My wife likes anime.

Deadfall

This should be a quick one.

I think my wife would like an anime series for christmas, and I know very little about it. I would like to be enjoy it with her, but I just don't like much anime at all. In fact I pretty much only like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. Granted I haven't watched much, but stuff like Inuyasha, FMA and DBZ drive me crazy (I think it's the voices.)

I've heard good things about FLCL and it's pretty cheap on Amazon. We are going on vacation, which is most of her gift, which is why I'd like to keep this around or less than like thirty bucks, but that's not a requirement. Thanks in advance.

Projeck

If she hasn't already seen it, and hell, even if she has, FLCL is an excellent choice. I'm not too big into anime myself, and I adore it. You should watch it with her! It's short, weird, and a lot of fun.

Deadfall

The description sounds....interesting.

e: Forgot to mention she likes lots of anime; Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Bleach, Inuyasha, FMA off the top of my head. I was leaning to FLCL because it's cheap and looks pretty short.

Vanguard

Could you list some of the series she's into? It's hard to make any recommendation without at least having an idea what her interests are.

FLCL is good, but she may have seen it or she may not be a fan.

Elin

From what your wife likes I'd lean more to getting her Chobits, Excel Saga, Ranma 1/2, or Tenchi Muyo myself. Chobits is a love story between a man and his robot, Excel is a love story between a woman and her evil overlord, Ranma and Tenchi are harem comedies (common in anime, many women vie for the attention of the clueless lead male.)

*Disclaimer, I may be biased because I really disliked FLCL.

Skoal Cat

I've really been enjoying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurren_Lagann

Essee

Skoal Cat wrote:

I've really been enjoying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurren_Lagann

Same, my fiance and I have been watching this recently and are really loving it! It's probably good for just about anybody who likes anime (and even works for somebody who isn't THAT into it, like my fiance is). FLCL is also pretty good, from my friends' recommendations and from what I've seen of it. I'll wrack my brain later and try to think of anything else you could actually pick up on DVD/Blu-ray that I'd recommend (much of the stuff I've seen recently has been from the legit streaming sites like Crunchyroll, where sometimes they've only recently subtitled it and the series is not out in a physical form in English yet). She's already seen a lot of the stuff I know is out on DVDs to recommend. Oh, uhh, considering which ones she's seen, she might have already seen this (I used to watch it on Cartoon Network's Toonami: Midnight Run when I was younger), but Outlaw Star is one of my favorite series of all time. It was on when a lot of the other shows you mentioned were on the air, but it was always my favorite.

Shenl742

Stuff I'd pretty much recommend to anyone:

Baccano
Eden of the East
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
Haibane Renmei
Last Exile
Le Chevalier D'Eon
Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit
Paranoia Agent
Patlabor: The Mobile Police
Rahxephon
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Scrapped Princess
Twelve Kingdoms
Wolf's Rain
Xam'd: Lost Memories

see317

I was just about to suggest Gurren Lagann, but I seem to have been beaten to the punch quite soundly on that one.

Skoal Cat

Which is hysterical, because its one of the only animes I've ever watched.

Deadfall

Writing a few of these down that sound interesting to check out later. Thanks fellas you've given me a lot to investigate.

Gigazombie Cybermage

I second Ranma 1/2, yeah, it's a harem anime, but it's actually good with great characters. Same with Urusei Yatsura, made by the same woman. I really, really love Ranma 1/2, the first season is a bit slow, but after that it takes off.

I mean, the main character turns into a busty red-head when he's doused with cold water. One of his many rivals at school is in love with his female self, he has a very bitchy arranged marriag fiancee, a horrible, horrible father (I almost couldn't believe him in the dragon whisker hair tie episode), and did I mention they're all martial artists? Oh, and he's deathly afraid of cats.

Heatwave

I nominate:

Baccano
Darker than black
K-on
Xam'd
The girl who leapt through time
Ghost in the Shell
Tower of Druaga
Spice and Wolf
Azumanga Daioh

NotYou

5cm per second (if your wife likes romance type stuff, she'll love this. Animation is very pretty)

Look into Miyazaki films.

Redline just came out, (i think). Crazy intergalactic car racing movie.

Beck (about a japanese rock band)

Mushi-shi (the most relaxing laid back show to watch in the world)

Now and then, Here and There (short series, pretty interesting)

Anyways, look at stuff on youtube and see if any of it looks interesting.

Darlan

I know you said series, but nonetheless if you're looking for something you'll enjoy watching with her you really can't go wrong with buying a couple of Studio Ghibli movies. It's a crying shame there isn't some sort of blu-ray collection thing.

Psychotic One

For a good on going series I'd recommend One Piece. Its like Dragon Ball with Pirates who live by one simple rule. The Rule of Cool. One of my favorite series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_C7QM1dI4g

Just ask Franky what he thinks of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvlWP4lQ6m8

If you want something a little more serious I'd recommend Black Lagoon. Voice acting is really good but it gets dark in parts. A bit more of a "man's" anime but good none the less. Other wise I hear Baccano is a more light hearted version of Black Lagoon.

Skeith

Seconding Ghost in the Shell. Also, if it's the first FMA series that she owns, she'd probably enjoy FMA: Brotherhood. It follows the plot of the manga much more closely than the first series.

UrQuanLord88

Going along with the anime you listed:
For films, I'd second the Studio Ghibli films since people have already vouched for them. My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away are pretty popular and feature strong female leads.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Paparika
If you ever get around to watching older films:
The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? - surprisingly emotional for a super robot show

If you are looking specifically for series, Gurren Lagann, FLCL aren't bad choices.
If you can ignore the fandom, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is actually a pretty good series.
Death Note
Does she like magical girls? If so:
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Card Captor Sakura
Sailor Moon

Now most of these are old and generally good, classic stuff. If you are feeling more adventurous, know your wife's taste a little better or want recommendations for yourself, that is another issue all together...

EDIT: Looking at what is on sale on Amazon, your best bet should still be Gurren Lagann, FLCL, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya or one of the Studio Ghibli films. Unless someone wants to chime in on a place (Crunchyroll?) to purchase anime as easily.

Heatwave

UrQuanLord88 wrote:

Does she like magical girls? If so:
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

This show is actually really good once you realize it's actually a Shonen series hidden behind a veil of Shojo. Also, upon further analysis of the series, it becomes a whole lot more awesome. Wouldn't recommend it to new anime watchers though because they might get bored early on.

Page-

It's impossible not to love Azumanga Daioh.

Psychotic One

Page- wrote:

It's impossible not to love Azumanga Daioh.

Its like My Little Pony:FIM for anime fans. You watch it almost ironicly at first and by the end of the series you are making internet memes and wanting to make funny clips or amvs

E.Coyote

Fairy Tail would also be a good choice based on the shows you listed.

Deadfall

Death Note, that's another one she likes.

We watched Spirited Away and Mononoke together a few years ago, I had forgotten about those.

I have seen some Ghost in the Shell, and I've liked what I've seen. I might check some of that out.

Tofystedeth

If you like Cowboy Bebop and your wife likes that plus FMA, I'd recommend Darker Than Black. It's a collaboration between the makers of those two and one of my new favorite series. In style it's much more similar to Bebop, but with some super powers. And it has Bebop's great music.

Also, FLCL is pretty great, but it is very manic, and the story is as you noted, pretty out there. Parts of it basically parody anime tropes so if you aren't super familiar you may not get some of the jokes. Still, it was one of the very first anime I saw all the way through when I was in high school, so you could probably do fine with it. It also has pretty great music.

E.Coyote

Souleater was also pretty good. You can watch a lot of these on the viz media or funimation websites if you want to preview before you buy etc.

Pure Din

If you end up going the "bunch of movies" route, Millennium Actress is a great date movie. For the type of people who like to stay up past midnight talking about movies once they're over.

Tofystedeth

Ooooh, Millenium Actress is indeed very good. Another movie by the same guy (unfortunately, he is recently deceased) is Tokyo Godfathers which takes place during Christmas, so it's even seasonally appropriate. Warning, the main characters are homeless, so it is at times a little depressing, but

it is still a Christmas movie so it works out.

Vanguard

One thing to consider is that a lot of this stuff is on Hulu for free.

Deadfall

Yeah the only reason I'm leaning towards FLCL is that it's so cheap on Amazon and it comes in one package. Also it sounds just wacky enough for me to enjoy.

Darker than Black intrigues me, but it's a few volumes long. Might check that one out later.

Based solely on size and price, and also because I personally like the more action-oriented ones, I'm thinking I'll go with FLCL for now, but I recorded several on my "watch for a lower price" list, Redline, Darker than Black, Death Note and The Girl who Leapt Through Time especially.

She'd probably enjoy stuff like Azumanga, based on what I'm reading, but it's just not for me. And while I'm okay letting her take a movie-watching day for herself while I occupy myself elsewhere, I'd like to at least attempt to enjoy it with her.

Also I noticed a trend, while reading through descriptions, that baseball seems to be a recurring hobby for the characters. Is this a common thing?

Deadfall

Vanguard wrote:

One thing to consider is that a lot of this stuff is on Hulu for free.

This is true, but one of the outdated conventions we still enjoy together are collecting physical copies of both book and movies/tv shows. Our dvd/blu-ray collection grows every year.

UrQuanLord88

Deadfall wrote:

Death Note, that's another one she likes.

We watched Spirited Away and Mononoke together a few years ago, I had forgotten about those.

I have seen some Ghost in the Shell, and I've liked what I've seen. I might check some of that out.

If you liked Spirited Away and Mononoke, you'd like the rest of the Studio Ghibil films. Highly recommend My Neighbour Totoro

I've enjoyed Ghost in the Shell, which is the first movie of the series and the subsequent 2 seasons of the series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG. You might want to start from the top if you're interested.
Also note that there are two more movie sequels, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence and Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Solid State Society. I've not watched those so I can't comment.

Along similar veins are Akira and Metropolis, both great classics if you can still track down physical copies.

Robes

I reccomend all three seasons of Shin Chan.

Bedlam

http://www.hulu.com/gurren-lagann

I know its been mentioned a few times already but I wanted to chime in that the entire series is up on hulu. So even if you dont want to buy it for her you could still watch it together. Its probably the best anime series IMO.

Edit: oh hey so is FLCL http://www.hulu.com/flcl

Anzekay

Does your wife watch anime dubbed or subbed? Do you know if she has a preference or doesn't mind either way?

If she prefers dubs, then FLCL is an extremely good choice because the dub is widely regarded as one of the best dubbed anime out there. Aside from FLCL, you also can't go wrong with any of the Ghibi movies, or stuff like The Girl who leapt through time or 5cm per second. Another movie I'd add that no-one else has mentioned yet is Summer Wars. I saw that in cinema about a year ago and it was the most fun I've ever had seeing a movie. It's got all the good stuff: action, drama, a touch of romance and some very heartwarming/heartbreaking stuff.

If she prefers subs, then you're fine whatever you choose, and pretty much everything that's been listed so far are some great choices. I'd totally go with Gurren Lagann or FLCL though.

CptHamilton

Deadfall wrote:

Also I noticed a trend, while reading through descriptions, that baseball seems to be a recurring hobby for the characters. Is this a common thing?

Baseball and Tennis are markedly popular in Japan. Baseball enjoys the distinction of being the only non-Japanese-invented sport I'm aware of to have been given a purely Japanese name (as opposed to being referred to by some corruption of its name in English or another language).

As someone well familiar with the "Anime just isn't for me" thing, I'd disregard almost all of the advice in this thread. There are a lot of very well-regarded anime series in here, but stuff like Ranma 1/2 and Azumanga Daioh are very anime. They may appeal to a wider range of fans than other things on account of their quality, but if you're not into anime you're still not going to enjoy them. Gurren Laggen, for all that it is hilarious and awesome, is still running a high risk of not appealing to someone who really doesn't enjoy the personality types and tropes common in anime series.

If you enjoyed Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo then Gurren Laggen might work for you. Death Note probably will. I don't think I would recommend Darker Than Black, but I would recommend Ghost Hunt.

It's hard to go wrong with Miyazaki's movies since, aside from being animated in the Japanese style, they don't really share any of the mental space with the majority of anime.

Sword of the Stranger is a very good, feature-length movie that has a great deal of similarity with Samurai Champloo in terms of content and style, which I think anyone (anime fan or not) who enjoys period action movies could get into.

Someone else mentioned Summer Wars, which I would second. Also just a feature-length thing and also only similar to the main body of anime in that it is animated.

Artereis

Planetes. It's a space opera about the people who go out and clean up space junk to protect ships and stations around Earth once we've started expanding into our solar system. It's also absolutely fantastic in every way.

Deadfall

Artereis wrote:

Planetes. It's a space opera about the people who go out and clean up space junk to protect ships and stations around Earth once we've started expanding into our solar system. It's also absolutely fantastic in every way.

This intrigues me. It goes on the list.

Tofystedeth

I don't know if you included it in what you've already seen, but Cowboy Bebop also has a movie, Knockin' on Heaven's door. which is very good.

Chen

I second Planetes.

Much like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, Planetes is episodic and grounded to reality, which seems like your thing. Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. is another episodic scifi series with plenty of action and detective work. FLCL I would recommend to anybody, but unfortunately it's only six episodes long, so if you want something to have a bit more meat, I'd check out those two.

Gurren-Lagann, while certainly awesome, is very Japanese, in such a way that it delivers fanservice in the most outlandish way possible. Subtlety is not its strong suite. While this certainly applies to FLCL as well, like I said, it's only six episodes long, which is about as long as a feature film. Plus, it has some American influences as well. You'll know when you see it.

I don't agree Azumanga Daioh is very anime however if we're using that phrase. It's a series about a group of girls growing up together in high school, which is as universal as they come. If you said it requires understanding of Japanese culture, then I'd agree, but thankfully the localization does a good job of explaining the jokes. I gave it to my 12 year old niece and she loved it.

Djeet

While I've not specific rec's I'd like to point out that NetFlix has a considerable anime library, and a good chunk of it is available streaming.

Bethryn

Planetes
Baccano
Darker than Black
RahXephon
Mushi-shi
Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
Spice & Wolf

Some of these have been recommended before, but they're all alike in that they tend to dignify their worlds, rather than sending them up.

There's also Black Lagoon, but I don't know if that'd be to her tastes.