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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) FOLLOW-UP

Okay, so I’ve completed list #1, which covers anime TV shows and multi-part OVAs. But before I move onto the next list, I thought I’d give you a taste of what the rest of the list would look like if I did a top 20.

#s 11-20:

11. Bubblegum Crisis OVA – Cyberpunk at its best. Part Blade Runner, part Streets of Fire, the ultraviolent 80s retro-future world of MegaTokyo and the Knight Sabers makes for hours of entertainment. The music and strong voice performances are also to be commended.
12. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – Provocative and enriching, this series also kicks a lot of ass. Maybe a little technobabble heavy at times, though.
13. Giant Robo – A fast-paced, emotion-heavy, passionate epic and monument to Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s works. Director Yasuhiro Imagawa’s magnum opus, as far as I’m concerned.
14. Macross Plus – My favorite Macross work, this story of rivalry and love never fails to deliver, whether it’s on drama or action. Yoko Kanno’s score is brilliant.
15. FLCL – This OVA does more with six episodes than most programs with 26+. A fun and worthwhile watch that warns against growing up too fast.
16. Last Exile – Wonderfully immersive, and with a well-constructed world. It’s hard to beat those airship battles!
17. Space Battleship Yamato 2 – An alternate version of Farewell, this is more fleshed out and has a different ending.
18. Turn A Gundam –  While suffering from a few pacing issues, this series is nevertheless beautiful and soulful, concentrating on the characters rather than the combat, and providing an interesting backdrop and unique mechanical designs. It’s my favorite non-UC Gundam work.
19. Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket – Of all the many Gundam productions over the years, this is one of the best written ones. Instead of being about ace pilots, psychics, giant battles, and masked men, this small little slice of the One Year War revolves around a boy’s youthful enthusiasm for a war he knows little about, a war he sees as a game. Instead of many meaningless deaths, the few deaths here mean everything.
20. Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team – Combining gritty grunt combat with a sweet (if somewhat hurried) love story. It loses focus at times, but remains strong where it makes its points. One of the finest Gundam productions. read more

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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #1: Cowboy Bebop (1998)

 

 

 

Director(s): Shinchiro Watanabe Script: Akihiko Inari, Aya Yoshinaga, Dai Sato, Keiko Nobumoto, Michiko Yokote, Ryota Yamaguchi, Sadayuki Murai, Shoji Kawamori, Shinichiro Watanabe Music: Yoko Kanno   I’m probably going to seem like a "entry level" anime fan for saying this, but Cowboy Bebop is probably the perfect anime. I think Cowboy Bebop is absolutely a product of genius. I think genius minds conceived and executed the concepts, story, and production of this series.    The show is episodic, yes, but rather than being a bunch of completely unrelated adventures that just feature the core cast in different situations, the episodes are more like a series of short little films that each reveal a little more of the bigger picture, not necessarily of the main underlying plot, but something much more important, which is the world and atmosphere, the environment and attitudes which are pervasive in the show. The very lives of the characters are "episodic", but an episode rarely ends without having made some headway in unveiling more of the tapestry of this world the characters live in.    The main plot, the plot of Spike’s past with the Red Dragon, that’s something that keeps together the threads, but ultimately only exemplifies- well, perhaps more than that, epitomizes- the grander attitude of the entire work. The production values are breathtaking, some still by today’s standards.    The soundtrack, by Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts, is especially spellbinding. The show is very stylish, and so more cynical folks may be lured into believing the show is "style over substance", but the style becomes part of its substance, much in the way a Tarintino film both indulges in and skewers pop art culture. It’s a show that feels almost as new every new time I watch as it did the first time.    The characters are charming, charismatic, and colorful, the character design is excellent, as is the animation. The music is breathtaking. The action is palpable. The themes are presented fantastically, and you get a real "feel" for what the show is about overall. Perhaps the most representative of what anime can accomplish, it is both entertaining and provocative. It’s a rousing jazzy ballad of the bizarre and the sorrowful. It’s a must see for anyone.
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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #2: Legend of the Galactic Heroes (1988)

 

 

 

Director(s): Noboru Ishiguro Script: Akinori Endo, Hiroshi Komishikawa, Hiroshi Toda, Shigeru Yanagawa, Shimao Kawanaka, Takeshi Shudo, Yuho Hanazono Music: Shin Kawabe… and tons of classical composers   Where does one even start to praise Legend of the Galactic Heroes? How do I describe it to people who’ve never seen it? I’ll give it a try. Watching this show feels a lot like reading a really good novel. It’s almost an education. Let’s start with the world-building it does. A fully fleshed-out world where the characters thrive and strive, work and play, live and/or die is spread out before the viewer. It also has a huge cast of interesting characters, from flakes to geniuses (or both, if you’re Yang Wenli), murderers and kings, warriors and politicians. There are discussions of politics and philosophies that are remarkably well-constructed, if a bit simplistic at times. Following the characters’ stories really immerses you in their lives, giving the show a real emotional weight to major events in their lives. Like Yang Wenli says,  "There are few wars between good and evil; most are between one good and another good." It’s 110 episodes of brilliance. Go watch it now. Already have? Watch it again. Already doing it? Not if you’re reading this, you aren’t! Get back to it!  
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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #3 (TIE): Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009)

 

 

Director(s): Seiji Mizushima (2003), Yasuhiro Irie (2009)
Script: Various (for both… okay, the list is too long to list)
Music: Michuru Oshima (2003), Akira Senju (2009)
Alright, so I cheated here. But both Fullmetal Alchemist series hold a special place in my heart. The first one, though varying from the manga, has such a great focus and powerful emotional punch to it. The story of these brothers who would (and do) sacrifice everything for each other is so moving, it restored my faith in anime. I’m aware of some of the niggling flaws with certain plot elements, but to me the first series is all about emotions, and narrative, while good, is secondary. A fantastic Japanese cast and Michuru Oshima’s soundtrack really help to color this heartfelt epic. The second series, Brotherhood remains more faithful to the manga source, and has a very well-constructed, consistent world and concepts. I may have found certain decisions from the author poor, and Edward (Romi Paku) and Alphonse (Rie Kugimiya) seem to disappear into the background for too long, but the story is still powerful, with its elements of comradery and responsibility played out very well, with solid direction throughout the presentation. The characters are colorful, the action is exciting, the concepts solidly built and themes thoughtful. Fullmetal Alchemist is the my favorite title of the last decade. I can’t choose a favorite of the two shows and you can’t make me. 
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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #4: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)

 

Director(s): Yoshiyuki Tomino
Script: Akinori Endo, Hiroshi Ohnogi, Miho Maruo, Minoru Onoya, Tomoko Kawasaki, Yasushi Hirano, Yumiko Suzuki
Music: Shigeaki Saegusa
Zeta Gundam my favorite Gundam– no, favorite mecha anime- of all time. Why, you ask? Well, first of all, it outclasses the original series in quality of storytelling and concepts. You get the feeling you’re watching a real, fleshed out tragedy. No Gundam title does as good a job as Zeta does in showing how truly desperate people are in a war situation. All of the characters lash out to fulfill a sense of helplessness or to control the world around them through others’ helplessness. This means the characters are all predators or prey. In a swirl of desperate madness, the characters play outo a tragedy that claims lives and chews dreams, and spits the characters out broken, flawed, but intensely interesting. The characters are tempered in raw desperation, raw despair, which makes some of them heroes and some of them monsters. Now, I know there are flaws. Some awkward, unnatural dialogue, characters who act irrationally with little reason to, plot elements that seem to crop up at inopportune times. But I think the pluses far outweigh the minuses. In the end, you understand the tremendous price to be paid for a better future. 
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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #5: Mobile Suit Gundam (1979)

 

 

 

Director(s): Yoshiyuki Tomino Script: Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, Kenichi Matsuzaki, Yoshihisa Araki, Yu Yamamoto Music: Takeo Watanabe, Yuji Matsuyama   Like Space Battleship Yamato, Yoshiyuki Tomino’s Mobile Suit Gundam didn’t fare so well in the ratings at first. It was during the second run that it garnered the great popularity that the franchise enjoys today. In some ways, it’s not particularly surprising that it didn’t do all that well at first. It’s animation is horrible and art is inconsistant. However, despite their simplicity, the characters are all charismatic and have a presence of spirit that separate this series from many of its younger bretheren. An Amuro Ray (Tohru Furuya) or a Char Aznable (Shuichi Ikeda) comes onto the screen with vigor and creates a lasting impression without having to go overboard. There are little moments of humanity that mark this drama about a war, like soldiers helping a civillian try to find her hometown, or a young spy hugging her siblings before going off for a mission. There’s a lot of character to the show, which shows its age easily, but just as well its heart. The movie trilogy probably handled the Newtype element better, however.     
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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #6: Vision of Escaflowne (1996)

 

Director(s): Kazuki Akane
Screenplay: Shoji Kawamori
Music: Yoko Kanno
Everything comes together so well in Vision of Escaflowne. First of all, there’s a great and wonderous new world created on Gaia, a mix of midieval, Renaissance, and steampunk motifs. You really get a good feel for the world and its people (and beast-people). It’s a world whose secrets unravel as the story moves. I really like the Guymelefs, the giant combat armors that are like magic machines, and the combat and lore. Themes of fate, love, and loss shine a light on the story and characters. Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack is gorgeous, providing sweeping, powerful context to the actions on screen. It really helps to lift the series above similarly well-crafted works into an exciting epic journey.
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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #7: Baccano! (2007)

 

 

Director(s): Takahiro Omori Screenplay: Noboru Takagi Music: Makoto Yoshimori   Wow, what fun Baccano! is. It’s just an extremely, undefinably compelling romp through a world of colorful characters. I have to admit, at first I wasn’t so sure about the series. It wasn’t until a few episodes in that I really got the hang of things, but once I did, I was blown away. The narrative skips in time on regular basis, but there are clearly three different arcs (a fourth in the direct-to-video episodes) that have their own heartbeat. I get a full glee high watching Ladd Russo (Keiji Fujiwara) or Claire Stanfield (Masakazu Morita) brutalize, Isaac (Masaya Onosaka) and Miria (Sayaka Aoki) bumble, or Jacuzzi (Daisuke Sakaguchi) and his gang get swept up in the thick of things. In this show you’ll find Prohibition-era gangsters, sadistic immortals, crafty informants, and one hell of a train ride! The English-dubbed version is excellent, as well, one of my favorites (especially Bryan Massey as Ladd). I like pretty much every aspect of the show from the themes of friendship to the twisted philosophies of its denizens. It’s a must-watch. 
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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #8: Now and Then, Here and There (1999)

 

 

Director(s): Akitaro Daichi Screenplay: Hideyuki Kurata Music: Taku Iwasaki   Now and Then, Here and There is an exhausting series. I mean that in a good way, though. It’s emotionally exhausting. The themes of war, indoctrination, and perserverance are explored in ways which squeeze everything out of the characters and viewers alike. The indomitable (and sometimes annoying, frankly) optimism of main character Shu (Akemi Okamura) in the face of harrowing odds and painful life lessons is the wellspring of thoughts and emotion pouring out from this show like water from Lala Ru(Kaori Nazuka)’s pendant. Some might label the show as "melodramatic" or "depressing", but the narrative is unapologetic in examining the principals set forth by the creative team. I may not always agree with the positions, but I appreciate the thoughtfullness in which they are examined. 

 

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ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #1) – #9: Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)

 

 

Director(s): Hideaki Anno
Script: Hideaki Anno, Akio Satsukawa, Mitsuo Iso, Yoji Enokido, Yoji Enoto, Shinji Higuchi
Music: Shiro Sagisu
 
Neon Genesis Evangelion is more than an anime title, it’s a far-reaching phenomenon. It won the first Animation Kobe Award in 1996 and it’s consistently on top 10 lists throughout anime fandom. It’s not a perfect show. It’s actually a little overrated. The main narrative can be schizophrenic and there are elements left out you can only get information on through secondary sources. However, it’s conceptually solid. What Evangelion is really about, past the giant bio-androids, the giant monsters, and the often weird visuals, is communication. The problems the characters face are all due to poor communication, by being separate entities who have to make an effort to reach out, making themselves vulnerable to each other. Shinji Ikari (Megumi Ogata) is a boy who has trouble communicating what he means, and so he shies away. Asuka Langely Sohryu (Yuko Miyamura), on the other hand, compensates by being outwardly social, but inwardly insecure, looking always for validation. I watch Evangelion as more of a character study than anything else. The action can be good from time to time, but it’s a secondary quality. Evangelion is a concept-driven show more than anything. 
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