TGWTG User Blogs

Hello everyone, I'm back again with the results of last week's poll.

First of all, I want to apoligize for this one taking so bloody long. This week was ridiculously hectic and involved far too many schenanigans for me to remain in control of my life, but it's all over and the list is done, so it's time for me to celebrate.

As a start, I would like to pay homage to the following series that although got very close to making it into the final, didn't quite make the finla cut. Let's give them a hand folks:

Rurouni Kenshin
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Cardcaptor Sakura
Dragonball
FLCL
Elfen Lied

Now for the actual winners. I have to say, I'm not at all surprised, but am certainly pleased for the most part.

 

10. Naruto

Believe it (no pun intended) or not, before this series was infinitely killed by what we call English dubbing, Naruto used to be an amazingly good anime show. With an amazing plethora of different characters, as well as relatively deep character development (given the vast number), this series has easily become probably the most popular anime worldwide. It's only shortcoming arrives once you get to about episode 140 or so and the rest of the series is filler garbage. So, if you have any interest in this series, I recommend watching the first 140 or so episodes, then stop watching it and go straight to Naruto Shipuuden (Second Story Arc), watch about 25-30 episodes of that, and then go to the manga. Excellent overall with few problems, just don't be plagued by the english version.

9.Azumanga Daioh

Ok, admitadly, I've never watched this series. I guess I never jumped on the wagon when it was passing by, so needless to say I don't know exactly what this series is about. What I do know is that all of my friends are obsessed with the show as if it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and not having watched it it very well could be. What I gather is that you have a bunch of high school girls that just have everyday life-relative situations that usually spark into many moments of awesome "slice of life" comedy. Looking at it now, this sounds almost exactly like Lucky Star. Apparently each episode is about 5 minutes long, but there's 130 episodes so it all rounds out. With the episodes being 5 minutes, it would be like Lucky Star for people with ADHD. Ok, I'm not going to make anymore Lucky Star references, but this anime still sounds promising and I guess I can recommend it to anyone looking to laugh at some slice of life humor.

8. Trigun

Ok, if you would like a basic plot summary and are too lazy to read this, go check out the latest video by ThatDudeInTheSuede. It should be in the video section under his "Animenia" videos. Basically, you have a bunch of people living on a planet that's essentially 100% desert, and the whole thing is set with a western theme, where everybody has guns and tries to look badass (most of whom fail miserably). Amongst them is an individual called Vash the Stampede, who has a $6 million dollar bounty on his head, even though it turns out that instead of playing the totally badass look, he spends more time acting like a grade A nutjob. Meanwhile, there are 2 girls from an insurance agency that are trying to track down Vash the Stampede, and couldn't possibly guess that it was the person they keep running into over and over again (seriously, with the way he acts, can you blame them?). Plot elements aside, I would personally like to say that this is one of my absolute favorites because despite what seems like a wacky adventure turns out to be an incredibly deep, amazingly well done anime with awesome music and M. Night style plot twists. So stop reading this and go watch Trigun, it's an anime made of Love and Peace (and a shitload of guns).

7. The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi

I don't think anybody would find me sane if I told them this is a series about a high school girl that has a strange obsession with aliens, time-travellers, and espers, and starts a club (or in this case brigade) for the purpose of finding said aliens, time-travellers, and espers, and all the club members are composed of one alien, one time-traveller, and one esper who are all in the club for the purpose of monitoring the high school girl cause apparently she's God and doesn't know it. Well, unfortunately that's the actual summary of this entire show, and there is no way to make it sound any less insane. What isn't unfortunate is that despite the oncoming insanity, this is probably one of the single best anime ever produced in the last 2-3 years. I'm serious, I don't think I can think of a single bad thing about this show; everything is perfect from the story to the number of episodes to the comedy and even the opening and ending songs. It's FLAWLESS. Ok, so maybe the episodes aren't in chronological order, and it may be hard to kepp up with what's going on sometimes, but that is part of why this series is so good, because every event is told at the absolute best moments. Anyways, if you're looking for a fun comedy to perplex your peers, and also would like ti to be relatively short, watch this show. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

6. Bleach

If any of you have been connected to the anime/manga database in the last 3 years, you've probablyat least heard of Bleach at some point; if you haven't, then I don't know where you've been and honestly don't care. Bleach has quickly become one of the most popular anime worldwide in the most recent years, starting early one with a pretty good fanbase and now having spread to the point where it easily rivals Naruto for single most popluar anime. So how does it compare to Naruto? Well, with this anime I'd rather not try to compare it with a completely different show, and would rather put Bleach in it's own category. Bleach takes place in the present world, where everything seems to go normally, but what most people don't know is that spirits roam the lands, unseen to the human eye. It is the job of Shinigami, aka Death Gods, to find these spirits and purify their soul to be sent to Soul Society, which is essentially heaven. There's a regular kid named Kurosake Ichigo, the main character, who for some reason can see spirits and even Death Gods. When his family is suddenly attacked by an evil spirit, aka a Hollow, the Death God Kuchiki Rukia is injured trying to protect them. Through a special ritual of sorts (nothing fancy, just a sword stabbin'), Rukia's powers are transferred to Ichigo, and makes him a temporary Death God. Anyway, the series is great, and in my oppinion INFINITELY better than Naruto in both premise and character development, and again throwing preplanned and well thought out M. Night style plot twists. Unfortunately, this suffers slightly from Naruto syndrome, where it starts off good, than suffers deep wounds from fillers (but not too deep, this filler is almost good enough to actually watch), then goes back into the storyline only to be plagued by another set of infinite filler. My Bleach full enjoyment plan goes as such: Watch up to episode 63, skip to around 107-108, start watching for another 25-30 episodes or so, then go straight to manga.

5. Neon Genesis Evangelion

To my shame, I've never seen this jewel of a series, but I can probably guess the storyline. There's a group of kids who get into mecha and fight these giant aliens that kind of look like angels but are really destructive. Oh, and the last episode can easily be replaced with taking your brain, putting it into a microwave, smashing it with a blunt object, biting it, throwing it into a paper shredder, and reassembling it piece by piece; chances are, that will hurt you mind less than watching the last episode of this show. From what I'm told, the mind rape is far too great for the human mind to comprehend. I'd say more on the subject, but chances are there's no joke or phrase I can say that probably hasn't been said about a billion times already, and again I haven't actually watched it yet.

4. Samurai Champloo

The best way to summarize this series is to imagine the Boondocks, except set it in Edo period Japan. So anyway, you have these three people travelling across Japan looking for a special samurai at the request of the main girl chacter, who is a lot like Sakura from Naruto in that she tries to keep the two boys from fighting too much, and that she's also completely useless. The two guys are trying to escort her to this Samurai (and they are doing this practically because they lost a bet with her), and along the way they get attacked by tons of other warriors and some skilled assasins, and always end up fighting to the death for the most part. In most cases, the heros usually only make it by the skin of their teeth, and there are many situations where the main characters almost die, which is part of the reason I like this show. The main characters aren't the best, and they are allowed to lose (unlike many of today's main protagonists that always win despite the circumstances). Also, you got to love Mugen, the guy's like a friggin tank.

3. Full Metal Alchemist

Two kids thought it would be fun to mess with dark mysterious powers for the purpose of being "experimental" which didn't quite work out, so now the main character Edward has a metal arm and his brother's soul is trapped in an empty suit of armor. Together they journey to reclaim what they've lost by finding the Philosopher's stone, a special material said to greatly amplify the powers of Alchemy. I'm not going to say much more than that since A) I haven't seen this show nor read it, and B) I really don't see the plot going much further than that, though chances are I'm wrong. Oh and don't fret, I'm not saying this series is bad, in fact the premise seems profoundly good, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet and simply can't make that judgment call.

2. Death Note

"groan" You know, I really don't understand what you people see in Death Note. Sure, it's got a lot of suspense and it's a great mystery horror-esque series and there's plot twists up the arse, but it just seems like a giant game of "who-dun-it" with a couple of ridiculous twists and a giant death god with a face full of Botox and a serious craving for apples. Let the hate mail begin. Go ahead, tell me I suck because I don't really like Death Note, see if it brings me to tears. Anyways, the basic plot summary seems that a Death God with an apple fetish has lost a very important Death God tool known as the Death Note, a journal with the ability to kill people simply by writing the person's name down inside, and it's found by some kid who starts using the Death Note to kill people who he believes deserve to die (mostly criminals and the like). However, there's a detective who is trying to catch him and stop him from randomly killing people, so it's just a giant game of cat and mouse for god knows how many episodes. Seems like an okay premise, but to me it will remain at just okay.

And the greatest anime of all time is:

1. Cowboy Bebop

If you took all the awesome in the world and put it into a single concept, it would probably be in Cowboy Bebop. This has been regarded by many as the greatest Anime ever created, and is only pushed away from people because it is an Anime. Truth be told, I think this series would be just as good if it was a live action show, it just happens to be an anime because of where it was made. Aside from content, this is also one of the most popular Animes simply because even if you have almost no knowledge of the subject, you've probably at least heard of this show at some point of another. Great series, great characters, great music, everything works perfectly. Absolutely sublime from start to finish and I think it would be very wise of you to toss all your pre-anime stereotypes out the window and give this show a chance.

 

Well there they are, the top 10 Anime shows voted by you. Also, I highly urge you to actually investigate the grand result (posted below) because I can gurantee there are a lot of amazingly good shows down there that are all worth checking out, whether it got 10 votes or even just one. For information about any of these series and the like, go to www.animenfo.com

Stay tuned for another Top 10 list, coming this Sunday.

.hack//G.U.
.hack//SIGN------------------------------x2
5 Centimeters per Second-----------------x2
Afro Samurai-----------------------------x2
Ah! My Goddess---------------------------x3
Akagi
Akira
Angel Sanctuary
Aria
Ask Dr. Rin
Ayakashi: Classical Japanese Horror
Azumanga Daioh---------------------------x14
Banner of the Stars
Bare Footed Gen
Basilisk---------------------------------x2
Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad
BERSERK----------------------------------x7
Big O
Bio-Booster Armor Guyver-----------------x2
Black Cat--------------------------------x2
Black Jack
Black Lagoon-----------------------------x2
Blade of the Immortal
Bleach-----------------------------------x16
Blood: The Last Vampire
Blood+-----------------------------------x5
Blue Submarine No.6
Burn-Up Excess
Canvas 2
Cardcaptor Sakura------------------------x10
Case Closed
Cheeky Angel
Chobits----------------------------------x2
Chrno Crusade----------------------------x5
Clannad----------------------------------x4
Claymore---------------------------------x5
Code Geass-------------------------------x9
Code Geass R2
Colorful
Cowboy Bebop-----------------------------x31
Crest of the Stars
Cromartie High
D. Gray-man
Da Capo
Darker than Black------------------------x4
Death Note-------------------------------x28
Dennou Coil
Desert Punk
Digimon Adventure (Season 1)
Digimon Tamers (Season 3)----------------x3
DNA^2
Dragon Ball------------------------------x10
Dragon Ball Z----------------------------x11
Dragon Ball GT---------------------------x2
ef ~a tale of memories~
Elfen Lied-------------------------------x10
Ergo Proxy-------------------------------x3
Escaflowne-------------------------------x4
Eureka 7
Eve no Jikan
Excel Saga-------------------------------x3
Eyeshield 21-----------------------------x2
Fate/Stay Night
Figure 17
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Fist of the North Star-------------------x4
FLCL-------------------------------------x11
Fruits Basket----------------------------x6
Full Metal Alchemist---------------------x21
Full Metal Panic-------------------------x2
Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu!
G Gundam---------------------------------x4
Galaxy Angels
Gantz------------------------------------x3
GaoGaiGar
Genshiken
Getbackers
Ghost Hound
Ghost Hunt
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex--x7
Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig--------------x3
Giant Robo
Gintama----------------------------------x4
Godannar
Golden Boy-------------------------------x3
Golgo 13
Grave of the Fireflies
Gravitation
Great Teacher Onizuka--------------------x2
Gundam 00--------------------------------x2
Gundam Seed------------------------------x4
Gundam Wing------------------------------x9
GunGrave
Gunslinger Girl--------------------------x2
GunXBlade
Haibane Renmei---------------------------x3
Hajime no Ippo---------------------------x3
Hellsing---------------------------------x4
Honey & Clover---------------------------x2
Howl's Moving Castle---------------------x2
Hunter X Hunter
Ikki Tousen
Inuyasha---------------------------------x7
Iron Scroll
Jungle wa itsumo Hare nochi Guu----------x2
Kaiji
Kaliedo Star-----------------------------x2
Kamichama Karin
Kamen no Maid Guy
Kanazuki no Miko
Kanon------------------------------------x2
Karas
Kare Kano
Kaze no Yojimbo
Kekeishi
Kiki's Delivery Service
Kino's Journey
Kodacha
Kogepan
Laputa (Castle in the Sky)
Last Exile-------------------------------x3
Looking up at the Half-moon
Love Hina--------------------------------x2
Lovely Complex
Lucky Star-------------------------------x9
Lupin III--------------------------------x2
Maison Ikkoku----------------------------x2
Macross (1982)
Macross 7
Macross Frontier-------------------------x2
Magic Knight Rayearth--------------------x2
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's
Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
Mahoromatic
Mermaid Scar
Metropolis
Midori Days
Minami-ke
Mnemosyne no Musume-tachi
Mononoke
Monster----------------------------------x2
Moyahimon
Murder Princess
Mushishi---------------------------------x4
My Neighbor Totoro
Myself; Yourself
NANA
Naruto-----------------------------------x13
Natsume Yuujinchou
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Neon Genesis Evangelion------------------x17
Night of the Galatic Raliroad
Nodame Cantabile-------------------------x2
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu
Noir
Now and Then, Here and There-------------x2
Nube
Oh my Goddess
One Piece--------------------------------x5
Ouran High School Host Club--------------x6
Outlaw Star------------------------------x7
Paprika
Paranoia Agent---------------------------x3
Peacemaker Kurogane
Peach Girl
Perfect Blue
Persona: Trinity Soul
Planet Survive
Please Twins
Pokemon----------------------------------x4
Prince of Tennis
Princess Mononoke------------------------x8
Princess Tutu
Project A-ko
R.O.D.
Rah Xephon
Ranma 1/2--------------------------------x6
Record of Lodoss War---------------------x4
Red Photon Zillion
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Rosario+Vampire
Rozen Maiden-----------------------------x3
Rurouni Kenshin--------------------------x13
Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayel------x2
Sailor Moon------------------------------x8
Saiyuki
Sakura Wars
Samurai 7
Samurai X--------------------------------x2
Samurai Champloo-------------------------x19
Samurai Pizza Cats (???)-----------------x2
Samurai Troopers (Ronin Warriors in US)
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
School Days
School Rumble----------------------------x3
Scrapped Princess
Searching for a Full Moon
Serial Expermients Lain
Serei no Morbito
Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoiyo!!
Sgt. Frog
Shakugan no Shana------------------------x5
Shaman King------------------------------x2
Slayers Next
Sonic X
Soul Eater-------------------------------x4
Spice and Wolf---------------------------x4
Spirited Away----------------------------x7
Strawberry Panic
Strike Witches
Tank Police
Tekkaman Blade II
Tenchi Muyo------------------------------x6
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann---------------x10
Tetsuwan Birdy Decode
The Eternity You Wish For
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time----------x3
The Melacholy of Suzumiya Haruhi---------x15
The Third ~Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo~
The Traveling Yami: Hat & Cat
Those who hunt Elves---------------------x2
To Heart 2
To LOVE-ru
Tokyo Mew Mew
Toshokan Sensou
Trigun-----------------------------------x14
Trinity Blood----------------------------x3
Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicles--------------x4
Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicles: Tokyo Revelations
Tsukihime
Twelve Kingdoms
Twilight of the Cockroaches
Ultra Maniac
Utawarerumono----------------------------x2
Vampire Hunter D-------------------------x2
Vampire Hunter D "Blood Lust"------------x2
Vampire Knight---------------------------x2
Voices of a Distant Star
Voltron
Welcome to the NHK!
When they Cry, Higurashi-----------------x6
Whisper to the Heart---------------------x2
Wicked City
Witch Hunter Robin
World Destruction
X
Xam'd: Lost Memories---------------------x2
Yu-Gi-Oh!--------------------------------x3
Yu Yu Hakusho----------------------------x6
Zero no Tsukaima-------------------------x3
Zombie Powder
Zoids Chaotic Century
Zoids: New Century