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As one of the old guys i have been collecting anime for over 40 years. i got into it as a child in the early 80's when it was realatively unknown in the US and about the only way you could get anything was through bootlegs and/or mail order.

My first experience was with the famous 70s anime space battleship yamato that came to the US in around 1981 as star blazers. because it was more of a serious show with a linear timeline i tended to be drawn more to the serious side of the media. as such when things like dragon ball came out in the 80s following the targeted formula for a young male audience repeated so often in japanese media i wasn't drawn to it and was rather bemused by the rabid fanbase that arose in the 90s when it made it to western mainstream media. obviously since there are so many subgenres to choose from within the media there is a little something for everybody. while i may have watched some shows that were good and even quite popular i don't consider them among my favorites unless it is something i would (and have) watched through multiple times.

Given how much access is available now it sometimes makes me a bit sad that many really great shows especially from the 80s up into the early 2000s have been missed by the fan community. so i put together this list of my favorite shows.. some are very well known because the appeal is universal others less so sometimes due to just obscurity.....so i thought i would do a list with some small explanations. for those who have missed out.


I will start out with the big fish-mobile suit gundam

I am only a fan of the original timeline the universal century as it was a break from the super hero robot media that was dominant in the late 1970s a gritty war stories with corruption on all sides that focused on the struggles of normal people caught up in the conflict.

As such the revisiting of the side stories within the main timeline is one of my favorite places to visit. personally 0083 is probably my all time favorite, in that vein the list-from pree 0079 to the current most timeline

gundam the origin











gundam 0083 stardust memory





We end with hathaway based on the hathaway flash series-




The next big chai series is macross as most people of my era came to know it as the macross saga of robotoech....long before we knew what it really was-

starting with the backstory series "zero"



The movie verison of the tv show story-








To finish off the group series i will go with miyazaki films. i have seen them all these are just my top 3







Since this is already a big post i will carry on in the next one-



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I am also an aviation nerd so shows with planes appeal to me i did enjoy area 88 but it wasn't my favorite-

This one (the princess and the pilot) felt like a miyazaki film and it had a fine tv series spin off in the same universe-





more air combat with yukikaze,



then we go diesel punk with last exile-





I know that strike witches was full of fan service but the animation quality was superb and the naming the main characters after real fighter aces was a nice touch.



Delving into scifi -gunbuster



And the show (remake) that got me into the fandom to begin with-



I had the misfortune of watching aldnoah as it came out so i had to suffer through the season 1 ending not knowing they were making a sequal



Heroic age was a gem i found by accident and the soundtrack is impressive to go along with the anime



Another really obscure series-



probably my favorite ship in all of hard scifi



I even added in some humor from the guys who designed tenchi/elhazard it is probably the best thing they ever did-



I have all the manga for this one and i loved the first movie, the tv show was sorely underfunded.





Im a sucker for madhouse studios so anything from them you will see show up quite often especially if it is kawajiris character designs



The other bubblegum crisis the tragic space opera-



Legend of the galactic hereos is something i tended to avoid for decades there are literally hundred of episodes/movies and OVAs going back 30 years but the new thesis series are so well done i had to watch them-






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Isekai have become the prolific but they were always around and here are some of my favorites (and yes i know i will catch hell for it but i enjoyed SAO)
Grimgar of fantasy and ash



.hack the movie



SAO





Yojo senki (tanya the evil)



vision of escaflowne





Staying with that theme going into fantasy settings-



kabaneri of the iron fortress





Little witches academy





Record of lodoss war OVA



Jubei nimpucho (ninja scroll)



Fam and Irie ruin explorers



I will also include works of masamune shiro like many others i have been a huge fan for years. i didn't care for the movie version of ghost in the shell but the stand alone complex tv series nailed the universe, they even made a sequel OVA to dominion tank police that was fantastic.













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Ill start with a few other really obscure titles-

the enemy is the pirate-



Combustable campus guardress (from the creator of bastard)



These last are a bit all over the place, some comedy, modern action, classics cyberpunk like the bubble crisis that i was a rabid fan of as it came out in the late 1980s

The dirty pair











Samurai champloo



lupin the 3rd





Revolutionary girl utena







Magic users club





ZIPANG



Witch hunter robin



Arpeggio of blue steel



Gunsmith cats





86





A new recent addition to the list-

Leviathan- diesel punk mecha



Even as super picky as i am it is hard to believe i have this many shows i consider to be among the best.....

I will also add an honorable mention for a late 1980s tv series i was hooked on as a kid while American made it was often very high quality for the time and still technically anime being made with Tokyo Movie Shinsha

Finally got a chance to go through this and.. stop making me feel old. Stuff like Witch Hunter Robin, Blue Submarine, Ninja Scroll, Ghost in the Shell S.A.C., makes me miss that anime boom of the early 2000s when I collected the DVD's and got the weekly subs.

Quite a trip down memory lane, watched quite a few of these myself, some were good, some were bad (but you watch it to the end, hoping for something, right?), some most excellent indeed.

I had the luck of watching all of Aldnoah Zero in one massive binge and while the first season was great and ended on an amazing cliffhanger, the second one was a massive letdown for me, feth Slaine! And haha, glad I'm not the only one who has seen Expelled from Paradise, the sequel is supposed to release soonish?

Grimgar was great, I think it might've been my first exposure to the isekai genre, well before SAO, which had its moments, though I am more a fan of the GGO spin-off. Youjo Senki is another isekai favourite and it's finally getting a second season.

Champloo is better than Bebop haha! And DMC mentioned! Oddly one of the few series where the live action movie was just as enjoyable. Speaking of music, the Galaxy Rangers opening song is on my MP3 player, banger of a tune.

I need to find the time and rewatch some of this stuff again.

Seeing all of this jogged my memory and no pun intended, reminded me of Memories, love me an anthology movie and both Magnetic Rose and Cannon Fodder are excellent, always found Stink Bomb a bit too silly, but damn, that animation.

Yeah the entire memories trilogy was superbly animated.
Same can be said of the cockpit trilogy, 3 different artists the only requirement was it had to be Leji matsumoto inspired and deal with WWII/aircraft.
Didn't hurt episode 1 was done by madhouse.

As for DMC it helps i am a metal head so that and black heavy have a special place in my anime loving heart. of course bastard gets the big nod given that the manga creator hagiwara is also a metal head and inserted metal band names (spells) and band members (character names- Udo dirkschnider from ACCEPT/dark schnider or lars ulu metallicana crown prince of the kingdom of metallicana), i have all his manga that has been running since the 80s

OP still adding stuff? I feel like there's more than when I first looked.

I started out like most of my peers, with the German dub of Sailor Moon. At uni I insinuated myself into the student council friend circle and thusly gained access to one of the first broadband connections in the country. We abused the uni servers to download... Evangelion, Ranma, Love Hina, Rurouni Kenshin, FLCL, Slayers, Azumanga Daioh, Tenchi Muyo and whatever else was all the rage in the early 00s.

I'd add Trigun and Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water to the list of pre-2000 absolute gems.

FLCL! Now that was a weird show with a lot of chaotic charm, style and the Pillows did a banger soundtrack for the series that still finds its way into my playlist from time to time.

Vampire Hunter D and Blood the Last Vampire were also pretty good from that era, D in particular had this amazing artstyle going on. IIRC Vampire Hunter D was also by Madhouse? I think they went on to do an anime of the Highlander franchise as well, which was one of the few good entries in that massive train wreck of a franchise.

On the bad side of early 2000s shows, there's Gasaraki, a show I tried watching a few times because it had cool mecha in there, but oh my days, it was so boring. Still listen to the opening and closing tracks from time to time though.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
OP still adding stuff? I feel like there's more than when I first looked.

I started out like most of my peers, with the German dub of Sailor Moon. At uni I insinuated myself into the student council friend circle and thusly gained access to one of the first broadband connections in the country. We abused the uni servers to download... Evangelion, Ranma, Love Hina, Rurouni Kenshin, FLCL, Slayers, Azumanga Daioh, Tenchi Muyo and whatever else was all the rage in the early 00s.

I'd add Trigun and Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water to the list of pre-2000 absolute gems.

I am currently watching through nadia for the first time on otaku streamers. it isn't bad but i find nadia herself a bit insufferable as a character.


I also did have blood in my original list, but i felt it wasn't quite good enough to make the final cut. and indeed vampire hunter D bloodlust was madhouse. the art stile is unmistakable-goku midnight eye, demon city shinjuku, cyber city oedo, jubei nimpucho, wicked city, the animatrix episode "program" etc.. they are all Kawajiri's art style.

The more I look at the filmography of Madhouse, the more I go.. yeah makes sense. They did Alderamin on the Sky, Gungrave, Monster, Black lagoon but also.. ouch, Overlord. Love me some Overlord, but damn, the animation of the later seasons was so bad (looking at you goblin army), they memed it themselves in Isekai Quartet. But they also did the first season of One-Punch Man and all of Frieren. Then their movies.. Ninja Scroll, Perfect Blue, Metropolis, Tokyo Godfathers, Highlander, Redline, damn.

I got to actually go visit the studio back in 2000 got a private tour from Nagahama san. they are absolutely my favorite studio in Japan, even when they are not doing their own style the quality is top notch. compare season 1 of gunslinger girl (done by madhouse) to season 2 done by a different studio, it was so bad i could not watch it all the way through even though i love the story and own all the original manga.

I should mention i highly recommend otaku-streamers as a fan supported anime streaming site. they have so many old school hard to find titles.

I barely watch anything lately - probably under 10 titles since 2007, the last good year of anime.

I think the first one I realized was an anime was Gundam WIng. Previous to that i had enjoyed Little Bits, Robotech, Voltorn, G-Fource adn the like, adn continued to enjoy it sicne then including things like