Top 11 Anime to Watch

If you're into anime, you've probably already seen all these.

But if you aren't... you MUST try it! Anime is NOT like your regular cartoons. These stories are unique, chock full of intense characters, and beautiful animation.

Action, drama, sci-fi, psychological, horror, apocalyptic, comedic, what it means to be human, humans merging with machines, the meaning of life. Anime's got it all!

You might have seen Pokémon or Sailor Moon. There's many more complex storylines and characters than that. Much of anime is a reflection of Japanese and modern society's reaction to globalization and technological changes of the 21st century. So don't be surprised to find intense themes in these stories. It might even be a bit difficult to completely digest the meaning of some of these anime.

So... there's my pitch. By the way, I have only recently gotten into anime, so feel free to suggest other great anime in the comments below!

11. Tokyo Ghoul

Length: 12 episodes
Genre: Action / Drama / Horror / Psychological / Dark Fantasy

Plot: Kaneki gets into an accident and receives organ transplants from a ghoul. He struggles to maintain his humanity while living as a half-ghoul who must eat human flesh to survive.

Intense character development and symbolism included! There is a postmodern feel you can see in Kaneki's hopelessness. The story criticizes modern society's excessive consumption and discrimination.

10. Haikyuu!!

Length: 25 episodes
Genre: Sports / Drama

Plot: Hinata has wanted to play volleyball since junior high. He finally gets the chance in high school. This is a story of teamwork and motivation between friends.

You learn a lot about volleyball from this anime. It is a fun, light story. If you're looking for something not too dark but with fun characters, this is the story for you!

9. Death Note

Length: 37 episodes
Genre: Psychological / Drama / Detective

Plot: Light Yagami is a genius high school student who one day picks up a Death Note. He discovers its power to kill humans and constructs a crazy elaborate plan to rule to world and eliminate corruption through strategic murders.

It gets pretty intense and complex. The number of crazy plot twists in this story will keep you on your toes. This story looks into institutional corruption. But the most interesting part is how Light keeps coming up with such intricate plans that somehow work every time.

8. Attack on Titan

Length: 25 episodes
Genre: Dark Fantasy / Post-Apocalyptic

Plot: Eren Jaeger lives in a peaceful town walled off from man-eating titans. But after a colossal titan breaks through the outer wall, chaos ensues. Eren joins the military in order to fight against the titans.

This story brings to light the pain of losing innocence and the illusion of peace. It presents issues of the current state of Japan's military, calling for forces to be at the ready1.

7. Blood: The Last Vampire

Length: 45 minutes
Genre: Action / Horror

Plot: Saya is a vampire who kills other vampires aka chiropterans. She goes undercover as a student on a US military base in Japan to destroy the threats. Her reasons for doing so? Unknown. Where she comes from? Unknown.

Saya is an interesting character. She's super hardcore and cool. Besides the action, this story is also a reflection of Japanese and American relations.

6. Steins Gate

Length: 24 episodes
Genre: SciFi / Mystery / Romance / Drama

Plot: Okabe is your average guy with an intense interest in time travel. He stumbles upon a conspiracy involving the use of human subjects in time travel experiments. Okabe and friends must use their wits and determination to prevent the world from descending into an authoritarian dystopia.

Time travel makes this story a bit confusing, but once you get past the first few episodes, things begin to make sense. The best part about this story is the deep and meaningful relationships between characters.

5. Spirited Away

Length: 124 minutes
Genre: Fantasy / Miyazaki

Plot: Chihiro is moving to a new home with her parents. They stumble upon a spirit world and her parents are transformed into pigs after eating the spirit food. Chihiro faces many challenges in order to save her parents.

This is a coming of age story that incorporates deep themes about disappearing traditions, environmental degradation, optimism1, and courage.

4. Grave of the Fireflies

Length: 89 minutes
Genre: Drama / Anti-war / Historical Fiction

Plot: Seita and Setsuko become orphans as a result of the war. They struggle to take care of each other and survive in desperate times.

This story talks about WWII in an incredibly humanistic way. It is intensely sad.

3. Ouran High School Host Club

Length: 26 episodes
Genre: Romantic Comedy / Drama

Plot: Haruhi gets accepted to the prestigious Ouran High School on scholarship. She befriends the host club members and shares many hilarious adventures with them.

Many of the other stories I listed were intense and deep, but this one is just funny. It rates so high on my list because I've seriously never seen anything this funny before.

2. Ghost in the Shell

Length: 82 minutes
Genre: SciFi / Cyberpunk

Plot: Kusanagi is a cyborg woman working for public security agency Section 9. Their mission is to find a hacker known as the Puppet Master who has been taking control of people's minds and making them commit crimes.

This story explores technology's potential for enhancing or degrading the human race. It addresses philosophical and social ideas about what it means to be human.

1. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Length: 64 episodes
Genre: Adventure / SciFi / Action / Drama

Plot: Edward and Alphonse Elric learn alchemy at a young age. In an attempt to bring their mom back from the dead, Al loses his entire body and Ed loses his arm and leg. The two brothers travel the world searching for a way to regain what they have lost.

This story has everything. Adventure, drama, hope, courage, inspiration, a good soundtrack. Ed and Al's story is motivating as they face hardship after hardship with strength and a genuine belief in the good of mankind.

manga

Manga (漫画) (read: man-ga, or ma-ng-ga) is a word in Japanese comics; outside of Japan, the word is used specifically to talk about Japanese comics. Mangaka (漫画家) (read: man-ga-ka, or ma-ng-ga-ka) is the one who draw manga. Manga magazines in Japan usually consists of several comic titles, each of which fills about 30-40 pages of the magazine (one chapter / section). These magazines themselves typically have a thickness ranging between 200 to 850 pages. A successful manga titles can be published through the years like "ジ ョ ジ ョ の 奇妙 な 冒 険 / Jojo no Kimyō na Boken / JoJo's Bizarre Adventure / Secret Mission". Generally, the titles that success can be removed to be used in the form of animation (or now more commonly known by the term ANIME) example is like Naruto, Bleach and One Piece Several manga original story can be removed based on the novel / visual novel, for example, is "Basilisk" (not available in Indonesia) is based on the novel "甲 賀 忍 法帖, Koga Ninpōchō" by Futaro Yamada, which tells the struggle between clans ninja ninja clan Tsubagakure Manjidani Iga and Koga. There is also a lift in terms of history, like the history of the Three Kingdoms (The Three Kingdoms) such as Legend of the Dragon (Ryuuroden) and histories of Japan, sometimes there is the name that really does exist, there is also wearing a fictional character hero Goku in Dragonball Evolution After some time, the stories of the magazine will be collected and printed in the form of a regular-sized book, called tankōbon (or sometimes known as volume terms). Comic in this form are usually printed on high quality paper and is useful for people who do not or lazy to buy manga magazines are published weekly which has a diverse mix of story / title. From this manga tankōbon form is usually translated into other languages ​​in other countries such as malaysia.

Anime

Anime (ア ニ メ) (read: a-ni-me, not a-nim) is an animation unique to Japan, which is usually characterized by images of colorful displays characters in a variety of locations and stories, which is aimed at a wide range of audience. Anime manga drawing style influenced, typical Japanese comics.

The word anime appears in written form in three katakana characters a, ni, me (ア ニ メ) which is the uptake of the English language "Animation" and pronounced as "Anime-Shon".

The first anime achieve wide popularity Ozamu Tezuka's Astro Boy's work in 1963. Now that the anime has been highly developed in comparison to anime bygone era. With graphics that have been developed until the storyline more interesting and exciting. Japanese society is very enthusiastic to watch anime and read manga. From children to adults. They considered, anime it as part of their life, This makes some cable television known for some cartoon films, such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon cartoon export. Anime now become a lucrative business for everyone, and there are many people who use it for a crime. Anime maker itself is called animator.Para Animator was working at a company media to produce an anime. Inside the company, there are several animators who work together to produce a quality anime. But unfortunately, the salary of animators is small when compared with their hard work. This makes the animators are reluctant to work in a professional manner. They felt it was not worth the effort they have done. The animators themselves are often called Shadow Artist. Because they work like an artist trying to forward the elements of the story and its intrinsic element.

Piracy is also difficult for the animators to get the full benefit from the results of their hard work, even if it turns out there is also a "gossip" who say that there is also the producer of anime itself disseminate their work in the outside lane official trading (possibly free or hijacked) for the purpose of further popularize their works.

Not a few people who went to Japan to learn about the making of the anime (and manga of course) as interested after seeing a variety of anime that has spread to every corner of the world in various continents. As for those who make the work of a similar or perhaps even mimic the characteristics of anime, such as Korea and some other Asian countries.

Technology CG (Computer Graphics) and Visual Technology, Computer etc. enables the manufacture of anime today, because it is there that consider that the artistic quality is lower than the anime of the past. Just to note that the picture quality was now seen more enjoyable and easier to understand because the picture is more proportionate and better color, plus the presence of HD technology.