Dagdamor,
I'm not much of an anime fan either. I like the style, of course, but most of the cartoons I've been shown... well... kinda sucked:-) But I'll try and recommend some titles I liked, and I'll explain, what is so wonderful about them.
First of all, Full Metal Alchemist.
The story takes place in a mysterious kingdom that slightly resembles Victorian England. Two little brothers live with their mother in a house in the country and study alchemy. That alchemy of theirs is very different from what we are used to call alchemy: no chemicals, no retorts - all you have to do is to draw a weird-looking ring on the ground, put some material in the centre of the ring and put your hands on the ring. Then the material goes all puff and crack and transforms into whatever you wanted to create. The most important thing is to make sure that you have enough material... and that you don’t perform human transmutation.
But the boys did. Their mother died from some disease and left them all alone (their father died long before), so they decided to make themselves a new mother – to create her body and put here soul in it.
Needless to say, they failed. Moreover, the elder brother, Edward, lost his arm and leg, and the younger one, Alfonso, lost his entire body – his soul was trapped in the huge metal armour suit. And their mother... what they created couldn’t be called human.
So they left their home and went to a big city to join the State Military Alchemists and to find the way to undo what they had done and to get their bodies back as they used to be.
I really liked the movie. The style of drawing is cute and somewhat kawaii, but the plot is very and very impressive. The film is sort of cruel – I don’t mean there’s lots of blood and gore (though there are some), it just that there we can see some perfectly nice and appealing people that turn out to be perfectly disgusting beasts – maniacs, crazy scientists who sacrifice their children to go on with their research, fanatics on a killing spree, soulless bureaucrats – the whole bunch of bastards you want to bash in the head till the brains flow from their ears. The cartoon left me sort of depressed – and you know, I appreciate it. Worth seeing, it is.
See the AlchemistsNow, BLEACH.
In a little Japanese town of Karakura, lives a 15-year-old boy who is capable of seeing and talking to the ghosts (in my country, we call this ability schizophrenia;-). So, he lives with his father and two younger sisters in a nice house combined with a clinic, protects memorial places from vandals and studies un a school until one night a black butterfly flies into his bedroom. “Wow,” thinks the boy but the things become even “wower” as the butterfly turns into a girl with katana wearing kimono. As they chat, the girl tel the boy that she is a Shinigami – a Grim Reaper of some sort. Shinigami travel the Earth looking for free wandering souls and sending them to Soul Society – a vague analogue of Heaven. They also fight Hollows – corrupt souls that hunt and destroy wandering souls and people with supernatural abilities – like the boy and his family.
And this very moment the house is visited by a Hollow. The fellow behaves really badly: it swears, roars, destroys property and nearly kills the whole boy’s family. The Shinigami fails to slay the bastard, so she lends all her divine power to the boy, so that he can finish the job and protect his family. And hell he does!
The family is protected, the Hollow is slain, but there is a problem. The Shinigami girl can’t get her powers back and return to her own world, so she has to stay on the Earth in a faux body and keep a low profile, because she’s commited a serious crime by giving her power to a mortal human, and the punishment for such transgression is disintegration. This means that the MPs are sure to come and arrest her sooner or later. But her new friend is not going to let them ndo her any harm, even if he has to become a Shinigami himself and turn the whole Soul Society upside down. Because he owes her one, you know... and maybe there’s some more reasons.
The retold plot may sound kind of dull, but the cartoon itself is exhilarating. There are lots of characters, each one with their very own personality (I especially liked Zaraki Kenpachi – whoa, man, that guy is the hell of a leader. And a tragic character, too). Their reasons and personalities may be funny, bizarre or simple, and you can never tell what awaits the heroes in the next episode. And you know, the red-haired girl with a leek singing “Yak-tsup-tsop” is taken from this very cartoon:-)
I think BLEACH is an absolute must-see if you want to have some fun and enjoy some quality anime.
See them guys:-)And, finally, the cartoon with a bizarre name Jungle Wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu, which can be translated as “The jungle was all sunny, then came Guu”.
In a little village in the very heart of jungle lives a family of two: a mum called Weda who sometimes goes hunting and spends most of her time drinking and goofing off, and her son Hale who runs the house, worries about things and generally cares too much for a 10-year-old kid. They live rather peacefully until one evening Weda comes home one over the eight and bring with her a very cute but strange-looking girl called Guu and says that because she has no parents, she’s going to live with them.
And here it begins... Guu really is bloody weird. First of all, she is not cute at all. Well, she may look cute sometimes if she wants, but generally she wears a blank look that scares poor Hale. She is mischievous, sarcastic, she cracks grim jokes and eats things. She eats anything – bananas, live pokutes (that’s kind of animal), TV-set, Hale’s pet bird and even Hale himself! And, to make matters worse, inside her stomach there is the whole parallel dimension which looks like something between an amusement park and a mental asylum!
What is Guu? Why is she here? What does she want? Is what she wants harmful for Hale and the world around him? See the cartoon to find out!
Here they are!.
So, these are the animes I like. I hope you find these comments useful:-)