Anime

Project A-ko (the first film) is probably one of my favorite anime films of all time. I saw it for the first time when I was a pre-teen back in the '90s and I've re-watched it a ton over the last few decades. Something about a super-powerful girl who can run at mach speeds and wreck machines with her bare hands just appealed to me as a kid. It was very inspiring and I always dreamed of growing up to be as strong as her.

I discovered Ghost in the Shell (the first movie) while I was living in Japan in my late teens and it really resonated with me. I got to watch the TV series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex as it was releasing in Japan. I'm actually re-watching that whole series now, since they've announced a new series coming soon. The new Ghost in the Shell show is animated in the unique style of the original manga, so I'm excited to see if it'll be faithful to the manga.

I discovered a ton of anime while I was living in Japan in the early 2000s, so I have a bunch of classics I regularly re-watch. Excel Saga is another one. I love how chaotic and over-the-top Excel is. The anime is way different from the manga, but it was made when the manga was only partway complete, so it didn't really have a direction and chose to be chaotic and disjointed instead. Which really works well.

D•N•A² is another classic I love to re-watch periodically. I dunno why I like that one, but it's a fun comedy/drama romance story.

Golden Boy was such a ridiculous and perverse show, but it encouraged me to continually seek out knowledge and experience, so I enjoy watching that one over and over again. Too bad the original manga creator is a narcissistic, mysoginistic piece of shit. I enjoy both the show and the manga, but learning about that dude really sours his work. It's no wonder Golden Boy never got more than a 6-episode OVA; most people can't stand to work with him.

I was living in Japan when Naruto first released and I followed that show religiously. I remember reading articles about this "hidden gem" in Japan that would never be imported to America because of some issue with the rights being tied up in a handful of studios. I guess they got it worked out though, because by the time I moved back to America, Naruto started showing up everywhere. I never actually finished that whole series (I got about 100 episodes into the original series), but I've restarted it a handful of times. I plan to finally finish it soon.

I'm currently on my third re-watch of One Piece. At over 1,000 episodes, it's a slog every time; I've spent months slowly picking away at episodes and I'm going to catch up to the latest stuff soon. I also just re-watched the live action series last night, since I've recently learned they've started filming for season 2.

Finally, the first anime anything I ever watched was a movie called Puss 'n Boots Travels Around the World, the third in a Toei Animation series of Puss 'n Boots films. I grew up watching it on VHS as a little kid and had no idea it was anime until I sought it out as an adult many years later. I have a lot of love and nostalgia for that film, so I re-watch it a lot.

EDIT: The Toei Animation mascot is actually Puss 'n Boots from these old movies. I dunno why I never pieced that together until I was much older.