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Do you have an anime that serves as your guilty pleasure?
Do you have a show that you secretly enjoy, but wouldn't speak about it openly? Perhaps it's terrible and ridiculous, but you love it anyway.
I have a buddy who has loved SAO since its first season. He knows it kinda sucks, but it makes him happy and imo that's great.
It would be Detective Conan for me. The quality these days is horrible, but I get a kick from watching them anyway- even though you can predict the culprit 00000.1 seconds into the episode.
And I know this is ~anime, but I'd also like to see ones that aren't limited to anime. Let us know!
Kono Suba. It's a bit heavy on the fan service in a way that stops me from talking about it in public, but I also just find it really funny, and I enjoy the self aware sarcastic take on fantasy tropes.
Am I allowed to cite the OG Higurashi no Naku Koro ni/Higurashi When They Cry anime from '06-'07? My basis is: yeah, I know it's not a great adaptation of the original visual novel, but I think it still does a pretty decent job of standing on its own. The ending of Kai is one of the few times I've found myself tearing up at a piece of media. Part of that is probably because I was younger and more vulnerable back when I first watched it, but still - something about the simple beauty of that
Mild ending spoilers
final ending shot of the calendarWe don't talk about anything post-Kai, though. Except for the middle three episodes of Rei. Nothing else exists.
Especially not Sotsu.Every now and then, I will binge watch all of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and I guess so to be Dragon Ball Super when I do my rewatch. I'm pretty pedestrian when it comes to anime though
That's a lot of guilt to work off by watching several hundreds of episodes of guilty pleasure!
It honestly just goes on as background noise. I will often fast forward during the most boring parts too. Dragon Ball is way better than Z. But Super was pretty fresh for the most part
This was going to be my answer! I discovered dragon ball in college and it changed my life forever. I may have to start a rewatch again now that you've mentioned it.
I also really like OnePiece, but I just can't get through the sheer number of episodes
Food Wars fits this bill for me. It has some episodes with genuinely great writing, but I'm not referring to those. I mean the ultra-cheesy episodes where everything goes completely over-the-top. Plus the music is amazing.
iam with you man.
iam all up for that "foodgasm" animation.
Watching Food Wars was a great flashback to Yakitate Japan for me with the ridiculous food reactions. Both are wonderful shows.
This is the one lol. My wife was baffled at what I was watching haha. Normally she’s fine with the anime but for some reason she just thought this one was so weird.
That first cour was genuinely an animated masterpiece. I just couldn't talk to anyone about it.
Not a specific show, but I have found that I have a weakness for isekai. Most of it is terrible, but for someone like myself, who likes escapist fantasy, it's pretty hard to beat. Real life can be depressing, so replace it with over-the-top anime nonsense!
Same - in my case, I've been watching "That time I got reincarnated as a slime" recently, which ends up being silly slime politics a lot of the time (but it's still really fun!)
Oh man, I was really into that series when it was still running. I actually bought some of the light novels which don't usually interest me and I'm kind of amazed how much being able to know what's going on in Rimuru's head ruins it! He's kind of a dick, which kind of goes against the sense of community and friendship that kept me going through both it and the slice-of-life side story series.
I'm kind of hoping there will be another season, but they'd probably have to start inventing deities to challenge them at that point.
IIRC it is getting a season 3, hope it continues on after that though.
Exactly. There's a lot of over the top and overpowered characters within the genre, with Reincarnated as a Slime being right up there, but it's enjoyable to watch regardless of the story's main conceit usually being cheesy in nature.
That's my favorite anime.
Not really an anime, but I find myself feeling guilty about enjoying VTubers. I fully understand it's a parasocial relationship, but there's just something about it that really speaks to me, especially the ones who are more relaxed and chill. The whole culture around it can be weird at times, but I still find myself coming back to an Ina stream once in a while.
I avoided vtubers for a long while because, from an outside perspective, it's nothing but horny weebs that unironically need help. It doesn't help that trending events that reach outside ears are often things like "vtuber got cancelled because she has a crush on someone irl!!". I don't fault anyone for having wrong assumptions.
I think Holomyth's debut changed my mind, the vtuber sphere can be surprisingly chill. Though these days I only watch clips because I'm too busy, and I also find myself leaning more unto Holostars.
So while I would only talk about this with friends, I wouldn't outright say it in public.
I also mostly watch clips these days. During the pandemic though, I would tune in to a lot of streams.
I do still enjoy putting on a talking stream as background noise during work, especially Vesper's.
I have had been disgusted by the concept of vtubers for a while for precisely the parasocial reason you mentioned. It wasn't until a non vtuber I watched started doing it and in a healthier way than most of them (still hate most of them just not the medium) that I started coming around to the concept. At this point I kinda want to do it myself!
Is it Jaiden animations? I love her content too, but to be honest I never tuned into any of her vtuber streams/vods.
No but I guess I have another I need to watch now!
The one I'm talking about is Amalee. She did covers of songs from anime and a ton of voice acting for anime. To be fair, her vtuber content isn't exactly wholesome family values stuff but he has far less of that exploitative vibe that a lot of the corporate vtubers have these days. I don't feel icky watching her content.
I've been thinking about watching Amalee's streams recently. Probably a bad idea given I'm behind on my anime as is, so it wouldn't be ideal to do so haha. But I know about her through the covers for many years.
What I've been thinking about watching from her are her Apex Legends streams. I would play it myself, but I know no one that plays it and the game's got no Solo Mode. Unless I were to play solo against duos, which would probably not be enjoyable. I could think of watching her as a substitute for me playing the game myself.
I gotta say I feel like a lot of people ignored the actual question. A lot of these aren’t guilty pleasures unless you consider watching anime, categorically, a guilty pleasure.
I honestly wonder if that's the case for some of these.
But then again in my guilty pleasure movie thread I got a ton of people who also didn't realize that it was about bad movies that you actually liked.
That's true, I'm seeing a lot of popular and well-liked anime here, I'm not sure why they'd be embarrassing to speak about in public
So I definitely think it's just a different situation for everyone. There are people who would be embarrassed if their friends/family knew they were watching anime in general, which does indeed make any anime a "guilty pleasure"
I mean I do.
Azumanga Daioh is my guilty pleasure comfort anime. All of the characters are so fun and I can just sink into a comfy glow when watching it.
Azumanga Daioh is the grandmother of Slice of Life anime, you can feel its influence on SoL anime like Nichijou. Definitely a good watch for something really comfy! It's a shame nobody ever talks about it, aside from the random clips that youtube occasionally shows.
Elfen Lied, FLCL, KillLaKill, Berserk, etc. I don’t openly admit it. But watching bizarre and horror type anime is something I enjoy.
If you enjoy those, you’ll love Dorohedoro.
Oh man, dorohedoro is awesome. I wish we'd get a second season :(
Yeah, I’m patiently waiting for any news on the next season.
Will definitely check it out. Thanks for the suggestion.
Won’t lie. I’m not a big anime guy. But there’s something about FLCL that really drew me in. I cannot explain it. I don’t even think I ever really understood it.
I've watched flcl all the way through more than any other show. The first time I watched it I absolutely loved it but had no idea what the fuck was going on, so as soon as I finished it I started back on episode 1. The first month I probably watched it all the way through 4 times. Granted it is only 6 episodes. Then I got my brother to watch it with me, and he also didn't get what was going on so we watched it a second time. In the years since I've probably watched it another 6-8 times and I finally feel like I have a solid grasp on the plot. But really, I think that's not nearly as important as the atmosphere and feel of the show.
Despite seeing it for the first time at 19 there's something so nostalgic and comforting about it. It's like going back to my younger self and saying "hey its OK, this is a confusing time and not everything makes sense or turns out how you want it to, but everything will be OK. You just gotta swing the bat"
Same here. All I know is that it is amazing in terms of animation. It is beautiful to watch.
I'm not too guilty about liking FLCL.
Definitely Mirai Nikki/ Future Diary for me. It's just such a ridiculous, fun, popcorn romp. I have a strange place in my heart for gory or horror anime from the mid 2000s-2010s. My head canon for Mirai Nikki is that this is the perspective of a kid who has eighth grade syndrome
Irregular at Magic High School. Mahōka Kōkō no Rettōsei
Scratches that itch. Also
Arpeggio of Blue Steel, Arus Nova
Non non Biyori
Minami Ke
Kino's Journey
Angel Beats
Little Busters
Darker than Black
Devil Hunter Yoko
Tweeny Witches
Seven Deadly Sins
Ranma 1/2
Ah! My Goddess
Mushoku Tensi
Karakuri zōshi Ayatsuri Sakon
Clannad
Claymore
Guilty Crown
Kanon
My Otome
Ponyo
Samurai Champloo
Sorcerer Hunters
Spice and Wolf
The Cat Returns
Howls Moving Castle
Utawarerumono
Violet Evergarden
Witch Hunter Robin
That should keep you busy...
Wait, how is Howl's Moving Castle and Violet Evergarden a guilty pleasure?! Not only are they fantastic animations, they're some of the best movies/TV shows out there!
Right - unless this person is counting all anime as being a guilty pleasure? But those two plus Samurai Champloo have no business being mentioned as guilty pleasures at all in my book.
? I meet people all the time who refuse to admit they watch anime.
But there is a Ghost in the Shell figma on their shelf?
Pretty open about it on this handle but not IRL among tasteful company: Hellsing, hands down.
Delicious gorn porn with a heavy dosage of erotics that I could write essays about, and basically have with creating fan-doujinshi. The best thing is the Abridged series is a riot and a half too, if one doesn't mind slightly dated humor.
There's a few other much more niche series for various reasons that likely wouldn't apply to the readers here (I'm a fujoshi, what can I say ;>), but it wouldn't surprise me if Hellsing's on several of our lists.
I would be very interested in hearing about the tastes on your fujoshi side. This is supposed to be guilty pleasures, after all!
Trigun did it for me. Easy to watch without having to see every episode.
InuYasha was good for a more in depth follow, though it took forever to go anywhere.
New TriGun is pretty good.
:)
Trigun was the first anime series I watched through in order. I've been meaning to check out the remake.
Do it. I love the original Trigun, and so I was really skeptical when I heard a remake was coming. But my roommate and I decided to give it a shot on my Crunchyroll account, and boy, am I glad we did.
I'm not really a CG anime kinda guy because it's usually so flat and lifeless, but the folks at Studio Orange know what they're doing -- Trigun Stampede is remarkably lively and expressive. And it's got enough familiar beats to draw in a fan of the original, while also deviating and delving deeper in interesting ways. Plus Johnny Yong Bosch reprises his role as Vash and still kills it.
It's not perfect (weird pacing at times, some unusual changes to some characters), but I'd say it's worth checking out. You might be like me and love it.
Adding to this a little, I definitely recommend watching the original before the remake if you're interested in both. The remake kinda does away with the central mystery of the original (which I think worked out well for the remake), but that does mean that it's spoiled for you if you go back to the original after watching the remake.
Definitely agree that the remake is worth a watch, though. Not as good as the original, but still plenty good on its own.
Remake?
Don't you mean "Prequel"
Stampede's story is about Vash's life before "TriGun".
They did a pretty good job.
You might want to watch Stampede first, Might be more fitting.
Original TriGun is in the top 20 anime's of all time.
~(:~o)
Interesting. I didn't know it was a prequel. I actually read the Trigun manga a while back, and I was surprised that it basically explained all of Vash's backstory in the first chapter. Meanwhile the show let you get 4 or 5 episodes in before even confirming that the protagonist was The Vash the Stampede and like 13 before you got anything from his past.
Maybe I'm missing something.
In Trigun he's the most wanted man on the planet.
In Stampede only a few people even know who he is?
No problem, I'm up for a Trigun rewatch.
:)
What I mean is the first couple episodes of the old series, Vash spends the whole thing telling people that he's not Vash, and there's a bunch of other characters popping up who are also mistaken for him since the rumours mostly just say he has a red coat. The first time I watched it, I thought that maybe he really was some poor guy who was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The more complicated background stuff with his brother and the space colonists (What I was assuming Stampede covers) doesn't come up till about half way through the series and isn't fully explained till very near the end.
But the manga starts like "On a desert planet where a bunch of space ships crashed a while back, this guy named Vash has special powers because of space magic etc etc."
For actual guilt without much pleasure: "Love Hina". I watched it in highschool and thought it was just the funniest thing ever. Took a look at it again years later and I couldn't believe how much I hated it.
Citrus though I typically don't mention to people that I like yuri since they'd usually think of series like Citrus and not the stuff I generally enjoy like romance stuff better described as shoujo ai (like Bloom Into You or Adachi and Shimamura).
Domestic Girlfriend used to be a guilty pleasure but the author managed to fuck that up royally.
Since I prefer romance in my 'anime' (I include manga and light novels in anime here) over action, I rarely have anything in common with other weebs to talk about so I'm not too forthcoming about it unless I get the impression the other person shares my interests.
Citrus is the yuri series I'm most ashamed of enjoying. It's objectively kind of terrible. Except for the art which is pretty good and uniquely gyaru (in the manga at least). It's like junk food; a semi-trashy romance drama with the not-related-by-blood main couple. What set it apart for me was the moments where Yuzu was fully self-aware and too relatable.
The Citrus+ manga is trending more chill, but I don't know if anything noteworthy will actually happen in the narrative...
I wouldn't say that I liked it, but I did appreciate the visuals and the very unusual twists near the end.
It was definitely better than Kiznaiver.
I think pretty much any power fantasy isekai. It's generally low tier in terms of story, but I can't get enough of it.
Gundam. Doesn't matter which one, but Unicorn is my typically go to.
Steins;Gate is also up there.
Come on Steins;Gate is great and so is SAO for that matter. Talk about life imitating art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly
No guilt from me, just fun. I'm pretty open about watching things that are often considered inappropriate for my demographic, like My Little Pony and typical magical girl series such as Precure.
There are a lot of things I wouldn't consider to be good but enjoy almost-mindlessly consuming anyway, like a lot of fantasy novels and particularly the ones themed around otome visual novel tropes (e.g. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! though I've only seen the anime for that so far).
Strike Witches which I probably shouldn't have watched on the bus in Quebec.
Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear. It's so godsdamned cute it's not even funny.
Embarrassing ... High School of the Dead. A bit too much fan service to share, but a lot of fun.
Otherwise I love emotional shows e.g.:
Actual guilty pleasure is Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend
There would be no way I could justify watching it without sounding like a real creep. Likely I would never recommend this one unless you already knew me really well and I thought you'd be into it. However I can recommend it to anime veterans who are also into disturbing B-Movie horror. It's violent and perverse. Not one for the family. The dub is awful but in a good way, but it's borderline hentai in it's graphic nature. The whole plot is so ridiculous I love it. However the animation is top-notch despite how campy and disturbing the movie is. The whole movie is usually on YouTube for free.
Highly recommended if you like Ninja Scroll, Wicked City, or Demon City Shinjuku.
"borderline hentai"? You must have seen the censored version. It's 100% hentai.
Pick any of recent harem anime, and that's my guilty pleasure. Especially if it's Battle Harem- I know a bunch of fans got sick of them, but I LOVE Battle Harems, as they've been dubbed.
Oh, and Kill La Kill is just plain out fun, despite being super-crazy. But that's Trigger for you...
My kids and I got really deep into Full Metal Alchemist, Brotherhood. It’s really approachable for someone who is just exploring anime for the first time.
Fun fact: there are two different series of Full Metal; Brotherhood is closest to the manga.
I don't watch a lot of anime and I think Detective Conan is the only one I still watch these days. But I'm super behind, like a couple hundred episodes behind at least. Oh, and I watch all the filler episodes, too.
You should pick up The Culprit Hanzawa when you get the chance. It's a spinoff of sorts that lampoons the world of Detective Conan. It's got some really, really good jokes that should land even for non-fans.
I second this! It's such a refreshing spinoff, even more so for the fans who stuck around 1000+ episodes. It's a parody who knows the DC to the very core, so it tackles problems that the main series wouldn't dare.
I also love how it gives more spotlight to the side characters we never see. And despite it's premise, the series is actually wholesome.
It looks interesting! Thank you for the recommendation.
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei, this ones pretty questionable trying to look at it objectively but turbo-overpowered MC and the insanely well made sci-fantasy worldbuilding is just too fun.
KonoSuba is among the funniest anime I've seen but it's also one I wouldn't recommend to someone whos not pretty deep into weeb degeneracy already.
Tokyo Ghoul. I know there is others that like the anime adaptation, but so many people hate on it so I felt like like I should say I love the anime lol.
Kaneki has been one of my favorite anime characters of all time.
Also cheers, first Tildes post :)
Cheers! I hope you like it here.
I remember when Tokyo Ghoul first came out, its fanbase was huge and well-loved but I barely see people talk about it these days. Nice to see there are still fans around!
Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi. It's this isekai shoujo romance thing about a girl who can see spirits, and it turns out her grandfather who raised her could too, but he got into a ton of debt with a demon lord and didn't pay it off before he died. Because of that, the demon wants her to pay the debt by marrying him and spirits her away to the spirit realm for that purpose. Obviously she's against marrying a demon lord she's just met, so instead, she tries to pay it off by opening her own restaurant in the spirit world since she's always been good at cooking.
I really like the show; the visuals are really pretty, and I liked the setting and characters a lot. The soundtrack was great too, and honestly.... the story was a lot better than what it could have been! I believe it's based on a light novel series, though I haven't read them.
It's just that the storyline is a bit... I don't know, I feel like I'd get weird looks for talking about it most places!
Shirobako? Sort of? It's the first show that made me like anime.
It's a great, very well directed show with a decently mature take on its subject matter, but I feel slightly guilty about loving it so much because now that I know more about anime, it's clear that it was partly intended as a vehicle for moe girl bait.
... Actually, there's another one. Squid Girl.
I like I reincarnated as a Slime/Slime diaries and it's world building. Slime diaries especially is a relaxing watch on what they get to do on their time away from battles and such trying to replicate any aspects of modern day Japan.
I'm more of an "action-focused anime" guy, but i enjoyed a couple of Slice of Life/Isekai recently
Also, i relate with your buddy, i love SAO. I know it's not a masterpiece, but it's pretty enjoyable for me.
Sao(season 1) and food wars are my poison.And seeing some of best anime ever (imo) as guilty pleasures make me question my taste.
The first half of the first season of SAO is not that bad. Especially if you take it one episode at a time and aren't familiar with isekai as a metagenre. The second half kind of diminishes the good ideas of the original. Then there was the spinoff that would have been pretty good if Kirito wasn't in it. And then Alicization came along and felt like a lobotomy.
What I'm trying to say is that I don't think you have bad taste. There's good parts of it; it wouldn't be so frustrating if it weren't. That's the entire reason why I hate-watched through Alicization.
exactly,the last straw for me was the guns season i couldn't bear through alicization though. You have my respect.
Sao imo was a pioneer in the isekai genre(when it came to anime) it had some plot cliche that became very popular in this genre that later became kind of a template.
I don't get how one can class a great movie as a guilty pleasure. You could probably bring it up to a film buff and they'd respect it.
Hidamari Sketch is like eating cotton balls. It probably has no nutritional value, but it does make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Season 8 Naruto Shippuden “Pain Arc” I like to watch the Jiraiya v Pain as a “warm up” as a well. It’s my goto thing to watch when I am travelling long distance.
For whatever reason, anime and manga are two entertainment mediums I’ve never cracked into. Not trying to hijack this thread, but curious what are some good “entry points” for anime for someone looking to find something, if anything, he likes?
My go-to starter is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. (I started with the 2003 adaptation, which was superseded by the 2009 remake.) From there:
Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo
Fate/Zero
Steins;Gate
I'll second Cowboy Bebop as a pretty universally loved hit.
But "what's a good anime", is like asking "what's a good movie". They span every genre and style you can think of. Is there a particular movie or show you'd like something similar too?
If you like the cyberpunk genere I suggest the Cowboy Bebop anime. There are also many great feature anime movies by studio Ghibli. Personally I like short series and movies more than those with 20+ episodes.
I love Cowboy Bebop, but I wouldn't call it cyberpunk. It's hard to place it on a single genre, but cyberpunk does not come to mind.
It's right in the title. It's a Western. Just happens to take place in the future.
That is most certainly valuable information, thanks ;)
However, when an author places their work within a genre, that doesn't mean that viewers and critics have to agree. It's more complicated than that. In my view, Cowboy Bebop poses an interesting problem for genre classification.
Personally, I wouldn't call it a "space western". I can see the artistic impulse that made the author state that, though.
I don't see enough elements in the show that could place it as "cyberpunk" either, hence the comment ;)
I definitely agree that it's not Cyberpunk. But I do think it hits the main points to be a western. To pull from wikipedia:
I think it hits most these points quite well. It definitely focuses on a nomadic character dealing out frontier justice.
Looking around a little, I'm seeing it referred to as a "neo noir space western". So a combination of two pretty fuzzy, hard to pin down genres.
There are certainly moments that are very much Western or even neo-noir, but I could say that about many other genres which are represented in the show. And I don't think a genre is something that can easily be applied by finding one authoritative source, it is so more complex than this. My difficulty in categorizing Cowboy Bebop is largely due to its episodic nature. There are many other genres taking precedence depending on the episodes. I would have to rewatch it in full to either agree or disagree with a definite classification, but I might ultimately prefer not to classify it at all and say "It's just Cowboy Bebop". Or, possibly, I could say Cowboy Bebop is the epitome of miscellanea. Or, simply, "space jazz". I don't know.
Good point. There's a pretty big tone shift sometimes between the "Spike and the gang try to make some money" episodes and the more serious backstory driven ones.
The Akira movie is a cinematic masterpiece, snd if it draws ypu in enough you could move to its much more fleshed out and longer manga.
Akira is an animation masterpiece, but as an actual movie I'm not a huge fan.
Like any other medium, it just depends on what you like. If you let us know what your tastes in other mediums are (books, TV shows, movies, &c.), we'd likely be able to give recommendations that work for you instead of just things from the generic list of shows liked by a lot of people.
Some previous threads:
Anime: Where to start?
Which anime would you guys recommend for someone who just started watching anime?
What anime should everyone watch?
No love for Death Note?!
That shit was the gateway for me, and second was Steins Gate. Both amazing series that could of been real life series IMO. Not much stupid anime screeching or 'ugh' to it.
I've only seen a couple of eps but ODDTAXI is shaping up to be really cool too. I love the grounded animes with somewhat deadpan / lower energy interactions.
What did you think of the live action Death Note (not the Netflix one)? They did change a lot of things, especially in terms of how L ended.
Quite honestly, it was god awful! But it was fun to watch at the time, but yeah looking back...big oof as per Netflix tendencies.
A couple of options that are more grounded and could potentially be described as less "anime" (i.e. it wouldn't be weird for them to be a live action tv show instead):
MONSTER
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Those are two I'd definitely recommend to someone who's not sold on traditional anime tropes, but just wants to dip their toes into the genre and watch some compelling stories unfold.
All of these answers are really good, especially Cowboy Bebop. I would also like to recommend Space Dandy. It’s silly, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the artwork and stories are amazing.
In general, Studio Ghibli films were a lot of people's introduction to anime. If you want an easy start and don't want to be overwhelmed, Ghibli is a safe bet. From observations, here are the most popular starters:
And from the other comments, I second Cowboy Bebop! I hope you find one you like, but it's fine if you still can't get into it. Best of luck!
It depends on your age, tastes and mood, I'd say.