10. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
This anime single handedly pretty much reignited my love for anime. When it came out a lot of the anime that was out was kind of bland and not all that memorable referenced by the fact that I can't really remember too much anime from the period.
Even though most of the characters in it are typical anime fare (Kyon is the protagonist who is seemingly put off by everything Haruhi does but he can't stand to pull himself away, Yuki is the nerdy girl, Asahina is the prototypical moe girl who everyone thinks is cute but probably doesn't end up with the main, Haruhi is the bombastic tsundere girl and Itskui is the one other guy but he's not really involved in any love triangles). Off topic note, the English dub is one of the best I've ever heard and broke one of my personal rules of "If I hear it in English/Japanese first I can't listen to it in Japanese/English". The first season of the anime is one of the best, the second season blows goats from what I have been told ENDLESS EIGHT ENDLESS EIGHT and the Disappearance of Haruhi is in my top 5 anime movies of all time. You can't go wrong with checking this out.
9. The Raccoons
For someone older, I watched a lot of cartoons growing up and a lot more than I'd care to admit to, but if I had to pick one thing I loved that came from Canada besides John Candy, I'd have to go with the Raccoons.
It's the story of Bert (The wacky one) Ralph (The straight laced) and Melissa (The girlfriend) who live in Evergreen Forest, and like most good cartoons they have a great villain in the pink(?!) aardvark Cyril Sneer who with his three pig henchmen each week had some wacky scheme to either cut down all the trees or pave the forest or put up a Wal-Mart or put laxative in the water. It was cartoons were great far before furries or adults had to find something in kids cartoons so they could justify watching it to themselves.
80's cheesy pop at its finest
8. Super Mario Bros. Super Show/The Legend of Zelda
As bad as The Legend of Zelda cartoon feels nowadays the super mario brothers cartoon stands up as not that horrendous. I list these together because when they aired on TV Mario ran on Monday through Thursday and Zelda ran every Friday.
Now that I think about it I think I can only stomach two Zelda episodes. "The Ringer" which has Ganon come into castle hyrule to win a magician contest, I always enjoyed it because if I remember correctly they carry Ganon in the same kind of fashion he usually goes to the castle when he tries to invade.
Yup. They do. It is the first episode of the series and kind of sets the tone. Link is a horndog (For 80's standards he just wants a kiss) Zelda is not having any of it and Ganon realizes how stupid they are but not enough to realize how stupid he is.
The only other episode of Zelda that's decent is "The Missing Link" where Link shoots at someone it gets reflected and hits him. It "separates" him from his body rather than killing him outright and wacky misadventures ensue as Zelda has to step it up and rescue Link's body and defeat ganon.
One of the best scenes in the whole series ensues when the always stupid Stalfos report back to Ganon that Zelda was in fact on her way and Link was with her but had no body.
"wait...if she can hear him? That's impossible..."
"whaaat"
"That would mean she was in love with him. Blech"
I'm paraphrasing but it always stuck with me and now looking back it kind of cracks me up because that small exchange gave Link and Zelda more personality than any other Link and Zelda in any other game.
And yeah I kinda got carried away with Zelda, but Mario is a very decent cartoon in this incarnation, it's based off Super Mario Brothers 2 so no Koopa Kids just yet, and Wart isn't in it, but how can you hate Captain Lou Albano as Mario? You can't!
7. Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers
The Disney Afternoon makes its first appearance on my list, and probably not its last. The great thing about Chip N' Dale was as a kid growing up you always could have an argument on who brought the most to the table in the Rescue Rangers.
Gadget: Built pretty much everything and repaired everything and could make weapons A
Monterrey Jack: Strong as shit, had a horrible weakness for ch-ch-ch-cheeese B
Chip: Detective Skills and the most level headed C+
Zipper: Could fly and get captured really well! C
Dale: No clue....uh.....he was the wacky one! F--
Chip N' Dale was one of the first cartoons I ever watched that pretty much wrapped everything up in the same episode. Yes there are recurring characters like Norton Nimnull, Fat Cat but most of the time if they introduce a new person or a flirting love interest for either Chip, Dale or Gadget, they're gone and forgotten about by the next episode.
The only two things that make me sad nowadays about Chip N' Dale is they'll probably never release them all on DVD, and they have probably one of the most disturbing fandoms out there.
6. Felix the Cat the movie
Until the advent of youtube/internet/torrents I honestly thought this movie along with the next entry would
drug induced hallucinations, then I remebered I don't do drugs and thought it must be real.
This movie is bizzare is so many ways. There's a kingdom called Oriana where the kindgom has been overthrown by the duke of zill and taken over. The princess named Oriana (Clever) cries one single tear and it finds Felix the cat, and he embarks on an adventure to save her. Lots of wacky misadventures later Felix saves the kingdom and all is well. This movie stuck with me as a kid because of the "Duke of Zill" song and the odd bubble dance the Princess does, as well as the fact I was confused why the Duke didn't just stomp Felix to death. The 80's were an odd place.
5. The Fantastic Adventures of Unico/Unico in the island of Magic
Osamu Tezuka was not a household name in the 80's nor did anyone know him as the "Godfather of Anime". I saw this movie one time after I had rented pretty much every other movie from the small movie place. I would talk about The Fantastic Adventures of Unico, but I already
did
Unico in the Island of Magic is a wonderful movie but let's backtrack a minute. Unico's basic premise is he's a unicorn with the power to bring people happiness, and for some reason this pisses the gods off to no end, so to prevent his banishment the West Wind instead wisks him away to various places to hide him from the gods, until Unico eventually makes someone happy the gods notice and the West Wind sprits Unico away again leaving the person he just made happy to have a friend again friendless.
The Island of Magic centers on a evil wizard named lord Kuruku who plans to turn all people into living puppets (Who look like puzzle pieces) and is helped by our target kid-who-is-sad's (A girl named Cheri) brother Toby and Toby is in turn helped by a cat named Melvin the Magnificat who has the most groan inducing joke in the whole movie (This is my portable stereo *shows birds inside headset* it's got tweeters) when all hell breaks loose and Kuruku turns EVERYONE but Cheri and Unico into puzzle puppets and Cheri and Unico travel to a giant rocking horse names the Trojan Horse who informs them that Kuruku was a unloved puppet and cast away and all he needs is love. After Unico care bear stares...err shows him the power of friendship Kuruku is left powerless and all is good till the West Wind has to wisk him away again and Cheri is left sad.
I typed (Excluding the cat's name which I could not remember and had to look up) all of that from memory. And now I'm sad.
4. Tora Dora!
BUT DECOY THIS ANIME JUST CAME OUT IN 2009 HOW CAN YOU SAY IT'S ONE OF THE BEST EVER IF YOU DON'T HAVE PROPER PERSPECTIVE!
Because this is a list of the best cartoons in my opinion and not others. I'm sure someone is going to post something newer than this so fuck off voice in my head. ANYWAY
Tora Dora is from the outside yet another in the long line of RomCom Animes including Tenchi Muyo, Love Hina, KashiMashi (Kazlo's favorie anime of all time ask him about it sometime) and Midori No Hibi (One of my favorites) but what makes it great is it slowly builds a romance between the two leads Taiga (The ultimate Tsundere chick) and Ryuuji (Probably one of the few I've got my shit together leads in anime) that when it finally pays off you're left feeling better and happy for them regardless of the travails they may have.
Tora Dora also has a great supporting cast who each go through their own meltdowns and recoveries till one by one each one of them is stronger for the pain they've went through until only Taiga and Ryuuji are left to confront the feelings they have for each other.
ALSO NIS IF YOU EVER READ THIS DUB IT AND I WILL BUY IT!
3. Batman: The Animated Series
If I had to point someone to one thing and one thing alone to sum up what's great about Batman it would be this series. When it came out it was far ahead of its time and at the time I was watching this I sometimes wondered if I should be watching it because some of the time and some of the themes and stories I saw seemed to straddle the line between kid friendly and adult entertainment a little too much. For 1992 anyway.
Watching it again today, I can say with 100% conviction that it stands the test of time and when I found out later that the Joker was Luke Skywalker my mind was blown.
I can't really emphasize that if you haven't seen this series, you need to and I'll impart a short summary of my favorite episode.
All the bad guys are sitting around telling stories about how they almost got the bat, and when they get to Croc, he says "I threw a rock at him" all the villians stare at him for a moment or two, and then he says "It was a big rock" Then the Joker entails how he's captured catwoman and Harley is about to finish her off at a catfood factory to which Croc stands up and in Batman's voice says "I don't think so."
I think that moment is when I hit puberty
2. DuckTales
If I had to sum up everything that was good about Disney cartoons from the 90's (Not the movies though) it would be DuckTales. It's a story about Scrooge McDuck the richest duck in the world (With Flintheart Glomgold a close second) who is left with his three great nephews Huey, Duey and Louie who have grand adventures either in pursuit of money or recovering lost money. How could you not love Scrooge who has a bank vault full of so much money that he can swim in it but no matter how much money means to him, his family means more to him.
Yeah I realize later when they added Bubba it was kind of silly but Ducktales always stands the test of time, something I cannot say for a lot of the rest of the Disney Afternoon (I'm looking at you Gummi Bears)
1. Sailor Moon (First Season)
You can't. You can't shit on Sailor Moon. Without Sailor Moon (Or Dragon Ball Z to a lesser extent) anime would not be as popular as it is today. Maybe you want to argue Sailor Moon wasn't the first, wasn't the biggest or whatever, but if it was not for Sailor Moon I wouldn't have been introduced to anime, and it wouldn't have the impact its had on my life.
I only cite the first season because it's honestly the only one I've seen. I would wake up for school at 6am every morning to watch Sailor Moon on my old TV with the broken volume knob, and then leave when it was over. I remember hating Rini, wondering if the scouts actually died in the last episode (It was edited in such a way when it originally aired that it seemed like they just disappeared) liking the little jokes like the scouts getting stuck in an alley while trying to pursue a villian, Rei and Amy crashing a cruise ship and Rei pigging out while Amy was aghast, plus it was just refreshing to see an animated form of the Power Rangers, and catering to my girlish(?) tastes, it was my gateway drug which went from Sailor Moon to Monster Rancher, to the Midnight Run with Toonami which led me to Outlaw Star, Evangelion and many others that have enriched me and I'm very thankful for meatball head and her friends.
If you can watch this
Intro without getting nostalgic I don't know what's wrong with you.
