Anime for people who Despise Anime

Okay, kind of a strange thing going on with me right now. I really like the anime art, I love how everything is drawn and I love the animation. I would love to read some good manga right now, or watch some good Anime, but everytime I do, I end up hating it… for the following reason:

Last night I flipped the channel to Cartoon Network to watch Adult Swim a bit while I ate my cereal before going to sleep. The show that was on looked pretty good at first. It was called "Bring back my Ghost" or something like that. Started off being about some kind of detective guy in a mansion that reminded me of Bruce Wayne (Batman) sort of. He goes to this old womans house and she hires him to look for her son that was supposedly killed in a riot a few years ago, but his body was never found. I really got into the story and was enjoying it…. UNTIL…. giant robots come out of the water and start shooting lasers at eachother. Why do these Japanese people ruin good storys and good art by always making them about giant robots, or little cutsy talking animals.

I fucking hate giant robots. I fucking hate talking animals. I want to watch a good Anime without giant robots, and without talking animals. Any recommendations. Keep in mind that I like Scifi and Fantasy mainly.

Fantasy? You can go for the good old classic Record of Lodoss War. This one is so classic with its dwarves and elfves and dark elves and dragons, it’s actually too classic for my taste. Avoid Escaflowne. That’s good fantasy, too, but you won’t like the giant robots. :p

Well, I am unfamiliar with what’s on your TV… and for time-related reasons I can impossibly list every anime or manga that does not feature talking animals or mechas. There are tons of them, and if you inform yourself on one of the many anime websites… you shouldn’t have to worry.

If you like Sci-fi, try Crest of the Stars. It’s a nice futuristic war story, but it’s quite free of mecha. There’s high speed dogfights in space, but no robots.

Originally posted by Khyros
If you like Sci-fi, try Crest of the Stars. It’s a nice futuristic war story, but it’s quite free of mecha. There’s high speed dogfights in space, but no robots.

ooohhh I think i’ve seen that one on TechTV at night one time. I’ll check it out a bit more, I think it looked pretty good.

Yea, they showed it on Tech TV, that’s where I saw it, but I don’t think they showed the whole thing, because it cut off in mid plot =/

Tokyopop seems to have licensed the manga, so in any case you will get it in one way or another… o_o

Originally posted by Misao
Fantasy? You can go for the good old classic Record of Lodoss War. This one is so classic with its dwarves and elfves and dark elves and dragons, it’s actually too classic for my taste. Avoid Escaflowne. That’s good fantasy, too, but you won’t like the giant robots. :p

Drats, she beat me to it. Yeah, Lodoss’s my favorite. I also like martial arts and weapon-fighting anime. So anything Street Fighter or classics like Ninja Scroll and Princess Mononoke.

And I LOVE Giant Robots. Transformers are cool. 🙂 I like Optimus Prime ( which Transformers fan does NOT ? lol ) and Hot Rod because he simply rocks in the movie. 🙂

Loki, the anime you saw on Cartoon Network was an episode of Big O. It’s a pretty good anime, but if you don’t like giant robots, you’ll want to avoid that one. The plot is great, but theres no way around the giant robots in that one.

Berserk is a dark fantasy anime, I think you’ll like that one. Takes place during the medival times, pretty violent, it has a good story and good characters.

Trigun is great, a blend of sci-fi and good ol’ western action. A lot of comedy is thrown in as well, the whole series plays out very well.

Cowboy Bebop
Inuyasha
Rurouni Kenshin
Outlaw Star

I went out and bought a Trigun manga today. I also rented Spirited Away because I heard a lot of people say it was good. I was looking around at the movie rental place and couldn’t find any good looking gory movies, so I went for the little kiddy looking one. Cowboy Bebop looked a bit strange for me, but I might check it out. I think I might check out Loddoss War, or Rerouni Kenshin next, as I have heard many good things about the both of them.

EDIT: Not too impressed by the Trigun manga so far…

Loki I really think you might like Grave Of The Fireflies anime. It is based more around real life events during a war (Forgot which one) where the Japanese got bombed a lot. It’s really just about how a boy coped with having to look after his little sister after the death of his parents. Quite sad but a great anime.

If you want more action then Jin-Roh is good. Based again during a war but this time in the not so distant future and isn?t quite as dramatic as grave Of The Fireflies. Based more around action this time.

Both are great animes that I would recommend to anyone.

during a war (Forgot which one)
World War II.

@Loki
If you want to try Rurouni Kenshin, I recommend you to avoid the TV series and check out the first OVA, which is called something like Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal. It’s a wonderful stand-alone. 🙂

And I agree about the Trigun manga. The anime is better, especially the later scenes. See the Trigun thread.

So anything Street Fighter or classics like Ninja Scroll and Princess Mononoke.

Princess Mononoke has talking animals 😛

Well, o_O
Vampire Hunter D is a great movie without the mechs and talking animals.
Fushigi Yuugi is awesome, I strongly recommend it.

and my mind is going too slow for more right now sowwy 🙂

I don’t think Loki will like Fushigi Yuugi. It has stereotypical characters (at least Miaka and Tamahome, really), a terribly cheesy love story and features two weird phenomenons:
– everybody loves Miaka
– everyone almost rapes Miaka
Oh, it was quite good in the beginning, but later it just pissed me off…

Originally posted by Quistis-chan

Princess Mononoke has talking animals 😛

Hahaha, no matter. It’s just another thing that got added in it, really.

Princess Mononoke has a different kind of talking animals than the kind Loki dislikes.
He dislikes "little cutsy talking animals". Now I ask you, was this boar in any way little, or cute?

Trigun isn’t all that good. Its not surprising that you didn’t like it.

Hmm… try Vagabond.

Also, Akira, which should be obligatory.

I thought FY was pretty awful at the beginning, too. Except for how the author used to write little notes to the readers, I liked that.

And yes, Akira is a must. <3

Akira might be too confusing and weird for him though. Really need to get into the Manga to fully understand it. But it is a great anime. One of the best even today.

I was talking about the comic.

Though I’ll add that the movie isn’t confusing.

Yeah, it just flat out doesn’t make any sense.

And man, I don’t know what the hell is up with everyone liking Record of Lodoss War so much. I tried watching that shit, and it was so unbelievably cliche it made me want to puke.

Yeah, it just flat out doesn’t make any sense.

Yes it does. Perfect sense. From beginning to end.

Watch it again?

How can it make sense? I mean, it’s a 6 volume manga in a 3 hour movie. They left stuff out, didn’t they? I haven’t read the manga so I don’t know for sure, but I know that when I was watching Akira, things happened and I was constantly wondering where the hell they had come from. It was exactly like watching the Armitage movie (you probably know already, but for the benefit of anyone reading this who doesn’t, that was a TV series in Japan and for the American release they just cut segments out of the series and pasted them together into a movie, creating a horribly choppy and hole-filled mess.)

Are you sure it isn’t just that you read the manga first, and already understood the plot, so it was easy to understand the movie?

Pretty sure. Its an entire retelling of the story pretty much. Not really cutting things out but keeping the same basic plot(so that it would come out seeming empty like the Please Save My Earth movie or something) and telling the story in a way that would make sense in the 2 hour time frame of a movie.

Seriously. I saw it again pretty recently and it made perfect sense all the way through, but its too different from the comic for reading the comic to have been why, plus I read most of the comic in the early 90s(Just after I first saw the movie, and before I had a second viewing, I think). I think I was trying to make connections between the two when I used to watch it. Wondering why the super important LAdy Miyako was just some rambling nut on the street instead of looking at it as a story where Miyako is just a nut on the street. Things like that.

Well, I guess I’ll try the damn thing again, though the first time it was torture to watch.

What about Samurai Deeper Kyo? :O

It’s not an entire re-telling of the story! The anime only gets about half as far as the manga. :/ And the anime wasn’t that great. Just get the manga. It’s sort of on the expensive side (for me, well, I have no money…) but it’s great. So yeah, they do tell it differently… I just think the manga makes a lot more sense, or is at least easier to follow.

Originally posted by TK
Yeah, it just flat out doesn’t make any sense.

And man, I don’t know what the hell is up with everyone liking Record of Lodoss War so much. I tried watching that shit, and it was so unbelievably cliche it made me want to puke.

"Cliche" ? But what did you expect exactly ? And what exactly is "cliche" in it ?

If you consider this was created from a D&D game that became a novel and then an anime series, there was bound to be what there is in there.

Oh, unless you’re not exactly into that kind of thing. Which is understandable.

It wasn’t created from D&D, was it?

Anyway… it IS full of clich�s.
The group:
A hero
An elf girl, who becomes his girlfriend
A dwarf, that argues with the elf girl every now and then
THE DWARF’s NAME IS GIM!
A wizard
A thief
A priest

Actually, there’s a lot that I do not like about the various Lodoss stories. It’s far from perfect. But it’s the most classic fantasy story I can think of now.

Originally posted by Misao
It wasn’t created from D&D, was it?

You bet it was.

Actually…

It first started as an expansion of a D&D-like game called "Sword of Lodoss" or something like that. Then, it became the novels by Ryo Mizuno and the the OAV and TV series came from the novels.

And about the cliches you said…so what ? That’s what I said. What did you expect from a Classic Fantasy story ? That’s like complaining a Final Fantasy has oh-so many cliches like a chocobo in it. Or complaining about robots in a sci-fi movie. Sure, originality’s good in a while but when you’re telling some kind of Fantasy story some things are bound to come back.

And, really, why is the group itself bothering you ? Let’s see what exactly you said :

A hero…well, duh ! You need one. It just so happens to be a human fighter. Big deal. Could’ve have been a dwarf for all I care.

An elf girl that falls in love with the hero…Ah, now I see. You’re referring to Arwen here. Great, now every time there’s an elf girl that falls in love with the hero it’s copying Tolkien. Sure, right. But as far as I know, Deedlit served a far better purpose than being the hero’s love interest which, by the way, isn’t all that obvious like some other love stories. Parn and Deedlit aren’t all that lovey-doey on each other. Deedlit actually was useful to the party. Arwen helped save Frodo ONCE in the movies and god knows what she was used for in the books because I’ve heard her role was greatly expanded. Comparing Arwen and Deedlit is comparing oranges and apples.

A dwarf that argues with the elf ? Look. Dwarves argue with elves as much as 2+2=4. In fact, what surprised me is that there ONLY is Ghim and Deedlit who argue with each other. Greevus and Leaf don’t ever argue with each other. Leaf actually argues with Garrack.

Oh, look, the dwarf’s name is Ghim. That’s copying Ghimli ! Wow, that also means that every time there is a German girl named "Anna" you’re going to sue them for copying your name ? Please…I thought you knew better, Misao.

BTW, there is Mithril in Final Fantasy. It’s copying Tolkien and therefore cliche so Final Fantasy is bad. Just joking. But you see my point, don’t you ?

A wizard, an thief and a priest…Well, I don’t ever recall a D&D party based only on wizards that actually succeeded. Same thing in a FF. Oh, you could have done without a thief but not without Woodchuck’s personnality. He adds humor to the story. Anyway, since it IS based on a D&D-like game it only makes sense there are so many diverse characters.

Finally, I thought you’d knew better than look down on something you don’t really know anything about. You haven’t even seen the TV series, just the OAV, right ? I already told you. The story is actually better after you’ve watched both and patched the things that were rushed in the OAV.

The lesson for today is : One shouldn’t judge a movie or story you haven’t entirely seen.

Oh well. That’s just my opinion though.

Hey, don’t get so angry…

And by the way, I was not comparing Deetlit to Arwen. Never, the thought never even crossed my mind. In the books, Arwen was not more than a nice decoration standing around in Rivendell. YOU did this comparison, not me.
But you cannot disagree that it IS clich�. Tolkien is clich�, too, probably even more so…
Like you mentioned, a group only consisting of wizards and priests is unheard of. but it would be fun to have one.

I’m not going to write anymore, so I probably missed a lot of things in your posts. Just concerning a certain dwarf. So you are saying that when an author chooses the first half of fantasy literature’s most famous dwarf as a name for his own dwarf… you say this is a coincidence?

Originally posted by Misao
Hey, don’t get so angry…

And by the way, I was not comparing Deetlit to Arwen. Never, the thought never even crossed my mind. In the books, Arwen was not more than a nice decoration standing around in Rivendell. YOU did this comparison, not me.
But you cannot disagree that it IS clich�. Tolkien is clich�, too, probably even more so…
Like you mentioned, a group only consisting of wizards and priests is unheard of. but it would be fun to have one.

I’m not going to write anymore, so I probably missed a lot of things in your posts. Just concerning a certain dwarf. So you are saying that when an author chooses the first half of fantasy literature’s most famous dwarf as a name for his own dwarf… you say this is a coincidence?

No,no,no. I wasn’t getting angry. Just answering to what you said. Gee, why the hell people say "I" am getting angry when some others reply with much more harshness than I do ? :p Get off my back a bit, guys.

I compared Arwen to Deedlit because I fail to see where else you’d find an "elf girl falling in love with the hero" a cliche. The falling in love part I understand, not the elf one.

Hahaha, and of course this isn’t simply a coincidence regarding Ghim’s name. YOU said that I think that, not ME. 😉 But what’s bad with taking some ideas ? Final Fantasy does have Mithril and that sure is no coincidence. Tolkien’s succession doesn’t exactly have that good of a copyright. As far as I know, Lodoss isn’t Lord of the Rings : The Anime…

I already said it. Just because there is some clich�s you can’t call something bad. You said it yourself : Tolkien is very clich�. Yet his books is considered a masterpiece.

Cowboy Bebop is the first thing I’d probably recommend to anyone who isn’t that into anime. Spriggan would be good too. And of course, there’s the Ninja Scroll movie, which I think you’d love, if you haven’t already seen it.

Record of Lodoss War was a great anime. I think it’s probably one of my favs. As for Akira making sense. Yeah the basic story does but their are a lot of things that no one who didn’t realy the manga could understand. It was just simply too short. like how the hell did Akira ever come about anyway?

It has beena while since I watched the movie though.

Record of Lodoss War was a great anime. I think it’s probably one of my favs. As for Akira making sense. Yeah the basic story does but their are a lot of things that no one who didn’t realy the manga could understand. It was just simply too short. like how the hell did Akira ever come about anyway?

Watch it again. The movie mentions the experiments done on the children and Akira’s role in all of it, while rooting out all of the post apocalyptic drama by drastically changing the climax involving Akira and Tetsuo when Akira is "revealed".

I guess that means I need to rewatch the damn movie. I barely remember the names of Kaneda and Tetsuo :p

It’s not just the fact that Record of Lodoss War is packed with every typical fantasy element in the book (all in their most common manifestations) but mostly the unbelievably boring characters. Every one of them has the quintessential personality for their character type. I watched three episodes and was so bored and disgusted I turned it off. Finding out "what happens next" would have been torture. Really, probably the worst anime I’ve ever seen. I’d rather watch Dragon Ball Z–at least that has some semblence of character development to it.

Originally posted by TK
Really, probably the worst anime I’ve ever seen.

Really, never say that TK. Because it’s always when you say that you can’t find anything worse that you actually do. 😉

Originally posted by Evad D’Aragon
I guess that means I need to rewatch the damn movie. I barely remember the names of Kaneda and Tetsuo :p

I had forgotten their names. Just when you said these I was like "ooo yeah that’s them"

So yeah I need to watch the anime too. Thanks rezo. You have given me something to do, lol. Been running out of anime to watch.

Originally posted by TK
It’s not just the fact that Record of Lodoss War is packed with every typical fantasy element in the book (all in their most common manifestations) but mostly the unbelievably boring characters. Every one of them has the quintessential personality for their character type. I watched three episodes and was so bored and disgusted I turned it off. Finding out "what happens next" would have been torture. Really, probably the worst anime I’ve ever seen. I’d rather watch Dragon Ball Z–at least that has some semblence of character development to it.

Oh, come on, Orson is a great character. And he’s definately not what I would expect a beserker to be like.

Orson in the TV series is interesting. He got botched in the OAV.

Already been said, but Cowboy Bebop. It’s pretty much the best way to begin anime, because it’s less cheesy than a lot of it.

I’d recommend Full Metal Panic as well, even though it has giant robots. Or at least to watch a couple episodes. It’s amazingly animated, the plot is interesting, and the characters are all perfect. And the robots don’t dominate the storyline.

Originally posted by Ndi

Oh, come on, Orson is a great character. And he’s definately not what I would expect a beserker to be like.

Well I don’t remember now. Was he the main warrior guy? That guy made me mad.