*Looks at how many people recommended Cowboy Bebop in the thread*marche45 said:Basically the title,and yes that also excludes anime with high-school esque academy settings(like Infinite stratos.)
Also just to save you some time,i've seen pretty much all the anime thats aired on adult swim so you can skip the obvious ones like cowboy bebop and FMA.
OT: A lot of big ones have already been covered, so I'll keep my list short to a couple of anime that I am currently invested in right now.
A Shonen, but probably the best one I have ever seen. It's centered around a kid named Gon Freecs and the initial premise of the story is that he wants to become a hunter, Hunters being an exclusive group of certified people that have many priviledges that normal people don't, and must be extremely capable in order to do so. He wants to become one because his father, who he has not seen since early childhood was one, and he's deeply curious about what exactly about being a hunter was so important to his father, that he essentially left the family in pursuit of his own ambitions.
There are a few big things that really draw me into the series that I feel definitely separate it from other shonen anime. For one, I find the characters to be very interesting. Like the assassin Gon meets early on in the story, Killua. Even though he obviously has no qualms against killing people coldly, he refrains from doing so by choice to be friends with Gon, but is by no means changed, and can still just as easily kill people he doesn't like, but still enjoy hanging around Gon and the other guys in the group like a normal kid. Basically, he is able to compartmentalize his killing and his honest desire for friendship, which makes him an interesting character for not following the typical anime trope of having to choose between one path or the other.
And while Gon is a cheery protagonist like many, is definitely an innocent character, but not so innocent that he is unable to accept that some people kill other people and make a moral tirade against each and every murderer/criminal that he meets.
Another thing about the series I love is that it has a solid supernatural power system. This doesn't come up until around episode 30-35, but the series definitely does not by any means take a turn for the worse when they introduce supernatural powers. It introduces a lot of interesting characters and mechanics, and the system itself is very detailed, making all the kinds of powers that people develop seem very reasonable, and pretty much no deus ex machina power ups because a character is angry or sad.
I could probably keep on writing until I've written an entire book on why I think this series is great, so I'll just end this right here, and beg you to watch it. (please watch it, I am begging you, it's great)
There are a few big things that really draw me into the series that I feel definitely separate it from other shonen anime. For one, I find the characters to be very interesting. Like the assassin Gon meets early on in the story, Killua. Even though he obviously has no qualms against killing people coldly, he refrains from doing so by choice to be friends with Gon, but is by no means changed, and can still just as easily kill people he doesn't like, but still enjoy hanging around Gon and the other guys in the group like a normal kid. Basically, he is able to compartmentalize his killing and his honest desire for friendship, which makes him an interesting character for not following the typical anime trope of having to choose between one path or the other.
And while Gon is a cheery protagonist like many, is definitely an innocent character, but not so innocent that he is unable to accept that some people kill other people and make a moral tirade against each and every murderer/criminal that he meets.
Another thing about the series I love is that it has a solid supernatural power system. This doesn't come up until around episode 30-35, but the series definitely does not by any means take a turn for the worse when they introduce supernatural powers. It introduces a lot of interesting characters and mechanics, and the system itself is very detailed, making all the kinds of powers that people develop seem very reasonable, and pretty much no deus ex machina power ups because a character is angry or sad.
I could probably keep on writing until I've written an entire book on why I think this series is great, so I'll just end this right here, and beg you to watch it. (please watch it, I am begging you, it's great)
It's definitely a very interesting series so far. It has a lot of light-hearted moments, but also gets pretty dark at times, namely with the introduction of black ruhk, and I'd recommend it because the series definitely has a lot of interesting characters, a very interesting world, and a good story too. Please don't think that because this was short, that I don't like the series, because I think it's great! I just can't help myself but to ramble on and on about Hunter x Hunter whenever I get the chance, but I am really enjoying watching Magi right now, which is currently airing its second season, and I'd definitely recommend checking it out.