edit: feel free to reply no matter how old this thread gets!

I’m not particularly into anime, I like it just as much as live action shows or other types of animation. Having said that, I feel like watching some and I’m not sure what to pick.

Here’s a list of other anime shows I’ve watched/manga and novels I’ve read, so you can better judge what to recommend. ( would greatly appreciate the story to be completed, I hate waiting years for closure) :

Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto : both great stories, I’ve read the mangas and loved them. They wouldn’t be a priority to watch because I already read them.

Attack on Titan: started with the anime, it was great, switched to the manga, got extremely disappointed with the story development and its ending. It felt a bit like nonsense for me.

Dragon Ball/Z : probably my favourite, I’ve rewatched it recently. I don’t like GT and Super.

Overlord: I’ve read good part of the novel and manga. I’m liking it so far

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: please No thanks. Not for me.

Death Note: loved the first arc, not a fan of the ending but no hate for it unlike with AOT.

I also recall Escaflowne and Inuyasha, they were alright but not something I’ve loved or hated. Cowboy Bebop also in this category, excellent visually and great OST but the story wasn’t as gripping.

Other than that… Feel free to suggest any other titles! Extra thanks if you are specific about any versions and why is the show so great.

TIA

  • Lvxferre
    30·
    1 year ago

    My recs, roughly in order of what I’m predicting that you’ll like the best, based on what you said.

    • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - mechas, action, epicness, plot twists? Yeah, you got all of them, while you follow the story of a bunch of people raised underground, fighting their way up.
    • Chainsaw Man - fast-paced action in a world full of demons. The protagonist merges with one, after living in shit since childhood, and that changes his life. Expect lots of humour, and the intro becoming an earworm.
    • Kimetsu no Yaiba - historical-ish setting. The protagonist is a demon killer, who’s sided by his demonised sister (yup). Sword fighting, great visuals, interesting and atypical story.
    • Dr. Stone - humanity has been petrified for thousands of years, and a single genius boy is trying to discover why, how, and how to revert it. The science there is 90% accurate, 10% fantasy.
    • Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009) - you watched the “original” FMA (2003), right? This one has slightly better worldbuilding and plot, and it’s better grounded in the manga, although the homunculi are more relatable in the original.
    • Noragami - the story of a stray god, a girl who can see spirits and gods, and the spirit of a dead boy.
    • Mairimashita! Iruma-kun - protag gets sold to a demon by his parents. And the demon actually treats him better than they did. So he goes to school, alongside demons, while pretending to be one.
    • Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka - a boy who wants to be a hero, fighting in a dungeon full of monsters, in a world where the gods descended and granted their blessing to mortals of their liking. Which gods? Yes. Romantic comedy with epic vibes.
    • Kill la Kill - watch this one if you watched TTGL and liked it. Heavy nudity, but the same “vibe” as TTGL. Hard to explain without giving you spoilers.

    A few classics that I feel like they should be mentioned, but don’t relate well to what you said that you liked:

    • Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi - movie, not a series. About a girl who’s spirited away to a world full of yokai, trying to save her piggyfied parents.
    • Tonari no Totoro - also a movie, not a series, about children who move to a suburban neighbourhood full of magical creatures.
    • Neon Genesis Evangelion - psychological drama pretending to be a mecha anime.

    Some old style isekais, since you mentioned that you liked Overlord:

    • Log Horizon - also “transported into a game”, except that it happens with a fuckload of people at once. Most focus is how those people organise themselves in their former MMORPG, now real life, as well as how they handle the NPCs around them.
    • Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu - two girls in a fantasy world decide to summon someone, hoping to enslave him to help them out… only to get their magic deflected and end enslaved. The world is the same as the game world that the protagonist (the summoned guy) played.
    • Re:Zero - protag gets transported to a fantasy world. He doesn’t know how or why. His main ability is to go back in time, when he dies; so he experiences death over and over and over.
    • Mushoku Tensei - the protag starts as completely scum, but he gets slightly less worse over time. Great worldbuilding and characterisation.
    • Benriya Saitou-San, Isekai ni Iku - a handyman gets transported into a swords-and-magic world. Big focus on character relationship.

    I don’t recommend the anime, but check the manga if possible:

    • Elfen Lied - a discussion on what makes a human “human”, morals, and the likes. The anime adaptation is rather poor to be honest, but the manga is decent. Content warning: gore, sexual violence, a girl pissing herself right off the bat.
    • Hoshi no Samidare - a great story, but poorly animated, about a bunch of people trying to save the world from a giant biscuit hammer that you only see if you know about it, that’s going to hit Earth and destroy it. While subordinated to a girl who actually wants to destroy the world.

    EDIT: GreenZanbato mentioned Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken, or “That Time that I Reincarnated as a Slime”. It’s also an isekai, roughly with the same vibe as Overlord; but the protagonist reincarnates as a slime, and he’s far more self-aware than dummy Ainz. The novels are also great to read.

    • Mothra@mander.xyzOP
      7·
      1 year ago

      Wow you went above and beyond with the recs menu, thank you. TTGL sounds interesting when you put it like that! Appreciate the other recommendations too. As for the movies- I was looking for series, and yes I’ve seen most of studio Ghibli ones, Chihiro and Totoro being the two I liked the most.

    • GreenZanbato@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      1 year ago

      This is a great write up, but I’d put Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken (TenSura) at the top of the isekai list for any Overlord fan. Unlike Overlord, the main character starts off as the weakest monster, a slime, but the power growth is absurd and you quickly get into the same satisfying power fantasies as Overlord.

      As a sort of non-spoiler comparison for those that have seen Overlord, two of my favorite (similar) scenes in the later seasons of each show are the iä Shub-Niggurath scene (Overlord) and the Megiddo scene (TenSura). Feel free to look them up if you don’t care about spoilers and want to see some amazing ultimate attacks out of context.

      • Lvxferre
        2·
        1 year ago

        TenSura

        You’re right - I’ll add it to the list, thanks!

        Discussion about the Megiddo scene

        Rimuru did nothing wrong! Shion alone is worth more than 10k invading soldiers!

        Serious now. This comparison is really cool because it highlights how both Ainz and Rimuru are slowly losing their humanity, but only Rimuru is aware of that. For Ainz, using the spell is basically a “I need people to respect me, right? I’ll show that I’m ultra strong”; while for Rimuru, Megiddo is a conscious moral event horizon, where he actually chose between the life of the monsters vs. the life of the invading army.

        And alongside those lines, even Rimuru absorbing Shizu was a way to distance himself to his former human past. For a modern Japanese that would be cannibalism, but he already committed himself to live as a slime.

        • GreenZanbato@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          1 year ago

          That’s an awesome way to compare the scenes!

          spoiler

          You made me realize that, while Ainz has some character development, he doesn’t go through nearly as much as Rimuru does. Same with most of the companions. There’s plenty of character development in Overlord, especially with like Sebas and Brain, but a lot of Rimuru’s companions go through multiple complete transformations of their bodies and their personalities adapt to that, just like Rimuru himself. Full transparency: I’ve only watched the anime for each series, but I plan to read the novels when I get around to it lol.

          Also forget Shion, Megiddo gave us my boy Diablo! :P

      • Mothra@mander.xyzOP
        1·
        1 year ago

        For me it’s the characters in Overlord, their morals, goals, the atrocities they commit, their intentions and how they feel/think that makes it interesting- much more that the power itself. But I also like the power fantasy element in it, thanks for the recommendation!

        • GreenZanbato@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          1 year ago

          The characters in TenSura are definitely less “evil” than in Overlord, but you have a great variety of side characters, subordinates, etc. growing alongside the mc.

    • Obi@sopuli.xyz
      2·
      1 year ago

      Wow maybe I should read Elfen Lied because I remember the anime fondly, but maybe it was just the shock factor of discovering the story for the first time that made me gloss over any flaws. Was a long time ago too.

      • Lvxferre
        3·
        1 year ago

        I heavily recommend reading the manga. It contextualises Lucy’s actions better, makes Kohta look less like your typical “powerless boy” throwing random tantrums and more like a genuinely traumatised and conflicted one, and it delivers the message of the story better. The anime was fun back then, partially due to its violent nature, but I think that it aged poorly. (Notable exception: Lilium, the opening song, is still as beautiful as it was back then. Also the lyrics make more sense in the context of the manga than in the anime.)

        • Obi@sopuli.xyz
          2·
          1 year ago

          Yesss, that reminded me I sampled a toy box version of this in an old track of mine.

          I’ll put that manga on my to-read in tachiyomi, thanks!