Higurashi is my favorite.. Its a little more deep than you would think, with so many lolis around. :3 I like it a lot. I dunno what else to say. o3o

Peace maker kurogane is good if you like history with comedy thrown in. Lain is a nice psychological anime that will leave you more confused than before you started. However both are personal favorites.

I don't dislike Escaflowne as much as Des, but I'm not a huge fan of it, either ... you've mentioned in the past that bad/forced romance particularly rankles you, and Escaflowne has a LOT of that. I'm a total sap, and even I hated just about every instance of romance in the series. Don't really know if the fantasy aspect of the series is good enough to make up for that ... it is quite strange, sometimes in good ways and sometimes in bad ways.

G Gundam is sort of like a mecha s-CRY-ed, although I think that despite the silliness, the story is much better crafted in G Gundam. There are a couple of strings of terrible episodes though.

Gankutsuou is my favorite of the bunch. Unique look and it's a fantastic adaptation of the story -- just enough to keep the basic framework and themes of the plot, but with enough changes and shifts in emphasis to make the anime unique. It's the kind of story that anime really excels at, I think.

Gundam Wing is I think hated on a bit unfairly because it kickstarted the tradition of turning Gundam in total fujoshi bait, which pisses off all the old dudes who are hardcore Gundam freaks. It's not a perfect series by any means (tries to do too much for its own good), but it's a lot better than I expected it to be.

Higurashi I like just fine but I'm not super high on the series. It's a solid mystery and a fun, violent mindscrew in the first season.

Lain is one of those series that really splits people. I'm on the side that loves it -- there's just enough story to get an interesting mix with all the bizarro SF pondering going on, although even now I still can't quite wrap my head around the whole plot.

Jin-Roh is one of the best anime movies I've seen. Looks great, the world is interesting and the plot is really well built.

@Desbreko:

I've read the entire RuroKen manga already, so I think I'm fairly okay in that regard.

Been a while.

Escaflowne was really my first full anime series. I had caught a few episodes when I think FOX was butchering it. When I finally got to see it un-FOXized, I found it to be a great fantasy. Backed by a Yoko Kanno soundtrack, though I didn't know at the time. I was watching it on VHS dubbed, and I would eagerly await the next release.

Lain was next. I had gotten into it through a piece of art by the character designer. It was strange, yet it drew my attention. That was how the series was for me as well. It was quite psychological and made me do some thinking, but I always found myself hoping I had more time to continue watching.

Higurashi was/still is kinda disturbing. A bit like a paranoid scizoid. I'd be watching some of the scenes with one of those looks that was a cross between not knowing whether to laugh at the extremeness or to condemn it. I still enjoyed both seasons though.

Ergo Proxy, for some reason, reminded me of Asimov. I haven't read one of his books in a bit, but when I watched it, he was the first thing I thought of.

As for the rest, I'm much in the same. I've seen them about, but just haven't gotten to them, of many series as of late, in some time.

Hope you enjoy what ever you decide to watch.

NNM

Higurashi is a great series. It kept me up watching, like, eight episodes in a row instead of the planned two or three because I just couldn't stop until the end of the chapter. I also introduced it to one of my friends a few years back and it became one of his favorite anime.

I really like Scrapped Princess; it was in my top five for a while. I enjoyed the story a lot, and it has a fun and interesting cast of characters.

Escaflowne will probably make you rage and/or facepalm. A lot.

Not sure the Samurai X (aka Rurouni Kenshin) movie would be good to watch unless you've seen at least part of the TV series. I forget how much character introduction they do in the movie.

The Trust and Betrayal OAV is great by itself, though.

Frankly, I did not care for Blue Gender. I thought it was weird in the bad sense.

But man, G Gundam would be fun to watch, if just for the silliness of it all.

Other than that, the ones that jump out at me (and the ones I've actually seen) are Scrapped Princess, The Twelve Kingdoms, and The Vision of Escaflowne. All of them are worth seeing, imho. :V

I'd say either Gankutsuou or Escaflowne.

I watched Shadow Skill last year. It could have been better, but as fighting shows go its not too bad, mainly because it has a decent plot and a standard episode length rather than going on ad infinitum.

Out of that list Gankutsuo is the only one that jumps out. Probably because I haven't seen many of the others yet.

~Crystia