One of the shows that came up in my head while reading this is both seasons of Gatchaman Crowds, which is this big colorful action show that takes a wild twist into basically undermining the entire premise of superheroes into a more collectivist message. I don't agree with everything it says, but I think it's a great example of how anime can be bold and confrontational in ways that I don't see a lot. It's worth getting mad at lol. The music is really good too.

I'm a big fan of GC's director, Kenji Nakamura. He's done a horror show called Mononoke that's incredibly rad and a fun fishing show called Tsuritama. You'd have to pirate it but Welcome to Irabu's Office is super special to me, it's a very weird satire about psychiatry that ends up shockingly kind.

I'm a big fan of slow slice-of-life shows so I'm gonna list a couple. These shows mix bright colors, sweet energy, and dry humor.

Yurucamp: Cool camping theme, the main character is cool cause she isn't super sociable but gets slowly added to the larger group in a way that's respectful and fun to watch.

Flying Witch: This one stands out for a lot of jokes that are very funny but like, surprisingly mean, like mean in a way that only people who didn't have to worry about much would be. It's a dynamic I really like.

K-ON: The joke in this is that they're a band who don't really play instruments that much. It's a good joke that kind of evolves into what the whole show is about.

Non Non Biyori: Set in a rural village that has depopulated, so that all the grades up to high school are in one classroom. All the characters have fun dynamics but there's also this melancholy over everything that's fairly well done.

Hidamari Sketch: This one's in an art high school, it was super influential on the style and is just generally inventive.

I'm gonna end with one last big rec and it's A Place Further than the Universe, it's an incredibly good like, youth drama about Antartica. It's big and emotional and sweeps you along in unexpected ways. It rules so much.

Uhh I'm getting on too long but Masaaki Yuasa owns owns owns and his work is interesting in the way it uses the lower expectations for anime in order to take animation into wilder directions. He's a genius.

Anime owns thank you for reading this!