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You guys make me feel really old because most people's anime favorites are so recent. I notice the list from TV-Asahi has a lot of really old-time stuff like Ginga Tetsudou 999 or Uchuu Senkan Yamato (Star Blazers, which I watched religiously in grade school). I'm not that old-time, but here's my favorites:
1. Maison Ikkoku - The BEST epic romantic comedy story ever, with the BEST ending. Manga is even better! When you compare this to modern shows, you see how market-driven the newer stuff is. Nowadays they always leave things hanging so they can have the possibility of a sequel. Not with MI. You get the satisfaction.
2. Kidou Senshi Gundam 0083 - This was one of the definitive mecha combat anime until Macross Plus came around. Still, it retains that old-school fighting spirit that is lost on more avant garde characters like Shinji (of Eva).
3. Tenkuu no Escaflowne - This was maybe the first of the OVA-quality anime that happened to be a TV series. Blew it's contemporaries out of the water with great art, Yoko Kanno soundtrack, and big story. The drawback is some aspects were too cerebral.
4. Macross Plus - Yeah, this was a jaw dropper when the first episode was shown to us at Anime Expo on a big screen. Spine tingling. And that was only the first episode. It only got better from there. Super amazing combat sequences, showing that "emotion" can be injected into the dogfight scenes that can't really be duplicated with CG.
5. Initial D - Maybe not as great as the others, but I'll stick this in because I am a club racer, and Keiichi Tsuchiya (who was a consultant for this show) is someone I admire. This show may be about street/touge racing, but it does accurately depict racing techniques like heel and toe, and demonstrates oversteer/understeer concepts. It takes some liberties with physics, but wraps it up in an amazingly compelling (and often inadvertently amusing) story that makes you root for Takumi all the way until he decides on his future career in the movie. The "11,000 rpm" scene was priceless. Lots of exaggeration and clichés, but I'll deal with it.
Current favorites (not all-time like the above)
1. Full Metal Panic Fummofu - Better than the first season because it took the strongest aspect of the first season (the comedy and interplay between characters) and distilled it until it was 150 proof! These great stories gave me the motivation to finish reading my first novel in Japanese.
2. Ai Yori Aoshi - Very sweet story. The manga is even better. Today I just bought manga volume 12 and powered through it in one sitting.
3. Last Exile - This is going to rise up to my all-time favorite list someday. But it is on probation here until it proves that it stands the test of time. Super beautiful compositing of scenes that blend the CG and hand animated parts. Great epic story. A little too much borrowed from other shows in the character department.
4. Yawara! - I had heard of this for years, but now I get to see it. Super good so far! Hooray for Live-Evil for making it available!
5. Ghost in the Shell SAC - Okay, after the weirdness of the Gits movie, I was skeptical. But SAC is a Gits universe I can understand and enjoy. Doesn't get too bogged down in the philisophical BS. Just good intrigue and ass-kicking! I have also read the comic book, which was quite good.
Glen
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