Anime is basically japanese animated cartoons. Or in the book form, Manga - this literally translates to "slow pictures." It's a growing fad on American tv now, especially ever since cartoon network aired its late night program, Adult Swim. Basically almost any anime show, you will find was first introduced in its manga form. In any case, to find out more about anime, you can google it.
Below is a list I've put together, with the genre it falls into and brief description what it entails.
1. Blood - Horror, gothic - a mean girl who fights off monsters, if you want pure violence and not much of a storyline, this is what you want. It's short and gets to the point.

2. Hellsing - Again, gothic - mainly a police woman gets involved in a society that fights of vampires, and also becoming one herself - this one has more of a storyline and the character design isn't too bad either.

3. Wolf's Rain - this one isn't about vampires, but about the world being in an apocalyptic state and wolves are believed to be extinct, but are really just disguised as people. In any case, I really like the way the characters look in this one, and yes it does contain some violence.

Hehe, Yes I sure do like my violent anime.

4. Sailormoon - this is an old classic, more of a girly anime - about female super heros who transforms into pretty fighting soldiers, blah blah blah, there's a moon princess involved with a prince, it's more or less like a fairy tale based. Not much violence here, but it's still pretty.

5. Vision of Escaflowne - this one has to do with a girl traveling into a another world where she meets up with a strange fella, basically they fight off bad guys together and she's psychic. This one is entertaining.

6. Inu Yasha - another one about a girl traveling into a different time zone, feudal Japan and meets a dog demon, basically they fall in love and meet up with some friends n fight a common enemy, Naraku. I LOVE this anime series because first of all, almost EVERY single character is very uniquely designed, and they all have very cool sounding Japanese names. It also has a very heavy Buddhist theme along w/ Journey to the West.

7. Big O - you like giant robots? You like pretty robot girls? You like bat man? This one's for you.

8. Bubblegum Crisis - the new one, if you want to see four girls wear combat robotic armor n kickin' arse, this is it. I liked this one a lot.

9. Now and Then, Here and There - this one's rarely ever spoken of, but it REALLY is one of the highest ranking one out of all anime series I've seen. It's deep. It's depressing. Makes you want to cry. But in the end, it just leaves you to sigh. This one's more or less about the effects of war, but it's beautiful in its own sad way. Heh, I can't really describe it, you just have to see it.

10. Petshop of Horror - this one's a lil' strange, it's more or less about a detective trying to investigate this petshop in China town, and he seems to have a love/hate relationship with its owner. Overall, each episode is about a different story, but it all ties together, somehow. It's interesting because some episodes involve mermaids, pets that look like missing or dead people, lost dreams, etc.

As you can see, I am really into the horror/gothic genre. There are also many other anime series that are good and outside this genre. I encourage you to watch some, if you haven't already seen any you like.

Learn more about this author, Dien Luong.
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