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[maryslittlegarden]

Hmm... maybe I need to start watching anime.  Any suggestions on some starter series'?

Edited to add:
Rewatching Babylon 5

[Cesar_Augustus]

Hmm... maybe I need to start watching anime.  Any suggestions on some starter series'?

Edited to add:
Rewatching Babylon 5

The most safe recommendations would be Studio Ghibli works (although Grave of the Fireflies is not for kids), and World Masterpiece Theater series.

[erin is nice]

I hate to sound like a disgusting weeaboo but please only watch the sub. Dubs = shit.

I don't know what weeaboo means, but I hate dubs — I like to hear the original voices even if I can't understand what they are saying.

[erin is nice]

I've read that there is an implied lesbian pairing, later confirmed by one of the anime staff members. Although I don't know how relevant is to the story, or the focus on them. I only watched some episodes years ago.

It is so vague that a lot of people wouldn't even notice (my husband didn't catch it, but I did). And in all the regular 25 episodes, I think it came up twice, and like I said it was extremely subtle.

I love Clannad, but it does have a little suggestive humor (embarrassing a character by implying he's gay, etc, silly high school stuff). Nothing horrible, but I thought I should mention it because some people avoid stuff like that completely. It's very funny at times, and heartbreaking at other times.

[Basilios]

Hmm... maybe I need to start watching anime.  Any suggestions on some starter series'?

Edited to add:
Rewatching Babylon 5

As far as movies go, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke are great. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is great as is Summer Wars. A lot of people recommend Akira and Ghost in the Shell as starter movies but I think they're not that great an introduction to anime.

For series, FMA:Brotherhood is the best introduction IMO along with something like Death Note, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan and Cowboy Bepop.

The thing is there is a lot of anime, and a lot of different types. You need to watch a few to decide what you like in the genre. Slice of life, romance, comedy, sport, thriller, weird/philosophy, shonen, seinen... etc.

I don't know what weeaboo means,

http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Becoming-a-Weeaboo

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/weeaboo

[RedCaves]

Hmm... maybe I need to start watching anime.  Any suggestions on some starter series'?

Edited to add:
Rewatching Babylon 5

If you're looking for some good comedy, try One Punch Man.

[Jayne]

Hmm... maybe I need to start watching anime.  Any suggestions on some starter series'?

Edited to add:
Rewatching Babylon 5

I am more of a koreaboo than a weeaboo, but my favourite anime is Moribito: http://myanimelist.net/anime/1827/Seirei_no_Moribito. From what you have posted in the past, we have pretty similar taste, so there is a good chance you will like it too.

On subs vs dubs, I preferred dubs for decades and only recently got into subs.  While I did not like them at first, it took me only a few weeks to adjust to them completely.  It feels as if I were listening to the characters speaking English.

[Maximilian]

http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Becoming-a-Weeaboo

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/weeaboo

Pretty hilarious.
Never heard these term before, but sounds like me alright.

[Maximilian]

Hmm... maybe I need to start watching anime.  Any suggestions on some starter series'?

I always recommend "Trapp Ikka Monogatari" (The Trapp Family Story), which is part of the "World Classics" series where the founders of Studio Ghibli got their start.

http://www.animeplus.tv/trapp-ikka-monogatari-online



This is where it pays to have kids around so that you have a plausible excuse to watch things like this. "I'm just doing it for the kids." However, I've watched the whole series through twice (with different groups of kids), and really enjoyed it both times.

Right now we are watching "Major." I highly recommend it for anyone who has boys. The first season will have everyone sobbing, both kids and adults. After that it focuses more on baseball and less on drama.

http://www.animeplus.tv/major-online

[Maximilian]

my favourite anime is Moribito: http://myanimelist.net/anime/1827/Seirei_no_Moribito.

Hmm, not familiar with this one. So you recommend it?

[Maximilian]

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is great as is Summer Wars.

Yes, these are both great suggestions.
You can watch them here:

http://www.animeplus.tv/summer-wars-watch-online




http://www.animeplus.tv/toki-wo-kakeru-shoujo-movie-watch-online

[maryslittlegarden]

Lots of good recommendations .

[Ulrich Von Lichtenstein]

There is an anime rendition of Ursula Leguin's Earthsea novels, it varies from the source material greatly but is still very good.

I prefer to watch subtitles vs dubs as Dutch dubs can be hard to come by...

[zork]

G.T.O. Great Teacher Onizuka was pretty good.

[Flora]

My favorite anime movies of all time:
The Wind Rises -- best Miyazaki movie, in my opinion. Loved the symbolism, motifs, character development, artwork, abstract concepts, musical score... Just a brilliant piece of film.

Hotarubi no Mori e (Into the Forest of Fireflies' Light) -- short anime movie. Not as well known, but I guarantee that it's worth watching. The beauty and simplicity of the animation and story were very heartwarming and bittersweet. Really loved this one. Makes you miss your childhood and the blissful simplicity of things like running around in the grass with a mind full of imagination.

Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal -- prequel to the TV series. The action, drama, story, character development, and MOOD are awesome if you want something more intense. I really liked the animation style in this; very dark compared to the anime series, and I thought it brought out the bloody historical era very well. It also shows Kenshin as much more human and vulnerable than in the TV series.

Honorable mentions:
Wolf Children
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
5 Cm. per Second
Kakurenbo

As for anime series, my favorite of all time has got to be:
Steins;Gate (dubbed). Dubs usually suck, but the dub for Steins;Gate, in my opinion, was better than the sub, mainly because the dub took a bit more freedom in translation, causing the English to flow better and be more poetic and the jokes to be more clever. The script is probably the strongest element of this anime, and I really, really liked the dub. The sub, for me, was too literal. Translating word for word often doesn't come out right in English, and because of that, I found the sub quite stale. The humor, drama, plot, and romance in this anime was perfect. I am rarely impressed by humor in animes, but I thought the humor in this series was very witty. And rarely do animes make me feel emotional, but this one definitely did in the latter half and upon finish... it's actually one of those animes that you can't get off your mind for a few days after finishing. WARNING: there is some fan service, a tranny character, and some sexual jokes (not recommended for watching with children)...annoying, because otherwise it would have been the perfect anime in my opinion. It starts off a bit slow but definitely gets more fast-paced and intense as the series goes on.

Others:
Clannad: After Story (Season Two to Clannad) is also pretty good. Teared up a bit. However, I didn't like a lot of the side characters (and even to some extent the main female character). I found them a bit cheesy and unbelievable/one-dimensional. You have to watch the First Season to understand the characters' backgrounds, and I found the First Season quite boring. But the second half of After Story was still very good. Season Two is the anime during which a lot of people say they couldn't stop crying.

Attack on Titan started out really good, but as the series went on...filler, filler, filler...(!) and the pace slowed down to unbearable levels. Still enjoyed it though, very fun to watch (albeit traumatizing)...and have been waiting for Season 2 since forever.

Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series -- a parody series, made by LittleKuriboh on YouTube. Very hilarious if you watched the real series as a kid. Things that you thought were so COOL and never questioned as a kid are shown to be utterly ridiculous. Best anime satire out there. This series has me cracking up to this very day. Episodes are roughly 4-5 minutes long, so you can binge watch 'em pretty easily.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood -- just a good, well-rounded story overall. I agree with Basilios that FMA is probably one of the best anime series (if not the best anime series) in terms of having every element: action, plot, character development, etc., going for it. However, I still put it as #2 after Steins;Gate, because while Steins;Gate isn't as perfect in checking off all the boxes, it evoked much stronger emotions in me. Perhaps this is because I had already watched the original FMA so Brotherhood wasn't as unpredictable...who knows.

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If there are any other ones (aside from the obvious Miyazaki movies) that I forgot about which I really liked, I'll post them.

On a tangent, I recently watched Akira, which is supposedly considered by critics the best anime movie of all time. I thought it was freaking weird. And so did my fiance. It seriously made no sense. It reminded me of modern art, where "experts" are all crowded around praising how original and brilliant it is, when it's just a bunch of paint randomly splattered on a piece of paper. Then again, I could be wrong. I'm no film expert or anything, so maybe I'm missing the revolutionary creativity of the movie.