My two cents on the best and worst, in two parts due to the character limit.
Part one: The best
1. Ranma ½ (TV series, theatrical release, OVA): Sheer fucking bliss. That’s all I can say, sheer fucking bliss. It may be long (seven seasons), it may lack consistency (season one has the story, season two has the big laughs, season three is good for dumb giggles and the rest ranges from awesome to horrendous) and it may have one of the worst endings in anime history (not gonna spoil it), it’s so near and dear to my heart that I cannot deny it the title of greatest anime of all time. It’s funny as Hell, heartwarming and has badass kung-fu transsexuals. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT?!
2. Lupin The 3rd (TV series, theatrical release, OVA, TV special): Another long-runner that loses some of its quality as it goes on, but this one never loses its charm and nostalgia value. Based on a forty-year old manga epic about thief Arsène Lupin III and his gang (sultry Fujiko Mine, master gunfighter Daisuke Jigen and stoic samurai Goemon Ishikawa XIII) Lupin The 3rd consists of three TV series plus a fuckload of motion pictures, OVAs and TV specials (one a year since the early 80s). The sheer volume of material is astounding. The best additions in this long-lived franchise are the second season (Lupin The 3rd: Part Two), The Castle of Cagliostro (DIRECTED BY MIYAZAKI, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!), and Return of The Magician (the 30th anniversary TV special, which hails the return of season one’s standout villain, Pycal).
3. Cowboy Bebop (TV series, theatrical release): Lupin The 3rd, except in space and more badass. Cowboy Bebop is a shorter, more dramatic take on the crime-comedy genre and heavy on badass jazz style. Fantastic music, great dialogue and memorable characters make this classic unforgettable. Another thing worth noting is the amazing cast of villains. Abdul Hakim, the badass black thief (even though his blackness merely comes from plastic surgery), Mad Pierrot, a morbidly obese serial killer with the mind of a child, Domino Walker, a laid-back drug dealer a lot of enemies, and (in the movie) Vincent Volaju, a nigh-invincible ex-Marine who may or may not have died several years ago.
4. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (TV series): Epic mindfuck or straightforward comedy? Depending on what order you watched it in, it could go either way. Whether you watched it in broadcast order, Kyon order (chronological) or DVD order (Kyon order with one deviation), you saw the damn finest anime of the past seven years. Funny, smart and easy on the eyes, the totally epic light novel series gets a very fitting adaptation in this 14 episode masterwork. Real bonus points for the great music and epic casting (Aya Hirano, motherfuckers, AYA HIRANO!!!!).
5. Urusei Yatsura (TV series, theatrical release, OVA): Long as fuck and well-worth enduring every second, Urusei Yatsura is all over the place. Dumb comedy (the TV series), epic-level musical (Only You), mind-warping Nietzsche-inspired drama (Beautiful Dreamer), IT HAS EVERYTHING!!! Sort of Japan’s equivalent of The Simpsons, it’s loaded with memorable characters (Onsen-Mark deserves special mention for being the most inept schoolteacher in the history of fiction) and outlandish humor. Sadly, since Rumiko Takahashi created it, it has a shit ending.
6. Hellsing (TV series, OVA): VAMPIRES, CATHOLIC PRIESTS, NAZIS, OH MY! Sure, the TV series lost its awesome after episode 7, but the OVA series definitely glosses over that failure. The plot is pretty silly at its core (Dracula fights religious freaks, then he fights Nazi vampires), but it still has a strange appeal. The combination of brutal violence, eccentric humor (we’re talking “fucked-up” eccentric) and a dark moody style works perfectly. While the TV show was weak on plot, the music is nothing short of amazing. The OVA has a much weaker score (Classical plus electronica? Ick.), but makes up for it in the animation department. The character design in both series is great, but the animation in the TV version is weak and the gore is greatly sanitized. Complaints aside, the entertainment value of both versions is undeniable. Plus, MUHFUGGIN’ DRACULA IS THE MAIN CHARACTER!!!!
7. Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (TV series, OVA): Political intrigue, melodrama and loads of big fucking explosions. Those things are synonymous with the Gundam franchise. Of the two billion or so series in the franchise, this one stands out as the best. Lots of twists, turns and angry politicians in this one. Nary a dull moment, too. Fine mech battles, and the Endless Waltz OVAs stand out as damn near perfect. The one fault of the series is the fact it obsessively follows the Gundam formula (reluctant hero with the most badass Mobile Suit of all battles Aryan nemesis with a mask).
8. Macross (TV series, theatrical release): A vicious slap to the face of kids in the 80s, Macross first made it over here as the first season of Robotech (an epic syndicated series combining three unrelated animes) and despite some mild editing, it was still pretty intense. People died (and stayed dead), most of humanity perished and the villains were certainly more menacing then evil but silly characters like G.I. Joe’s Cobra Commander. That said, there’s still goofy comic relief and some silly bollocks (as expected from 80s cartoons), but there are a few episodes that could easily out-grim any cartoon these days. Macross is also notable for its awesome soundtrack and “Do You Remember Love?”, which is probably one of the most kickass movies ever. (SEX IN ZERO GRAVITY).
9. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (OVA): An elderly Brit, his half-Japanese grandson, an Egyptian fortune teller, a former slave of the old Brit’s grandfather’s arch-nemesis, a klutzy Frenchman and a tiny dog travel all over the world in an attempt to end the life of the aforementioned baddie, uber-powerful vampire Dio Brando. If you’re already confused, then JJBA is not for you. Bizarre, ultraviolent and incredibly entertaining if you can take the weirdness and music references (a lot of characters are named after musicians, bands and albums). The fight scenes play out like Dragon Ball Z on acid (psychic ghosts for bodyguards > energy attacks) and are beautifully animated.
10. R.O.D. (TV series, OVA): What happens when you take a top-notch writer (the legendary Hideyuki Kurata), get him to write an outlandish plot, give it a really big budget and then turn it into a three episode straight-to-video series and 26 episode follow-up TV series? Madness, and/or the R.O.D. saga (which stands for both “Read or Die”, the title of his novel/manga series about British papermaster Yomiko Readman and Read or Dream, its spin-off about three amateur detectives who also happen to be papermasters). The OVAs are a loose adaptation of the Read or Die novels with a great added twist (re-animated historical figures as villains, which is much more badass than you’d think) and the TV series is like the bastard child of the Read or Die manga and Read or Dream (same cast as both series, but with an original story and minor changes to characters). Both provide beautiful animation, ridiculously cool music (reminds one of the James Bond films) and really fucking weird stories (Beethoven composes a symphony that makes people kill themselves, plus there’s a vampire that can control sound waves to cause psychical injury , Genai Hiraga blows up the White House, etc.).
