road its butt and had to keep generating filler (most of which was very bad, even by the standards of filler). It then didn't help that Bleach's last few arcs were so bad themselves people who watched the anime but didn't read the manga thought they were filler.

Bleach basically was meant to just be the Aizen arc, and then END. But it became so popular, that it was continued- either due to publisher pressure or the mangaka realizing he had a cash-cow on hand. Without having any original plans to extend the story, however, he'd sort of 'blown his load' on powerups and character development and "What a Tweeest!" revelations in that first arc. And you can kind of see that- each successive arc is essentially set up as its own story, but is constrained by the pre-existing powerups and historical baggage from prior arcs- these all built on each other so that each arc just got worse and worse overall.

Which is a real shame, because the setting, concept and characters are all actually really, really cool and interesting.
For an example of what can be done with the setting, you could check out "Friendship Souls"- a Bleach crossover fanfiction that's... basically better than the original series, while still remaining true to the whole story and setting.


In a lot of ways, it's what happened to Legend of Korra- the creators thought they only had a single season to work with, and so the plotline that could/would have been developed throughout the whole show (had they known how long it would run) ended up getting compressed into a single season- and then, once the whole story and plotline gets resolved, it's suddenly "Oh, well, make more." And then you make another season/plotline/story arc, and it gets finished up, and then "How about some more?" and so on and so forth.

Reanimation_Protocol wrote:
any other suggestions?

Netflix is recommending 3 or 4 flavors of Fate in my feed. Maybe you want to try that? Looks good!

So...Momon just summoned the children of a Great Old One. As in, a Lovecraftian Great Old One. Shub-Niggurath, to be exact. No, seriously, he actually said her name.
Her spawn even had goat voices, which is a nice touch, because one of her epithets is "the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young"

I mean, that's cool and all, but can we please have another player? These impressive spells aren't really impressive if there's nothing worthwhile to use it on.

Its like, idk beating the Moonlord to get the SDMG in terraria, only to realize that everything dies to it in less than a second. Its just not fun.

Depending on how the duel plays out, I expect I’m probably just done with the series.

I think by this point the outcome of the duel should be no surprise to anyone.

And thus I Expect to be done with it.

I don't think there will be a fourth season anyway.

Saw a few episodes of Asobi Asobase. That show is nuts, I haven't that much fun since Konosuba.

Mario wrote:

But what exactly do you mean with more adult? A more serious approach to storytelling, maybe a bit more ambitious when it comes to themes. Do you want good character development, or just more blood and gore?

I Grew up on Akira, GiTS & Guyver and my first forays back in have been One Punch Man, FMA-B, SAO ... Appleseed and I'm starting on Berzerk and a few others mentioned above asap.

I guess to answer the question is I prefer something less around the Adult themes and gore (not that I have any problem watching them, though I did draw the line with DMCB that felt a little gratuitous)
But more around strong characters, decent action and hopefully something that avoids whole episode long divergence into character expositions on their heartfelt feelings for another character that really we as viewers picked up on through subtext like, in the first 30 seconds ...

I'm thinking something that covers some of Guyver, Bladerunner, Batman, Altered Carbon, Bright etc. in a serious style but is able to have fun with it as well.

Hmmm thinking about it ... I guess I like sci-fi Cyberpunk crossovers ... be great if there was a Shadowrun style manga.

You want cyberpunk? Go watch Psycho-Pass Season 1 and then the Film. You will not be disappointed.

Eh, I didn't like the film that much. It was pretty edgelordy, and the whole thing about how Japan is the only nation with a stable government and legislative system made me eyeroll pretty hard. Like, feth off, that's dumb. Even Ghost in the Shell didn't try pulling that, and it gave actual reasons as to why Japan recovered faster; it wasn't hit as hard during WWIII and it advanced nano-machine tech to the point that it can repair radiation fallout, as well as advances in cybertech.
Psycho-Pass basically went "right, so natural disasters and gak happened, everywhere is bad except Japan because Sybil System. K thx bye"

You know what would have been interesting? If they showed alternatives to the Sybil system, and that would have lay the ground work for a sort of cold war over different philosophies concerning governance and maintaining social order. But noooo that would have been hard.

Eh, not as bad as Gate where the foreign special ops team lamented that they didn’t even get to see the super awesome Japanese special ops team before they were slaughtered by them.

 AduroT wrote:
Eh, not as bad as Gate where the foreign special ops team lamented that they didn’t even get to see the super awesome Japanese special ops team before they were slaughtered by them.

Yeah, that's pretty bad too.

I'm all caught up with AoT S3 now and wow. So good, I don't know why I waited so long. I also started watching Gabriel Dropout, that's pretty good if anyone's interested.

 AduroT wrote:
Eh, not as bad as Gate where the foreign special ops team lamented that they didn’t even get to see the super awesome Japanese special ops team before they were slaughtered by them.

Yeah, at least GINO got to see Gojira before getting curbstomped!

Reanimation_Protocol wrote:

Mario wrote:

But what exactly do you mean with more adult? A more serious approach to storytelling, maybe a bit more ambitious when it comes to themes. Do you want good character development, or just more blood and gore?

I guess to answer the question is I prefer something less around the Adult themes and gore (not that I have any problem watching them, though I did draw the line with DMCB that felt a little gratuitous)
But more around strong characters, decent action and hopefully something that avoids whole episode long divergence into character expositions on their heartfelt feelings for another character that really we as viewers picked up on through subtext like, in the first 30 seconds ...

I can't really help you with sci-fi cyberpunk and I can't exactly remember what everybody else recommended, or if you already mentioned these, so here's a list of stuff that might work for you (with links for further reading):

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/1/Cowboy_Bebop : bounty hunters in space, kinda space cowboys, more episodic with a overarching story in the background; really good and fun (this one probably did need to be added but I wasn't sure so here it is)

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/31964/Boku_no_Hero_Academia : Really solid action shounen series about a world where nearly everybody has superpowers. Also has well done character development

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/17677/Buki_yo_Saraba : a short movie (half an hour or so) about a group of dudes whose job it is to defuse old war robots. A bit of a tiny anime "The Hurt Locker" in a way.

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/237/Eureka_Seven : Sci-fi, mecha, environmentalism; all kinds of stuff mixed. Really good, there was also a sequel called Eureka Seven AO but most people didn't like (I'd like to add "as much as the original" but people really didn't like it). I think it was okay to good and like some of the ideas explored there.

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/20583/Haikyuu : Technically it's a sports series about volleyball but it has some really good character development. There's also action in the form of the actual games and the production values are quite high. It's funny, has it dramatic moments, good suspense, and also has a good soundtrack. One of my favourite series so I added it despite fitting even less into the categories.

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/35557/Houseki_no_Kuni : How to explain this one? It's about gems that are alive? The visuals might need to adjustments as it's 3D with some 2D (instead of the other way around) but you get used to it and it works really well with the subject matter.

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/34599/Made_in_Abyss : fantasy spelunking, has some creepy moments but is also really good, superb backgrounds and overall production values, wonderful soundtrack

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/31251/Mobile_Suit_Gundam__Iron-Blooded_Orphans : Gundam (mecha). I haven't seen many others so I can't make a comparison but I liked this one. Stuff about war, child soldiers, politics, inequality, stuff like that. I like that they have nearly no beam weapons so there's a lot of close combat and maces bashing mecha into pieces (plus guns and grenades, and some serious orbital kinetic weaponry) instead of stuff just going "pew pew pew" all the time. Some of the hair styles need a bit more time to get use to.

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/35240/Princess_Principal : spywork (has a few nice "I didn't expect that" moments but is not genre defining great) in an alternative history steampunk Britain. Is quite fun, good production values, often a bit overlooked

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/205/Samurai_Champloo : The followup to Cowboy Bebop, different story, similar setup (but not in space), also great. Has a lot of really great sword fights and a superb soundtrack.

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/35839/Sora_yori_mo_Tooi_Basho : Four girls want to go to the antarctic. I thought it'd be some bland/funny slice of life series but it surprised me and was really great. I don't know if any description could explain why I liked it so much. It has great character development, is funny, and has the drama is really good and not overplayed. It's one my favourite series of 2008. Maybe a funny moment works to draw you in? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6zsNySn7uU

* https://myanimelist.net/anime/20057/Space%E2%98%86Dandy : The followup to Samurai Champloo. This one, again, takes place in space. This time the bounty hunting is different, and it's less about (combat) action but again everything is really good, from the production values to the soundtrack. The series is even more episodic and the overarching is pushed really far back into the background. They got different writers, directors, and animators for every episode so the themes are often switching around, and so is the approach to every episode. It's a wild ride.

CREEEEEEEEED wrote:I'm all caught up with AoT S3 now and wow. So good, I don't know why I waited so long. I also started watching Gabriel Dropout, that's pretty good if anyone's interested.

Gabriel Dropout was fun and don't forget the two special episodes (one is unexpectedly different but really, really good).

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Saw a few episodes of Asobi Asobase. That show is nuts, I haven't that much fun since Konosuba.

You are not wrong. This is the best kind of Crazy Train

Watched Sirius the Jaeger. Liked it. Decent action. I think the finale airs here within a couple days.

Currently watching Dragon Pilot and I'm loving it.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Currently watching Dragon Pilot and I'm loving it.

Dragon pilot was pretty good. I recently finished season 1 of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. and it was hilarious, and I highly recommend it.

Having sat through the entirety of Gate with a friend a few days ago, it is horrible, but typical anime fare as far as portraying Japan goes. Not as bad as Joker Game in terms of the message it wants to portray, but still pretty nauseating.

Am watching Zombieland Saga right now, which started today and so far.. quirky and fun.

You could have spent that time watching something good. :( I just finished my rewatch of Angel Beats. Still good.