Yet another rec thread: Intelligent anime

Here's an odd one: Moyashimon. Slice of Life about university student who can see microbes.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

Claymore has a good world, excellent storytelling and fulfill your wishes. Be careful however : the anime has one hell of a Gecko/Gainax Ending, which had been compared as "ending Star Wars by making Luke Skywalker kill Dark Vader just after his duel with Obi Wan".

^^Seconding. Also, Kurau Phantom Memory, Planetes, Mushishi, FLAG, and Gundam 0080 are all worth a look.

Mnemosyne is a good one of these if you can stand lots of gore and nudity, both regular and sexual.

Watch Symphogear

From what I've seen of Satoshi Kon, him. Mushishi works, I think.

Monster for sure. Not sure about Naoki Urasawa's other works, but probably that.

Legend Of Galactic Heroes is probably the most intelligent space type anime I've seen, from what I've seen. I've heard Texhnolyze is good for this.

Monster Isn't really like Death Note at all. Except that there's a serial-killer involved. Honestly, they're pretty much nothing alike in tone or plot.

Planetes is very hard SF. Good stuff, but mostly slice-of-life-y.

Infinite Ryvius is fairly intelligent in the sociol sense, most of the science is pure bollocks though. (although it does the entire "Space is very very big" think correctly)

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent

I've seen Infinite Ryvius. The psychology in the series was… Hit or miss. I suppose the fact that much of the cast were supposed to be abnormally deranged (though the lead was SO annoying, like Shinji to the nth power) helped a lot, but that didn't make up for the HUGELY nonsensical Easily Forgiven ending. Also, the excuses for not simply landing somewhere wore pretty thin at times. Having both outer space and the cast be huge and isolated was certainly a refreshing change (especially the dwindling supplies) though.

@Zudak & Killer Rabbit: I've just finished Haibane Renmei. What worldbuilding it had was solid, though the series had a sort of vague, dreamy feel, and the subtext helped me a lot in swallowing how fatalistic the characters were. The characters and story were a tad twee for my taste, but it mostly avoided Tastes Like Diabetes mawkishness. One thing I really liked was the ending, how it tackled the question of whether or not someone can truly improve themselves through their outward actions.

@Killer Rabbit & blamspam: I can unreservedly state I found Paranoia Agent a masterpiece in nearly every respect, which made it all the more tragic that Kon died just a short while after I saw it, so I'm definitely going to see more of his stuff.

Eric,

I have heard good things about The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. Have any of you seen either of those?

EDIT:

Okay, I must see this.

edited 23rd Nov '10 9:52:06 AM by Zudak

If we're talking about intelligent anime, I could probably put forward Serial Experiments Lain... though that's really more of a "what is this I don't even" series if we're going to nitpick. I do think it's got a lot more thought put into it than the average anime, though.

edited 23rd Nov '10 10:10:30 AM by MsieurLapin

A lot of great suggestions in this thread. I'll only emphasize three.

Planetes, because it hasn't been mentioned terribly often so far and is intelligent in both the sense of having solid writing and the sense of being thought provoking. One of my favorites.

The other two are Monster and Legend of the Galactic Heroes because IMO they're the best of the bunch mentioned so far.

I would suggest Neon Genesis Evangelion, but since it gets a lot of Hype Backlash and Internet Backdraft, I'm not too sure if you'll like it.

A trve man never dies, even when he's killed!

I've seen a bit of NGE, and the entire premise pretty much runs on MST3K Mantra. As I noted before, Lain came across to me, upon actually finishing it, as layers of needlessly pompous obscurity concealing a terribly simple and ridiculous plot.

Eric,

Plus, it's acknowledged by a whole bunch of folks - including the creators - that the 'deep symbolism' there is just bullshit tacked on because they thought it looked cool.

As for Lain, it was apparently intended to spark a 'cultural war' due to perceived incompatibilities between eastern and western mindsets. So I think it's fair to say that the writer's grasp of psychology, at least, is a bit iffy.

edited 23rd Nov '10 7:51:11 PM by Iaculus

What's precedent ever done for us?

@Zudak: Seen The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. All those good things people say about it are true. The ending especially is great because it subverts the usual preachy expectations of an ending for that sort of story.

Oh wait were you talking to the OP? My bad.

edited 23rd Nov '10 8:18:53 PM by Sporkaganza

Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.

I was addressing the thread in general.

I loved what I saw of Planetes, although I only saw the first few episodes and then stopped for some reason that escapes even me. I am easily distracted. :(

Judging from your OP, yeah you're not really helping yourself in your choice and depending on how much you watch you may not be helping yourself either, I believe what you are experiencing is called the "Hourglass Effect" but that's besides the point.

Watch Durarara it's pretty much one of the best characterization anime I've seen in recent years and if you don't spoil the twists they're actually pretty good.

Quite apart from if Lain is any good or not, I'd say anyone who doggedly focuses on what's actually happening in the show is probably going to be put off. Firstly because I'm unsure if there is a definite answer at all. Secondly because, for me at least, it was very far away from being the most interesting thing in the show.

They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams for an instant, then it's night once more

Monster and Planetes defiantely. Very well-thought off with good characters.

Just saw Starship Operators. Was good. Could have been utterly brilliant with just a few tiny changes (the age or look of some characters is off..they look way too young to even be 1st year cadets, let alone graduates)...the unnecessary idiot ball and the Mary Sue vibe one gets from the girl that's 2nd in command (EVERY friggin plan is hers..even something as simple as "hide behind asteroids"...is there anyone else with a brain on that ship??)

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time - Though I don't hate it, what so intelligent about it? It was definitely beautifully animated, but it just an above average teen drama that Japan produce every so often. (YMMV definitely).

Lain has a lot of weird but it's not actually difficult to follow the storyline. There's plenty of fairly direct exposition.

No, it wouldn't be fair to say that. It would be fair to say that the creator had an incorrect grasp of at least one of the two cultures he thought would clash or made a misstep in designing the show for that purpose somehow. That has little to do with psychological comprehension. It's not exactly easy to engineer abstract, cerebral cyberpunk specifically to cause a war of values, so I really don't think its failure to do so implies much of interest about the creator.

Exactly what kinda of cultural war did the writer intend to spark anyway? West or east, most will like treat it as a mind screw anime.

I have to say, on the subject of Plantes, that the latter half of the plot made me rage. The slice-of-lifey "garbage men IN SPACE!" bits were great, but the whole thing just sort of got derailed and started circling the drain eventually. I won't say more because it's spoilerriffic, but yeah.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Agree with many of these. The rest I know I need to watch. Huge second on Kara no Kyoukai and Eve no Jikan. I'll add in Katanagatari, Eden of the East and Spice and Wolf. If I recall correctly, these fit the bill.

edited 30th Nov '10 9:01:22 PM by downquark

What I've read of Spice And Wolf did have a nice blend of fantasy and economics, and I don't remember plot holes.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

@Miijhal & blamspam: I'm most of the way through Mushishi and it's pretty interesting. The series is so darned close to being sort of a Medical Drama by way of (the excellent) Lord Darcy, but logical deduction is far too often skipped for “Hmm, that sounds like a [name of Mushi you've never heard of before and never will again] you've got there.” Also, I realize he's supposed to be a bit awkward as a social outcast, but does anyone else think Ginko comes across as a bit too much of an unfeeling, heartless bastard sometimes?

Hmm… A spin through various search engines produced scant illumination on the term, care to share?

@Trash Man: My problem with the characters, aside from the dialogue's blandness, is the formulaic anime-ness of their designs. Emotionless Girl Punch Clock Heroine? Present. Meganekko Moeblob? Present. Yamato Nadeshiko? All present and reporting for duty.

Also, a lot of the plans were at least partly thought of by the Too Cool to Live dude, and refined with the captain's help. Speaking thereof, since his Martyr Without a Cause moment happens in the final quanta and has no effect on the story thereafter, I prefer to simply imagine they blew the door off its frame and dragged him to the pod.

@Monadology: Well, he also made The Big O, so all's forgiven.

@downquark: I've seen Eden of the East, and while I thought it was pretty good, it's the exact opposite of what I'm looking for here. The whole thing is Magic Realism to the n^th degree running on a Random Events Plot. The characters are actually pretty intelligent most of the time, but the worldbuilding… Thinking about how Luis gets ANYTHING done runs into so much Fridge Logic it made my brain hurt. As I said, I actually liked it, but the whole time I watched it I kept thinking “Gee, this is an awful lot like Heroes or Lost” until by the season 1 finale I realized “Wait, this IS like them. Darn you Chris Carter!” and dropped it.  ^*

Eric,

edited 1st Dec '10 7:54:39 AM by EricDVH