If I enjoyFollow

Cowboy bebop, what else would you recommend?

Your mistake was watching Bebop first. Logistically, Bebop should be the last anime that you ever watch, as everything else will seem trite and hackneyed after seeing it.

Have you watched the movie?

PS: In all seriousness, Outlaw Star might be the best bet, as it has some similar Western influences with the sci-fi setting. But it doesn't hold much of a candle to Bebop.

Edited, Sep 12th 2011 3:47pm by Eske

What specifically did you like about Bebop? The sci-fi? The characters? The dark comedy?

Trigun has most of the same things, as does Outlaw Star. I think Samurai Champloo has a similar humor and character style, but not really sci-fi (full disclosure, never watched all of Champloo, but the style reminded me a lot of Bebop).

For live action, I'd pick Firefly

Edit: Some other suggestions I saw online if you liked Bebop:

Black Lagoon (Never heard of it myself)
Baccano! (All about characters, I haven't seen it but I saw another anime from the same folks called Durarara!! and it was really good)
Darker Than Black (read the manga, it's pretty good)
Noir (Whoever suggested this should be ashamed of themselves. This series bites)

Edited, Sep 12th 2011 4:25pm by LockeColeMA

Outlaw Star shares superficial similarities to Cowboy bebop, in that you have a gang of space outlaws flying around in a spaceship and antagonized by space criminals, but the cores of the shows are quite different. Personally I didn't care for Outlaw Star, beyond the amazing ending art and songs.

Samurai Champloo. Same style, same director, similar character types. Would recommend as being highly similar to Cowboy Bebop.

Trigun is probably closer to the spirit of Cowboy Bebop, and I'd recommend it. Would recommend.

Black Lagoon lacks science fiction, but has a similar tone. I think you'd like it fairly well. Would recommend.

Darker than Black is Chinese Batman. A series I would typically recommend, but not on the basis of it being similar to Cowboy Bebop.

Baccano! is a good series, but I wouldn't say it's anything like Cowboy Bebop. A series I would typically recommend, but not on the basis of it being similar to Cowboy Bebop.

Noir. Nothing like it, nothing good about this series besides the music. They also have the same flashback like a billions times. I wouldn't recommend.

Redline. A movie not a television series, but very much inspired by western styles. Good visuals and mediocre on story.

Ergo proxy. Far more dystopian than Cowboy Bebop, but allegories coming out of its arse. Would recommend.

I'd really like to think someone was just trying to be funny... but this all really happens in Utena

From what's been recommended so far, I definitely suggest going with Trigun first. Darker Than Black and Baccano are also very good though the former is more action and the latter is comedy/action. If you manage to stick with anime long enough to enjoy Baccano, then Durarara would be a good next choice since it was written by the same person.

In the same line as Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain and Samurai Champloo would both be good selections. I wasn't a fan of Samurai Champloo, but it has a very similar style to that of Cowboy Bebop. Wolf's Rain is actually pretty different from Cowboy Bebop, so it might not be a great suggestion, but it seems just about everyone that worked on Cowboy Bebop also worked on Wolf's Rain.

Edited, Sep 12th 2011 10:26pm by xypin

Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain, & Samurai Champloo were all done by (pretty much) the same people, so the latter two you may like. Wolf's Rain is Sci-Fi &, well, quite odd but wasn't bad. Samurai Champloo has no sci-fi, but pretty good hip-hop music as a soundtrack.

I'd suggest Gurren Lagaan as well. It's quite different in tone & parodies a lot of giant robot animes, but if you can get through the first couple episodes it picks up & gets good. The 2nd part, especially, gets a lot less "absurd" than the first & there are giant robot space battles (And I mean giant as in, "Dude just threw a galaxy at another dude") in the 2nd half of the anime.

You will get this song stuck in your head if you watch it, however.

But really, I hated Gurren Lagann. The main character is a whiny b*tch for over half the show, then there was a tolerable part, then you get a ridiculously stupid and unforgivable plot to end the show. I realize that I am in the minority and most people love the show, but I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone.


Also, Spoiler

IDrownFish wrote:

F*ck yeah, Toonami.

F*ck yeah, Toonami.

Major spoilers inc, do not click the button if you have not seen the show and ever intend to:

SpoilerI agree, Kamina is @#%^ing awesome. As is Yoko. But the former is only around for the first 8 episodes, not nearly enough to redeem the whole series. The latter is the only reason the series was even watchable for me after the first half.

I suppose knowing a bit about mecha history helps show enjoyment, as TTGL is basically an overview of janaese mecha anime up to that point. It starts as a super robot series like Mazinger Z, moves on to be a mass production real robot show like Gundam, and finally ends with the god mecha of the Evangelion age. It's an homage to the entire genre.

macross.

My two cents, for what it's worth (pun intended!):

Outlaw Star is kind of dumb, and the first dozen episodes or so are complete throw-aways. I remember liking it when they aired it on Adult Swim a decade ago, though.

Baccano! is slow to start, but gets very, very good through the middle and into the end (to the point of being almost transcendental), then abruptly makes a left turn and kind of peters out. It's very much worth checking out though.

Darker Than Black was pretty neat. It has a sort of X-Men aesthetic in that there's whole bunches of dudes with super powers, and each super power is completely unique. I never saw anything past season 2, but enjoyed the episodes that I did watch.

Trigun is actually one of my favorite series, mostly on the strength of the last 10 or so episodes. The series on a whole spends too much time introducing tertiary characters that give the hero(s) a one-episode side-quest to complete, but the pay-off at the end is well worth it.

FLCL was and still is my favorite anime series, mostly because it doesn't spend a dozen episodes "character building" (there are only 6 total episodes to the whole series), but instead barrels along at full speed and trusts you to keep up. Also, like some of the other series mentioned above, including Cowboy Bebop, it has an ending that's meaningful and engaging as opposed to those anime series that trudge along into infinity without any real closure (I'm looking at you, Inuyasha).

I watched the first season and a half of Claymore and found it relatively good. Towards the end of the first season, they introduced some interesting plot elements, but after seeing that they would go completely unresolved until some point likely several seasons down the road, I tuned out.

Finally, if you enjoy things are "so bad it's good" (e.g. the Fast and Furious franchise, action movies with Nic Cage, etc.), give a look at the first season of Aquarion. It has a fairly standard Voltron-esque "giant robots fight giant monsters" plot, but the dialogue is so bad, and it relies so heavily on all of the cliches of that genre that it's actually funnier than an intentional parody ever could be.

Plus the manga is still unfinished, which means the ending to the anime is presumably a cop-out ending (I haven't watched the anime).

The manga is good, but I feel like it's been going on for too long now. Granted that's how I always feel on series that release one chapter a month...

FLCL might be my exhibit A for "I don't understand Japanese humor."*

Though to its credit, there were some interesting aesthetics, and I always felt like it was close to saying something semi-profound or interesting (but that there was a sort-of language barrier that kept me from getting it).

*I did like the guy with the big eyebrows, though. Didn't one of them fall off? I think I cracked up at that.

FLCL is great if you're ever curious what yellow tastes like.

Not an Inuyasha fan, but just wanted to mention the series was eventually wrapped up with an actual ending. If you want to talk about shows that go on forever with no end, then look no further than Bleach, Naruto, and of course, One Piece.

I don't recommend any of these shows to anyone.

I didn't realize that Inuyasha finally concluded. Do they finally kill what's-his-name?

More importantly, does Inuyasha finally pork Kagome?

Edited, Sep 14th 2011 6:35pm by Demea

Like others have said, Outlaw Star and Trigun. Aside from those, the only anime that I have thoroughly enjoyed are Big O, Gundam Wing (and Endless Waltz), Fullmetal Alchemist, Blue Submarine #6, FLCL, Tenchi (Muyo, Tokyo, Universe), Ghost in the Shell, Rurouni Kenshin, and YuYu Hakusho. Basically, stuff they showed on Toonami/Adult Swim 5-6 years ago. Not big on the "endless" anime (as someone said earlier, stuff like Dragonball Z, Naruto, Inuyasha, etc.)

I was actually just thinking about that. It's certainly one of the better vampire series, primarily because it's so irreverent and over the top all the time. (And Alucard is one badass mofo.)

Since we're mostly talking about action/comedy shonen series in this thread, I haven't brought up anything from the realm of shoujo, but there are a few that might be worth a watch if you're running out of things to consider. Twelve Kingdoms is like Fushigi Yuugi done right, and probably remains one of my favorite novel based anime ever made.

(On that note, don't watch Fushigi Yuugi. It was fantastic in 1999 because I didn't know any better, but it's like the DBZ of shoujo... the manga is iconic, and the anime sucked because it stretched everything out way too much.)

Full Metal Panic! is one of my favorite underrated anime. The novels and manga is still ongoing (and the latest chapters have been full of wtf, in a good way), but the first three series that are out cover a large chunk of the novel arcs. The first series is intro/expose, the second series is WAFF and comedy, and the third series is all SRSBSNSS again. It's an alternate ending to the Cold War, where the Soviet Union got a hold of futuristic technology and never collapsed. So it's "present day" but various countries have giant robots, and hi-tech mercenary groups are hired by governments to go curb stomp other countries. At the heart of the alternate universe are the Whispered, kids born with psychic abilities. The actual story revolves around Sagara Sousuke, a mercenary from Mythril, and one of the Whispered, Chidori Kaname, and their wacky attempts to fit in as normal high schoolers.

Edited, Sep 16th 2011 11:06am by catwho

You know, it'd be nice if Xsarus would post and specify what about Cowboy Bebop he liked so we could actually think of better, more similar examples instead of going in broad strokes.

u st00p1d.

Gurren Lagann is Awesome^2, it should be watched by every single person who watches anime. Star Driver also fits this description, except instead of being made of pure awesome it's made of pure FABULOUS.

They have airplanes. what else do you want here???


Edit: Actually, Area 88 might also be a good one.



Edited, Sep 17th 2011 11:39pm by Kaolian

Chinpokomon



Yeah, I went there.

Maybe it was just a hypothetical question.