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Try Black Lagoon, Ghost in the Shell, Hellsing Ultimate, Higashi no Eden, Kara no Kyoukai, Evangelion movies, and Samurai Champloo.

I will happily look into these. Screen captured.

And ecchi

In my mind, there are two categories for each new season of anime:

1) 90% Crap

2) Something watchable

I don't know about you guys, but I have a hard time finding anime to watch that's worth my, much valuable, time...

Theres good anime, you just have to look.... recently only like 1/20 things is something really memorable and amazing though. Like the guy above said 90% crap. Some anime have really interesting premises like SOA, but the execution can fail so badly. While an anime can have a fairly boring premise like Perfect Blue, but done in the correct way makes something amazing.

If you find something you think might be interesting (by reading the synopsis or having someone recc it to you) I suggest watching 3 eps and if you manage to get through all 3 eps without wanting to x out then, its probably worth a watch. Everyone has diff tastes though, ppl in Japan and a lot of ppl here really like the moe stuff, for whatever reason. Just be thankful that there are not 1000's of actually good anime to watch, because then it might be even harder to decide what to watch.

A good post. But I totally disagree with that statement. I think that would be fantastic for the medium. And not to say there aren't a lot of already amazing anime out there. They just lack a bit in genre variety.

In Other Words = Action, Romance, And Comedy.
Which Is Going To Be In Just About Every (For Entertainment) Movie (Ever).

You are broadening and misunderstanding. I wrote and meant fantastical. I wrote and meant slice of life, a specific genre. Or moe for the technical term.

The genre has stagnated. Only 1 series this season caught my attention. I tried plenty of others, but they are all cliche.

Everything is cliche. I'd wager that if you told me what that 1 series is that I would be able to find cliches in it.


No, it isn't but if you create a wide enough generalization you might eventually be right.


When I want to find something to watch I typically think to myself what genre or topic am I interested in watching and then search by genre tag. I can find something to watch pretty reliably because I don't go around rummaging through random shows without a clue as to what I am looking for.

I specifically named the two genres. And I provided examples for different, unexplored ideas. I'm watching one movie right now, Grave of the Fireflies. It's a perfect example of the kind of genres I am looking for, and certainly not cliche. But these anime rarely appear against the amount of fantasy and lifestyle anime dominating the market.

You named two genre within the form of a question, I gave my answer to said question. If you want to provide the answer to your question do so in your opening post. Don't get pissy over the fact other people's answers are not what you want.

Grimdark, semi-biographical tales will not be the dominate form of story in any sort of entertainment media out there. The Diary of Anne Frank was great but the most movies will be more fictional and generally reach a happy ending. Want to know why? Because most viewers simply are aged cynics that need deep drama to satisfy them. Most people just use anime for fun, easy entertainment.

If anything anime is more dominated by obnoxiously long series (100+) that are geared towards kids/young teens.

This man can't count.

90% of everything in life is crap but I do agree with your post.

Ah, the rebellious elitism. It seems like many people tend to go through that phase around the age of 16-20.

I think ecchi is more prominent than those genres.

Many people mistaken Drama genre with Moefied-Slice of Life.
For example Kokoro Connect and Tari Tari in comparison with K-On and YuruYuri.

The generalization is too broad.

same here.

Some good slice of life/real world anime's:

Usagi Drop
Honey and Clover
Toradora
Genshiken
Lucky Star
School Rumble
Azumanga Daioh
Bamboo Blade
Yotsuba
Kimi to Boku
Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad
Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (Anohana)


There is some light fan service in some of these. They all stay in the real world, though. No fantastical here. This is probably the definitive list of Slice of Life anime.

The problem of your requests is that they are pretty strict if you look at them. Many shows that are intended to be realistic incorporate stylistic fantasy many times, and slice of life is a genre (actually, it's more of a plot development) that can be found in variable doses in most of what is done. Cowboy Bebop, for instance, is structured as a slice of life show.

Covering my whole anime list I still could give some examples of shows that don't focus primarily on fantasy and slice of life:

Battle Angel Alita - sci-fi/action/drama
Elfen Lied - sci-fi/action/drama, although the romance & ecchi part is also prevailing
FLCL - sci-fi/mindfuck/comedy
Ghost in the Shell - sci-fi
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence - sci/fi
Grave of the fireflies - drama
Hadashi no Gen (arguable) - drama
Higashi no Eden - sci-fi/action or adventure/some little romance
Interstella 555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem - sci-fi/action/musical
Like the clouds, like the wind - adventure/drama
Memories - the three stories can count as sci-fi
Metropolis - sci-fi/adventure
Millennium actress - This one would be debatable because its structure indeed is a slice of life in the strict sense of the world (as Chiyoko remembers her life through flashbacks), however it's more of a drama/romance film.
Mind game - mindfuck/comedy
Neo Tokyo - again three sci-fi stories
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt - comedy/action... but still comedic action
Perfect Blue - psychological thriller
Serial Experiments Lain - sci-fi
Toki wo kakero shoujo - largely depends on whether you consider time travelling a characteristic of sci-fi or fantasy

And lots of short films. In fact, I always tend to recommend that, short films tend to be a breath of fresh air at the medium; because their structure doesn't allow the same development than other shows and therefore are used to put ideas that in the industry of series/films would be dismissed.