Pretty sure I already rated it / 10. But it's positive, I remember that much.
Anyway, you'd be surprised by how many anime DO reach (and surpass) such a high bar. Like I said, anime is just another medium of storytelling. It's like saying there are no other shows that can interest you because you think
Game of Thrones has set the bar so high. Yes, but of course there are. Naturally you won't get a better experience out of some shitcom or cop drama, but then
True Detective comes along and you see that there are still shows striving to set their own high bar of expectations as well, with plenty succeeding. =)
When people recommend Bebop, they tend to be recommending the popular stuff. Granted, Bebop was fine, but I wouldn't say it was a seminal anime, nor a series that stood out from the rest. It was good, but so was
Escaflowne, but I would've recommend the latter to just anyone. You gotta be INTO that sort of stuff to say it's something you'll enjoy.
Dark Than Black was a pretty sweet anime, but you have to be into sicfi action to even suggest watching it. It's all a matter of taste. Personally, while I felt that GitS was fantastic, and I loved its spinoff series SAC (I preferred season 1 over season 2, but both were fine), I can acknowledge that SAC was quite heavyhanded in its exposition. It spent LARGE chunks of episodes dedicated to characters EXPLAINING things out loud for the viewer to understand things. It was a great series, but clearly it had its issues.
Why did I love N.H.K. so much, after all? Well it delved into the psychology of depression and other conditions, obviously with respect to the specific Japanese conditions like hikikomori and their slang identification, NEET. It was great that it had deep moments as well as light and humorous moments, but it spoke to me on a personal level because of how it specifically addressed that issue of psychological conditions impairing individuals, and how they cope with them. For similar reasons of personal experience I absolutely fell in love with
Nozoki Ana, but in both cases, I would say these are EXCELLENT anime/manga, however it's still all up to taste as to whether I would RECOMMEND them...
*All this time I was thinking your avatar came from
the B17 scene in Heavy Metal, but of course it doesn't.
You're actually not terribly far off.
The character's design was largely inspired by at least one oldschool rocker,
Michel Polnareff, and oldschool metal and rocker images from the 70s-80s and such.