So recently I had an anime watch party and we were browsing anime to watch and I came across Pluto. Admittedly I’m only 2 episodes in but so far it’s SO solid. And I’m just surprised I had never heard of it and it came out 3 years ago. Especially since it’s a reimagining of Astroboy and everyone’s heard of that…
Another one I had surprisingly never heard of but so far seems solid is Level E written by Yoshihiro Togashi. My favorite anime is YYH and I loved HxH so how come I hadn’t heard of Level E until now? Again, only 2 episodes in but seems legitimately good and it’s by a wildly successful creator.
What’s an anime you didn’t expect much of because it seems lesser known, but turns out to be very good? I mean like, not only do u like it but ur surprised the general public - casual anime fans aren’t aware of it.
Big O
It’s showtime!
I used to make fun of Big O for being bad when it was on adult swim (I literally never watched it). Maybe I should finally give it a shot.
the ending was rushed but make sure to watch all two seasons. the show is inspired heavily by Batman the animated series
it was show about giant mechs, and living in a biodome, due to “nuclear winter outside”
I read Pluto and really enjoyed it, will try to watch it in the near future for sure. It’s kind of stupid but “I parry everything” was excellent if you can get past the gag that the MC is just clueless.
I do hate when MC’s are clueless but I suppose it CAN be funny if done right.
Flip Flappers!
I’m still reeling from that twist.
Sounds silly lol. Not a watcher of magical girl anime typically but perhaps I’ll choose this when I’m in the mood for it.
Pluto was great! Have fun watching it and enjoy the plot unfolding and twisting :)
Dennoh Coil (2007), it’s basically if Studio Ghibli did Sci-Fi. Won a bunch of awards in Japan, but never got mainstream.
That’s good enough for me to look into it
Seconding it. And its spiritual successor The Orbital Children.
DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION
This and Pluto are the best scifi anime we had in recent years.
Nice, This is actually on my anilist “plan to watch” already. So I’ll get to it eventually!
crunchyroll fumbled the marketing for this (i.e. there was none) and fucked up the subs. i fucking hate crunchyroll.
dint they start using AI translations.
Shoutout for Pluto!
I thought YuYu Hakusho was way more popular than it actually was.
It WAS super popular when it came out as well as when it was on Toonami around 2003. I’d consider it mainstream. But lately, aside from the live action hype, it’s overshadowed more than it should be.
Yeah, like if you ask most people about the best OG shows of that era, it’s usually Dragonball, Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, and Gundam. Even Hunter x Hunter ended up becoming more well known.
FWIW, its getting the TFS abridged treatment, so maybe that’ll boost its popularity a little bit.
Oh that’s right. I hope it helps it out a bit. Honestly it would be amazing if YYH got the HxH treatment
seems like it got overshadowed by naruto/ bleach,etc.
I’m watching Hell’s Paradise right now. It’s clearly done on a decent budget, but the animators are pretty good at knowing where they need to focus that cash. Meanwhile, the story is actually pretty good. For something like a Shonen-style power-system story, there’s a lot more going on than just flashy martial arts. I’m enjoying this one, and am surprised I haven’t heard of it before last month.
Great show. I finished that a few months ago. Definitely underrated. I’ve seen it recommended on Reddit a few times so not underground at all, but definitely a bit under appreciated. Animation is gorgeous for most of it and the whole thing is so eerie.
I second Hell’s Paradise! Season 2 was fantastic.
Maybe it’s just because it hit me the right way at the right time, but besides the deau meme, rozen maiden’s first season hit me so hard I’m surprised it wasn’t way more popular
Added it. There seems to be a bunch of them?
Yeah, but it’s one of those shows where the further you get from the original, the more you wish you’d just watched the first season and left it there.
Fire Force. I got god damn hooked on that show a few years ago. And I’m someone who general just watches anime films, ovas, or limited series. favourites being Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex and Second Gig, FLCL, Cowboy Bebop, etc. so generally nothing that has multiple seasons.
So Fire Force really isn’t the type of anime I’m into. I’m not huge on the goofy fan service type of stuff that takes place over multiple seasons. hell I’ve never watched One Piece. But this show for whatever reason just hooked me. I had reminders set for when new episodes would come out. I can’t quite put my finger on why I liked it but I just did. It’s fun.
Other than that I don’t know how popular it is but Psycho Pass. that one is more up my ally. I enjoyed that and the theme song is a real banger.
I’d say fire force is pretty popular! I watched the first season but never continued after that. Not sure why but it just didn’t hooked me. Same exact situation with psychopass. Didn’t hate them, just didn’t have the urge to continue. I guess we just have very different tastes (I’m not a fan of bebop or FLCL either).
Terminator Anime. It is surprisingly good but it had been cancelled because it wasn’t popular enough.
i heard the sarah conner chronicles was good to, and canceled for the same reason.
There’s quite a few that I’m surprised I’ve never seen anyone talk about outside of dedicated forums.
Akudama Drive ruled start to finish. It’s worth watching for the animation alone.
Xam’d: Lost Memories feels like it’s only a few years old, but it came out less than a year after Gurren Lagann. In 2008. Bones makes real pretty shows.
Speaking of Bones, Carole and Tuesday was solid. My only issue was that it didn’t take a hard enough stance against AI, but also it came out before ChatGPT and long before AI generated music was a real issue so I can’t really blame them.
Angel Beats was great but apparently not good enough to go mainstream. Only single season of like 13 episodes. I’ve watched it a few times. It’s funny and I recommend.
It was mainstream for its time. But yeah, great stuff!
Yeah, Angel Beats was very popular for a while when it aired. Previous commenter probably watched it much later
Definitely heard of angel beats, but never got around to watching it.
What more could they have done with that story? Ended kinda definitively, no?
Pretty much. I just enjoyed it and wanted more.
It was THE show everybody talked about when it aired. It even leaked into non-anime discourse. Ichbiban no takaramono hit the heavy rotation on JP radio stations and sold like hotcakes. The show was everywhere at the time. It was story-complete, though, so that’s why there is no second season.
I think Angel Beats lost some of its cultural momentum when every following Maeda Jun project turned out to be a flop.
inuyasha seems wierdly geared towards night audiences,. evangelion. its not as popular as bleach, naruto, onepiece, brotherhood/or og alchemist.(im guessing the latter 2 are too short of a series and the time between final season, or series is staggeringly long. rather than having season by season each year. inuyasha had a horrendous amount of time between the official last season to final act which showed signs it was clearly rushed for just one final season, like 4-5years, AOT level of ridiculousness.
Inuyasha was one of the most popular shows back when I was in middle school. Around when anime first started becoming more accessible in the US via Toonami and Adult Swim. I watched a little bit but didn’t stay up late enough to watch it continuously. I’ve been meaning to finish it.
the FINAL act was super rushed, basically they jammed like 50-100episodes into 25 to finish off the whole series, its still good, but they definitely couldved milked some of the stories more. spoilers, killed off hakudoshi so fast, as was kaguara, and then KIKYO. one of inuyasha new sword abilities is dragon scaled, he barely used through the final part and only specific instances, it seems like an extremely powerful ability against any demon(minus the ones he cant overpower or see like naraku hiding his aura with a magical orb.) and it can trap spirits as well.
i assume you are aware of the “spinoff” its basically sesshoramu with rin. but fans thought it was an odd series because it seems too “groomy”, marrying and siring children with the person you took care of/companion through her childhood.
