I’ll be posting my recommendations year by year, as I write them. These are anime that I’ve personally watched, and I’m arbitrarily starting in 1999 because, well, why not? Lots of great anime that year. I’m also not doing OVA and movies, as I’m planning to do a separate article for it.

Turn A Gundam

This is really a love or hate series. The Syd Mead mechanical designs was (and probably still is) divisive. I personally like the visual design, but the main draws for me are the story, characters, and the amazing OST composed by the incomparable Kanno Yoko. Especially ED2 which I still listen to now and then, 20 years later.

Great Teacher Onizuka

I assume this series needs no introduction, but for anybody who has not heard of it, some of the finest comedy from that era. Rude, yes. Perverse, yes. Touching (not that way), sometimes.

Oruchuban Ebichu

Features a talking hamster (voiced by Mitshuishi Kotono of Tsukino Usagi and Katsuragi Misato fame) who does household chores but completely unsuitable for children. Dirty jokes galore, eroticism near zero.

Colorful

Not the 2010 movie, this show is unapologetically ecchi. I don’t know how women might find this show, but most straight men will relate to the scenarios portrayed.

The Big O

Art deco super robots filtered through film noir and pulp fiction. Interesting characters, good mysteries, it asks the question: what does it mean to be human.

Blue Gender

Alien bug invasion. Not the most original premise (hello Starship Troopers!), character development is where it shines. The art can get a little rough and the pacing wasn’t the best, but not so much that it detracted from the story.

Images are sourced from all over the web.