Ghibli Tavern's top anime?

I'm not sure if this idea has already been done here and i know there are threads for the anime club and favourite Ghiblis and what not however i thought it might be interesting to compile the Ghibli Taverns own official list of top rated anime series. There are lots of sites that have top rated anime lists, but it would be a good automatic reference for the people here if we could deduce the general favourites of this community.
just to clarify, the list would include any anime series or similar (OVA, etc) but no movies or manga (these should be ignored entirely when assessing your favourite shows, as many anime series are drived from manga/vice versa and have movies aswell and this might skew the results even if only slighlty)

To actually start this list users would simply rate their favourite anime 5 - 1 in order of best to worst, with 5 being the best.
if there is enough response from the active users and everything is ok then we can then tally up the count in order to make a list of the forums favourite series. maybe a list of the top five or ten??

NOTE: please remember no movies or manga, and on that note, be specific about your choice of anime. Also, don't start a list if you don't know what you are talking about, we assume you have seen at least a considerable amount of, if not all of the series you state. if you havent seen five animes series or other then im afraid you must also avoid voting.

here is my list of five as an example and an official vote for the list..


5. Cowboy Bebop
4. Samurai Champloo
3. Mushishi
2. Azumanga Daioh
1. Death Note

Post last edited by T.C. on 12.19.2007, 04:09 AM.

Wow, what a hard one. And what a good thread idea too. So you think 5cm per second is an OVA? I would contest that and say it should be seen and considered as a movie actually but I’m sure I’ll get “corrected” on that one…

But as I haven’t seen it…

Your number listing is confusing, usually #1 is the best and #5 the least! But anyway. Meh,

I’d like to read people’s justifications too, that’s most of the reason why a noob should watch stuff – a list of titles isn’t that much help.

If a person has only seen 2 or 3 series I still think they should be allowed to list those 2 or 3 in preference, it seems a bit discriminatory to noobs otherwise. I feel Kazegami should be entitled to put Fruits Basket at #5 even if it’s the only one she’s seen.

Okay, here we go…

25. Neon Genesis Evangelion

(uh, basically there’s now a huge gap of like 20 places here…)

4. Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō (Kare Kano or His and Her Circumstances if you prefer)

Whoa, this is MUCH harder than I thought…

3. Beck.
2. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
1. Azu Dai

That was SO hard. Let me explain. NGE is simply the finest anime ever created. I think I’d rate it higher than anything Miyazaki or Takahata or Kon or Shinkai have done and you’ve read my spoutings-off about this series so often I won’t say more.

Kare Kano just grabbed my heart and wrung it out, I just don’t know why. It was silly, cartoony, it had a totally rubbish ending but it thoroughly inspired me. It’s a joy to watch – funny, heartbreaking and (to me) very erotic in places. It’s also very cleverly written, and well-paced. Part of it’s by Anno Hideaki too, so it’s groundbreaking in its animation style.

I place Beck highly because it’s very realistic in it’s settings, it’s characters, it's artwork and the relationships in it: there are several girl interests for more than one of the boys in the series and you just never know what’s going on in these kids heads most of the time – the main relationship stops and starts, burns and fades and is just so damn – REAL. It also has awesome music.

Haruhi I placed high because it’s a lovely story. Another high school romance anime but written with such a nice fresh clever twist it deserves all the accolades it gets. It also looks wonderful and its another one of those series that in a couple of places makes me laugh at the same time it makes me cry.

Azu Dai – a must see by everyone. It makes me laugh until I cry. Nuff said.

What pained me most was having to leave out such great series’ as Honey & Clover, Paranoia Agent, Serial Experiments Lain, Ghost In the Shell SAC, 2nd GIG, Onegai Teacher (Kazami Mizuho rocks! My perfect anime woman!) and *sniff* Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl which I can’t believe didn’t make my top five. Honestly half of what I’ve watched should be in my top five! Argh!

You’ll need to do the same thread for non-Ghibli movies next.

I also thought it would be interesting to see what database of anime people were drawing their top five from. In more or less the order I watched them over the last year or so (is that all? It feels like longer), here’s mine:

Neon Genesis Evangelion
Saikana
Ghost in the Shell : SAC 1
Cowboy Bebop
Serial Experiments Lain
Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō
Last Exile
Love Hina
Read or Die OVA
Full Moon
Paranoia Agent
Fooly Cooly
BoogieBop Phantom
Azumanga Daioh
Onegai Teacher!
He is my Master
Gravitation (about 2/3rds of it)
DN Angel (2 eps)
Naruto (1 or 2 eps only - bleurgh!)
Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl
Shuffle!
Strawberry Panic!
Ghost in the Shell : SAC 2
Beck
Honey and Clover
Fruits Basket
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Lovely Complex

[EDIT: Um, this should be in the "other anime" forum surely? ]

Post last edited by Saddletank on 12.11.2007, 08:54 AM.

I think TC was doing a countdown, Saddle

Byousoku 5cm is a movie, period, despite being broken into three parts. It qualifies as a movie because it was shown on the big screen, although that's subject to debate. But it definitely is NOT an OVA, because an OVA, or OAV, is a straight-to-video release.

Anyway, my list.

5pts: Scrapped Princess

Wipe that shocked expression of your face, I vote it as #1 for a reason. This anime has everything; drama, romance, tragedy, comedy. And to top it off, it scores in almost every category except the songs. Or at least, I don't find the ending enjoyable.

4pts: Shingetsutan Tsukihime

Comes a close second. The opening is THE BEST amongst every other opening I have EVER seen, and that's hardly an exaggeration. The storyline is simply smooth and perfect to the dot, the ending superb and flawless. The mood set for the whole series is generally very well done. The only real gripe I have for the show is that I wished it was longer.

3pts: Saishuu Heiki Kanojo (She The Ultimate Weapon)

You want romance, you can't get any better than this. Unfortunately, this is also an angst show, so not many would agree with me. Not to mention the ample ecchi scenes. Still, the overall storyline, and PARTICULARLY the directing, deserves applause.

2pts: Samurai Champloo

Personally, in the short time I've been watching anime (stop laughing you), this is by far the best comedy I've seen; yes, topping AzuDai as well, simply because of it's directing magic and subtle humour which pokes fun at modern society and integrates it with history to give a hilarious combination. AzuDai, sadly, suffers from a lack of good pacing, while FLCL is simply confusing.

That's as far as I'll go, because I've seen too many to give a good enough judgement of the rest. But these four deserve, at least, a high ranking in my list.

And yeah, this should go in the anime forum.

*flexes newly-bestowed admins powers*

EDIT: For pts system. Still no idea on my final choice.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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Okay, well reverse the order of my 5 then!

*feels a complete jerk*

oh sorry, i hadnt even realised id posted it in the wrong place. my bad.
hmm, i handt thought of Byousoku as a movie at all.. but if thats the consensus then ill have to edit my choices.

the reason i did it 5 to 1/best to worst is so i could tally up points easier.. the best ones get more points.

also i suppose you could vote for only one or two anime's after all.. its just i wanted people who had a broader knowledge of anime, so they could actually compare animes before chosing, if someone has only seen two then they are just going to place those two and not be able to rank them against other animes.. know what i mean?

Great! I was right! And Roar was wrong.

Hey! Roar was WRONG.

Roar was W-R-O-N-G!

Hee hee, nice.

Okay. I'm all calm now.

Just reverse the order of mine again, NGE is the best, Azu the least best.

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I agree that this is actually really pretty hard. I am pretty mood specific so it is hard to nail down a solid top 5.

5.) Gundam Seed
4.) NGE
3.) Rozen Maiden
2.) Sola
1.) The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Really hard choices. namely do to moody-ness. If I was in more of a depressing mood then NGE would be on top. But a quick choice rundown.

Gundam Seed
-Really, just something I wanted to watch and turned out better than I hoped. I wasn't really wanting a heavy, deep story. And as such, I never got one. The series had good character development IMO, and to me have few lull episodes. Maybe about 5. And yes, I guess by being able to condense it into 4 ovas, means that there was more empty space. But the downtime was needed. It was a series that I went through really fast, despite its length as it had good transitions to the next eps.

NGE
4.) NGE is NGE, purely great, but if i am not in the mood, i can't stick with it. But that is just me, If i am a bit depressed it is easily the best, but right now, it slogs in at number 4

Rozen Maiden
3.) Really hard to pick series down here. I liked Rozen Maiden for being a bit gimicky. It was funny, the talking dolls intrigued me and they all had cool personalities. The battle scene at the end was really well done and over too quick. Enjoyed throughly.
Sola
2.) Sola is so good, wow. It was light and intense at the same time. I liked the romance part which was mixed nicely with the characters own needs and desires. Really character driven, all the animation was beautifully done. This series left me starved for something similar. Still havent found it, but it was great for the short 14 eps that were there.

Haruhi
1.) Hard to pick a best series. Like really hard. Haruhi had wonderful characters, great gimick in the out of orderness. And great animation. It is the most current series I have seen and I usually detach from my most recent series after a while, but I went straight back and rewatched it. Havent done that with any other series. It was just great.

My real determination was if i could re-watch a series. I have no real interest to rewatch a gundam series, but they were good while they lasted. Haruhi sent me straight back to the start, and has my favourite ep of all time in the culture festival. Others i am in the process of rewatching, but haven't gotten to them as quickly as Haruhi. All I can say is: when the hell is the 2nd season coming out? I NEED TO KNOW!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Roarkiller
I think TC was doing a countdown, Saddle

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Having been an anime fan as a preteen and now reaching towards young adult, growing up with it, one of the things I notice is that anime series in particular (rather than anime films) is that they are not as uniformly excellent as I thought they were when I was younger, and there's lots of anime out there do not represent any great quality.Though like all other forms of this type, there are good exceptional anime series with great storytelling, characters, etc. Many series here are not perfect in terms of direction and such, for example, some series falter towards the end, or at the beginning, but the essence of the series is what I keep in mind.

5) Haibane Renmei
4) Maison Ikkoku
3) Ima, Sokoni Iru Boku (Now and then, here and there)
2) Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō (Kare Kano)
1) Honey and Clover

Post last edited by Theowne on 12.14.2007, 06:14 PM.

this doesnt seem to be as popular as i had hoped. with so few votes its hard to label this as "the Ghiblis Taverns anime choices".
i will wait a little longer in the hope that there is some more activity.. and aslo...
becasue of the minimal votes, i am allowing people to compile incomplete lists from now on. that means someone can rate their top two favourite shows and thats all or even just put one if they wish. i urge people to help me out here and vote so long as they can.


at the moment the only series with a score above five are Samurai Champloo (6), Kareshi Konojo no Jijo/Kare Kano (6) and way out in front Neon Genisis Evangelion (9)

Alright, I'll vote for Honey and Clover as my #1, giving it a total of 10 points and placing it in the lead.

4 points shall be awarded to Cowboy Bebop, which will then be in second

3 points will be given to Princess Tutu, as obscure a favorite as Roar's choice of Scrapped Princess

2 points will go to Azumanga Daioh for obvious reasons

And 1 point will go to Now and then Here and there, giving it a total of 4.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that both Sanfan and Theowne were doing traditional countdowns. Just read Sanfan's explanations for proof. That means that Haruhi should have 7 points, which led me to believe that the scores have been added up incorrectly. NGE should only have 7 right now, not 9. Just looking at Theowne's picks, I'm confident it was a countdown as well. Though we'd have to ask to be sure.

That being said, I demand a recount

I agree with Seiji, T.C. has mucked us up by choosing a non-intuitive ranking method… *cheesy grin*

I know for a fact that Honey & Clover is Theowne’s favourite series, he mentions it often enough, and that Haruhi is #1Sanfan’s, not just from his enthusiasm about it on the forums but the wording of his post. Plus he raves about Sola all the time too (hm, #1Sanfan’s favourite seems to be the last thing he watched, heh).

Giving us so far:

1st place Honey and Clover with 10 points
2nd place Cowboy Bebop with 9 points
3rd place Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō (His and Her Circumstances) with 8 points
4th place (joint) Neon Genesis Evangelion with 7 points
4th place (joint) The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya with 7 points
6th place Samurai Champloo with 6 points
7th place (joint) Azumanga Daioh with 5 points
7th place (joint) Scrapped Princess with 5 points
9th place (joint) Ima, Sokoni Iru Boku (Now and then, here and there) with 4 points
9th place (joint) Shingetsutan Tsukihime with 4 points
9th place (joint) Sola with 4 points
12th place (joint) Beck with 3 points
12th place (joint) Mushishi with 3 points
12th place (joint) Princess Tutu with 3 points
12th place (joint) Rozen Maiden with 3 points
12th place (joint) Saishuu Heiki Kanojo (She The Ultimate Weapon) with 3 points
17th place Maison Ikkoku with 2 points
18th place (joint) Death Note with 1 point
18th place (joint) Gundam Seed with 1 point
18th place (joint) Haibane Renmei with 1 point

But too small a sample ATM. More votes needed. Any girls going to join us?

I admit I haven’t watched that much anime outside of films and those are mostly Ghiblis but Evangelion and Kare Kano are favourites of mine and Azumanga too. I’ve been downloading single episodes here and there of quite a few things recently and then deciding to buy the DVDs of what I like. A lot of things are still not available though. If I had to make a top 5 it would be:

5 points Evangelion. I agree with Saddles that there is just so much in this series, even with its unsatisfactory ending and rather old-fashioned looking art style. It is a work of art and you can peel away layer after layer and go into it for days.
4 points Honey and Clover. It reminded me a lot of my own university life so I had to rate it highly. It’s very realistic and very poignant, and the music is lovely and I enjoyed the understated art style. We had a nutcase just like Morita-san in my house, he always seemed to have plenty of cash on him too...
3 points Kare Kano, it’s funny and engrossing and artistically groundbreaking and I’m in it!
2 points Kino’s Journey. I watched this recently and it’s beautiful.
1 point (like lots of other people) Azumanga Daioh, just because I can slip in any DVD from the series at random, pick an episode and it brightens my day up within 5 minutes, no matter how blue I’m feeling.

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Ok then, here's the most up to date list.

We seem to have struck a tavern trend with Honey and Clover, Evangelion, and Kare Kano. I'm gonna have to see this asap.

1st place Honey and Clover with 14 points
2nd place Neon Genesis Evangelion with 12 points
3rd place Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō (His and Her Circumstances) with 11 points
4th place Cowboy Bebop with 9 points
5th place The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya with 7 points
6th place (joint) Samurai Champloo with 6 points
6th place (joint) Azumanga Daioh with 6 points
8th place Scrapped Princess with 5 points
9th place (joint) Ima, Sokoni Iru Boku (Now and then, here and there) with 4 points
9th place (joint) Shingetsutan Tsukihime with 4 points
9th place (joint) Sola with 4 points
12th place (joint) Beck with 3 points
12th place (joint) Mushishi with 3 points
12th place (joint) Princess Tutu with 3 points
12th place (joint) Rozen Maiden with 3 points
12th place (joint) Saishuu Heiki Kanojo (She The Ultimate Weapon) with 3 points
17th place (joint) Maison Ikkoku with 2 points
17th place (joint) Kino's Journey with 2 points
19th place (joint) Death Note with 1 point
19th place (joint) Gundam Seed with 1 point
19th place (joint) Haibane Renmei with 1 point

I think that's all right, but feel free to double check me. I'm really good at making stupid mistakes.

Post last edited by Seiji on 12.19.2007, 08:10 AM.

Looks right to me. Is it Kare Kano you've not seen? It’s by Gainax who did NGE and so of course it’s not finished (hah), and it varies in quality a lot. In fact the ending is completely unsatisfactory. The story pretty much just stops coz they ran out of money I think. It’s a high school romance comedy but with some angsty stuff thrown in. Be warned it’s pretty unusual with a lot of still frames and loads of text used over it (you WILL need subtitles unless you can read Kanji very fast) and a lot of super-deformed – chibi-fied style which is not to everyone’s taste. There’s also a good deal of real photography used. One episode uses no animation at all but is all live action but with paper cutouts, so it’s pretty strange. But the love-story it tells (or rather several love stories) is wonderful and it has the nicest sex-scene in any anime I’ve ever seen (that is you don’t see a thing, it’s all implied with music and symbolism and it works beautifully).

There's a few in that list I don't know: Now and Then, Here and There sounds interesting.

5 points to Honey and Clover
4 Kare Kano
3 Ima, Sokoni Iru Boku
2 Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
1 Wolf's Rain

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Yeah, it's Kare Kano I haven't seen. If you're looking for a better ending then, I suggest you read the manga. I've got the first volume in Spanish and I have to say I've really enjoyed it. The art style is right up my ally. Now to just get the rest of the volumes.

Now and Then Here and There is that other anime I was telling you about that is based off of Laputa. (the other in this instance being Last Exile, which I know you weren't all that fond of) The two series however, are completely different in their re-inventions. Now and Then Here and There also seems to have been heavily influenced by Star Wars, and unlike Last Exile, it has a great ending.

Also, it may have a very simple childlike shounen art style, but it is very dark, disturbing, and meaningful. And sad, can't forget sad...It is one of two shounen series in my personal collection, the other being Outlaw Star, which I pretty much only have cause it was the first series I really got into. I love it and all, but if it weren't for that bias, I probably wouldn't connect with it like I do. The only other shounen series that I can think I would even consider buying at the moment would be NGE, and I still need to see that in Japanese to make a fair judgement.

Back on topic:

We need to think of a better way to compile these votes. It's going to get way harder to keep track of the points if many more people vote, and even more complex if people start changing their minds (which is perfectly reasonable, peoples' favorites change over time, just look at Sanfan's list)

In spite of that notion, I don't have any suggestions.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seiji
Yeah, it's Kare Kano I haven't seen. If you're looking for a better ending then, I suggest you read the manga.

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Post last edited by Saddletank on 12.19.2007, 10:10 AM.

Well then, I'll definitely have to watch it AND read it I suppose.

Fen has posted her choices, but I'm too lazy at the moment to update the list.

At this point, it looks like if the tavern were a person its favorite series would be Honey and Clover followed by Kare Kano, and its favorite movie would be Whisper of the Heart followed by Only Yesterday, Spirited Away, Porco Rosso, and Nausicaa.

quote:

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Originally posted by Saddletank

I see Fen agrees with me too! And whoa! Another H&C fan.

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