Anime

My Short List of Must Watch Comedies

I will be having a nice little block of time in a couple of weeks and I want to relax and just have some fun. And since I have this draw to comedy I thought I would make it a comedy vacation. Here is my showerlist:

  1. Golden Boy
  2. Seitokai no Ichizon
  3. Mayo Chiki!
  4. Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun
  5. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
  6. Morita-san ha Mukuchi
  7. Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakama-tachi
  8. Detroit Metal City
  9. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
  10. Haiyore! Nyaruko-san
  11. Kore ha Zombie Desuka
  12. Natsu no Arashi
  13. Hayate no Gotoku
  14. Seitokai no Ichizon
  15. Magical Witch Punie-chan
  16. Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan
  17. Ouran High School Host Club
  18. Wagnaria (I want to finish with Working! It's good but a bit silly from time to time)

Some of them I have watched a couple of times, while others will be new to me.

Anime

The Anime Movie List

You might find something that doesn't suit your taste on the list because it is pretty broad and there are some loved/hated works in there as well as a couple of older ones that have been told time and time again. If you encounter one that just doesn't work for you watch it anyway, they often change up and come at the topic from a different perspecitve when you least expect it.

Sci-fi

  • Akira (Action, Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Military)
  • Ghost in the Shell (Mecha, Sci-Fi, Police, Psychological)
  • Redline (Action, Cars, Sci-Fi, Sports)
  • The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Adventure, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi)
  • Jin-Roh (Drama, Romance, Military, Police, Psychological)
  • Memories (Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi, Psychological)

Fantasy

  • Wolf Children (Fantasy, Slice of Life)
  • Princess Mononoke (Action, Adventure, Fantasy)
  • Howl's Moving Castle (Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Romance)
  • Nausicaä (Adventure, Fantasy)

Mixed

  • Paprika (Mystery, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Psychological, Thriller)
  • Castle in the Sky (Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi)

Other

  • Saint☆Young Men (Comedy, Slice of Life)
  • Spirited Away (Adventure, Drama, Romance, Supernatural)
  • Summer Wars (Comedy, Sci-Fi)
  • Sword of the Stranger (Action, Historical, Samurai)
  • Tekkon Kinkreet (Adventure, Psychological)
  • Tokyo Godfathers (Comedy, Drama)
  • Colorful (Drama, Slice of Life, Supernatural)
  • Grave of the Fireflies (Drama, Historical)
  • Kara no Kyoukai (Action, Mystery, Supernatural, Thriller)
  • Perfect Blue (Drama, Horror, Psychological)
Manga

Top Ten Manga of All Time

I was a little shy of the idea of making an all-time list. Not because I didn't think that it was possible, but because a lot of it is subjective. And it really is a personal jounrey which needs to be made.

For me, I first got into the manga that I could relate to and then branched from thete. It was manga that made an impression on me at the time. But my list will not be your all-time list. A good way to go about these things is looking it up by demographic:

  1. Shōnen
    • Manga aimed at a young male audience. Shōnen manga is the most popular form of manga.
  2. Seinen
    • Manga marketed toward adolescent boys and men old enough to read kanji. Seinen manga can focus on action, politics, science fiction, fantasy, relationships, sports, or comedy
  3. Shojo
    • Shojo is a Japanese word for "girl" and is often romanized as either shojo (without a macron) or shoujo. shojo manga is manga aimed at a teenage female readership. This type of manga focuses on many subjects in a variety of narrative styles, from historical drama to science fiction, often with a focus on romantic relationships or emotions.
  4. Josei
    • Josei are manga comics for women in their late teens on into adulthood. The subject matter tends to be both more sexually explicit and contain more mature storytelling, although that is not always true either.

Now look up the top 10 best sellers of each group.

If they've sold so well, there's probably a correlation to that and how fun or interesting they are as experiences.

The List

Must Reads

I will be honest, I did not like all of these the first time I read them (Berserk, you know I am talking about you) but they have all grown on me and are often considered "the cassic manga" works.

  • Berserk
  • Full Metal Alchamist
  • One Piece
  • Hunter × Hunter

On the Radar

  • Shokugeki no soma
  • Koe no katachi
  • My Hero Academia

Great Not Classic

  • Ore ga Doutei wo Sutetara Shinu Ken ni Tsuite
  • Kamisama ga Uso wo Tsuku
  • Umerareta Yami to Shōjo

If you like those you may find the following title interesting to checkout:

  • 20th Century Boys (or Pluto or Monster)
  • Berserk
  • Yotsuba
  • Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
  • Akira
  • Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō
  • Oyasumi Punpun
  • Lone Wolf and Cub
Anime

Fun for the Whole Family

Humor is key so I picked out a couple of comedies that may make a good point of introduction for anime noobs.

Lucky Star

First we have Lucky Star which is a natural fit for this.

It's very family friendly, no bad language, no real fanservice, and is really funny. The problem is that most of the humor comes from the references to other anime, especially Haruhi and other 80s-early 00s anime.

It's still funny even without that, but many of the jokes are a lot funnier if the context is known.

Cromartie High School

Cromartie High School is very funny and has no nudity, very little violence, and a moderately low amount of swearing if I suggest you watch it first to see if it's something that would be okay for your family though.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is often overlooked as a comedy.

It has a fairly small amount of fanservice and is a great introduction to the rest of the world of anime.

I can only really think of a few problematic scenes that may make this an uncomfortable anime to watch. However, I will say that they are all extremely short and don't really show much.

My Bride is a Mermaid

My Bride is a Mermaid is a great rom-com with very light fanservice (again, just a couple of scenes that aren't very long at all) and has compelling characters and a decent dub.

I know that some people say that My Bride is a Mermaid's dub is bad, but I think that it is wonderful if not fantastic.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is a fantastic fit for this, but it isn't dubbed yet. The dub was announced not too long ago. It might be worth picking up once it does get dubbed.

And to conclude our list, anything staring Crispin Freeman. He has just enough snark to make anything really a fun, humorous option that is really well dubed. Yay, Crispin!

Manga

Pick Up Some Shojo

Are you looking for something a little more, well, appealing to women? I know, most of the stuff that we get here in America is mostly targeted at a the boys. But there are still some nice Shojo that you can pickup.

Many discussions online are lacking in this context, since, while you will find plenty of diverse anime, manga still seems to be a boys range here.

Skip Beat!

The series is about a girl who decides to get revenge on a guy who used her to become a singer by entering show business herself and becoming more famous than him.

She starts her journey as an actress and the roles that she plays reveals more about her character and her identity as she goes through her career.

The character development is phenomenal, the romance is wonderfully slow and quite realistic, and the comedy is a like thick coating of sugar on an intense story.

Cat Street

This story focuses on a girl who's a shut-in, who stopped caring about herself and stopped interacting with the world.

She enters a weird school for weird people like her and makes some weird friends.

This is a story about how she deals with her apathy and finds worth in herself and gains the motivation to make something of herself.