just when i thought i was getting tired of anime

so i been trying to watch Demon Slayer and its not really hitting like i thought it would so i was thinking "maybe i just dont like anime anymore" and i was pretty much convinced until the other day...

i dont know how i came across it but Parasyte, holy heck ! what a great anime and totally my kind of anime with the weird crazy stuff going on.

if you guys havent seen it i highly suggest you watch it.

Has this happened to anyone else ??

@geeelectronica: I find my tastes for genres of anime changes over time. Before, I couldn't get enough of Battle anime. Now I'm more interested in Rom-Coms.

Ah, yes Parasyte. Chainsaw Man creator Tatuski Fujimoto stated that it is one of their favorite books. The animate adaption is bit too close to them Rami Spiderman movies.

I think I've moved into the "maybe I don't like anime anymore" phase myself. I think the only two shows I watched the past 5-10 years have been JoJo before it went to Netflix, and a handful of episodes of the new Bleach arc before I let my Hulu subscription lapse. I don't even know what the good anime is nowadays. Is there any? I never hear anyone talk about anything from the past decade as "must see". What's the modern-day equivalent of Cowboy Bebop or Evangelion? What's the pinnacle of anime these days?

I'm sure lots of people could give more complete answers than me, but I feel like there's widespread agreement that both Attack on Titan and Haikyuu!! are modern classics/must-watch, though as always your mileage may vary if they're in genres you're not interested in. Both started about a decade ago and are still ongoing. The latter easily makes my personal top ten favorites of all time list. AoT did not hit with me as much as it did for many others.

FWIW I was recently trying to find another good sports anime to watch and started on Chihayafuru, which I really like so far, about halfway through the first season (of three released, and the manga is ongoing). It's about high schoolers playing competitive karuta—a Japanese card game that's based on poetry, of all things.

I enjoyed Parasyte a lot back in the day! It's great!

I feel like a lot of the anime I hear talked about these days is a sports thing, or some kind slice of life thing, or an isekai, or a snarky deconstruction of Shounen or harems or whatever that really just looks like the thing it's making fun of, but self-aware, and... I dunno. From the outside looking in it nothing I've seen people mention or heard people talk about looks at all interesting or cool or fun, so you're not alone in thinking "maybe it's just not for me anymore".

I still like Anime just fine as a form of entertainment. The problem is, today's Anime mostly sucks. Most shows are not interesting. They follow a trend, like the whole trapped in a video game nonsense that has been happening since Sword Art Online became a big hit. The normal modern day Japanese person suddenly trapped in a fantasy world, and other follow the leader unoriginal shows. One of the things that made Anime great during the 80s and 90s was innovation in the animation and the original storyline and in-depth characters. Now most Anime have stereotyped characters that you've seen many times before. Then you have some Anime shows that don't know how to end and keep milking the same storyline forever, One Piece I'm looking at you. Every now and again an Anime comes along that is great and reminds me what made me like the genre in the first place, but those shows and movies are getting further and further apart.

But some long running shows are still great. Jojo is still great. Hunter X Hunter is still great. Attack on Titan has concluded and is worth watching. As far as Demon Slayer, I also haven't stuck with, mainly because it seems like another show that is going to get drawn out and milked until the well runs dry, instead of telling a solid story with an solid ending. My Hero Academia started out strong, then fell into this pattern once it got really big and popular. I'll watch and see how it develops before giving it another try.

And I haven't seen Parasyte yet. I'll have to give it a look.

I just watched Parasyte recently, and a few specific nitpicks aside, I agree that it's great.

As someone still relatively new to anime watching, I still have a big backlog of older series to dip into that can keep me occupied, but there are newer series that I've really liked as well.

Initially, I did mostly watch the standard shounen and action fare, and I think that if I had stuck exclusively to that, I probably would've gotten bored and burned out on anime/manga. Having now branched out a bit more into other genres, I find my overall engagement with anime and manga to be a lot higher. Some of the stuff that has grabbed me the most lately like Oshi no Ko and Insomniacs After School (and with respect to manga, Blood on the Trail and Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You) are things that I never would've considered watching/reading a couple of years ago, but now, I find that they're the things that I'm most excited about.

The phase of "everything is an isekai now" chasing after SAO is definitely something that turned me off from anime. Due in part to the extreme contempt I feel for SAO. I think the "turn Asuna into a damsel so Kirito can bang his cousin" arc might be some of the worse crap I've seen from an anime.

@atheistpreacher: Yeah. I tried AoT, but it never really hit with me either. Nor have sports animes ever really been something I could get into. I tried a handful of different things, and I think the only one I ever stuck around to finish was Little Busters, which I only thought was just fine, and probably doesn't even qualify as a sports anime really.

@brian_: Modern Cowboy and Eva is hard to say, but plenty of big hits and genre defining stuff out these days. Like all media anime is just that, media where a story is told. Saying your tired of it almost equates to being tired of the written word. That said you can tire of the look but their are so many looks to anime, its like being tired of looking at humans act in film...Point is just like film where you may watch a few ok thinks, outliners are the ones that come once in a while and knock your socks off. You cant find those just by watching what people rate highly. You have to find your own personal puzzle piece of interest. Dark twisted genre defining deconstruction may be a welcome hit for someone bored of light and generic, but another person may scoff at it even if its the best of it's genre and unanimously liked in general. Its up to you to keep yourself engaged. Read a synopsis and figure out your interest. And to be fair, many top 10 list or 100 are pretty reliable for a decent to great time. personally dont watch much besides the most popular stuff everyone already does. Rarely go and watch something off a synopsis cause im not exactly looking just for unique ideas but something im in for the long haul and just wanna enjoy. lol made more sense in my head but you get it. Some people scoff at anything that's not the most unique take on an idea that flips and deconstructs everything while being just what they want etc. Its for entertainment so just take a break and the fun will be there when your ready. Live action aint gonna be scripted for a while so...id get comfortable playing videogames lol. PS: I'd retry Attack on titan unless you just hate gore, but the show constantly changes tone hence why people like it, and its much more than meets the eye. There is a movie that sums up 3 seasons in 2 hours, so watch that to skip the dragging scenes. Season 4 deals with more mature topics and you may like that, less fights and more philosophy. It's annoying to outsiders who have to jump on but it ain't beloved for no reason.

@av_gamer:

"As far as Demon Slayer, I also haven't stuck with, mainly because it seems like another show that is going to get drawn out and milked until the well runs dry, instead of telling a solid story with an solid ending." Lol, i've heard many hot takes on Demon Slayer...most range around it being bad because its not discussing something deep or the animation is good and there is no story etc. Both aren't true but i get it. But Demon Slayer being a drawn out milked show that doesnt wanna end instead of telling a solid story is another. The creator is known best for being yelled at for not dragging it and moving the plot too quickly when it's so popular. They were expected to slow it down and stepped on the gas unlike most creators. The series ended and took like a 2-3 years and its heading into the final arc (animation wise.) I will say most of the "deeper" reveals and story beats that make it more unique come in the last arc so it will seem simple (for its popularity) but simple =/= bad. I'd atleast watch till the end of season 2 and see if you like it. Season 2 is even liked by people who are adamant haters of the series. But dont expect it to be a deconstruction of shonen, it knows what it is and just bask in it. Sometimes that's how you profit lol.

Go back a ways. Try Monster. It's about a superstar surgeon who's life, inexplicably, completely immolates and he gets sucked into an undeground conspiracy. It's gripping and dramatic in all the right ways, and has a healthy dose of occult fuckery in it to keep you intrigued.

And then there is, frankly, the greatest anime ever made in my opinion , possibly one of the greatest Sci fi stories ever told: Legend of Galactic Heroes. It's game of thrones in space, written in the mid 80's and it's mind blowing.

what is parasyte about?

Monster was relatively recently added to Netflix, so I watched it there not long ago. I kept thinking that the concept (which is basically The Fugitive but anime) would eventually run out of steam, but it managed to stay engaging until the end.

If you like Monster, I'd also recommend taking a look at Psycho-Pass. It can occasionally get a little up its own ass when they start quoting authors and philosophers, but it's still a decent crime story set in an interesting cyberpunk dystopia.

@doomslayer11: Alien parasites take over human hosts and their main source of food is other humans. High schooler avoids getting his brain eaten by a parasite but his right hand is now an alien life-form that can talk with him and they fight other alien infested hosts while still being a high-schooler.

At least tat's what I remember, it's been 20 years since I read the manga and didn't watch the anime.

@doomslayer11: About the same as Spiderman, with body horror element. Got its own Mary Janes and Gwen Stacy

If nothing else, Psycho-Pass can be a gateway to Ghost in the Shell and its OVAs, TV series, and Movies, all worth watching IMO. But yeah, Psycho-Pass is good.

And since people are bringing up classic Anime, Ninja Scroll the movie is a very good watch. I would also say Spriggan the movie, but they recently did a TV Series you can watch on Netflix, and the first couple of episodes is a retelling of the movie. Though, I think the movie might still have better animation and lighting. Jin Roh: Wolf Brigade is also a good watch. Basically, most of the classic Anime TV shows and movies are good.

I've seen folks criticize Ninja Scroll in more recent times for being a little too violence porn-y. I still like it anyway, but also Vampire D: Bloodlust (same director, seven years later) is just as good IMO without nearly the level of gross factor.

I wasn't aware that Monster had made it to Netflix, so that's good to know. I remember watching it ages ago, probably fifteen years at least by now. I'll have to give that one a go sometime and see how it holds up, I honestly don't remember it that well aside from a few major plot beats. But it's a little disappointing that they don't have the English audio track as an option (instead they have Japanese and... French? Really?).

i dont think there will ever be another anime similar to cowboy bebop or evangelion and i just have to accept that.

at least watching this anime "Parasyte" opened up Chainsaw Man which i am definitely going to watch after this run.

Guys, I think I made a mistake watching that Netflix One Piece show. I enjoyed it quite a bit and now I started watching the anime last night and got through several episodes. I always said I'm not watching a 1000 episode show at this point. What have I done. I don't know if I can stop now :P

1 day later: Ok I might have to put down the One Piece anime lol. I see what people are saying about it really dragging things out. I just got through the Drum Island arc, and while there are some shining moments, its like watching a bunch of filler just to get a bit of the good stuff most episodes. I know its stretched out because producers don't want to catch up to the Manga but holy moly. And a little research tells me that the series is frequently like that.

I really do want to see more because its fun and I like the characters, but maybe I'll switch to the Manga(unlikely), scrub through episodes that drag, or just pick out the best arcs along the way and make peace with missing out on some stuff. Or just cut my losses and wait for more live action. I got back into Gintama last night, which I only watched like 15 eps of the first time and maybe I'll just switch to that instead.

Edit: I forgot to acknowledge that I also enjoyed Parasyte quite a bit, which is the reason this thread exists lol. That first scene is burned into my mind.

I err ... started Beserk (1997) today. I'm a few episodes in and have some thoughts. To be honest, I'm watching so I can see how it gets to the eclipse mayhem. Initial thoughts:

• I don't need every internal thought vocalised. Is it a very anime thing to have characters do that? Like it's really, really heavy-handed.
• Guts' name is his main characteristic. He's like an angry puppy. And built like a Ken doll.
• I have no idea why a literal snake man commands an army. Cool transformation, though.
• Everyone talks about power levels.
• The music is great and 'great' in equal measure.
• Each episode has gone by pretty quick. There's like 4 scenes in them, tops.

I will watch it once, remember the cool bits and file it under 'Anime everyone probably has seen' along with GitS and Akira. I'm marking out over the stuff From Software nicked.