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Alternative/Different Anime (Mushishi/Mononoke/etc)?

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O

Oxigen_Waste

Banned
Okay, so I've been increasingly uninterested in anime lately, and even stuff everyone seems to love like Code Geass or Steins;Gate just makes me cringe... I can't stand these samey shows, nor can I stand the increasing prevalence of animus...
The last anime I properly enjoyed was Usagi Drop! So... C'mon Gaf, help me out here and point me in the right direction! Either stuff that completely breaks free from the genre's mold (like Mushishi), stuff that's stylistically beyond the rest (mononoke, Gankutsuou), or stuff that actually explores some relevant and interesting themes (like Usagi Drop). Thanks in advance, Gaf!
 
ULTROS!

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I liked Interstella 5555. Daft Punk + Leiji Matsumoto = pure awesomeness.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Wandering Son.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

From the New World.
 
W

wonzo

Banned
Kenya Boy

kenyaboy.jpg
 
O

Oxigen_Waste

Banned
EVOL 100% said:
Serial Experiments Lain

Kino's Journey

Haibane Renmei

All three fit your criteria very well.
Click to expand...

True, but I have seen them all. This is directed towards more recent stuff, over the last 5 years or so. Before that I pretty much saw everything so I'm probably gonna be aware of whatever you recommend from back then.
 
R

Risette

A Good Citizen
Oxigen_Waste said:
True, but I have seen them all. This is directed towards more recent stuff, over the last 5 years or so. Before that I pretty much saw everything so I'm probably gonna be aware of whatever you recommend from back then.
Click to expand...
Have you seen Kenya Boy? It's old, but I bet you haven't seen it.
 
O

ojsinnerz

Neo Member
Kaiji
Tatami Galaxy
Kuuchuu Buranko
Kaiba
Aria
Sora no Woto

Code Geass is silly, and the first half of Steins Gate was almost painful to watch for me.
 
ULTROS!

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I also enjoyed:

Millennium Actress - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHUkWP3JwPA
Paprika - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJzEW_eE1G0

If by Anime series:
- Elfen Lied
- Popolocrois
- Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales - Yotsuya Kaidan (Yoshitaka Amano)
- I remember watching this anime about a group of girls and they fight a lot. It involves roses and death or something. It looked pretty bleak and it was in a city. I remember there's this redheaded girl with a pompom styled hair.
 
F

Flink

Member
ULTROS! said:
If by Anime series:
- Elfen Lied
- Popolocrois
- Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales - Yotsuya Kaidan (Yoshitaka Amano)
- I remember watching this anime about a group of girls and they fight a lot. It involves roses and death or something. It looked pretty bleak and it was in a city. I remember there's this redheaded girl with a pompom styled hair.
Click to expand...

Utena?
 
7

7Th

Member
Cat's Soup

Haly said:
Wandering Son.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
Click to expand...

These are good but I wouldn't call them "alternative" at all.

ULTROS! said:
I remember watching this anime about a group of girls and they fight a lot. It involves roses and death or something. It looked pretty bleak and it was in a city. I remember there's this redheaded girl with a pompom styled hair.
Click to expand...

Red Garden
 
dispensergoinup

dispensergoinup

Gold Member
Gunna throw in some Ergo Proxy in the mix here.

Thanks for the other suggestions, all. Definitely gunna check them out as I've been looking for a thread like this for a while now.

Seconding:

Dennou Coil
Baccano
Paranoia Agent
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
7Th said:
These are good but I wouldn't call them "alternative" at all.
Click to expand...

Well, PMMM was more for "breaking the mold" and Wandering Son was the other "social commentary" anime of 2011.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
pizzaroll said:
breaking the mold by falling right into it?
Click to expand...

It overturned expectations, I think that counts.

Yes, I know the sinister turn was expected by the experienced anime fan, but the average viewer wouldn't have guessed it given the premise.
 
P

PolishQ

Member
I also like anime off the beaten track, and I enjoyed these recently (most of which have been mentioned):

- Mind Game, a life-affirming film that starts off mundane and then goes to some pretty insane places
- Kaiba, an abstract fantasy/sci-fi series with an old-school look to it (think Astro Boy but looser) that handles some dark themes
- Tsuritama, a colorful series ostensibly about teenage boys bonding over fishing, but which uses small doses of sci-fi as allegory for growing up, similar to FLCL
- AnoHana, probably the most mainstream series on this list, full of melodrama but in a way that feels genuine

I'm soon to watch Dennou Coil, Humanity Has Declined, Mawaru Penguindrum, Baccano!, and Trapeze; these seem like they would also be promising for you.

I'm fairly picky when it comes to animation quality; all of the above are beautifully and expressively drawn, some with quite unique visual styles. I've really been impressed with what I've seen so far of HD-era anime.
 
M

Mumei

Member
You should watch Monster. It isn't really all that off-beat but it isn't like any other anime I've seen.

aside from having too many reaction shots, but that's every anime
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Steins;Gate is based on a fantastic VN, but the anime may be wildly different.

That said, Madoka Magica subverts the magical girl genre in ways you'll never expect.
 
R

Razgriz-Specter

Member
Oxigen_Waste said:
Okay, so I've been increasingly uninterested in anime lately, and even stuff everyone seems to love like Code Geass or Steins;Gate just makes me cringe... I can't stand these samey shows, nor can I stand the increasing prevalence of animus...
The last anime I properly enjoyed was Usagi Drop! So... C'mon Gaf, help me out here and point me in the right direction! Either stuff that completely breaks free from the genre's mold (like Mushishi), stuff that's stylistically beyond the rest (mononoke, Gankutsuou), or stuff that actually explores some relevant and interesting themes (like Usagi Drop). Thanks in advance, Gaf!
Click to expand...
.......


Try Higurashi no Naku
if that isn't interesting, your too far gone already.
 
S

squall23

Member
Oxigen_Waste said:
Okay, so I've been increasingly uninterested in anime lately, and even stuff everyone seems to love like Code Geass or Steins;Gate just makes me cringe... I can't stand these samey shows, nor can I stand the increasing prevalence of animus...
Click to expand...
I'm of the same mindset (besides Code Geass since I didn't like or hate it) and I pretty much have quit modern anime at this point except for Inazuma Eleven and the occasional anime that I'm REALLY interested in like Jojo, but since I'm a big mecha fan I can just go watch 90s and early-2000s mecha that I haven't watched before. Most of the stuff are actually amazing.

Why the hell didn't I watch Ryu Knight and Gosaurer earlier?
 
G

Grakl

Member
Tekkonkinkreet is a great movie that most people haven't seen. The ending is more trippy than I expected, but the movie as a whole is very solid.
 
J

JCG

Member
The following would be a couple of the more unusual anime titles I can recommend without overly repeating and/or nitpicking the selections other people have already posted (they're mostly good, but I think we will always have varying ideas about what is or isn't really "different" about some of the previously mentioned productions):

Aoi Bungaku - Based on real literature, as the translated name (Blue Literature) indicates. It's an anthology series, so the quality of each individual story varies, but they are certainly different from the norm as far as both content and aesthetics are concerned.

Time of Eve - A very well done take on the relationships between humans and robots in a future society. Not extremely different compared to other forms of fiction but still worthwhile.

Hi no Tori - Also known as Phoenix. It's another anthology series, this time based on Osamu Tezuka's manga of the same name. You could say the common theme is that they're morality tales directly or indirectly dealing with the topic of immortality. But again, not every story is of equal quality and I particularly prefer some of the later ones. There's also been previous adaptations of individual volumes, which I imagine few people have actually checked out, most of them pretty good in their own right.

Other than that...I'd rather not overreach. I don't watch a lot right now but, to be honest, I'm also not too bothered by the presence of typical genre elements.
 
G

Gutsy Frog

Banned
Grakl said:
Tekkonkinkreet is a great movie that most people haven't seen. The ending is more trippy than I expected, but the movie as a whole is very solid.
Click to expand...
The Tekkon Kinkreet movie was fun but mostly as a complement to the manga. As its own self-contained work it just sort of rushed through the story and lacked a lot of the ever-so-important 'downtime' from the manga - see the scene where it is revealed that White has trouble handling the very concept of death, for instance. I personally think the adaptation would have worked better as a 6-episode OVA or something like that.

That and, they removed a VERY IMPORTANT part from the climax that couldn't have taken up more than... maybe 30 extra seconds to include. I have no idea what they were thinking.
 
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