Fist of the North Star is a really good one. I'm not so sure about the series as I have never seen it, but the (animated) movie was pretty epic.
Just to reiterate a couple that were already mentioned. Vampire Hunter D, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, and Perfect Blue are all worth checking out.
If you want to watch a series that isn't too terribly long, then definitely check out Samurai Champloo.
Gunsmith Cats - Only three episodes were ever made, but if you can find it (My VHS copy went missing long ago and I've never seen it on DVD) it is fan-fucking-tastic.
If you liked that and want more of it, also check out Riding Bean.
Same creator and same studio.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Gunsmith Cats - Only three episodes were ever made, but if you can find it (My VHS copy went missing long ago and I've never seen it on DVD) it is fan-fucking-tastic.
If you liked that and want more of it, also check out Riding Bean.
Akira is very good, and it's one of the most accessible for people new to anime, but it's really not one of the best out there. It's sort of like Citizen Kane, in that it was a ground-breaking movie brilliant for its time, but now pales compared to more contemporary works. It's not so much a brilliant film as a fantastically influential film. The ending was a little too self-consciously philosophical.
ROD is wonderful, movie or not. The short series that the original trilogy spawned is pretty awesome, as well.
Yeah, everything Miyazaki ever made.
Battle Angel (an adaptation of the manga Battle Angel Alita) is damned good. Apparently James Cameron is making a film adaptation out of it. I remain hopeful.
Digimon is really good if you like your anime to deal with weighty issues, like angst.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
The Hellsing OVA series, also called Hellsing Ultimate, is another fantastic series. 4 movies, each about an hour and a half long, with some of the best gothic animation I've ever seen.
Each of the DvDs (which is basically like a really long episode) covers one of the collected volumes of the Hellsing manga. It covers them almost page for page and word for word, with a few added scenes and tweaks.
There's up to 8 volumes of Hellsing out in the U.S., and I think there's going to be ten total. So, expect a similar number of disks for the Hellsing OVA series.
Gunsmith Cats - Only three episodes were ever made, but if you can find it (My VHS copy went missing long ago and I've never seen it on DVD) it is fan-fucking-tastic.
If you liked that and want more of it, also check out Riding Bean.
Same creator and same studio.
Ahh, same source. :P Yeah, I read the manga.
Wait, what? Is Rally the blonde on the DVD case?
no it's not. Most of the Riding Bean episodes don't have Rally directly involved.
Unless she's pulling off a Priss. Speaking of Priss, the original BGC series is fantastic, well not so much the first few episodes, but the rest is pure Blade Runner the anime.
Filmwise, R.O.D. is on target - as well as Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue, Paprika, and Tokyo Godfathers.
If you're interest in a short series, Paranoia Agent (iirc, 12 episodes) is another Satoshi Kon project, channelling Twin Peaks in all sorts of good ways with a trippy Susumu Hirasawa soundtrack to boot.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Battle Angel (an adaptation of the manga Battle Angel Alita) is damned good. Apparently James Cameron is making a film adaptation out of it. I remain hopeful.
He's filming it along with Avatar in his new digital 3D thing. Avatar comes out first, though, so it'll be a long wait for Battle Angel (Am I the only one that seriously prefers her original name Gally?)
Alita is going to be a 3D animated character, though, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.
I like Miyazaki too, but Isao Takahata's not getting enough love. In addition to Grave of the Fireflies,
Pom Poko
My Neighbors the Yamadas
Only Yesterday
All worth watching.
Also:
A Tree of Palme
Millenium Actress
Junkers Come Here
Robot Carnival
The Place Promised in Our Early Days
Good films, but you probably need to watch the series/read the manga first:
Card Captor Sakura 2: The Sealed Card
Tenchi Muyo in Love 2: Distant Memories, aka Tenchi Forever!
Kimagure Orange Road: I want to Return to That Day
Lupin III: Episode 0 - First Contact
Hajime no Ippo: Champion Road
Short series:
Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen
Golden Boy
Gunsmith Cats - Only three episodes were ever made, but if you can find it (My VHS copy went missing long ago and I've never seen it on DVD) it is fan-fucking-tastic.
I picked it up on DVD about 4 years ago, but it appears to be discontinued now. There's used copies on Amazon marketplace, but they're asking $50 for it.
Battle Angel (an adaptation of the manga Battle Angel Alita) is damned good. Apparently James Cameron is making a film adaptation out of it. I remain hopeful.
He's filming it along with Avatar in his new digital 3D thing. Avatar comes out first, though, so it'll be a long wait for Battle Angel (Am I the only one that seriously prefers her original name Gally?)
Alita is going to be a 3D animated character, though, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.
I liked "Gally" too. It was cuter, and I liked the juxtaposition of cute name and wicked little assassin-bot who would kick your ass and use your blood for face paint.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I can't remember the name but there was a Patlabor movie starring a sea monster that I really liked. It was more of a mystery movie with giant robots at the end but there was a strong sense of solitude throughout.
Vampire Hunter D is pretty good, as is the sequel.
Appleseed is also a decent flick.
I remember a lot of good anime movies that used to come on the sci-fi channel like ten or fifteen years ago during this thing they called Saturday Anime, in the mornings... I can't remember them off the top of my head, but I'm sure someone here can.
I think I saw a flic on there called "Eyes of Mars" that was pretty good. There was also a movie about some space train.
I remember when Sci-fi was running all those movies. I saw a bit of Eyes of Mars and it looked really interesting (school for telepaths / telekinetics, civilization living on Mars, and such).
Another good one they had was Green Legend Ran I believe. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic earth where water is very scarce.
The new anime block on Sci-fi looks fairly promising. It's nice that they show some movies now and then. So far I think they've shown the first GitS and the Highlander anime. It also looks like they'll be showing the Read or Die OVA some time, which is always worth watching again.
Also, I loved Spirited Away. I really need to watch Princess Mononoke and some of the others sometime. A friend of mine says they're all really good.
I can't remember the name but there was a Patlabor movie starring a sea monster that I really liked. It was more of a mystery movie with giant robots at the end but there was a strong sense of solitude throughout.
That would be WXIII: Patlabor 3
I never saw it, but it gets a lot of flack for not living up to the rest of the Patlabor franchise.
I'd recommend the first two films, though. Excellent movies.
I picked up a copy of Battle Angel on VHS who knows where a few years ago, and thought it was really cool. When it got to the part with the garbage coming down from the city, I realized that this is what my physics teacher in high school was talking about when he was describing one of his favorite movies. He was a really cool physics teacher.
Vampire Hunter D is pretty good, as is the sequel.
Appleseed is also a decent flick.
I remember a lot of good anime movies that used to come on the sci-fi channel like ten or fifteen years ago during this thing they called Saturday Anime, in the mornings... I can't remember them off the top of my head, but I'm sure someone here can.
I think I saw a flic on there called "Eyes of Mars" that was pretty good. There was also a movie about some space train.
I remember that movie and the train movie was Galaxy Express 999 (which i liked but i'm a fan of Matsumoto's work)
Most of the films i would recommend have already been mentioned such as Akira and the Miyazaki films.
When I was in middle school I think, we spent a couple weeks in the summer visiting some friends in Michigan and Indiana. My room was in their basement, where they had a TV with cable. It was anime week that week apparently. I had heard of Akira from a friend, and seen the original American release of Totoro and a smidgeon of Kiki's Delivery service (on Nickelodean no less!), but didn't really know anything about anime. Galaxy Express 999 and its sequel were on and I thought they were amazing. The next day was Beautiful Dreamer, which I really wanted to watch, but we went out to eat when it was on, and then we left for home before it reaired later.
I like a lot of what's been mentioned so far, particularly the Miyazaki and Grave of the Fireflies, but I have to put in a word here for short series. Anime has a lot more tendency toward limited one-season series than live action TV, so you can watch them as a discrete nugget of plot, not as a ten-season monster (outside of Pokemon and similar merchandise ads and the shonen genre). A 13-episode series will total less than five hours, so it's not a huge time commitment. Now, as for which ones to watch, I recommend:
Serial Experiments Lain Now & Then, Here & There The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi Gunslinger Girl
There are a lot more if you step up to mid-length series (22-26 episodes), but those are all 12 or 13 episodes and excellent.
Throwing another love into Grave of the Fireflies.
Grave of the Fireflies will pretty much chomp, chew, and spit out everything you think you knew about what anime is capable of.
Ebert hails it as one of his legendary movies, and Ernest Reister hails it as one of the best war movies - I see it as one of the best movies ever and the best war movie I've ever seen.
Yes, I think Grave of the Fireflies tops out Schindler's List in its portrayal of the effects of war.
This movie will either make you cringe/cry/weep or at the very least disturb your very essence of humanity - it's that powerful of a movie.
I still cannot watch it more than half an hour before turning it off again due to the movie's power to transform me into a mess.
I'm a huge fan of Lupin the Third. I've yet to watch one of those movies that wasn't good. Also, Kino's Journeys was last really awesome 12 episode anime series I've seen.
However, one of my most favorite series is the probably most underrated series of all time: Monster.
The writing, direction and pacing is fantastic and the characters are fleshed out and avoids most pitfalls of anime such as pointless violence, forced humor and fanservice. This is one of my most favorite crime thrillers and is more of one than your typical anime, and from what I've seen of the anime it seems to follows the manga religiously.
As the title is generic the author of the manga is Naoki Urasawa.
So has anyone seen this series? I feel like I'm the only one...
Monster gets recc'd often in the regular anime thread.
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OtakuD00DCan I hit the exploding rocks?San DiegoRegistered Userregular
edited November 2007
These are a mix of the "Greatest" and "My favorite". The "Greatest" is really hard to define, since different strokes for different folks.
• Practically anything touched by Miyazaki.
• Gundam: Char's Counterattack - As flawed as this one might be to some, it's still a pretty epic finale to a very fierce rivalry.
• Macross: Do You Remember Love? - INCREDIBLE animation. Great take on the TV series' story. It's one of my absolute favorites.
• Macross Plus movie edition - Cuts a lot of fat out and gives the OVA a proper end. Fuck Top Gun.
• Ghost in The Shell 1 and 2 - As confusing and talky as these two may get, they're still good flicks. The second one in particular's quite the mindfuck.
• Akira - 'Nuff said.
• Steamboy - Otomo does it again. Don't miss this one. High quality, TRADITIONAL animation + steampunk = win.
• Metropolis - An "All-star" collaboration of sorts. Very olskool. Very good.
• RahXephon - Didn't see the series, but I still liked this one anyway. Touching story.
• End of Evangelion - Despite how it may have turned out, I still like this one. It's a guilty pleasure. Intense, well animated action and a total mindfuck? You bet. I'm going to rub this one off the list once we get the REBUILD OF EVANGELION movies over here.
• Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked - Holy shit, this one's good. I challenge you to find a movie with a higher character death toll than this one. It's incredibly depressing, yet epic as hell.
• Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy - It's Japan's Star Wars, and for good reason. A real classic.
• Dead Leaves - For the sheer ultraviolence/weirdness factor. Awesome style, too. It was done by Gurren Lagann's creator.
Battle Angel (an adaptation of the manga Battle Angel Alita) is damned good. Apparently James Cameron is making a film adaptation out of it. I remain hopeful.
He's filming it along with Avatar in his new digital 3D thing. Avatar comes out first, though, so it'll be a long wait for Battle Angel (Am I the only one that seriously prefers her original name Gally?)
Alita is going to be a 3D animated character, though, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.
I liked "Gally" too. It was cuter, and I liked the juxtaposition of cute name and wicked little assassin-bot who would kick your ass and use your blood for face paint.
The 2 episode OVA sucked. I'm sorry, but it did. It should've been longer, damn it! I'm pretty damn sure the manga was long enough for it to warrant more coverage when that came out. ESPECIALLY at least a Motorball sequence.
Yes! Seconded! But for the love of all that is holy, if you do get Haruhi, use google to find out the broadcast order of the series. Because the order they were broadcast in + actual chronological order = totally differant atmosphere to the whole series. I don't get why they're doing something as retarded as putting them in the chronological order on the dvd's.
The 2 episode OVA sucked. I'm sorry, but it did. It should've been longer, damn it! I'm pretty damn sure the manga was long enough for it to warrant more coverage when that came out. ESPECIALLY at least a Motorball sequence.
Yes, this is true. The OVA and the Manga simply do not compare. For one thing they took out all the black humor that literally makes it be something more than just another cyberpunk story.
Has anyone mentioned Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo / The Girl who Leapt through Time? I thought that was a fantastic film.
I've seen that as well. It was really interesting. It was a bit slow at times, but the story was pretty good.
Also, did anyone else like the InuYasha movies much? The series always seemed to drag a bit, but movies 2 through 4 I liked a lot. The third movie with the 3 swords and the introduction scene showing InuYasha's father and mother was really interesting. The fourth movie is probably my favorite though for the battles and scenery.
So here's one that I don't think anyone mentioned yet: Metropolis.
That movie blew me away. it's amazing how they were able to re-capture the feel of older films like Astro Boy and able to add all these fantastic images of the cities and machines.
So here's one that I don't think anyone mentioned yet: Metropolis.
That movie blew me away. it's amazing how they were able to re-capture the feel of older films like Astro Boy and able to add all these fantastic images of the cities and machines.
Agreed. Even scene seemed to have been soaked in a fine solution of charm and retro. An entrancingly wonderful film.
Oops, I just realized while reading the review of Grave of the Fireflies that in my earlier post about The Cat Returns I mentioned Toshio Suzuki as the other Ghibli director instead of Isao Takahata. Color me embarassed.
It's be nice if they released the film on DVD in the States. Anyways, I firmly believe the 80s and early 90s was the Golden Age of anime, back when it was animated by Japanese animators and not Korean, Filipinos, or computers.
Some unmentioned great OVA/theatrical films back then:
Megazone 23 series
Dirty Pair: The Movie
Dagger of Kamui
Even hentai films were better then. Legend of The Overfiend was released 20 years ago and still looks better than the newest knock offs.
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OtakuD00DCan I hit the exploding rocks?San DiegoRegistered Userregular
firmly believe the 80s and early 90s was the Golden Age of anime, back when it was animated by Japanese animators and not Korean, Filipinos, or computers.
Sorry to break it to you, but Koreans did a LOT of in-between animation even back then. How else do you think they came up with all those knockoffs? Leftover cels to start off with.
Ghost sweeper mikami. Sure it's not deep, filled with ambiguous symbolism, or angst riddled like some of the more popular anime movies, but it is a fun little romp through a quasi-mystical version of tokyo that is stuffed with hilarity.
No one's mentioned Golgo 13? Seriously? It's an awesome, over the top secret agent story. James Bond seriously looks like a pussy compared to Duke Togo. The CG animation in it is hilariously bad but it's only for about 5 minutes of the movie.
Besides that, everything has been mentioned - everything Miyazaki, Akira, Ninja Scroll, both Vampire Hunter D's, etc
Gunsmith Cats - Only three episodes were ever made, but if you can find it (My VHS copy went missing long ago and I've never seen it on DVD) it is fan-fucking-tastic.
If you liked that and want more of it, also check out Riding Bean.
Same creator and same studio.
Ahh, same source. :P Yeah, I read the manga.
Wait, what? Is Rally the blonde on the DVD case?
no it's not. Most of the Riding Bean episodes don't have Rally directly involved.
Unless she's pulling off a Priss. Speaking of Priss, the original BGC series is fantastic, well not so much the first few episodes, but the rest is pure Blade Runner the anime.
Oh my God, someone's talking about Riding Bean! This is awesome!
And by the way, that is Rally on the cover of the DVD. In the Riding Bean OAV, it's an alternate interpretation of her character: She's a business partner of Bean's instead of just a rival/contemporary who happens to cross paths with him every now and then. I enjoy the dynamic and I wish there had been more work done than just the one episode. Bean is my all-time favorite badass; kind of like an unironic Brock Samson.
And Bubblegum Crisis, yeah. Love it. I'm a sucker for pretty much anything that Kenichi Sonoda's worked on.
Posts
Just to reiterate a couple that were already mentioned. Vampire Hunter D, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, and Perfect Blue are all worth checking out.
If you want to watch a series that isn't too terribly long, then definitely check out Samurai Champloo.
If you liked that and want more of it, also check out Riding Bean.
Same creator and same studio.
Ahh, same source. :P Yeah, I read the manga.
Wait, what? Is Rally the blonde on the DVD case?
ROD is wonderful, movie or not. The short series that the original trilogy spawned is pretty awesome, as well.
Yeah, everything Miyazaki ever made.
Battle Angel (an adaptation of the manga Battle Angel Alita) is damned good. Apparently James Cameron is making a film adaptation out of it. I remain hopeful.
Digimon is really good if you like your anime to deal with weighty issues, like angst.
Each of the DvDs (which is basically like a really long episode) covers one of the collected volumes of the Hellsing manga. It covers them almost page for page and word for word, with a few added scenes and tweaks.
There's up to 8 volumes of Hellsing out in the U.S., and I think there's going to be ten total. So, expect a similar number of disks for the Hellsing OVA series.
Unless she's pulling off a Priss. Speaking of Priss, the original BGC series is fantastic, well not so much the first few episodes, but the rest is pure Blade Runner the anime.
If you're interest in a short series, Paranoia Agent (iirc, 12 episodes) is another Satoshi Kon project, channelling Twin Peaks in all sorts of good ways with a trippy Susumu Hirasawa soundtrack to boot.
He's filming it along with Avatar in his new digital 3D thing. Avatar comes out first, though, so it'll be a long wait for Battle Angel (Am I the only one that seriously prefers her original name Gally?)
Alita is going to be a 3D animated character, though, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.
I like Miyazaki too, but Isao Takahata's not getting enough love. In addition to Grave of the Fireflies,
Pom Poko
My Neighbors the Yamadas
Only Yesterday
All worth watching.
Also:
A Tree of Palme
Millenium Actress
Junkers Come Here
Robot Carnival
The Place Promised in Our Early Days
Good films, but you probably need to watch the series/read the manga first:
Card Captor Sakura 2: The Sealed Card
Tenchi Muyo in Love 2: Distant Memories, aka Tenchi Forever!
Kimagure Orange Road: I want to Return to That Day
Lupin III: Episode 0 - First Contact
Hajime no Ippo: Champion Road
Short series:
Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen
Golden Boy
I picked it up on DVD about 4 years ago, but it appears to be discontinued now. There's used copies on Amazon marketplace, but they're asking $50 for it.
I liked "Gally" too. It was cuter, and I liked the juxtaposition of cute name and wicked little assassin-bot who would kick your ass and use your blood for face paint.
I remember when Sci-fi was running all those movies. I saw a bit of Eyes of Mars and it looked really interesting (school for telepaths / telekinetics, civilization living on Mars, and such).
Another good one they had was Green Legend Ran I believe. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic earth where water is very scarce.
The new anime block on Sci-fi looks fairly promising. It's nice that they show some movies now and then. So far I think they've shown the first GitS and the Highlander anime. It also looks like they'll be showing the Read or Die OVA some time, which is always worth watching again.
Also, I loved Spirited Away. I really need to watch Princess Mononoke and some of the others sometime. A friend of mine says they're all really good.
Beautiful Dreamer, it's connected to a series but is still a really good movie on it's own. Definently one of my top ten fuzzy feeling films.
Can we list other non-japanese animated films or should that be it's own thread?
That would be WXIII: Patlabor 3
I never saw it, but it gets a lot of flack for not living up to the rest of the Patlabor franchise.
I'd recommend the first two films, though. Excellent movies.
Among my favorites-it is trippy to an extent, however.
When I was in middle school I think, we spent a couple weeks in the summer visiting some friends in Michigan and Indiana. My room was in their basement, where they had a TV with cable. It was anime week that week apparently. I had heard of Akira from a friend, and seen the original American release of Totoro and a smidgeon of Kiki's Delivery service (on Nickelodean no less!), but didn't really know anything about anime. Galaxy Express 999 and its sequel were on and I thought they were amazing. The next day was Beautiful Dreamer, which I really wanted to watch, but we went out to eat when it was on, and then we left for home before it reaired later.
Serial Experiments Lain
Now & Then, Here & There
The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi
Gunslinger Girl
There are a lot more if you step up to mid-length series (22-26 episodes), but those are all 12 or 13 episodes and excellent.
Thread over.
See my game reviews at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=strangegamer
Ghost In The Shell
Akira
PSN:Hakira__
Grave of the Fireflies will pretty much chomp, chew, and spit out everything you think you knew about what anime is capable of.
Ebert hails it as one of his legendary movies, and Ernest Reister hails it as one of the best war movies - I see it as one of the best movies ever and the best war movie I've ever seen.
Yes, I think Grave of the Fireflies tops out Schindler's List in its portrayal of the effects of war.
This movie will either make you cringe/cry/weep or at the very least disturb your very essence of humanity - it's that powerful of a movie.
I still cannot watch it more than half an hour before turning it off again due to the movie's power to transform me into a mess.
Ebert's Review of Grave of the Fireflies
XBL Gametag: mailarde
Screen Digest LOL3RZZ
No one liked the Pokemon movies?
Okay...
Also (I dunno if it counts since it's kinda a series) but X by Clamp.
However, one of my most favorite series is the probably most underrated series of all time: Monster.
The writing, direction and pacing is fantastic and the characters are fleshed out and avoids most pitfalls of anime such as pointless violence, forced humor and fanservice. This is one of my most favorite crime thrillers and is more of one than your typical anime, and from what I've seen of the anime it seems to follows the manga religiously.
As the title is generic the author of the manga is Naoki Urasawa.
So has anyone seen this series? I feel like I'm the only one...
• Practically anything touched by Miyazaki.
• Gundam: Char's Counterattack - As flawed as this one might be to some, it's still a pretty epic finale to a very fierce rivalry.
• Macross: Do You Remember Love? - INCREDIBLE animation. Great take on the TV series' story. It's one of my absolute favorites.
• Macross Plus movie edition - Cuts a lot of fat out and gives the OVA a proper end. Fuck Top Gun.
• Ghost in The Shell 1 and 2 - As confusing and talky as these two may get, they're still good flicks. The second one in particular's quite the mindfuck.
• Akira - 'Nuff said.
• Steamboy - Otomo does it again. Don't miss this one. High quality, TRADITIONAL animation + steampunk = win.
• Metropolis - An "All-star" collaboration of sorts. Very olskool. Very good.
• RahXephon - Didn't see the series, but I still liked this one anyway. Touching story.
• End of Evangelion - Despite how it may have turned out, I still like this one. It's a guilty pleasure. Intense, well animated action and a total mindfuck? You bet. I'm going to rub this one off the list once we get the REBUILD OF EVANGELION movies over here.
• Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked - Holy shit, this one's good. I challenge you to find a movie with a higher character death toll than this one. It's incredibly depressing, yet epic as hell.
• Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy - It's Japan's Star Wars, and for good reason. A real classic.
• Dead Leaves - For the sheer ultraviolence/weirdness factor. Awesome style, too. It was done by Gurren Lagann's creator.
The 2 episode OVA sucked. I'm sorry, but it did. It should've been longer, damn it!
Yes! Seconded! But for the love of all that is holy, if you do get Haruhi, use google to find out the broadcast order of the series. Because the order they were broadcast in + actual chronological order = totally differant atmosphere to the whole series. I don't get why they're doing something as retarded as putting them in the chronological order on the dvd's.
Yes, this is true. The OVA and the Manga simply do not compare. For one thing they took out all the black humor that literally makes it be something more than just another cyberpunk story.
STEAM
I've seen that as well. It was really interesting. It was a bit slow at times, but the story was pretty good.
Also, did anyone else like the InuYasha movies much? The series always seemed to drag a bit, but movies 2 through 4 I liked a lot. The third movie with the 3 swords and the introduction scene showing InuYasha's father and mother was really interesting. The fourth movie is probably my favorite though for the battles and scenery.
That movie blew me away. it's amazing how they were able to re-capture the feel of older films like Astro Boy and able to add all these fantastic images of the cities and machines.
Agreed. Even scene seemed to have been soaked in a fine solution of charm and retro. An entrancingly wonderful film.
Macross: Do You Remember Love FTWx2!!
It's be nice if they released the film on DVD in the States. Anyways, I firmly believe the 80s and early 90s was the Golden Age of anime, back when it was animated by Japanese animators and not Korean, Filipinos, or computers.
Some unmentioned great OVA/theatrical films back then:
Megazone 23 series
Dirty Pair: The Movie
Dagger of Kamui
Even hentai films were better then. Legend of The Overfiend was released 20 years ago and still looks better than the newest knock offs.
Sorry to break it to you, but Koreans did a LOT of in-between animation even back then. How else do you think they came up with all those knockoffs? Leftover cels to start off with.
Ghost sweeper mikami. Sure it's not deep, filled with ambiguous symbolism, or angst riddled like some of the more popular anime movies, but it is a fun little romp through a quasi-mystical version of tokyo that is stuffed with hilarity.
For pure action and not a ton of storyline/plot the Samurai X movies are ok.
If you like like Mecha or anything to do with Giant Badass robots, Mobile Suit Gundam almost started the whole idea.
Everything else really good has be mentioned enough.
I just have to add Steamboy and complete.
Besides that, everything has been mentioned - everything Miyazaki, Akira, Ninja Scroll, both Vampire Hunter D's, etc
Oh my God, someone's talking about Riding Bean! This is awesome!
And by the way, that is Rally on the cover of the DVD. In the Riding Bean OAV, it's an alternate interpretation of her character: She's a business partner of Bean's instead of just a rival/contemporary who happens to cross paths with him every now and then. I enjoy the dynamic and I wish there had been more work done than just the one episode. Bean is my all-time favorite badass; kind of like an unironic Brock Samson.
And Bubblegum Crisis, yeah. Love it. I'm a sucker for pretty much anything that Kenichi Sonoda's worked on.