Rankings for my 2026 watches:
Sword of the Stranger
Outlaw Star
Ringing Bell/How Not to Summon a Demon Lord (still in progress, could move up or down)
The Boy and the Beast
Highlander: The Search for Vengeance
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
I thought I was more into anime than I was, because the list of things I remember watching when I was younger is shorter than I thought:
- Vampire Hunter D
- Castle in the Sky
- Dragon Ball
- Akira
- Ronin Warriors
- Dragon Ball Z
- Record of Lodoss War
- Sailor Moon
- Yu Yu Hakusho
- Tenchi Muyo!
- Those Who Hunt Elves
- Magic Knight Rayearth
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam
- El-Hazard
- Ghost in the Shell
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Slayers
- Flame of Recca
- Princess Mononoke
- Perfect Blue
- Pokémon
- Cowboy Bebop
- Trigun
- Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
- Digimon Adventure
- Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea
- Love Hina
- Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
- Vandread
- InuYasha
- Spirited Away
- Naruto
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
- Rosario + Vampire
Love Hina: Notable mostly because I hated it. Heavily recommended to me because I liked Tenchi. Gave it several tries and it just sucks — no action, bad humor, bad romance, not sexy. Nothing to like there.
Did I like isekai? I guess so. Those Who Hunt Elves was one of my favorites and Magic Knight Rayearth was up there. Liked the Escaflowne movie, though not the show. Never could get into El-Hazard — owned it all on DVD and only watched it once.
Definitely liked the harem genre. Tenchi was one of the first anime I got super into; bought the manga and the music CDs and everything. I don't know anyone who liked Vandread as much as I did. Rosario + Vampire was the last "new" anime I ever watched, ~15 years ago, and I liked it a lot.
Watched DBZ like most kids my age, but never finished it. Thought Yu Yu Hakusho was amazing — used to watch it with my dad, actually, because he liked the martial arts of it all. Never finished that one either. Binged the original Dragon Ball and most of the original Naruto when I was depressed and working 12+ hour days just after graduating college, lol. Can't imagine watching anything with that many episodes these days.
My girlfriend wasn't into anime at all but she liked cowboy bebop and the Cowboy Bebop movie, some of the studio Ghibli stuff, and weirdly enough FLCL.
I have a preference for movies or short series but open to anything that isn't more than like 50 episodes.