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Need a serious anime suggestion! Please!


beneath the sea
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I have been out of the anime thing for a few years but just finished Huruhi Suzimuya. It was really good and has resparked my interest.

Can anyone recommend any newer series that are very serious, dramatic, sad or epic. Something cathartic to watch. I want to get attatched to the characters. Something really good, I don't have time to waist with a mediocre series.

Thanks much in advance.

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I like Bleach though it's just DBZ with weapons, same for naruto (but it's ninjas). I enjoyed Prince of Tennis quite a bit, but it's somewhat an older series. Beck is one of the best modern anime's I've seen. It's about a Japanese rock band. Playing live shows, writing songs and still making time for school and girls. Characters are handled really well and the music is pretty amazing and filled with Engrish. One of the main guys lived in America for awhile so he sometimes uses broken English.

I haven't been hooked onto many good anime's lately. Haruhi is frickin awesome though. Just doesn't seem like there's as much quality stuff coming out anymore.

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Black Lagoon (Intriguing stories but there's probably only 3 characters you really get attached to)

Gungrave (By far one of the most excellent animes I've ever seen. Nearly all the characters really grew on me)

And if you've got the stomach for it

Elfen Lied (Graphic violence and nudity but it was actually a pretty decent show)

I'd also recommend watching em all in the original Japanese dubs with English subtitles. English dubs tend to make me laugh at how unnatural the speech sounds.

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Ghost in the Shell and Black Lagoon are great and 'serious' and all that, but they strike me more as pop-culture fancies of violence and cyberpunk to me. Still worth a watch though.

If you want more anime in the same vein as Haruhi Suzumiya, you should check out Kanon 2006 made by Kyoto Animation and Air. Both are cutesier and less openly comedic as Haruhi, but they both have much more serious and dour dramatic aspects to them.

I think some great under appreciated shows are Akagi and Black Jack. Akagi for the sheer fun of watching the main character 'defeat' his enemies with nothing more than sheer intellect and wile and Black Jack is a really well made medical thriller anime based around one of the oldest, 'serious' manga stories ever made.

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Heh, despite the dozen or more different anime's I've seen, I can't help out here at all. I'm the kind of person who watches anime for the sole purpse of laughing or going "fuck yeah!" when something badass happens. (Read: Tenchi (all of it), Rune Soldier, Tales of Phantasia, Chobits, Read or Die, Ouran High School Host Club.)

If that's what you're after, just ask. But this serious stuff... sorry, can't help.

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Serious business (in addition to GITS SAC and Death Note, both of which are good):

Mushishi

Ergo Proxy (haven't seen this though)

Serial Experiments Lain

Seriously serious business:

Pugyuru

Cromartie High School

Though Haruhi is neither serious, dramatic, sad, nor epic...

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If you have an open mind I'd highly suggest One Piece. Not the absolutely shitty "translation" (LOL4KIDS), find it subbed or find the manga. It's probably the most...well creative anime's I've ever seen and if you can get past Oda's exaggerations and PCP-induced ideas the series itself is very much epic. It's probably not as serious as a lot of what's been previously mentioned, but you say "serious/epic" and "Haruhi" in the same sentence and I giggle slightly.

Don't expect to finish it anytime soon though. I think they're up to episode 302 and approaching the halfway point of the series.

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2nd on One piece, once again, don't touch the 4kids 'translation'...it sucks

Also,

Code Geass - fairly new series, very epic, just had a huge plot twist added.

D-Grayman - oddball, humor, and overpowered main characters FTW!

Prince of Tennis - sports anime in a DBZ type style...gotta love it.

Black Lagoon - Cyberpunkish, pretty neat.

Also, little bit older, but completed. Black Cat.

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I second most of the recommendations here and would also like to recommend Texhnolyze. It was created by the same team who made Serial Experiments Lain, so if you're a fan of Lain, I'd definitely recommend Texhnolyze, and if you haven't seen either of them, you should check them both out.

Also, I don't think it's been recommended yet, but you should check out Wolf's Rain, it can easily fall under the categories of dramatic, sad, serious, and epic. Also, if you're a fan of Yoko Kanno, she composes most of the OST, which is a definite plus. :)

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Like overcoat said, if you want some serious anime look no further than the series “Monster”, its one of the best anime/manga series I have ever seen. It is a psychological thriller about a Japanese Doctor working as surgeon at hospital in Germany (The entire thing is set in (Germany/Czech Republic). After a series of events that lead him near to the end of his professional career and personal life, he saves a 10-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to his head against the orders of the Hospital Director. Afterwards the three highest doctors above him are killed via poison thus securing his professional career; in the chaos of the deaths the boy and his twin sister (being treated for shock) disappear. The rest of the story is set seven years later. What is great about this series it is relies on no special effect or visuals or fantasy settings, but purely on narrative and character development.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_%28anime%29

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