Anime World Order's Anime
take a look at Anime World Order's MangaMost of what I add to the encyclopedia is things I've seen all of. But some things were just never fully translated into English that I feel obliged to speak about. Again, www.animeworldorder.com and www.otakuusamagazine.com is where I tend to keep my lengthy manifestos these days.
| Seen some▲▼ | Rating▲▼ | Comment▲▼ |
| Cyborg 009 The Cyborg Soldier (TV) | Very good | I watched every episode of this that Cartoon Network aired, even when they moved to like 1:30 AM on Friday night or Saturday night. They never did finish airing it all either, and the uncut DVD release stopped pretty much after the very first one. I enjoyed this quite a bit, though. |
| Musashi (TV) | Masterpiece | I triple dog dare you to find a show with more mindblowing animation than this bad boy. |
| Urusei Yatsura (TV 1981) | Masterpiece | Look. I don't like Rumiko Takahashi. But that's okay, because this anime is quite different from her original manga, much to her dismay. That this became so famous and propelled Rumiko Takahashi to untouchable superstardom strikes me as a crime, because what truly makes this series great (or at least the first 70-80 or so episodes) is the fact that they're largely helmed by Mamoru Oshii, who despite his reputation is actually quite good at handling comedy (mostly). Giving the absolute middle finger to continuity, this actually manages to have some neat unexpectedly lyrical bits in it throughout; Beautiful Dreamer isn't as much of a curveball as you might think. It's sad that people only remember this show because of Lum, who is probably the worst character in the show. She's just a pinup model character design who gets the ball rolling for the premises, but I accept that the show never would have taken off had Oshii taken it upon himself to make her more likable than Takahashi would prefer. If you watched Ranma or Inuyasha before this or Maison Ikkoku, you're probably a lost cause. Sorry. |
Please note that this list is by no means comprehensive. It doesn't reflect all which I've seen or read, and my comments are [relatively] brief. My full thoughts on given titles are generally found within episodes of the Anime World Order podcast (www.animeworldorder.com) or at Otaku USA Magazine (www.otakuusamagazine.com).
| Seen all▲▼ | Rating▲▼ | Comment▲▼ |
| AD Police (OAV) | Good | Substantially more violent and masochistic than Bubblegum Crisis, but I still liked it. I think every episode had someone begging someone else to shoot them so they could feel the bullets tearing through their body, blasting out their brains. This request was generally obliged. |
| Adieu Galaxy Express 999 (movie) | Very good | I know some people like this more than the original movie, but I'm not necessarily one of them. A lot of it is revisiting themes from the first movie, and the Faust angle felt a little rushed. Still, this movie is awesome in its own right. |
| Air Master (TV) | Masterpiece | |
| AKB0048 (TV) | Excellent | |
| AKB0048 next stage (TV) | Excellent | |
| Akira (movie) | Masterpiece | I never owned a copy of the infamous Streamline dub, but now that I have the top-notch DVD rerelease, I wish someone out there would take the video from that and dub in the audio from the Streamline dub somehow. I always watched it in Japanese anyway. Blu-Ray version's coming out soon; I am so there. |
| Angel Cop (OAV) | Masterpiece | Psychic Ivan Drago's wife, a plot by the International Jewish Conspiracy to dump toxic waste in Japan, torture in the name of national security, and the most lovingly detailed woman's head exploding animation ever created. If this is justice, then I'm a banana. |
| Apocalypse Zero (OAV) | Masterpiece (dub & sub) | It takes a student of Kazuo Koike to decide that stuff like Baoh or The Guyver just aren't bloody enough. Ludicrously gory insanity at its comical finest; I am angry and upset that Media Blasters stopped releasing the manga. |
| Arcadia of My Youth (movie) | Masterpiece | If you watch only one Captain Harlock thing in your life, make it this one. There's no continuity between anything Matsumoto does, least of all Harlock, but let's classify this one as the "origin story" anyway. The lesson you will learn from watching this movie is DON'T F-- WITH CAPTAIN HARLOCK. |
| Area 88 (OAV) | Excellent | The first subtitled anime I ever saw. Still holds up after all these years. If you aren't down with the 1970s shojo-esque character designs and melodrama, the detailed fighter jet battle sequences are still awesome. |
| Area 88 (TV) | Good | I'm not a fan of the altered character designs, Takehito Koyasu as Shin Kazama, the pretty bad CG (which is actually an improvement over what aired in Japan!), the fact that ADV changed all the music during the action scenes due to legal rights issues, or the fact that it feels like the first 12 episodes of a 39 episode show. But despite all that, this is actually good stuff. Would I have accepted all of those other things if this show was NOT Area 88 and I wasn't already a fan? Hard to say. |
| Baccano! (TV) | Excellent | My favorite series of 2008. Starts off slightly slow, but despite the disjointed narrative every single thing fits together. This feat could only be accomplished by having planned out the entire series from the start, which I feel is a practice that needs to become standard in anime. The less you know going in, the better: don't read the reviews, the Wikipedia page, the ANN encyclopedia, nothing. |
| BAOH (OAV) | Masterpiece (dub & sub) | BAOH HAS A LASER CANNON! 'Nuff said. |
| Battle Angel (OAV) | Very good | I read the manga long, long before I saw this OAV. As a result, I wasn't as absolutely blown away by it like I would have been if this were one of the first anime I ever saw. It's not a direct adaptation of the manga story, but it gets the violence right. Anything where dogs get gruesomely murdered is A-okay in my book. I hate dogs. I hate dogs so much. |
| Belladonna of Sadness (movie) | Weak | Of all the Animerama films that put Mushi Productions out of business, this one is the least enjoyable. The art style is decidedly French-looking, but most of the movie is practically a series of still frames. The only memorable parts are the 3 minutes or so worth of "submitting to the Devil" montages that are the "arthouse erotica" equivalent of the videotaped distress signal from Event Horizon. I will respect that it got made, but I don't personally enjoy it. |
| (The) Big O (TV) | Good (dub & sub) | What I like about Big O is its sense of style. I like the characters, the music, the standalone episodes. What I don't find myself caring about is the "big mystery"; the overarching plot that dominates so much of the second season. Chiaki Konaka burned me several times during the mid-90s, and while this wasn't the worst offender I will never, ever, EVER allow it to happen again because now I know better than to have faith in him to tell a story with an adequate resolution. As the librarians say, hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. |
| Black Jack (OAV) | Excellent | Dezaki/Sugino's take on Tezuka's mercenary doctor is a lot less cartoony than the original, but I like it a lot. As a kid I used to watch The Operation on The Learning Channel, which was televised surgery. Modern-day TLC literally doesn't have the guts (haw haw haw) to do that, but this anime features pretty graphic surgery scenes that are rather authentic. The dub, produced by Tezuka Productions themselves, is one of the single best anime dubs there's ever been. |
| Bubblegum Crisis (OAV) | Excellent | This was unquestionably THE hot, big deal anime title when I first started off. As such, it was one of the first things I ever saw. It remains one of the most unique productions in anime despite the fact that the story, characters, and setting are largely derivative of other works. I rewatched it recently, and still like it just as much now as I did then. Nostalgia doesn't always keep things that way. |
| Crystal Triangle (OAV) | Masterpiece | One of the single most insane plots like, ever. Words fail to do justice to how dangerously outlandish every single thing in this anime is. Just remember: this story is a work of fiction. |
| Cyber City Oedo 808 (OAV) | Masterpiece | The best Yoshiaki Kawajiri action piece is also the one with zero rape or attempted rape. Funny how that works. Though more important to the equation would be the monofilament wires and the cyborg saber toothed tigers that spit laser beams. |
| (The) Dagger of Kamui (movie) | Excellent | One of the earliest anime I ever saw and quite possibly my favorite Rintaro film. As is standard with Rintaro work, I barely know ANYBODY who agrees with me on this movie. I'm a sucker for REAL ninja anime (as opposed to the more commonplace "I'm a deformed mutant but they say I'm a ninja" ninja), and the fact that they travel the world and meet all sorts of historical figures combined with the incredibly unique look and sound really made an impression on me. I will grant that certain portions, particularly near the end, feel a bit rushed. But dude. NINJA. |
| Demon City Shinjuku (OAV) | Very good | I always liked this one more than Wicked City. Rape count = 0, there's more action, and the action we do get is of a dude beating the bad guys with A FREAKING STICK. |
| Dirty Pair: Project Eden (movie) | Very good | I don't have any emotional attachment to Dirty Pair. It is--to use a Bruce Lewis-ism--cheap, disposable entertainment. But of all the Dirty Pair anime, this one is easily the best. Awesome animation, great soundtrack ("WATTSMANNNN!") and one of the best opening credits sequences in anime thanks to (who else?) Koji Morimoto. The director of this later went on to make a whole bunch of garbage from Bee Train (a redundant statement since Bee Train has never made anything good ever) trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle. It's never happened since. |
| Dog Soldier: Shadows of the Past (OAV) | Masterpiece | Phantom is a death merchant! He's a merchant of death that cares only about money! Let me remind you of this 5 more times. Completely ludicrous story about Not Rambo fighting to stop the cure for AIDS from being used as a weapon. The manga is a thousand times more insane. Bless your heart, Tetsuya Saruwatari. |
| El-Hazard: The Magnificent World (OAV) | Good | The first series I ever saw where I actually liked the dub. In fact, I prefer the dub over the Japanese, which is not something I'd say often. Series itself is pretty basic, generic fare looking back on it, though the animation is still good. The TV series and various sequels were never really as good, which is a shame because I always wanted to know what happened to Makoto afterwards such that he traveled through time to appear at that moment in the end. That we never really got an actual good answer was a step down the path of anime bitterness. |
| Ergo Proxy (TV) | Not really good | This show would have been far better if Re-l was the main character (she's not despite all the promotional artwork) and the show focused more on her shotgun-toting adventures instead of Pino and Vincent. Also, if far less of the show centered around the city of Romdeau and its evil rulers. Oh wait, that's 75% of the show. Q Q-Q-Q! |
| Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato (movie) | Masterpiece | If I had to pick ONE thing from Yamato as the best of the bunch, this would be it. Originally meant to be the grand finale, it later got retconned out of existence in favor of Season 2 of the TV series. The mania for this was before my time, but this is the series upon which anime fandom was built. I didn't grow up with it. I have no childhood nostalgia towards it. But it's still awesome in its own right. |
| Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (movie) | Bad | http://animehell.forumco.com/topic~TOPIC_ID~88.asp for why |
| Fist of the North Star (TV) | Masterpiece | The one that set the template--both in terms of pacing as well as character archetypes--for pretty much every shonen action series which followed. Gets tremendously little respect among English speaking fans since we didn't grow up with it like the rest of world, plus the releases were continually mismanaged and/or incomplete. The fact that the TV series is notoriously low budget and the blood is changed from red to white, in addition to the fact that there's a lot of awful, awful filler front-loaded at the start of the series makes it among the hardest of hard sells. But its place in history and influence cannot be denied, and I stand by the top rating. |
| Fist of the North Star (movie) | Bad (edit.dub), Masterpiece (sub) | |
| Fist of the North Star - Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Death in Love (movie) | Masterpiece | |
| Fist of the North Star - Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Fierce Fighting (movie) | Masterpiece | |
| Fist of the North Star 2 (TV) | Good | This one is also a template for shonen action, but perhaps not in the way we'd like. After the story and everything was resolved in the first series, the Shonen Jump Powers That Be declared that The Show Must Go On, forcing the original creators to scramble together to create an all-new conflict with all-new foes. But in the ever-escalating shonen action series arms race, how do you freaking top a villain like Raoh? You...uh...make a guy exactly like Raoh. And have everyone start firing power beams and using ki attacks. It's got its share of memorable characters, scenes, and a heck of a theme song, but it's ultimately rather superfluous. Even the original creators don't really remember what happened in this one all that much. |
| Fist of the North Star: Legend of Toki (OAV) | Masterpiece | |
| Fist of the North Star: Legend of Yuria (OAV) | Very good | |
| Flame of Recca (TV) | Decent | Frequently derided as a Yu Yu Hakusho ripoff (with good reason), I liked this one more than YYH. Still, there's no resolution to anything at all since it got cut short, and there are several episodes near the end that wasted way too much time on fights nobody especially cared about. At least the manga all came out, but I never really cared enough to finish reading it. |
| Fullmetal Alchemist (TV) | Good | I like this series. It's solidly done. It's certainly above average. But it's not the single greatest show ever in existence, okay? Please stop saying it is. Nowadays, I receive more hate mail over my holding this opinion than anything else. |
| Galaxy Express 999 (movie) | Excellent | |
| Gall Force - Eternal Story (movie) | So-so | I will not deny the coolness factor of the curving lasers. The action scenes are competently done, in that shiny 1980s style you don't see anymore. I can dig that. But I find myself unable to remember or care one lick about any of the characters--of which there are several--except for two. As yet another anime which takes its storyline from Alien, the plot isn't that engaging either. I know two people who are intense fans of the series, and neither can really put into words exactly what it is about Gall Force that makes them like it as much as they do. I think it must have just been one of those things they saw early on which earns it nostalgia points. And this one's the BEST Gall Force; it only really went downhill from here. |
| Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (TV) | Very good | Easily the best TV series Gonzo has ever made. That said, the visual style is extremely polarizing, and most of the very few people I've encountered who do enjoy the series are fujoshi that are in it for that angle. But it's solidly crafted from start to finish. None of that "3 episodes and it falls apart" like the rest of what Gonzo does. |
| GaoGaiGar: King of the Braves (TV) | Good | The first half is completely forgettable and not all that worthwhile. That's about 24 or so episodes worth, which is longer than most entire anime series these days. But the second half is extremely good. My advice? Just skip to the good part. They'll recap what you missed. |
| Getter Robo: Armageddon (OAV) | Excellent | The first three episodes are crazy awesome action-wise but explain absolutely NOTHING as far as story. It assumes you know about Getter Robo already (at the time I did not), and then after they fired the director, nobody else had a clue where the story was going. As such the next three or four episodes are pretty terrible in their mediocrity. Then Black Getter shows up and everything becomes awesome again. |
| Giant Robo (OAV) | Bad (dub), Masterpiece (sub) | I don't really like rating things beyond "like" and "didn't like," but if you asked me to name the best anime ever / my personal favorite, Giant Robo is one of a few answers I'd be likely to give. Another one where at least one person had the decency to sit down and have the entire series planned out in their head before they even started making episode 1. In fact, this is just the middle of the story; we never did get to see what led up to it or the big final battle afterwards. Imagine if the only Star Wars ever made was The Empire Strikes Back. That's Giant Robo. |
| (The) Girl Who Leapt Through Time (movie) | Very good | |
| Godannar (TV) | Very good | The fanservice is all anyone really notices in this series because let's face it, it's impossible to avoid or ignore. But this is actually also a very good retro-themed super robot series (is there any other kind of super robot series?) despite that. I watched this expecting it to be utter and dreadful torture and it turned out to be great stuff. |
| Golgo 13 (TV) | Excellent | Of the relatively little Golgo 13 anime there is (one OAV, one movie, one TV show), this is the most authentic to the manga. Indeed, the stories are adapted from existing manga stories, so the level of "Duke is awesome" concentration isn't quite as high as say, the movie. The animation isn't quite as impressive as the previous efforts, but it's still great to see anime being made that isn't for young kids or otaku. |
| Golgo 13: The Professional (movie) | Masterpiece | The ultimate distilled core of Golgo 13, simplified down to "Duke Togo is freaking awesome." Great CG helicopter or greatest CG helicopter? This movie is just as rad now as it was 20 years ago, and 20 years from now I guarantee you it will still hold up. Especially the stop-motion skeleton firing the revolver. |
| Gunbuster (OAV) | Decent | Some say that no single OAV encapsulates the spirit/state of 1980s anime more than the original Gunbuster, and that just might be true because this is commonly cited as one of the single greatest Gainax works ever made. Personally, I think Macross: DYRL deserves that distinction. That said, while this totally gut-punched me when I watched it when I was 14 (especially the ending), I don't think I really like Gunbuster. I only really like episode 5. That's the episode where the Gunbuster actually gets to show up for more than a scene or two and actually fight. People often praise Gunbuster for combining the 1970s shojo sports anime sensibilities with super robots, but I honestly only see that in episode 1. Animation's awesome, sure, but I fail to see the big deal anymore. It's the first thing I think of when I think of the Gainax spirit of the 1980s, though. Back when I had faith in them to do good. Those days are long gone. |
| Gunsmith Cats (OAV) | Good | |
| Hajime no Ippo (TV) | Excellent | One of the best bona-fide sports anime series ever made, it's a crying shame that this failed to be popular in America. I blame it on the release style; nobody wants to commit to buying 15 DVDs at $30 a shot! Yes it's long, and yes there's a lot of male nudity played up for comic effect. But don't you see, that's precisely what keeps [most of] the fujoshi away! Modern sports anime has been catering to fujoshi at the expense of pretty much everyone else ever since Captain Tsubasa, but Hajime no Ippo keeps to the real, true sports anime formula that is quite similar to that of shonen action/adventure (which is also catering to fujoshi these last 20 years). I have less than zero interest in actual boxing, but this show is one of my all-time favorites. |
| Ippatsu Kiki Musume (TV) | Masterpiece | I'm still mad that nobody ever licensed this and released it all on one DVD, since the episodes are so short that they'd all fill about an hour's worth of time. Still hilarious after all these years. I regret they didn't make more, but there's only so much science the human brain can take. |
| JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (OAV) | Excellent | |
| Kaiji (TV) | Very good | |
| Kimagure Orange Road (TV) | Worst ever | You want to see where all this harem garbage REALLY started? Not Tenchi Muyo, not Ranma 1/2, right here baby. Don't give me that "it's only two girls, that's not a harem" crap, because the concept is what started here. "Wishy-washy personality void hero has girls fawning over him just because." One of the single most beloved shows of its time, I always despised it. The supporting cast is actually quite good, but the main three dominate the show so much that you can't ignore them. I think I like the movie because it's all about those immensely unlikeable characters spending most of the time in despair. Too bad they made Shin KOR to show that they all got better afterwards. Whatever; the intensity of my hatred for Kimagure Orange Road is boundless and without limit. Sorry, Mr. Callahan. Not Urusei Yatsura (which despite coming before is the anti-harem show because of the protagonist and the character's reactions to same). |
| Legend of Crystania - The Motion Picture | Awful | |
| (The) Legend of the Galactic Heroes (OAV) | Excellent | Probably the best series ever if you can stand to watch it, and most people can't. There's no easy way to hook people on it since it's very dry material (as Ishiguro directed titles often are) that's very dialogue-heavy. Additionally, none of the standalone movies or the first two episodes really show what makes this one of the best series of all because they're just space battles. The real meat of this series starts around the third or fourth episode and by then most people have moved on. |
| Lensman (movie) | Awful | Way to take a book that inspired Star Wars and retool it into a Star Wars ripoff. At least Kawajiri owns up to having no freaking idea what he was doing at the time. Funny story: despite the fact that I only know two people who like this piece of garbage, both of those people also like Harmagedon. Which nobody on the planet likes other than those two people. |
| Lupin III: Dead or Alive (movie) | Good | You're in the cool club if you answer "yes" to the question "wasn't it the best thing ever when Lupin threw that knife at the bullet to cause the bullet to fire?" If you think that was dumb, you're not in the cool club. Also, that dude had the freaking Predator blades. |
| Lupin III: Dragon of Doom (special) | Decent | All anyone remembers from this is how they looped the exact same sequence three times at the end because it turned out that Goemon had to perform the exact same action thrice. But this one actually has a good bit of awesome fights as well. |
| Lupin III: Episode 0 'First Contact' (special) | Excellent | Hands-down the best Lupin the Third special in recent years, which is why it's annoying that nobody released it in the US. Guess Lupin just doesn't sell. Until First Contact, they were actually on a streak of really good ones, with this being the best. It was all downhill from this point on because everything started venturing towards the crazy sci-fi elements. Whenever Lupin stories go this route, it's never good. |
| Lupin III: Island of Assassins (special) | Very good | Man, people really hate this one for being so somber, Zenigata scenes aside. But I dug this one since something about it makes me inclined to say it's the most "Cowboy Bebop" like of the recent Lupin specials. I can understand the hate over the ending since they don't exactly resolve the immediate conflict, but I guess we all ultimately know they'll figure it out because they always do. |
| Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (movie) | Excellent | Sorry, but there's no way I can call this the best Lupin the Third movie. It's a really good movie, but it's a Hayao Miyazaki movie first and a Lupin the Third story afterwards. Miyazaki's work on Lupin Series 1 and those two episodes of Series 2 are still recognizably Lupin, but this is a bit too clean, too soft. I tell myself that the original Time Crisis videogame was heavily influenced by this movie. The makers of one of my all-time favorites, the Thief games, admit straight up that this was a big influence. I like the acting in the Streamline dub version better than the Manga dub, but the script is terribly inaccurate. Not that it matters much, since I stick to the subtitled version. |
| Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy (movie) | Excellent | One of my favorites despite the fact that the voice cast is entirely different. Luckily I like all the replacement actors quite a bit. Awesome fights (with ninja!), chases, and animation. The car chase in Cagliostro is the one that gets all the acclaim, but I like this one even more. |
| Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo (movie) | Of all the Lupin the Third theatrical pieces, this one feels the most "genuine," which is odd considering Monkey Punch's involvement level in Dead or Alive. TMS likes to screw around with altering the prints, so unfortunately the Geneon rerelease has some stuff blurred out so they don't get sued over copyrights (same thing happened with Golgo 13), but it's still the one to get. Man, I have the Streamline dub, the Geneon dub, and thanks to the Italian DVD release, the much-sought after JAL International dub which old-timers cite as the best one. | |
| Macross Plus (OAV) | Excellent | |
| Mad Bull 34 (OAV) | Masterpiece | Kazuo Koike's completely accurate and authentically depicted adventures of a NYC crossdressing cop with a .45 in his quest to keep the streets safe from cyborgs, tanks, explosive coffee cans, the Predator, and--in the manga--kittens with shotguns strapped to their backs. |
| Metropolis (movie) | Excellent | |
| Millennium Actress (movie) | Masterpiece | |
| Mobile Fighter G Gundam (TV) | Masterpiece | Combining the overall thematic beats of the original Gundam with the conventions of Hong Kong action fantasy, you either love it or hate it. All the bad press this gets for having silly mecha designs strikes me as overblown; while it's true that there are some intentionally comical robots, they're only on screen for a few minutes before being blown up and never seen again. If this series had not succeeded, the viability of the Gundam franchise would have died out in the 1990s because it showed that Gundam could succeed despite being SO superficially different. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam - The Movie Trilogy | Excellent | |
| Mobile Suit Gundam Seed (TV) | Good | |
| Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny (TV) | Weak | |
| Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (OAV) | Good | I'm not a huge fan of Wing--only fujoshi still care about it--but this OAV has all the things I like about it and less of the things I hate. 3 parts long without any attempting to slavishly mirror Universal Century events along a super-compressed timeline or go-nowhere speeches about pacifism. I really like the mecha designs of this one. Miniguns. Lots of miniguns. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (movie) | Masterpiece | The first fansub I ever saw. Also the first Gundam I ever saw, which is funny since this is the end of Gundam and I knew full well at the time it was the end of Gundam. But I watched it first anyway. I disagree with everyone (which is two people I know) who thinks Char was acting out of character here given his actions in Zeta Gundam; the Char of Zeta Gundam would absolutely do what he's doing for the sake of humanity's advancement. The Sazabi and Nu Gundam remain to this day some of my favorite mecha designs ever. |
| Mushi-Shi (TV) | Good | |
| Nadia - The Secret of Blue Water (TV) | Good | Some of the best anime ever right alongside some of the absolute worst anime ever. I really never liked Nadia as a heroine and don't see why she's remembered so fondly. Still, despite the ups and downs it ends pretty strongly. After Evangelion came out and Anno noted he was a manic depressive, the world made a little more sense because everything that guy does fluctuates immensely in quality. This is no exception. |
| New Fist of the North Star (OAV) | Masterpiece | |
| New Getter Robo (OAV) | Excellent | |
| Night on the Galactic Railroad (movie) | Masterpiece | |
| Patlabor 2: The Movie (movie 2) | Masterpiece | |
| Patlabor the Mobile Police (TV) | Excellent | |
| Patlabor The Mobile Police (OAV 1/1988) | Excellent | |
| Patlabor the Mobile Police: The New Files (OAV 2/1990) | Excellent | |
| Patlabor: The Movie (movie 1) | Masterpiece | |
| Phoenix (TV) | Masterpiece | Animated adaptations of the Tezuka Phoenix chapters that weren't previously adapted as OAVs back in the 1980s. The violence level is noticeably diminished and a lot of material had to be omitted during the transition from print to screen, so I do still recommend you read the manga. But the anime's visuals are top-rate. Too bad everyone takes one look at those Tezuka character designs and opts to not bother. |
| Queen Millennia Movie | Masterpiece | |
| Requiem from the Darkness (TV) | Very good (dub & sub) | |
| Revolutionary Girl Utena (TV) | Very good | |
| Riding Bean (OAV) | Masterpiece | |
| Ringing Bell (movie) | Very good | Probably my favorite of the Sanrio movies. Often cited as a myth, a legend: "hey man, did you know the makers of Hello Kitty made this disturbing cartoon about this sheep who turns all crazy and evil?" But it's real, it's great, and it's the kind of thing I think kids need to be exposed to more in entertainment. Even though this is generally classified as "nightmare fuel" right alongside Watership Down and Plague Dogs. |
| Robot Carnival (OAV) | Masterpiece | One of my go-to titles I show people who are new to anime. An anthology collection of shorts, it really shows the amount of range anime has to offer. I don't really like the Cloud segment, but I do think people should see it...once. Star Light Angel was and remains my runaway favorite segment of the bunch, though Presence fooled me for years into falsely thinking Yasuomi Umetsu was cool. This never got a legitimate US DVD release. I want it in high definition. |
| (The) Rose of Versailles (TV) | Masterpiece | |
| Royal Space Force - The Wings of Honnêamise (movie) | Very good | |
| Rurouni Kenshin (TV 1996) | Good | |
| Rurouni Kenshin: The Motion Picture | Good | |
| Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal (OAV) | Very good | |
| Sea Prince and the Fire Child (movie) | Very good | |
| Shadow Skill (OAV) | Good | |
| Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo (OAV) | Masterpiece | |
| Shootfighter Tekken (OAV) | Good | |
| Slayers Excellent (OAV) | Good | |
| Slayers: The Book of Spells (OAV) | Good | |
| Space Pirate Captain Harlock (TV) | Excellent | |
| (The) Super Dimension Fortress Macross (TV) | Very good | |
| (The) Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (movie) | Masterpiece | Sorry Gunbuster, but no single anime title best captures the spirit of 1980s anime more so than this movie. The fact that we still can't get a DVD or Blu-Ray release of it in the US is one of the great crimes against fandom and proof positive that Robotech/Harmony Gold has long outlived its usefulness. |
| Tekkaman Blade (TV) | Good | |
| Toward the Terra (movie) | Good | |
| (The) Twelve Kingdoms (TV) | Very good | |
| Undersea Super Train: Marine Express (movie) | Very good | |
| Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer (movie 2) | Masterpiece | |
| Urusei Yatsura: Lum The Forever (movie 4) | Good | |
| Vampire Hunter D (OAV) | Excellent | |
| Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (movie) | Excellent | |
| Violence Jack (OAV) | Masterpiece | We meet again...CAPTAIN BUTTWIPE! |
| Violence Jack 2 (OAV) | Masterpiece | |
| Violence Jack 3 (OAV) | Masterpiece | GODDAMMIT WHERE THE HELL IS JACK?! FUCKING CHICKENSHIT...FUCKIN' FUCKIN' SHIT FUCKIN' SHIT...HOLY SHIT THE BASTARD'S HERE |
| Violinist of Hamelin (TV) | Excellent | |
| Wicked City (movie) | Good | |
| A Wind Named Amnesia (movie) | Very good | |
| You're Under Arrest (OAV) | Decent | |
| You're Under Arrest: The Motion Picture | Good | |
| Yukikaze (OAV) | Bad |