Anime with lots of trains

[RailHeaven]

I love trains in real life so I thought it would be cool to watch some animes that feature them. I just got done watching Baccano!+the Baccano! OVAs and loved them. I need animes with great characters though. The trains would be there for an enjoyable setting

[Furuno]

Try Byousoku 5cm. It has a very great train background. The story is also very great.

[Saleh]

Allison to Lillia, a 26 episode Adventure/Romance anime, has few arcs that take place on train. It has a likeable cast and a deep storyline.

[Deus ex Digital Boy]

Densha Otoko (literally "Train Man") is a romance that begins on a train.

[Telmah]

I second 5 Centimeters Per Second. Its creator Makoto Shinkai uses them amazingly well--you also see them used very well in Voices of a Distant Star, an earlier work by him. Probably the best animated trains I've seen anywhere.

[Furuno]

Originally Posted by Telmah

I second 5 Centimeters Per Second. Its creator Makoto Shinkai uses them amazingly well--you also see them used very well in Voices of a Distant Star, an earlier work by him. Probably the best animated trains I've seen anywhere.

Then maybe also The Place Promised in Our Early Days. Mr. Shinkai's works is very amazing.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by RailHeaven

I love trains in real life so I thought it would be cool to watch some animes that feature them. I just got done watching Baccano!+the Baccano! OVAs and loved them. I need animes with great characters though. The trains would be there for an enjoyable setting

Do you have any idea how hard it is for me not to make a Thomas the Tank Engine crack?

I second 5 centimeters per second.

[Irenicus]

Guys, the OP already watched Baccano. It's there in the first post. =_=

I second both Byousoku 5 Centimeter and Allison to Lilia. The first one because it is a masterful, if rather depressing work of art with some seriously beautiful scenes with trains as part of the setting; the second because it has a bunch of train scenes, not because it's all that good.

That, or you could go hardcore and find anything having to do with the legendary Galaxy Express 999 franchise, about an adventure through the stars on an intergalactic train. Sadly enough, stuff about this venerable franchise is very hard to find in English. For a train lover though, the idea of visiting different places and meeting different people across the stars on a train ought to be a most romantic idea indeed.

[RailHeaven]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Luckily, I've already downloaded 5 Centimeters Per Second so I'm going to watch that today. I'll be sure to look at the others.

[sothis]

Ah, I have some ideas not yet mentioned.

First off, though a small percentage of the movie, Spirited Away has a charming train scene.

Take the X Train is a really bizarre, and imo not great OVA, but it involves a ghost train of sorts.

Night on the Galactic Railroad - a very melancholy tale; I wasn't a huge fan, many people are.

Early Reins - old western style train heist

[Netkaos]

Galaxy Express 999- not sure it fits the bill it has been a very long time since I've watch it.

[Saber Cherry]

Detective Conan has quite a few episodes involving trains (train schedules are often important in murder mystery alibis). There was one case, for example, involving bombs throughout the train system, and I thought it was a movie, but now I can't find it anymore... might have been a 1-hour special?

[sothis]

Originally Posted by Saber Cherry

Detective Conan has quite a few episodes involving trains (train schedules are often important in murder mystery alibis). There was one case, for example, involving bombs throughout the train system, and I thought it was a movie, but now I can't find it anymore... might have been a 1-hour special?

oooo good catch, I forgot about that one! It's Detective Conan OVA 4

[Saber Cherry]

Originally Posted by sothis

oooo good catch, I forgot about that one! It's Detective Conan OVA 4

Impressive memory

[fallenangelash]

Baccano! is a great anime set in the 30's thats based around events that mostly happen on a train.

[sothis]

Originally Posted by Saber Cherry

Impressive memory

hehe, i watched all of them somewhat recently or I definitely would have forgotten too. ^_^

[Bonta Kun]

eehh something a little out there on left field is One Piece has a great part with a train, altho you can't apply any logic to it when watching as logic is lost in OP
It starts around ep 250 if I recall but you really gotta watch the show before up till then to really enjoy it.
Well something I would take your time with

also I recall seeing a thread in the unaired forum about a anime about train stations, I think its something like Hetalia Axis Powers, in that the stations are personified as people.

very interesting interest btw

[npcomplete]

Got the perfect anime for you: Tetsuko no Tabi - a 2007 anime about

Based on a seinen manga by Kikuchi Naoe and Yokomi Hirohiko, serialised in IKKI.

The "story" is that a manga artist is asked by her boss to accompany him and a travel-writer on various train trips around Japan and draw a manga about it.

The kicker though, is that it's completely non-fiction -- the creator really did go on all these trips, and the manga simply records what happened, with no embellishment. There's a little disclaimer at the front that says "This is non-fiction, so I apologize for the lack of drama," and indeed, it mostly is just about them riding trains from place to place, waiting on platforms, etc.

The "travel writer" turns out to be a super train-otaku who has vast knowledge of the train network, but also micro-manages all their trips, planning every detail down to the second. He cares mostly about following the schedule and successfully achieving his planned goals (e.g. visiting all stations on a line in a completely bizarre order to accomodate infrequent trains). The mangaka doesn't really care about trains; she's cynical, sarcastic, and rather lazy (she mainly just looks forward to the next eki-ben); he's completely gung-ho as long as he's following the schedule, and the inevitable conflicts are pretty entertaining.

Throughout, though, it feels real -- if you've travelled by train in Japan it will all seem very familiar, not just the scenery, but also the atmosphere and feel -- and the artist does a great job of pacing and applying little tweaks to keep it consistently entertaining. In an additional bit of recursiveness, some of the characters who show up in the manga (who of course are real people, who really did show up) do so because they (really) read previous episodes of the manga!

In addition of course, you can learn about various out of the way and interesting Japanese train lines and stations; some of them really do look cool. There's always this vague sense of surreality about it however -- the trips are all planned by the train-guy (goal: visit all 9,843 stations in Japan) who seems to consider everything as part of a checklist rather than an experience to be enjoyed. You learn a bit about train-otaku culture too; there's really only the one guy in the story, but train-otaku culture is a sort of constant peripheral presence.

Courtesy of Miles Bader.

A review: http://psgels.blogsome.com/2007/09/2...-review-79100/

Unfortunately, only ep 1 was subbed

If you're still interested, you can PM me for the raws.