Recommend me an anime

[GabeZhul]

Not exactly top-shelf material, but Hataraku Maou-sama! was a recent fun little title that might worth a look.
While the story is meh and the setting and metaphysics are haphazard at best (not to mention the antagonists pulling karma houdinis all the time), the comedy and the characters (especially the deadpan snarker extraordinaire protagonist) would still warrant a watch if you need something light and fluffy after a more heavyweight series.

Also, if we are at fluffy comedy, I can also recommend Working!! and its second season. It is a 4koma adaptation, so it is mostly about rapid-fire humor, but it has a very fun and eclectic cast of characters and more than a fair bit of really cozy romance to it. As with the other series, I recommend it for those rainy days when you need something light and funny to lift you up.

 

[Entitled]

I'm going to break rule #1, and recommend a classic, Legend of the Galactic Heroes. (not to be confused with Legend of the Legendary Heroes).

Epic space opera, and not just in the slang sense of "epic", but in the literary one.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Funny that you ask us not to recommend anime older than 4 years when all of the "top" anime or anime "boom" started back in 2007-2008.

With that said here are a few recommendations:

Cowboy Bebop
Black Lagoon
Code Geass
Soul Eater
Darker than BLACK
Elfen Lied
Mirai Nikki

To name a few.

 

[Zantos]

How about Space Dandy? He's a dandy guy... in space!

It's pretty silly, and not to everyone's tastes, but I really enjoy it.

Also since I just finished Gurren Lagann, I might have to give some of the suggestions a try. Akame ga Kill sounds like fun, AoT was the first series that I was too into to wait for the english episodes to come out. Though weirdly when I remember stuff from it I remember it in english.

 

[necromanzer52]

Space Dandy is a show I think everyone should watch. It's one of those shows that I can't promise you'll like, but I can promise you'll remember.

Then there's watamote. An anime about social anxiety. Depending on how much you can relate it can vary from being incredibly funny to tearjerking.

Now a couple more obscure shows which I love, but aren't that well known/well received:

Coppelion. Set about 20 years after a nuclear explosion made Tokyo uninhabitable, a team of 3 teenage girls who are immune to radiation due to being genetically altered must head into the city to search for survivors. I loved it because it had a lot of "what measure is a non-human" themes, but the general reception was not so warm.

Hitsugi no Chaika. So far my favourite anime of the year. I wouldn't know where to begin explaining the story, but it's essentially about a small group of travellers on a quest to gather certain objects. The plot is well-written and the pacing is spot-on, but what I love most are the characters. They all have their own motivations for what they do and there's no bad guy. There's a group of antagonists, but their reasoning for stopping the main characters is totally reasonable, and you could easily frame this story with them as the good guys.

 

[Hectix777]

snip snap

Snappity snip

I know it's past 4 years for this, but I'm going to throw out Bobobo, Golden Boy, and Slayers, because if you haven't watched them both you are seriously missing out! And PLEASE, please, please, please, please, watch the English Dub, it is extremely hilarious I assure you, case in point:
Slayers

Bobobo OP

And my favorite scene from Golden Boy:

 

[Zakarath]

There've been a few from the past few seasons I've quite liked:

Log Horizon
Hitsugi no Chaika
Knights of Sidonia
Kyoukai no Konata

Other ones not quite as recent that still deserve recommendation:

Spice and Wolf
Last Exile
Darker than Black

 

[Rabbitboy]

Well the only recent anime that I watched and isn't on your watched list is Noragami

http://myanimelist.net/anime/20507/Noragami

I realy liked this one but unfortunately it is only 12 episodes long so a lot of questions it brings up about the main characters past remain unanswered (presumably they get answered in the manga but I haven't gotten around to reading it).

Aside from that show I can only think of two movies

Ariety

Spoiler

and Redline which I will admit is 1 year to old

Spoiler

 

[William Fleming]

This will break the no older than 4 years old rule but you could always give Durarara!! a watch in time for the next season that's going to start airing in January.

 

[Michael Tabbut]

Oh this is a tough one I haven't really watched that many anime less than 4 years old. Black Lagoon and its continuation Roberta's Blood Trail are rather high on my list of favorites. I think it would help to know what kind of anime you like before I can make any further recommendations.

 

[4RM3D]

How about Space Dandy?

Space Dandy
Coppelion.
Hitsugi no Chaika.

Space Dandy looks like Redline. Sign me up.

Coppelion I've heard mixed reviews off.

Hitsugi no Chaika looks like a decent watch.

*snip*

Old school, good stuff. But already have it / seen it.

Hataraku Maou-sama!
Working!!

Watching Hataraku Maou-sama now. Nothing special, but it's fun to watch.
Working looks like something I wouldn't enjoy. But I thought the same of Silver Spoon and that turned out awesome. So, I might give it a try.

*snip*

Seen most of it minus Log Horizon and Hitsugi no Chaika. Damn Log Horizon's plot is exactly like Sword Art Online. Well, the beginning, at least.

Noragami

That looks interesting. I'll check it out.

This will break the no older than 4 years old rule but you could always give Durarara!! a watch in time for the next season that's going to start airing in January.

Oh this is a tough one I haven't really watched that many anime less than 4 years old. Black Lagoon and its continuation Roberta's Blood Trail are rather high on my list of favorites. I think it would help to know what kind of anime you like before I can make any further recommendations.

Seen both Durarara and Black Lagoon and enjoyed both of them. Looking forward to Durarara season 2.

 

[Greg White]

Dog Days.

Currently has 2 seasons out with a third on the way.

The jist of it is a guy gets summoned to play an athletics game as 'the hero' to save a kingdom of dog-people playing against cat-people. Somewhat cliche'd plot aside, the first season is pure, if somewhat goofy, fun with the second season being more of the same but with more characters.

Not exactly a breakthrough in art design or philosophy, but it is amusing.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

I would recommend the following ones:

Knights of Sidonia. - it might take a few episodes to get over their special 3D artstyle, but in the end I found that it worked really well. Sadly the anime staff did skip quite a bit of the original manga to push it all in the 22 minutes episode format. Yet they still deliver some of the best mecha in years by bringing truly hard sci fi back to anime.

Another - I wasn't a fan of this at first, but got to like it very much in the end. It stand as a good example of how you can gradually increase the tension in a story until it reaches a breaking point.

Aldnoah.Zero - Best mecha anime currently running imo. No uber mechs in the hands of the protagonist (it's the other way around) in an interesting setting.

From the new world - just watch this, it's dramatically different from anything you've seen before. Again, hard sci fi / fantasy at its best.

Kaiba - Watch it, don't mind the drawings which are kidlike at first. It's got some deep shit going on. Again, hard sci-fi.

 

[thehermit2]

Aldnoah Zero
Tokyo ESP
Space Dandy
Break Blade
Ghost in the Shell: Arise

 

[FPLOON]

Aw man... Most of the ones I wanted to say have already been said already:

Black Lagoon (with Roberta's Blood Trail)
Michiko to Hatchin
Another
Wolf Children
Log Horizon
Madoka Magica
SPACE DANDY

Oh well... I'll just say .hack//Quantum, but only if you like the dot hack lore in general... (Even though, it can still stand on its own right...)