Ever since coming back from Japan, Tegan and I have had a renewed interest in anime. I used to watch it more as a kid growing up, but putting myself through the slog of Naruto and Bleach fillers didn’t exactly do wonders for my enthusiasm.
But there’s nothing like a holiday to recharge the batteries. So over the last few weeks, we’ve been rediscovering an old favourite of mine: Neon Genesis Evangelion.
I don’t think Evangelion was my first exposure to anime – I’m sure I caught a few minutes of Ghost in the Shell or Bubblegum Crisis on SBS first – but it was the first series that I mainlined back to back. I was lucky enough to have family friends who recorded the series on VHS, which I watched religiously. It was cool in a way other cartoons on Australian TV weren’t. Dragon Ball Z had a similar thing going, but I always had to catch the bus well before that aired on Cheez TV.
Rewatching the series will also give me an opportunity to rewatch the film remakes, which I haven’t seen. Tegan hasn’t seen any of the series bar a few episodes, and this:
It’d be like if your first exposure to Dragon Ball was Dragon Ball Abridged. I’m not sure you’d be able to watch the series properly after that.
What’s your favourite anime of all time?
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57 responses to “What’s Your Favourite Anime Of All Time?”
Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
Nothing can match the sheer scale. It’s a true “empires rise and fall” space opera, with a seriously dense plot.
This is closely followed by Revolutionary Girl Utena.
Teknoman. Have watched it multiple times.
My thoughts exactly. As tragic and it is beautiful.
You sir, are so correct.
Kill La Kill is my #1 (not surprisingly) but others would be Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Ghost in the Shell (1995, if we’re including movies), and the Monogatari series for me.
Nadesico, Ergo Proxy and Escaflowne are my top favourites. Steins;Gate and Hellsing Ultimate are super close contenders.
Ninja Scroll.
NGE & Street Fighter
They ignited my passion for fighting and mecha anime.
Kill La Kill & Gurren Lagann win it for more ‘recent’ shows.
TTGL is mine 😀
For some reason I could not get into Kill La Kill at all
For series, i can’t shake the ones which changed my perspective:
Evangelion, Lain, Boogiepop Phanton, Psycho Pass, steins:gate.
GitS SAC got close to making that list, but it never hit the notes of the movie, and Psycho Pass did many of the same themes better.
Perfect Blue and Paprika are my two favourite films, with GitS 1 right behind.
I also have a soft spot for the kenshin series and its handling of history.
Great list. Can’t fault any of those choices. For me, I’d add Welcome to the NHK, Fate/Zero and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (very overrated, but I enjoyed it).
Movies wise, add in Patema Inverted.
Kenshin has a three part live action movie series out. The first one is the best samurai film I have seen in ages.
Yeah, i was apprehensive going in as I’ve never seen an acceptable live action adaptation, but it was actually pretty great!
I still have no faith in Netflix’s death note.
i have to say Dragon Ball Z tied with Tekkaman Blade (Teknoman here in aus) were my favourites. as they were my daily go to for years on end during high school.
BUT!
honorable mentions:
Heat Guy J
OnePunch Man
Black Lagoon
Gangsta
Dragonball Super
and i definitely find myself youtubing the big 4 Shonen- One Piece, Bleach, Naruto/Boruto and Fairy Tail but thats because ive read all the manga for years and like to see how they adapt the fights and things like that. im not an ashamed 32yo.
Steins;Gate!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m older, so mine is built around Kimba the White Lion, Battle of the Planets and Astroboy.
Modern anime would be Cowboy Bebop.
Oh man! I forgot about Battle of the Planets and Astroboy. I also loved Voltron (with lions, not vehicles) and Inspector Gadget (if that counts as anime).
Afro Samurai
Dat RZA soundtrack. Just a gorgeous production all around.
Has to be Doraemon.
I only started watching since starting uni but my favourite series so far have been Samurai Champloo and Food Wars. Full Metal Alchemist/Brotherhood are both great as well.
Another. One series and it was done. Too many anime have banked on having a sequel but it’s fallen through.
My other all time favourite is Natsume Yuujinchou. Such a feel good anime.
Slayers – Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev’s antics never get old.
Honourable mentions:
Battle Athletes
Inu Yasha
Evangelion
EDIT:
Astroboy
Voltron
Inspector Gadget
Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040
Battle of the Planets
Boring answer, but Cowboy Bebop. It’s probably the most considerate anime for western audiences, so it’s going to connect easily to causal anime watcher like me.
That being said, a really close second would be Paranoia Agent
So many, most of which have been mentioned already. So, I’m just going to name two I haven’t seen mentioned:
Trigun (Just finished)
Samurai Pizza Cats/Kyatto Ninden (Same thing, but different. Restarting again)
I think that anyone expecting Kyatto Ninden to be the Japanese voiced version of Samurai Pizza Cats may be a little surprised/disappointed.
Started on Neon Genesis myself. Still enjoy it.
My favorite though, is One Piece. For some reason I just love the Strawhats.
Honorable mention to Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Once they ditched the first series (From Lab 5 if I remember correctly) it was great.
I also happen to read the mangas so if a series diverges from the source material I tend to get annoyed. Happened with Naruto/One Piece, as soon as I see filler I drop the series till the manga stuff comes in.
Came here to see Evangelion. There is truly nothing like it.
Following that I’ve always loved Death Note, Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, but I don’t think they are on the same level as Evangelion. I also watched One Punch Man recently and thought that was really good.
Some cool recommendations in this thread I’ll be checking out!
Kara no Kyoukai was my introduction to the Nasuverse and what a rabbithole it is. It’s more of a prototype of characters and concepts that would be used for later works, but Kara no Kyoukai is still my favourite out of all of them.
The Big O.
So stylish, so cool, so weird.
And Berserk, the original animated series. I adore that intro. But not that intro song.
So much gravitas.
Three-way tie with utawarerumono, Banner of the stars and Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon.
Strong followers are Full Metal Alchemist (Both versions), Macross, Kino’s Journey and Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex… And the whole Aria series, those shows are so wonderfully pretty and chill.
Picking a favorite is just so damn hard. This is just basically a list of shows I’d gladly start watching all the way through again.
While I grew up loving Dragon Ball Z (especially the English opening), after rewatching it all now in the Kai format has shown that it isn’t exactly the great show I remember it being. For me, the only part that still stands up to my older scrutiny is the Android/Cell saga, which I still think is amazingly done. TeamFourStar’s Abridged version is my favourite form of the show now. 😛
As for my favourite anime? Probably Fullmetal Alchemist (both the original & Brotherhood). Still IMO one of the greatest shows ever produced and a great entry show for those starting on anime.
Surprised no-one has mentioned Trigun.
Loved that series, especially the shift of tone halfway through.
There’s all the popular ones that gets named all the time, so here’s one of my favourtie that isn’t named often enough. Zegapain.
Without spoiling anything, it’s a rare series in 2006 that is 26 episodes with a clear start and end. No 2nd season need, no open-ended anything for sequels or such. Please try and watch it without looking into too much material of it, as the first few episodes will give you all the information you’d need to know whether or not you’ll like the show.
There are so many! But my 2 absolute favourites are FLCL and the .hack// series.
Mushishi
Oooh I need to go back to that was 5 episodes in then my computer died so I couldnt keep watching. But really liked what I did see.
It’s probably still Evangelion, though I’ve seen it so many times that I probably wouldn’t choose to pick it back out again any time soon.
I still have a massive soft spot for Haibane Renmei as well.
Cowboy Bebop.
Nothing else comes close.
There are many that I enjoyed a lot, but only a couple that I consider “hooked me on anime” and those are:
1) Robotech (all three series)
2) Starblazers
3) Patlabor
Other mentions (no particular order):
1) G-Force/Battle of the Planets
2) Evangelion
3) Ghost in the Shell
4) Astroboy
And if I’m allowed to include movies instead of just TV series:
– Akira
FLCL (Fooly Cooly/Furi Kuri)
Short and sweet 😉
Anime series: Evangelion (and all its incarnations)
Anime movie: Akira
Kinda surprised no one mentioned Akira yet 🙁
Tied forever atop of my list, NGE and Cowboy Bebop. It is said a lot that Cowboy Bebop is beloved because it plays to Western sensibilities, but when I watch anime I don’t particularly do so to get Western references. I love Bebop simply because it is incredibly polished and mature (in the real sense of the word).
To add a few that haven’t been mentioned yet in this thread, Mawaru Penguindrum, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica come close to those two.
FLCL is something I watch maybe once a year, which is easy because there are 6 episodes, and it always gets me all wistful and nostalgic, both for where I was at in life the first time I saw it and a childhood that I didn’t have that involved being pooped out by a robot on the reg.
Also really into The Tatami Galaxy, Mushi-shi, Monogatari, Cross Game, Welcome To The NHK, Astro Fighter Sunred, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, and I have really fond memories of that no-budget Hakkenden OVA from 1990 but I haven’t seen it in a while.
In no order.
Corey in the House, Nichijou, FMA Brotherhood, JOJOS BIZARRE ADVENTURE!!!!!!!!! Trigun, Bebop
Texhnolyze (maybe took awhile but was hooked by the 6th episode.) One Piece, Kinos Journey. Afro Samurai.
Off the top of my head I’d go with those.
and uh Eva is just pure trash I will never understand, but having only seen the marketing for the remake movies
at least it was trying to be something beyond a cash grab.
Please do not take my Eva hate too seriously, I do hate it but its also partially played up for kicks cause Im trash.
That’s easy. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. I loved the original series too but brotherhood ends much much better.
Evangelion was my first back to back anime as well. Saw a few episodes on adult swim when I was a kid. Saved up some money and went and got the boxset from EB games that I had my eye on for weeks. The intro still gives me that nostalgic joy every time I hear it :p
Erased, Trigun, Hunter X Hunter, Code Geass. Yeah.
Robotech really jumped me into the genre as a kid but then my teenage years I got into Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, Neon Gen (Of Course!) and Akira. Now I’m 33 and I watch stuff like Space Dandy, Assassination Classroom ect
My first anime was Neon Genesis, and I used to love it but now I can’t stand it. Shinji just gets on my nerves and newer series have done a lot of what Neon does better.
My current favourite series are
1. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan
2. Code Geass
Favourite Movie
1. Sword of the Stranger
I’ve watched heaps more than those that are great but they’re definitely the stand outs
Neon Genesis Evangelion was a pinnacle for sure but I still hold Saint Seiya as an awesome after-school show.
And now I feel old.
Berserk and Hokuto no Ken are my two favourites… but thanks for reminding me of robotech. I remember seeing it as a kid but could never remember the name.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Ranma 1/2, Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (He’s in the Sazabi!), Genocyber.
Nardoo. Bleach. Air master. Attack on titans. Space dandy. Btoom. Hunter x hunter. Initial d. Golgo13.kill la kill. No game no life. Tokyo ghoul. Dead leaf. Fist of the North star. Soul eater. Hellsing. Bakuman. Gants. Edo 808. The list could go on and on. But number 1 is AIR GEAR.
Movies:
Fist of the North Star, Ninja Scroll, Street Fighter: The Animated Movie, Spirited Away
Series:
Teknoman, Samurai Pizza Cats, Love Hina, Berserk
(seriously, there is too many to have just one favourite of all time!)