Classic Anime

[Meldarion]

Bubblegum Crisis (OVA) and 2040.
Outlaw Star
Mobile Suit Gundam + Zeta
Ninja Scroll (The Movie)
Rurouni Kenshin
Silent Mobius
Shadow Skill

Requiem from the Darkness - This one is more recent, but I consider it a hidden gem.

[hashiriya1]

Space Battleship Yamato
Original Gundam
Evangelion



OK, I only mentioned those three because those are the only anime franchises I've ever seen.

[Xeogred]

LOGH = Suikoden in space.

Evangelion is 1995 and a cut off I'd say. I still kind of face palm when I see people consider Bebop and such classics. Even worse is when people mention early 2000 shows. But I just hate when kids are on my lawn.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Armored Trooper Votoms
Blue Comet SPT Layzner
Fang of the Sun Dougram
UC Gundam
Tomino shows, Heavy Metal L-Gaim, Space Runaway Ideon, Xabungle
Round Vernian Vifam
Super Dimensional Fortress Macross
Macross 7
City Hunter
Maison Ikkoku
Touch
Slam Dunk
Kimagure Orange Road
Rose of Versailles
Space Adventure Cobra
Hokuto no Ken
Saint Seiya
Dragon Ball / Z
Tekkaman Blade
After War Gundam X
Mobile Fighter G Gundam
Mobile Police Patlabor
Bubblegum Crisis
Iria: Zeiram
Cyber City Oedo
Fushigi Yuugi
Marmalade Boy
Irresponsible Captain Tylor
Tenchi Universe / Muyo
El Hazard
Future GPX Cyber Formula
Space Pirate Captain Harlock
Galaxy Express 999
Queen Millennia

Big list of standouts for me. A lot of my favorites. LOGH, Votoms, and DB/Z (Japanese) are the peak and my favorite Gundam is probably Zeta. I'd say consider Gundam for a possible entry into the old stuff, I went with the movies and the rest is history. Macross would be a good choice too. People love Miyazaki but I'd put the Galaxy Express 999 and Queen Millennia movies along with Ideon Be Invoked above any of his stuff personally, but I'm bias for sci-fi.

The Yamato remake seems like it will probably be the best hard sci-fi since LOGH and Yamato itself. It's very close to finishing and I can't wait.

[Exhuminator]

But I just hate when kids are on my lawn.

Are you being facetious? Man I've been watching anime since the late 80's and I do not feel this way. I still love the old stuff yeah, but anime didn't suddenly start to suck after 1995, not by a mile. Some of the most amazing series I've seen have been post 2000 material. For example, this year alone Pyscho-Pass was phenomenal. I think you are depriving yourself if you are actually serious about some arbitrary anime-sucks-after-this-year sell by date.

[KDub]

I don't think he is saying they are bad he is saying it is kinda goofy to call something a classic when it is only a little old and on reruns regularly.

[Gunstar Green]

Well Cowboy Bebop is 15 years old now, those "kids" are hardly kids anymore and anime has changed a lot since then. Giant Robo the Animation ended in 98 and I consider that a classic.

I recently rewatched Zeta after seriously disliking it the first time I saw it years ago and I came to appreciate it a lot better. I had a nice conversation about it with brunoafh already.

I definitely consider it a classic and there are a lot of things I love about it (the atmosphere, the mecha designs, the backstabbing politics, the unforgiving portrayal of war) but it hasn't become one of my personal favorite shows because of all the fluff. I feel like I would've enjoyed the show more if it had half as many episodes.

Every cyber newtype is a really annoying character and Sunrise should have banned Tomino from writing about women and/or romance. The only real relationships that worked I felt were the ones between the first Gundam characters, especially Char and Amuro's developing relationship. It made things that much more tragic during Char's Counter Attack which I also consider a classic as it wraps up the original Gundam story-arc beautifully and works great as a trilogy with first Gundam and Zeta.

Anyway good thread. I'm definitely partial to stuff from the 70's-90's similar to my tastes in video games so a lot of my picks have already been stated.

Also I don't know if Macross 7 is a "classic" or a "disaster." I haven't decided yet. I'm of two minds when it comes to that show. The original Macross and Plus certainly are classic though.

Unrelated to their classic status, Macross and Patlabor (all of it except maybe WXIII) are probably my favorites of all time.

[isiolia]

I think you are depriving yourself if you are actually serious about some arbitrary anime-sucks-after-this-year sell by date.

Maybe I'm wrong, but my impression was more that he was drawing the line on what a "classic" could be, not that some newer shows aren't good.

That said, I think it would just be more a matter of when one got into anime or something. I started really watching it in college, so while it was almost all new to me, shows like Bebop or Trigun were relatively current (at least in terms of US localizations).

Personally though, shows that have been around 10-15 years and are still common favorites/recommendations would be classic enough. Even if it make me feel old to realize how long ago college was

[Ghegs]

I'm actually watching through Heavy Metal L-Gaim just now. So far it's not as good as Five Star Stories, but still enjoyable. FSS is a manga everyone should check out, it's such a shame the Toyspress releases are stupidly hard to acquire nowadays. I was lucky enough to gather all the 26 translated volumes some years ago. The anime barely scratches the surface of the epic scope that is FSS.

I've watched through the original Gundam, Zeta, ZZ and some of the earlier OVAs, and I think the original is my favorite. Watching through Zeta and ZZ was, at times, very tiresome. At least Amuro got it together eventually, but Kamille and whatshisface from ZZ annoyed me to no end, no matter how many slaps they got. In the end I just watched the shows for the overall story progression of the UC timeline while trying to ignore the characters themselves.

Future GPX Cyber Formula is another good one. It's great how it's mostly the same set of characters from one series to the next, so you can really see how they and their relationships develop.

Totally forgot about Rose of Versailles! Really enjoyed that one as well. Seems like the less "sweatdrops", "cross-popping veins" and other such gags an anime has, the more likely I am to like it.

[Nemoide]

There's only one Gundam I consider 100% classic, no-reservations-awesome stuff - Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. That series is GREAT. I love how it focuses on making all the characters (with a couple exceptions) sympathetic, which makes the drama feel a lot more human and REAL. No rambling speeches about the ultimate destiny of the spacenoids! I love it.

Every other Gundam thing I've seen has some pretty significant problems:
original Mobile Suit Gundam: major pacing problems; apparently the idea of "Newtypes" wasn't even thought up until around episode 30 so it just kind of SUDDENLY SHOWS UP that hey Amuro has psychic powers or something. (I've heard that the show's problems were largely fixed for the movies... but I haven't seen those!)
Z Gundam: much better storytelling but HOLY CRAP MISOGYNY. It's really something that damages the series and makes me hesitant to recommend it, even though it's pretty dang good if you can look past that. Also if you aren't familiar with original Gundam, I imagine you'd be confused by the scenes of Amuro and Char... staring at each other? While Lalah flashes by in memory?
Char's Counterattack: was anybody NOT confused by this? I felt like it was weird and didn't fit into the storyline as neatly as I think it pretends to.
Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory: HEY LOOK MORE MISOGYNY. This series at least has great animation but the story and characters didn't do much for me.
Gundam F91: I couldn't care about the characters in this one, the story felt like it was hastily thrown together (and considering that it was initially developed to be a series and was made into a movie as some sort of consolation, I guess that makes sense?)

I'm glad ZZ Gundam is going to be streaming in the near future. I look forward to that one! I like the idea of a Gundam that mixes comedy with the drama. And then at some point I guess I should try to see 08th MS Team, since I've heard almost nothing but good things about it. And I want to see G-Savior just because it's so clearly the bastard child of the Gundam-franchise and yet it fits into the UC timeline.
I'm not going to lie, I'm curious about Gundam Unicorn too, but it's not a priority.

G-Gundam sounds like it would be up my alley. Because I loves me ridiculous super-robots?

[brunoafh]

Char's Counterattack: was anybody NOT confused by this? I felt like it was weird and didn't fit into the storyline as neatly as I think it pretends to.

The only thing that has ever confused me about this is the confusion everyone states they experienced when watching it. Most complaints seem to stem from Char's actions, the new characters, and the ending. I did not like the new characters, but I didn't think anything was weird or poorly done with Char or the ending.

It's established that Char is a selfish lunatic from episode one of Gundam, and in Zeta it's established he does not like the Earth/Earthlings. So I really don't see anything weird about his motives in CCA. The ending is just more Newtype voodoo that the previous two shows ended with, so again, I don't see anything out of the ordinary here, or why this would suddenly be unacceptable to someone. I personally thought the ending was great, and I liked how they kind of leave it up to the viewer's interpretation a bit.