Animes That Have Blown You Away

[JagermanXcell]

I'm in shock know one has said this one yet...

I adore this one with every fiber of my being. I love the concept, the characters, the theme, and more importantly
VASH.
I watch this show for Vash and Vash alone.

I'm currently watching this adrenaline fest...

I'm currently on episode 13 and am currently in a deep depression cause I'm not watching it at this very moment. Its that mind blowing.
I should probably be doing my homework, buuuuuuut grinding my teeth and going above and beyond sounds like the better option right now.

 

[Madara XIII]

Sword Art Online

I find that to be such an overrated anime. The concept it nice. But I find it frustrating how so many people think it is better than .hack.

Sword Art Online is an interesting concept. But it quickly turned into some of the worst pandering garbage I have ever seen. It is like they took a lot of nice possible exercise in thinking about the possible future of technology in a Kurzweilian fashion and used it as nothing more as a pretty coating for a bland, generic, obnoxious harem anime.

Some of the most obnoxious harem anime tropes in the world with a thin coating of Ray Kurzweil thrown on top does not "blow me away."

Thank all that us gratuitously gravy in the world for your comment.
What makes it worse is that BOTH the villain and protagonist are god modded wish fulfillment characters. Plus I've yet to find a clear indication as to WHY Kayaba trapped everyone in there. Not to mention the legal precautions that should have taken place in the real world given that THOUSANDS of people are in a cyber induced coma.

I refuse to believe anyone is dumb enough to say SAO is better than .Hack by any extension

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Hmm I haven't seen any of the anime in OP I really have some catching-up to do.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and put my vote towards an anime that is typically featured in everyone and their mother's top 10 lists...sorry if I come off as bland/unadventurous :S

[HEADING=3]Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood[/HEADING]

Awww, who wouda thunk it? An emotionally-moving story about two brothers who are on a quest to get their bodies back after an alchemy attempt horribly gone wrong (or should I say, right ). Filled with a slew of interesting and deep characters, beautiful storyline and stunning art/animation, it's a must-see. If you haven't seen this then you aren't an anime fan.


[HEADING=3]Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion[/HEADING]

This one's a personal favorite of mine, mostly because the sheer suspense and plot-twists are enough to make your brain either say "fuck this" or, if you're me, keep you glued to the edge of your seat and literally WAIL your eyes out at the sad moments. This anime features mecha (wooo unique) and goes for a rather complicated chess-style storyline with plot-twists up the ass, but it has one of THE BEST endings I can possibly think of for any anime. Seriously, it's so dramatic and meaningful if you've allowed yourself to be taken in.

The art direction is faithfully CLAMP, the same group of women behind Cardcaptor Sakura and Chobits. Some people don't like it very much, but for me it sure as hell got the job done and the fight scenes very good, what more could you want? It's more an emotional/suspense drama with a healthy sprinkling of mecha action, the best of it's kind.


[HEADING=3]Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann[/HEADING]

Robots which can scale to absurd sizes, the manliest of men, coolness factor x 9000, blatant disregard of physics on an astronomical scale that would make Einstein rip his hair out and Hawking get off his wheelchair at run away at the speed of light. Oh and sexy girl in revealing outfits.
As much as that description comes off as juvenile, it's not, it's just...err...thinking of description...can't...too awesome. Throw all your logic away and JUST WATCH IT because you will not experience anything like it. No seriously, logic simply does not apply to this anime - only the rule of universal awesomeness.

That's all for now.

Ahh fuck it, I'm quoting you cause you said everything I would have said XD Seriously, these 3 animes were amazing. Especially Gurren Lagann. As cheesy as it is, that show changed my life. I wear a core drill of my own, and I go by the "My drill will pierce the heavens" thing now, because as I have known in the past, I won't simply give up on stuff like life just cause it gets tough. I'm better than that, and this show is a symbol of my determination~

 

[Rook]

Holy shit! I just watched all of the episodes of Attack on Titan so far, and....my god.

 

[Madara XIII]

Holy shit! I just watched all of the episodes of Attack on Titan so far, and....my god.

Heart wrenching to say the least...

 

[Julius Terrell]

Gunslinger Girl: Every episode wrenched on my heartstrings so hard it was almost suffocating. The situation those little girls were in was heartbreaking. ...at least to me it was anyway.

That was true, but that erection in my pants made me feel another emotion too.

This was a loli show without the fanservice. Danmn those girls were hot!

 

[shintakie10]

Spoiler: This one obviously

Seriously, Spice and Wolf looks deceptively like a premise for an ecchi centric show but no! It's actually very educational. Teaching you about medieval economics and the culture of the time. It's amazing and the show's protagonists(Kraft Lawrence and Holo) are one of the best and most adorable couples I've seen. The way their relationship builds over the course of the series, it's... beautiful man. T^T

[sub]Also, season 3. I'm slightly bitter that there might be no season 3. >~>[/sub]

There's also:

Higurashi (for the craziness. )
Hellsing and Hellsing Ultimate(the gore and Crispin Freeman's voice, come on)
Another (loved the premise, execution was slightly wobbly though)
Full Metal Alchemist (is it bad that I haven't watched Brotherhood? Probably. >.>)
Clannad (no tears were shed, but my heart was broken regardless.)

And that's it, I think... I'll update this list accordingly if and when I remember some more awesome anime.

God I adored the hell out of Spice and Wolf. I remember comin across it on Netflix, read the synopsis, figured meh can't be that bad.

I watched the entire first season in a single sittin. Totally hooked. Got to the last episode and freaked out because there wasn't a season 2 so I immediately jumped onto Hulu to pray they had it, totally did. Watched that the next night, ran out of episodes. Super duper sad about the lack of season 3.

Outside of that, I concur on Bakkano! Aside from bein set in a time period that I don't think gets enough attention nowadays, it was fairly clever and had an awesome way of tellin the story.

Angel Beats was absolutely stellar too. Real heart string tugger near the end. That endin still makes me sad, for many many reasons, but not hopelessly sad.

There's probably more that I think would qualify as ones I really really enjoyed, but not many that fall into the "Blew me away" category.

 

[Nazulu]

Still the first and only Full Metal Alchemist, the Spiders Chapter in the first Hunter X Hunter, the unfortunately short series Bezerk and some of the big ass fight scenes that had a change in animation all of a sudden in Naruto.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Gunslinger Girl: Every episode wrenched on my heartstrings so hard it was almost suffocating. The situation those little girls were in was heartbreaking. ...at least to me it was anyway.

That was true, but that erection in my pants made me feel another emotion too.

This was a loli show without the fanservice. Danmn those girls were hot!

I really don't want to know about you and your erections. X(

 

[Your Gaffer]

You know I watched anime as a kid growing up in high school but then after going to college I stopped. Now, ten years later, I have gone back and tried watching some.

While there is certainly some good shows out there some of the things I used to enjoy just turn me off completely. I was watching a show called "Tenchi Muyo! war on geminar" and the whole "I'm really awesome at everything and all the women are chasing me around but I am too awkward and shy to take advantage thing" gets wearisome after a while. It is just such obvious wish fulfillment stuff. The underlying show is actually kind of interesting, in that it shows a world with an interesting social structure and with an interesting history. I think I could have liked the show if it had not been for the over top and frankly ridiculous Mary Sue qualities of "Kenchi Misaki".

I feel if shows could tone down a lot of that stuff then they would work much better. I just watched "Ah! My Goddess" and enjoyed it much more, as it was almost a Romeo and Juliet love story, showing how young love can be so tender and passionate but life can conspire to break apart the relationship. Besides the main male character winning a motorcycle race there were no "I am a master warrior, all around awesome guy who can do anything but talk to women" moments.

Anyway, I am sure this is a little bit tl:dr but I'll try checking out some of the stuff recommended here.

 

[BeoW0lfe]

Sword Art Online

I find that to be such an overrated anime. The concept it nice. But I find it frustrating how so many people think it is better than .hack.

Sword Art Online is an interesting concept. But it quickly turned into some of the worst pandering garbage I have ever seen. It is like they took a lot of nice possible exercise in thinking about the possible future of technology in a Kurzweilian fashion and used it as nothing more as a pretty coating for a bland, generic, obnoxious harem anime.

Some of the most obnoxious harem anime tropes in the world with a thin coating of Ray Kurzweil thrown on top does not "blow me away."

Thank all that us gratuitously gravy in the world for your comment.
What makes it worse is that BOTH the villain and protagonist are god modded wish fulfillment characters. Plus I've yet to find a clear indication as to WHY Kayaba trapped everyone in there. Not to mention the legal precautions that should have taken place in the real world given that THOUSANDS of people are in a cyber induced coma.

I refuse to believe anyone is dumb enough to say SAO is better than .Hack by any extension

I've gotta play devil's advocate here, by no means did SAO blow me away. (Admittedly I enjoyed it, but it was total wish fulfillment fantasy.)While SAO was absolutely dripping with problems, it sucked me in. Shit happened in SAO. I couldnt even finish the first .hack episode because the first fifteen minutes was nothing but faffing about! I understand that exposition can be slow, but give me something! (different media but sue me) The Hobbit (book) was an example of how to do slow exposition, .hack is not. I'd be willing to call SAO and .hack even. (assuming .hack ends strong) SAO starts strong and nosedives, and .hack starts slow as hell and (probably) ends well.

End of Devil's advocacy. forgive me if .hack got good 15.5 minutes in.

 

[teh_Canape]

The first time seeing Cowboy Bebop.
Before I go any farther it is probably worth mentioning I don't watch much anime.

I think the first time I was really floored by an anime was this show. Believe it was the Mad Perot episode.
I'm not going to abuse hyperbole in a vain attempt to say exactly how much it impacted me, but I'll just say it was very effective.

I second this
I just recently watched the entire series since I never before had the chance to, but sweet damn was it an experience
a very interesting universe, awesome characters (hard to tell which one I like the most, kind of a tie between the awesome Ed and the smooth ************ that Spike is)
also, it just oozes style

I still get a rush of feels when I hear Green Bird
should probably watch the movie too

 

[Charli]

Definitely agree on Fate/Zero, also I want a show just starring Waver and Rider btw. Those two are precious.


Erletsee get the usual suspects out of the way:
FMA (Both of them)
Cowboy Bebop
Gurren Lagann (If only for the art, not the bat shit storyline)
EVA (God damn this series, just goddamn it)
Baccano


...Hmmm the rest I've seen don't quite reach 'blown away' status...Dum dee dum...
Yeah I haven't seen any new anime recently to be fair. Fate/Zero did catch me by surprise given how utterly turned off I was by it's spiritual suc/predecessor.

 

[Winterfel]

Well I'm not usually blown away by an epic story or impressive visuals.
I'm more blown away when something does something out of the ordinary and does it well, which brings me to my point:

Usagi Drop
This thing was just sitting there glaring at me from the "to watch" list and damn did it deliver.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

[HEADING=2]Hellsing Ultimate[/HEADING]

An anime I had watched beforehand with the previous series but Ultimate was full of gore and enough Nazis to shame other animes with Nazis, not to mention how badass Alucard was throughout all the OVA's right to the end.

[HEADING=2]Wolf Children[/HEADING]

I heard about this one back in Jan and gave it a watch and caught so many bad cases of feels that came with this anime, really just beautiful in art style and story overall.

[HEADING=2]Future Diary[/HEADING]

For years I wanted an anime that was akin to Death Note and lo and behold Future Diary from out of nowhere blew away all my expectations and impressed me with it's twists and turns and sometimes unpredictable characters. The 2nd opening song is by far a personal favourite.


[HEADING=2]Wakfu[/HEADING]

Created in France along with it's own MMO styled game the Wakfu side of the show to me was brilliant with it's colourful cast of characters along with plenty of main and side villains, plenty of funny and serious moments and it's so far gone on for 2 seasons and 3 specials and the French studio was the very same one that created Oban Star Racers years ago so that's a nice bonus.

[HEADING=2]Rebuild of Evangelion[/HEADING]

Now I know quite a lot of you here already show quite a disliking of the rebuild movie series but even though it's gone A wall with it's plot the music,art style and sometimes characters still show some promise for what they are. (Also Hideki Anno is a master troll for hiding glyph symbols scattered all over the anime which form a piano tune from the 3rd movie itself which is just what I'd expect from Hideo Kojima).

[HEADING=2]Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure[/HEADING]

Having watched the original 2nd half all those years ago I was hooked on it back then and I'm sure as hell hooked on the latest addition of the show and it's greatly improved art style and stretched out story arcs (Thank god it's nothing like Bleach).

Many of you above have already mentioned Attack on Titan which I myself am currently hooked on and find it to be my favourite show for this year alone by the looks of it (Unless something far more climatic comes by to swoon me).

I'll just leave this last one here.

 

[Julius Terrell]

Well I'm not usually blown away by an epic story or impressive visuals.
I'm more blown away when something does something out of the ordinary and does it well, which brings me to my point:

Usagi Drop
This thing was just sitting there glaring at me from the "to watch" list and damn did it deliver.

You need to see An angels's egg. This movie is one of those artsy films. Not much action, but the story will keep you coming back for more. It has that same effect as 2001: A space odessey.

 

[Madara XIII]

nix]

[HEADING=2]Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure[/HEADING]

Having watched the original 2nd half all those years ago I was hooked on it back then and I'm sure as hell hooked on the latest addition of the show and it's greatly improved art style and stretched out story arcs (Thank god it's nothing like Bleach).

FUCK YEAH JOJO'S! Come on Mah JoJo BRO! WRRRRRRRY WITH ME

Btw you getting ready for Stardust Crusaders to get animated?

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

FUCK YEAH JOJO'S! Come on Mah JoJo BRO! WRRRRRRRY WITH ME

Btw you getting ready for Stardust Crusaders to get animated?

Holy Diver I wasn't expecting them to actually go ahead and animate Stardust crusaders just yet but I'm keeping my eyes peeled from this point on.

Now I totally need to go and re watch Jo Jo's abridged because Antfish does an amazing Tim Curry =D.

 

[FireAza]

Gunslinger Girl: Every episode wrenched on my heartstrings so hard it was almost suffocating. The situation those little girls were in was heartbreaking. ...at least to me it was anyway.

That was true, but that erection in my pants made me feel another emotion too.

This was a loli show without the fanservice. Danmn those girls were hot!

Son, I am disappoint. Your creepy feelings towards little girls aside, the first series took great pains the remove the creepy fanservice elements from the manga and de-moe the character designs. That's part of what made it better than the manga and part of why Il Teatrino was terrible. And yet you, you...

 

[Razentsu]

Steins;Gate is the most recent one to blow my mind. It was a slow starter, but it ramped up into something absolutely incredible.

Wow, Attack on Titan is too much. I only saw the first episode, and I already feel my heart is at its limits. What a powerful first impression. Damn. I honestly don't know if I'll be able to take any more.