It’s less that - I don’t begrudge anyone liking Attack on Titan or disliking FMA, and I could probably still make recommendations despite feeling pretty much the opposite. It’s the idea that FMA is too slow and AoT is not despite FMA moving like a greased cheetah on meth compared to the elderly concussed sloth of AoT. AoT is the only show I have ever stopped watching because it just wasted so. fucking. much. of my time.
I stopped watching AoT when they spent an entire episode in a single tree just talking. Season 2 was glacially slow. I should probably come back and watch the whole thing over from scratch, as many people have said season 4 is quite good.
I think I tried the first episode of Full Metal Alchemist, not Brotherhood, and I can’t remember anymore why I never watched others. I should give that another try someday. Well, either that or Brotherhood, I hate how there’s no internet consensus on which is better.
They are both good, I think the only wrong choice is not watching either. :)
CraigM
5510
Agreed. @draxen if you haven’t seen Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell, these are absolute essentials.
The difference is basically that the original diverges much more from the manga (in part, I think, because the manga wasn’t finished at the time), as I understand it. I haven’t actually seen Brotherhood, just some of the original and read some of the manga, but I found the different takes really interesting and which version I preferred depended from story beat and character to story beat and character.
CraigM
5512
I’ve never understood the difference. I never watched Brotherhood because it seemed a straight retelling of the same story.
The premise and start of the story are similar, but there’s serious divergence. Whole characters that are present or absent, etc. Again, not least because the original series started and finished production before the manga was finished. (Apparently just 8 of an eventual 27 volumes were available by the time they finished the original anime.)
I also disliked Full Metal Alchemist. Don’t let the anime bullies try to convince you that you need to like it. However, I will say that you might like it better as it goes along if your problem was with story rather than style. The story gets better, the style does not.
There’s a ton of stuff in this thread in various places, probably daunting to try to figure it all out. Here’s a few of my favorites:
- If you like the cyberpunk genre at all, then you need to check out Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex. Still my favorite series nearly 20 years after the initial release.
-
Night Raid 1931 is a semi-historical spy thriller series. Short and fun, especially if you like seeing the historical references.
- There’s a lot of discussion of Legend of Galactic Heroes in this thread, for good reason. It’s a commitment to watch, there’s a lot of it, but it’s great.
- If you like giant-robot-space-opera, the various Macross series are largely decent. I hated Macross 7 but mostly enjoyed the others.
- Like weird? The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is weird. Fun characters, some very strange goings-on.
- After you’ve watched a few more series, you might like Lucky Star, which likes to make fun of other anime while it follows around a group of high schoolers.
No one is doing this here, thankfully.
Your other recommendations are solid.
geewhiz
5516
Full Metal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell are among the few that I would recommend as a dub. The dubs are well done.
CraigM
5517
Cowboy Bebop also has a good dub.
In fact the style and tone are such I even prefer it. It just seems more natural in English.
geewhiz
5518
Yes I should have added Cowboy Bebop.
I guess I should have looked here first for impressions, but Gen:Lock is now streaming on HBO Max.
I see a lot of recs for Haikyu (which I agree with, I’m watching the last episode of season 3 in a bit, and loving it), but I’d also recommend Ping Pong the animation. I never thought I’d like a sports anime, but those two are just so good.
Cowboy Bebop is kind of known for changing how dubs were approached and is was the gold standard. There was a video or article on it I can’t find at the moment that goes into the behind the scenes how it happened. Everyone remembers the voice work of Steve Blum in his early days before he blew up and became the Anime Troy Baker for a time, but a a lot of it had to do with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn’s direction and it was her first voiceover directing gig too.
I knew what you meant, I just phrased that poorly. I don’t care if someone likes FMA, but as you said, the inconsistency of liking AoT, but thinking FMA boring, not to mention FMA is already going dark places in the opening episodes (Shou Tucker is episode 4 in that version)… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Honestly, I quit watching AoT, because I thought the second season was absolute garbage. Meanwhile, one of the things I love about FMA is how it balances the moments of joy/silliness with the darkness.
Not at all trying to bash anyone’s tastes, just hard to suggest things
Ping Pong is fantastic. Hajime no Ippo is also amazing. Both are definitely the best sports anime around. Haikyuu is basically pure shonen as a sports anime. Cross Game is also very good, but hard to find and more about relationships than baseball (much like Ping Pong is about other stuff as much or more than about the sport).
Cross Game also has an unfortunate style that’s hard to look at at first, at least for me.
Already on my shortlist to watch soon! [Holy shit, is it like 150 episodes???]
That’s not available to watch on any streaming services in the U.S. right? Crunchyroll/VRV seems to have the third series, but not the first two.
EDIT: Oh nevermind, I found it. Youtube seems to have the first two seasons: Fighting Spirit and New Challenger. I guess I would need Youtube Premium to watch them without commercials I’m guessing.
EDIT2: Nice @espressojim, yours is in the English!
EDIT3: No wait, that’s not in English!
