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Dakka does already have an anime thread found here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/631531.page
However it tends to err toward the most recent releases and shows that are on. No harm in that at all, but there's a vast wealth of anime from many years ago that I think is worth having its own thread. Both to chat about series we once loved or those we've heard of but yet to explore. Plus to keep track of remastered releases, special events/releases and even remakes and the like. A way for the "older stuff" to keep its head above water in a market that continues to grow and develop.

Note there's no formal "age" or "cut off" part for when things are old/classic its just a general guideline to steer the thread.

A few from me;
Record of Lodoss War OVA, Chronicles and Heroic Knight have had a Blueray/DVD combo release recently. The OVA comes in full HD makeover whilst the others are good quality but not the same treatment. A great DnD style anime adventure that began its life (as it seems many major stories did back then) as a DnD game that got taken further into a full story. If you've any love of general swords and sorcery magical adventures then this is a great series. I hope to get my hands on this boxed set some day soon

There's also always the classic films from Studio Ghibli such as Nausicaa, Laputa, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbour Totoro and many others. Each one a classic and fantastic film - though be warned if you ever explore Grave of the Fireflies be prepared for a tearjerker!

Patlabor Ultimate blueray release (sadly somewhat expensive) contains pretty much the entire selection of series and films made of the adventures of the police in the far future as they pilot powerful mecha in combating crime!

Just burnt through GTO. its been a long time since iv seen that. still a great show.

Last year I finally found Arcadia of my Youth. I had that growing up on vhs under the name vengeance of the space pirates.
It's one of my favorites.
I'm a bit of a fan and have all of the old Space train 999 and movies associated as well as Star Blazers season 1 and 2 and some other movies, that seem like shorten versions of the seasons. I was finally able to see season 3 which was hosted on Youtube but sadly stopped at episode 12.
Season 2 was amazing after all the character development from season 1. I admit it's a touch difficult to watch and a bit laughable with things like "a space tank or a space submarine. I still enjoyed it realizing that when those were made they hadn't come up with a lot of other terminology to use.
I finally got to see Space Battleship Yamato from 2010. It was enjoyable and close enough to star blazers as it probably could have gotten and still been a single 2 hour movie.
Nothing is without flaws but it was fun.
I also am a fan of Ranma 12. I really enjoyed the end of the last episode.
There's one I am looking for but sadly don't know what it was called but it was from the early 80's. All I remember is, must have been, 2 sets of characters on a planet not sure if their stories were related or not. and the ending where one of them fired some kind of planet killing weapon at an huge ship or robot or something wiping every thing out. Probably not nearly enough information. I think one of them had long dangling dog ears. I'd love to see that again, what ever it was.

Bebop, Trigun, 8 man, Iria-zerum the animation, and of course robotech are all classics as far as im concerned.

Recently saw all three Patlabor movies again, with better subs than the original Dutch subs on my DVD's I have from aeons ago. They still hold up nicely.

An old show I'd love to watch again, but fear may have become hopelessly dated by now is Excel Saga, a show I used to love a lot.

Also love the Ninja Scroll movie. It can be seen as a cliche now, but it has a nice pace and flow to it, with some damn good fights in there. And a lady who spawns snakes from her lady bits, which is how my friend at the time sold it to all of her friends.

Porco Rosso!

Just drug out my Patlabor Blurays and have been meaning to fire them up for some quality chill time. That is the most relaxing show about police mecha humanly possible, I reckon.

I've actually been on a bit of a classic anime binge myself. I finished Gunbuster recently (and loved it) and re-watched Escaflone (and still enjoyed it).

My off-the-top-of-my-head list of great classic anime:
Pre-2000
Cowboy Bebop
Now and Then, Here and There
Serial Experiments Lain
Gunbuster
Escaflone
Ghost in the Shell Movie
Akira
Infinite Ryvius
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team

Early-2000's:
Raxaphon
Ergo Proxy
Texhnolyze
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex

Super-Robot stuff from the 70's!

Love it...almost all of it!

Gaiking, Getter Robo and Grendizer being the standouts for me.

I was only somewhat recently able to FINALLY watch all of the series in all of the glory - good stuff!

 Manchu wrote:
Just drug out my Patlabor Blurays and have been meaning to fire them up for some quality chill time. That is the most relaxing show about police mecha humanly possible, I reckon.

The Griffon might be my favorite mecha design ever.

 Manchu wrote:
Just drug out my Patlabor Blurays and have been meaning to fire them up for some quality chill time. That is the most relaxing show about police mecha humanly possible, I reckon.

Given anime about mecha are generally feature them either military weapons or one-offs to fight alien invaders, it might be the only anime about police mecha...

Anyone planning on watching the remake of Fruits Basket? I'm not exactly the target demographic but I've heard lots of excited chatter on the interwebs about it.

so its an actual remake? I watched the original way back in the day and enjoyed it then. I think iv'e grown out of the genre now (being a 36 year old with a wife of 7 years), but it certainly was the best of its type back then.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
so its an actual remake? I watched the original way back in the day and enjoyed it then. I think iv'e grown out of the genre now (being a 36 year old with a wife of 7 years), but it certainly was the best of its type back then.

It's being nicknamed Fruits Basket: Brotherhood and for good reason. The original mangaka is on the production team and it's going to be a more faithful adaptation of the manga.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Anyone planning on watching the remake of Fruits Basket? I'm not exactly the target demographic but I've heard lots of excited chatter on the interwebs about it.

I started (haven't seen the original) and it looks fun. I've read this time it will also get some author approved/demanded upgrades (being dissatisfied with the some parts of the original manga). So that makes it sound even more promising

Edit: wrong anime thread, I'll C&P the rest into the the other one.

 BrookM wrote:
Recently saw all three Patlabor movies again, with better subs than the original Dutch subs on my DVD's I have from aeons ago. They still hold up nicely.

An old show I'd love to watch again, but fear may have become hopelessly dated by now is Excel Saga, a show I used to love a lot.

Never got to see the third Patlabor movie but the first two were very good. I remember modelling Alfonse in 3D a few years ago and watched the series while doing the work at the same time. Really good franchise.

OMG...Excel Saga was an absolute blast. Its because of that show I aspire to become a civil servant.

Some of my favorites

Phantom Quest Corporation (basically a japanese ghostbusters, only with magic rather than tech)
Gasaraki (mecha, Noh Dancing and food geo-politics plus a whole lot more that's super spoilery)
All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku (can't argue with a title like that! Stick to the OVA, but the series has some fun moments)
El-Hazard (OVA, ignore the rest)
Vision of Escaflone (mecha and Isaac Newton as the bad guy)
Patlabor (as mentioned, really quite unique in the mecha genre as it's police)
Dai-Guard (mecha vs monsters, but the pilots work for the PR department of the corporation that owns the mecha)
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (beats the crap out of any GitS movie and has a killer soundtrack)

SamusDrake wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Recently saw all three Patlabor movies again, with better subs than the original Dutch subs on my DVD's I have from aeons ago. They still hold up nicely.

An old show I'd love to watch again, but fear may have become hopelessly dated by now is Excel Saga, a show I used to love a lot.

Never got to see the third Patlabor movie but the first two were very good. I remember modelling Alfonse in 3D a few years ago and watched the series while doing the work at the same time. Really good franchise.

OMG...Excel Saga was an absolute blast. Its because of that show I aspire to become a civil servant.

Should we be worried now?



Try not to get hit by truck-kun on gradution day as well.

And the third Patlabor movie is an odd one, takes place between the first and second movie, but still a pretty good movie, even if it's pretty low on the actual giant robot stuff and more of a different genre really.

If anyone hasn't ever seen Pilot, I highly recommend it to you. Galaxy Express 999 is also very much worth your time, especially if you like classic science fiction and stuff like the original Star Trek, or Buck Rogers.

Gunbuster was also the first thing GAINAX ever did, and it's fantastic.

Now that brings back memories. Now commencing yet another binge-watch of ES...complete with "emergency ration".

Just remembered one of the early episodes that had a Farcry Blood Dragon vibe to it. "Ah! Nabeshin! I see you are still a NINJA-COMMANDO-FROM-HELLLLLLL!".

Speaking of Gainax, has anyone had the pleasure of Alicia Dragoon?

 BrookM wrote:
Recently saw all three Patlabor movies again, with better subs than the original Dutch subs on my DVD's I have from aeons ago. They still hold up nicely.

An old show I'd love to watch again, but fear may have become hopelessly dated by now is Excel Saga, a show I used to love a lot.

Also love the Ninja Scroll movie. It can be seen as a cliche now, but it has a nice pace and flow to it, with some damn good fights in there. And a lady who spawns snakes from her lady bits, which is how my friend at the time sold it to all of her friends.

Porco Rosso!

Ninja Scroll was probably one of the best movies of my teenage years.. my friends and I used it watch it repeatedly, it is just absolutely epic.

Is the 3rd Patlabor movie worth watching? The first two are brilliant - probably some of my favourites again.

Porco Rosso still makes me well up!

I will say my absolute favourite Ghibli movie is Laputa (with the original dubbing, rather than the later Disney/James Van Der Beek offering) - the death of the robot in that one again had a similar effect!

If you're going Ghibli, it's pretty hard for me to pick one specific movie, but Kiki's Delivery Service is still their apex. I can watch that film 1000 times and never get bored of it, or lose the charm.

I remember reading Yu Watase's "Fushigi Yugi" back in the day and although the audience was for birds more than lads, it was just f***ing funny as hell.

Sadly I didn't finish the comic series but I did watch the Anime series on Youtube last year and holy crap it was brilliant! The dub was great to listen to and the voice cast included David Hayter( Metal Gear, Guyver ), J.G Hertzler( Deep Space Nine ) and even Daran Norris( Team America - Spottswoode, no less! ). It serious and tragic in one half and then hiliarious in the other. Only problem is that it suffers from the "we killed off your favourite character this week" syndrome.

So I've decided I need some big stompy robots in my life so I thought - what about that Gundam series! However a fast glance at Amazon shows that it seems whilst its one of the biggest anime for mecha it seems to be - rather badly supported on DVD in the UK.

Plus a quick glance at the wiki shows a huge number of various series, OVA and Movies all with various tie-ins and generations and the like.

So that leaves me a little confused - any fans able to give me some guidance?!

Some awesome suggestions.

My contribution to what I consider classic(10 years old) animations would be:

Berserk - Beatiful soundtrack old school fantasy animation
Hajime no Ippo - Great anime about boxing.
Black Lagoon - Great anime about mercenary/gun slinging stuff.
Full metal alchemist - Original series

 Overread wrote:
So I've decided I need some big stompy robots in my life so I thought - what about that Gundam series! However a fast glance at Amazon shows that it seems whilst its one of the biggest anime for mecha it seems to be - rather badly supported on DVD in the UK.

Plus a quick glance at the wiki shows a huge number of various series, OVA and Movies all with various tie-ins and generations and the like.

So that leaves me a little confused - any fans able to give me some guidance?!

I'm not a big Gundam fan who has seen everything so I couldn't tell you which are the best but I have seen a few of the series that were good. When it comes to Gundam then I've seen Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (link), and Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt (but only the first season, still have to watch the second one at some point link). IBO is, I think, an alternative timeline (or universe) so you can watch it on its own. I think Thunderbolt is part of one of the main timelines/universes but it works on its own. They probably reference some stuff but it was all understandable without needing to become a Gundam encyclopaedia.

IBO has two seasons (25 episodes each) and is some rather good stuff (and you get used to the hair, you'll know what I mean if you watch it). It touches of a few topics: From politics to war, child soldiers, slavery, economics. Of course there are fights but the series is a bit more low tech in that there are not really beam weapons so all the mechas are using kinetic weapons (guns), grenades, and close combat (swords, fists, axes, hammers); even in space battles.

Thunderbolt is a shorter series (two season, four episodes each, also available as compilation movies) but with really high production values and more high tech with pew pew lasers and stuff like that. The first season was good but I got distracted by other stuff before the second was released.

Two Gundam series that I haven't seen that that are often recommended: Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (six episodes, link) and Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (12 episodes, link).

Something non-Gundam that might be interesting is Eureka Seven (link), it's 50 episodes long and there are also some movies (some compilation and some of the newer ones might be sequels, haven't kept up with it). It's also a really good story with great animation, a good soundtrack, and generally being a really good series. It has a sequel (Eureka Seven AO) that I didn't think was bad but it seems that it's generally thought of as not being that good (I liked it but it's not as good as the original but, for me, that says more about the quality of the original series).

 Overread wrote:
So I've decided I need some big stompy robots in my life so I thought - what about that Gundam series! However a fast glance at Amazon shows that it seems whilst its one of the biggest anime for mecha it seems to be - rather badly supported on DVD in the UK.

Plus a quick glance at the wiki shows a huge number of various series, OVA and Movies all with various tie-ins and generations and the like.

So that leaves me a little confused - any fans able to give me some guidance?!

GUNDAM WING. DO IT. JUST BUY IT. NOWWWWWW!

Lol, one minute its Sharpe meets SW's Admiral Thrawn but the next it goes completely bi-polar into outrageous Saturday morning cartoon land as the heroes massacre the baddies....

Young pilot: "Yes, tactically the enemy commander is correct to surround me with numerically superior forces and cut-off my only escape route....

Enemy commander: "...we have him surrounded...let us see what will his next move be..."

Young pilot: "...but I have a GUNDAM! PEW-PEW-PEW!!!"

Enemy commander: "...sigh...of course, how silly of me. An indestructable giant robot with unlimited ammo...oh, no. I'm dead."

 Overread wrote:
So I've decided I need some big stompy robots in my life so I thought - what about that Gundam series! However a fast glance at Amazon shows that it seems whilst its one of the biggest anime for mecha it seems to be - rather badly supported on DVD in the UK.

Plus a quick glance at the wiki shows a huge number of various series, OVA and Movies all with various tie-ins and generations and the like.

So that leaves me a little confused - any fans able to give me some guidance?!

Did someone say Gundam?

There's a few different ways to watch the series' but I would suggest starting with the Universal Century timeline, and chronological order:



Not that these series span about 50 years of production history for the franchise, but they're essentially the franchises core timeline and actually work amazingly well just watching them in chronological order. You could also watch them in Production order if you want, in which case watch The Origin last. Most of the good OVAs and films come from this timeline. After you've watched those you can go a few different directions.

There's some really good OVAs that tie into this timeline:



You could continue this timeline into three other series that tie into it, but strictly speaking can be seen as stand alone series:



The other half of the franchise are alternate timelines with no connection to the Universal Century (outside of Turn A) and can be viewed as stand alone series:



Another good option is the much beloved Build Fighters franchise, a spin off series that plays in references, in-jokes, memes, and love for the franchise. It's best enjoyed after you've already seen a lot of the other series listed imo.



EDIT: As clarification, Turn A Gundam is messy. It's technically a continuation of the Universal Century Timeline, but it's also a continuation of every other Gundam timeline produced up to that point. These series are G Gundam, Gundam Wing, and Gundam X. Gundam SEED and OO were losely added into the series canonically, but bear no relevance when actually watching the series. Turn A is essentially the series that ties all the Gundam timelines into a single canon/continuity, but it's super tripy and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You probably wouldn't get the series fully without seeing the related series' but you can enjoy it superficially without them.