I'll talk about Trigun here because you've seen bits of it already: forget the humor stuff that might remind you of FMA (actually, for the first season FMA reminded me often of Trigun)-- that's small stuff. That's the candy distraction to entertain you while in the background people are dying and hearts are breaking and drama is building. And forget watching it out of order. Watching Trigun out of order is possible, but it seriously hurts your viewing experience in ways that you can't really understand until you've watched it once all the way through, the way its meant to be seen. Trigun is a drama that dresses itself with comedy, especially in the first half of the show. Like I said, FMA reminded me of Trigun in a lot of ways, and that was one of them. Trigun was the flat-out angstiest anime I'd ever seen until I watched FMA. Trigun is... it WAS my all-time favorite anime until I watched FMA. I've held Trigun close to my heart for about 6 years now. I can't recommend it enough: I could gush about it for hours and I *have* written essays about it. The reason you should watch Trigun is that it's different from many, many anime series you'll see: not in content but in theme and structure. Trigun is a one-man character study. It's one single long emotional analysis of Vash, from start to finish. That's not something you normally see in anime, and its done very very well. The show is philosophical and emotional, though you don't always realize how much one incident matters until several episodes have past and you look back on it and go "Oh. Oh." Intellectually Trigun was candy to me, because I love analyzing literary characters and Vash is very much a literary character. Trigun has several characters that embody traditional literary archetypes and beg, just beg for further thought and discussion.
The description "was needed to break up how sad the whole situation they were all in was" is both wrong and right. But I can't explain why without a detailed and spoilery breakdown of the show's characters and running themes, and I'm just not going to go there.
What you might find interesting is that for several years if someone was curious about anime I'd tell them on reflex to watch Cowboy Bebop first and then Trigun second. CB is an anime that's very accessible to non-anime fans or new anime fans, and Trigun takes equally engaging characters, similarly action-heavy content, but adds a philosophical and emotional layer on top of it. The only real downside to Trigun is that its cell animation was often low-budget in comparison to the stuff you see coming out in the last 3 years (then again, so is CB.)
Fushigi Yuugi is good (I was quite addicted to it for a while) but, like Evangelion, I'm hesitant to recommend it to you when I could recommend things that are better. Fushigi Yuugi is basically an anime version of The NeverEnding Story, but with a large romantic subplot and a bodycount. It's addicting and only ran for two seasons (very actiony 52 episodes), but it doesn't hold up as well in comparison to shows like FMA, Monster, Fruits Basket.
Hellsing is a 13 episode series that's fun and odd. Sometimes its erratic and frustrating (not in a deliberate way like FLCL, just inconsistant), but it takes on the vampire gothic horror genre with gusto. I liked it but didn't love it; donna_c_punk swears that the manga is a million times better.
Witch Hunter Robin is good. Like Samurai Champloo, Hellsing, and Evangelion it sits in that "well-made, decent" category that sits above "mediocre" (Inuyasha, some of the Gundams) and "crap" (DBZ, some of the Gundams, most of anime), but still doesn't quite measure up to the "really good or great" category. It has serious high points but is hindered by flaws. The only really flaw to WHR is its pacing-- its slow, and sometimes boring. But if you have the time, overall the series is good and I recommend it. It resolves strongly, but unfortunately with little surprise. I predicted a lot of things in WHR before they happened, but I still enjoyed it and I give it a thumbs up.
There's other stuff that I'll talk about in the list I'm making.
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Date: 2006-07-02 04:46 am (UTC)The description "was needed to break up how sad the whole situation they were all in was" is both wrong and right. But I can't explain why without a detailed and spoilery breakdown of the show's characters and running themes, and I'm just not going to go there.
What you might find interesting is that for several years if someone was curious about anime I'd tell them on reflex to watch Cowboy Bebop first and then Trigun second. CB is an anime that's very accessible to non-anime fans or new anime fans, and Trigun takes equally engaging characters, similarly action-heavy content, but adds a philosophical and emotional layer on top of it. The only real downside to Trigun is that its cell animation was often low-budget in comparison to the stuff you see coming out in the last 3 years (then again, so is CB.)
Fushigi Yuugi is good (I was quite addicted to it for a while) but, like Evangelion, I'm hesitant to recommend it to you when I could recommend things that are better. Fushigi Yuugi is basically an anime version of The NeverEnding Story, but with a large romantic subplot and a bodycount. It's addicting and only ran for two seasons (very actiony 52 episodes), but it doesn't hold up as well in comparison to shows like FMA, Monster, Fruits Basket.
Hellsing is a 13 episode series that's fun and odd. Sometimes its erratic and frustrating (not in a deliberate way like FLCL, just inconsistant), but it takes on the vampire gothic horror genre with gusto. I liked it but didn't love it;
Witch Hunter Robin is good. Like Samurai Champloo, Hellsing, and Evangelion it sits in that "well-made, decent" category that sits above "mediocre" (Inuyasha, some of the Gundams) and "crap" (DBZ, some of the Gundams, most of anime), but still doesn't quite measure up to the "really good or great" category. It has serious high points but is hindered by flaws. The only really flaw to WHR is its pacing-- its slow, and sometimes boring. But if you have the time, overall the series is good and I recommend it. It resolves strongly, but unfortunately with little surprise. I predicted a lot of things in WHR before they happened, but I still enjoyed it and I give it a thumbs up.
There's other stuff that I'll talk about in the list I'm making.