My favorites!
It always comes down to this. Which anime to recommend? Which type of anime do I enjoy most? It is really difficult to recommend anime as it's so much based on opinion. I've watched around 3000 episodes of anime, over 150ish unique animes and out of all those there are but a few I really would recommend to anyone.
Firstly I'll just mention this first. For me to give a 10/10 it would have to be an incredible anime in all perspectives, so here's a few things I would give points for:
Overall it's a simple 10 point system, without almost perfectly filling all the following categories, a 9-10 is impossible.
Voiceacting/music/songs: 2-3 points
Artwork/graphics: 2-3 points
Plot: 2-3 points.
Remaining points would be what I feel about the anime. Do I feel like I have to see it to the end? Strong feelings are also important. Does it make me feel sad if it's supposed to be a sad seen? Only a few animes have ever made me almost cry over how sad it is. Does it make me feel happy when it's going well? Can I really immerse myself in the anime? It's all really hard to describe but this is one ofthe most important parts, probably 3-5 points here in general.
So which animes are my favorites? It varies. But some animes stand out among all others. Here are a few of my all-time favorites:
Ouran Highschool Host Club 10
Tsubasa Chronicles 9
Code Geass 10
Fullmetal Alchemist 10
Pokemon (until Johto) 8
Favorite shoujo:
Vampire Knight 10
Nana 9
Favorite Shounen:
Major 9
HunterXHunter 8
Naruto 8
All of these are personal opinions obviously. Some are based on nostalgia or being the inspiration to countless animes.
HunterXHunter
It's a pretty old anime and one of the first I ever watched. It aired 1999, that's 3 years before Naruto. To be that old it's incredibly cool and have inspired many animes. The power of "nen" that exists in HunterXHunter is exactly like chakra in Naruto. Nen can be used to protect yourself, a bit like a shield/forcefield that reduces damage you take from a hit. It can also be used to make a weapon or punch hit that much harder by focusing your "aura" there.
Overall, Nen being a really cool thing that opens up a lot of possibilities.There are also amazing characters. I just love Hisoka, a mass murderer who seeks to fight only the strongest. He is a joker who uses playing cards as weapons mostly and is a really funny character, yet also dark and scary.
Kurapica is also an incredibly cool character who uses chains reinforced with Nen to attack his opponents. As the last remaining Kuruta clan he is obsessed with revenge against the ones who wiped out his clan. Sasuke, anyone? He is incredibly powerful and does anything he can to gain power, at the cost of almost loosing his life. If he uses his powers against anyone who isn't his nemesis, he dies immediately.Despite not including romance nor cutting edge artwork possible now 11 years after the release of the anime, I'd still recommend anyone who loves shounen to watch this anime. It's amazing, the OVA, Greed Island OVA and Greed Island Final OVA (all taking part after the anime) are the best parts of it.
Pokemon
The anime revolves around the card game/ game boy games where you are a young trainer who just started out. In this world trainers are people who catch monsters, pokemon, and trains them to be partners for life. Trainers sometimes fight with eachothers monsters or compete in contests but most of all, they love pokemon! But to the despair of the world.. The evil Team Rocket is trying to ruin it all, and catch all everyone's pokemon!
This is the first anime I ever saw. Pokemon then digimon but I didn't enjoy digimon as much so I'll ignore that for now! Pokemon is the root to a lot of anime too. There are so many animes where you have monsters as pets or have monsters fighting for you. It's a common theme. But what made pokemon so amazing? It was original. Ash Ketchum fighting for what he really liked and those weird monsters he ended up with were pretty cool.
Though after the pokemon league and maybe orange league.. It kind of went out of hand. Each and every time he fail the pokemon league he would throw away all his pokemons and pikachu which should be incredibly powerful after 1000 episodes worth of fighting, still looses to a trainer who just recieved their first pokemon, lvl 4. Really? Please. . . . ..
But it's still a good anime. I don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone. It's aimed at pretty young people. Pokemon will always be that nostalgic anime that started my anime interest and I'll always love it for that.
Ouran Highschool Host Club
The story revolves around the poor girl Haruhi Fujioka who somehow attends the famous and amazing school Ouran Highschool - well known for it's well performing students and high standards. But Haruhi can't even afford the school uniform, if it was damaged, she could never replace it. She wears an old shirt, vest and trousers and together with her unkept hair... Noone knows she's a girl. One day she enters the clubroom to a strange club.. A host club! It's a club that tries to fill every need of the higher class ladies in school. They are very rich, pretty and princesslike and needs charming princes to serve them coffee and talk to them on their breaks.
By accident, Haruhi crashed an item belonging to the club and is asked to pay up or join the club and work until she's no longer in dept. Tamaki and the twins Hikaru and Kaoru eventually finds out that she's a girl and all falls in love with her - an extremely funny and great plot follows.
Out of all animes that I've ever watched - after thousands of episodes and hundreds of animes - this is the one I'd always recommend to anyone. It's such an amazing anime. There's nothing in it that is bad. I can't find a flaw that could be improved. Beautiful characters and artwork, great voiceactors and awesome plot. It is the best comedy out there and includes enough romance to make it interesting to just about anyone.
Code Geass
The child and prince Lelouch Li Britannia gets to witness his mother being brutally murdered but his father did not care. He sent Lelouch and his sister Nunally to Japan to basically be political hostages.But Lelouch is incredibly intelligent and hides his true name and starts to lead a new life, while tending to his sister who is blind. Suddenly he gets into a tight spot and meets up with the beautiful C2/shi-tsu/C.C. who boasts a power unmatched to anyone. It strengthens the wearer by giving powers reflecting the deepest desires in ones heart. C2 makes magical contract with Lelouch, thus saving him and seemingly herself. Lelouch now gets the mystical power of "Geass" that makes him able to command anyone to do anything, if he is able to get eye-contact with them.
Apart from being pretty tragic and angsty from time to time, this is one of the best animes I've ever watched. The artwork is made by clamp so it's safe to say.. beautiful characters and artwork everywhere. All the costumes people are wearing looks good and "realistic". The music is also pretty good and the voiceacting really great. One of the best animes ever made.
The only downside of this anime is that it is pretty dark. People die and not just the enemies. The story is also very deep with psychological questions being put forth frequently. Is Lelouch evil for wanting to bring down the horrible Britannian empire that invaded Japan? Is his "Geass" powers really safe to use? Are his friends trustworthy? A lot of things happen in the anime but it is amazing and definately has to be seen.
