I've grown so tired of a lot of anime tropes that I have an extremely hard time watching anything nowadays. I did enjoy JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, One Piece, Spirited Away, Daft Punk's Interstellar film and Attack On Titan. Although I guess I should mention that I read more of JoJo and AOT than I watched.
JoJo is complicated as each Part pretty much stands on its own and doesn't necessarily require you to watch anything that came before it or after it so it's basically what part do you enjoy the most and I enjoyed Part 2 the most out of all of it. The characters, the progression of the story, the insane levels of violence and how tight the narrative was. Part 3 is just a scooby doo villain of the week that drags on for far too long, part 4 feels like an awful lot of faffing about not knowing where the hell to take the story but once it does it's great and part 5 (haven't read or watched past this) feels like the powers got a bit overly convoluted to the point that it kinda got on my nerves how overcomplicated everything was getting. Part 3 is still funny though but I honestly wouldn't want to sit through the entire thing again. Part 1 is great to read, I dunno about watching it but reading it is a blast, the hyperviolence in it is surprising. Part 4 and 5 are good but Part 2 is the best for me. Love me the pillar men.
One Piece comes with the biggest of caveats, the manga has been running for decades and it is not even close to the end, chances are the author will kick the bucket before it ends so I'd advice against getting invested in this show because of that. It might unceremoniously end. On that note, it is extremely fucking long and the quality of it drops after the time skip. Prior to the time skip there was drama, there was intrigue, fights didn't get to super sayan levels of just powerful because reasons, there was character development and establishment. After the timeskip there is practically no drama at all between the main crew, everyone has found their place in the series and god forbid we rock the boat so whenever any "drama" seems like it is going to happen you can tell it isn't. It doesn't help that the world which was praised for how expansive it was is now too damn expansive so the author is bringing in dozens of characters alongside the Strawhats which means that they get all the development and the Strawhats practically get nothing. Fights have gotten absurd. Where it used to be that hey Luffy is a rubber man so he's using his rubber powers to defeat foes turned into "oh he's power because... Power" around Water 7 when he learned two abilities that I never thought much of until it got so much worse with the haki later. He bites his thumb, blows into it (which would kill you but whatever) and then he gets a giant inflatable arm... Filled with air... But the arm isn't filled with air it is practically a giants arm with the density that follows. Why? Because reasons. I mean he blew it up like a balloon and that's how balloons work, right? Prior to this a lot of fights had consistency to them and followed the relatively believable rules of the powers that they had, the one thing that was explored past powers was swordsmanship and the ability to basically cut the air, sending sword slices through the air. But after this giant inflatable arm bullshit it just got worse and worse and worse as times goes on and now we've basically got super sayan levels of power that are just excessive. And finally characters feel stagnant. Chopper used to be an interesting character that basically explored the idea of an animal who ate a human human fruit and turned into a human hybrid now feeling alienated by society and the social hierarchy, not knowing where he fits into the world or how to act. And I can understand him reaching a point where he has established himself, like the end of a journey. But... He didn't? All of the sudden that kind of exploration around the character is just subtly dropped and he just turns into a mascot. Here's the little cute reindeer pirate, buy his plushies! Also the Strawhats each have a personal dream they wish to attain as they go along the journey on the Grand Line, that 9 members who each have a personal goal. We're maybe halfway through the New World (part 1 is prior to Grand Line, part 2 is first part of Grand Line and part 3 is New World so we are in the final stretch) and guess how many of their personal goals have been met? None. So we're either going to get an extremely anticlimactic "oh everyone's goal happened at the same time" or it is going to be some epilogue "uuuuh yeah so uh... They eventually did accomplish their goals" or it's not gonna happen.
One Piece is funny. It has a lot of cool fight scenes. It has an actual world to explore with tons of lore. But until the damn thing is done, which is probably a decade away? Stay away from it until you know how favorable people will be towards the ending. Cause I don't think it is worth investing your time into it. We're up to 958 episodes. Enjoy.
Spirited Away, been far too long since I've watched this film. It got pig transformation and sentient soot balls though.
Daft Punk's Interstellar. Remember One More Time or Harder Better Faster Stronger's music videos? Yeah, that's an actual film. I guess it is a musical. An animé film portrayed through music videos. It's good. I like it. Not a whole lot more can be said as it isn't that much of a story but more of an experience. Like, there is a story, obviously, but since it doesn't contain any dialogue at all it's all visual representation and whatever you can get from what little lyrics there are. But like I said, a unique experience, there is nothing quite like this. An absolute must watch.
Attack On Titan is uh... Brutal. I dunno what to say about it really anyone who's paid attention to anything would know the basics; People with gear to fly around fight naked giants that eat people. I feel like explaining any more than that is either too complicated or too spoilery. It does have a very interesting twist in the middle where is shifts perspective completely to follow other people and again, too much spoilers, can't talk too much. The world is not what it appears to be and explaining the politics of that also spoils too much. I guess I'll just say this, that if you want a show with a shitload of gore and brutal violence that later on starts to explore far more mature themes like politics where the gorefest takes a backseat and becomes very sparse as it explores what makes the world tick rather than just flashy animations then go watch/read AOT.
I've seen other stuff and I've liked other stuff but it's been so long with a lot of it that I don't feel comfortable suggesting anyone rewatch any of it so these are a few I can actually suggest.
The kind of anime that I want is basically a more concise anime that doesn't drag on for too long. I don't necessarily want just a film but I want something that doesn't drag on and doesn't feel cut short out of deadlines. I prefer more mature anime, either because of the subject matter or just how it handles the idea of lethality. Bonus points if something is gory. I don't want to see the typical protagonist that is just bland and where it screams that they are too scared to give him/her any personality traits that could be alienating. Which is why I enjoyed Death Note, not the best of anime but the protagonist being... Well... 'That', made him interesting to watch. I also don't want to see any damn sameface bullshit or anime protagonist hair and clothing, you know what I mean. When in a classroom we have 20 students looking like students and then there's one person with weird green hair in a cowboy outfit. Gee I wonder who the protagonist is... Grounded, I guess is what I'm looking for, when it comes to character design.
Oh and no episode of the week bullshit so no Cowboy Bebop for me.
