What's your favourite Anime/Manga?

What a choice! First you’ve got real tearjerkers like ‘Grave of the Fireflies’.:( Beautiful production values, a well paced story that kept me hoping through tear filled eyes right up until the end. That has to make the top five.

Then there’s anime like ‘12 Kingdoms’ that create complete new magical worlds for the characters to explore. And ‘Vision of Escaflowne’ which fulfils all my girlish daydreams (which given that I’m a guy is quite embarrassing! )

Berserk kept me guessing. I watched all 25 eps in two days and quickly got swept up in the epic character development, forgetting important plot points until they became vital at the very end. Each and every character is developed – and developed well. Definitely a series that makes you lust for more episode and leaves a lasting impression.

My Neighbour Tottoro instantly made me nostalgic for a childhood that bore little resemblance to my own and I was eerily aware that I was not only watching the movie from a distant, sarcastic viewpoint, but a large part of me was being won over by it’s sweetness and I enjoyed it on a very childish – dare I say innocent – level.:rolleyes:

Perfect Blue – I first saw the English dub, TV edit of this movie and I was blown away by how effective anime was in portraying the main character’s sense of confusion. (One thing to note, however, when I got the DVD version, a lot of the cuts were in different places and, while still very good, lots of the suspense just isn’t present). A violent slasher a cut above the rest!

Cowboy Bebop had some really strong episodes (I’m thinking Episode 5 here) but definitely only the sub version. The dubs ruin it, especially Faye’s character. (I love Faye!!!:p )

Before I go any further off the deep end and star picking apart any more of the hundreds of anime OAVs, shows etc… I’ve seen, I’ll just say that top of my list for many years now has been ‘Serial Experiments Lain’ The version I saw had pretty dodgy subtitles, but the character design was fantastic (ranging from ‘Awww…Lain in her little bear pyjamas’ to ‘Eeeeeek! Lain sitting in front of a huge bank of computer terminals in the dark’). The ending had me thinking for days – not exactly emotional, just pondering the rationality behind the resolution . (Is that vague enough to avoid spoilers?) Then I went reading up on Lain and, wow, apparently the thing is loaded not just with subtext(some of which I got) but with hardcore philosophy. (see http://www.cjas.org/~leng/open.htm) All I can say is sweet! (and that Wired [or Wi-ard-o] is a cool name for the net. )

battle angel