Anime. Oh, how I do love Anime. It started back in middle school with things like Ruroni Kenshin, (Which I still love) and Ouran High School Host Club, (Another still-favorite) and gradually as I branched out, I found Anime that lined up with my interests in more darkly inclined things. I've found that a lot of Goths tend to enjoy Anime, just like a lot of Goths enjoy comics, or sci-fi, etc. We're all pretty big nerds if you think about it, and I'm certainly damn proud of that. Not to mention, many Goths have an interest in Gothic Aristocrat, Lolita, and Visual Kei styles, which can lead to a fondness for Anime or Manga.
But for people who haven't really watched much Anime and would like to, or are just looking for some new ones (Though I'm sticking to fairly well-known ones so you might have seen them) I've compiled a list of shows that I've seen that might tempt a few darkly inclined individuals. The summaries here aren't extensive by any means (Though somehow they ended up pretty long anyway...), and there's good anime and 'for fun' anime in there, but it should give you an idea of the respective shows. I'm taking care of the more popular ones first.
Hellsing- Oh boy. Where to start? This anime is bloody. Really bloody. When it centers around a vampire it's bound to be. Before I lay out the plot I have to clarify that there are actually two Hellsings. One is the older anime, which I think has better music, a better character design for Alucard, and more fun dialogue. However, the plot gets pretty bad around the midway mark because the manga hadn't been finished and they went off and did their own thing. Even the villain is rather...questionable. So while I like the older anime I think I'm going to recommend the newer OVAs, ten episodes that follow the manga pretty much to a tee. Hellsing is a secret organization who's sole job is to eliminate supernatural threats to England, meaning vampires. The irony being, their top agent is one. Alucard is bound to the Hellsing household and serves his masters by hunting down other vampires for the organization. He's charismatic, terrifying, flippant, violent, and just plain evil really. The series starts off with an ordinary police girl being thrown into all this vampire mess when her town is ravaged by ghouls. She has to adapt quickly to working for Hellsing, who will soon come up against never-before-seen artificially created vampires. Lots of fighting, lots of melodramatic threatening, and lots of vampire goodness. And then the vatican gets involved. And then Nazis. Intrigued yet? It's every bad cliche ever and it's fantastic.
Death Note- Ok, I'm fairly certain anyone that knows even a little bit about anime has heard of Death Note. Heck, people who don't know anything about anime have heard of Death Note. It's just one of those animes that jumps to your mind because of it's extreme popularity. But in my opinion, that popularity is completely deserved. For those who know nothing about the plot it revolves around Light Yagami, who discovers a grim reaper's notebook. (a' Death Note') There are a few rules written down, but everything boils down to the fact that if you write someone's name down in the book they're going to die soon after. Light decides the best way to utilize the Death Note would be to rid the world of criminals, and thus begins his career as the soon infamous 'Kira'. The police of course, want to do everything they can to find Kira, and enlist the help of L, a genius who brings a whole new meaning to the word eccentric. From there the plot only thickens and thickens as Light and L dance around each other, L trying to learn Kira's identity and Light 'helping' them as he tries to remain anonymous and continue his work.
Kuroshitsuji/ Black Butler- Again really popular, but really great. This was probably the third anime I ever watched and it's still a favorite. I mean even disregarding plot and the fantastic cast of characters this show is hilarious. And then when we do consider the characters I don't know how you can't love characters like Undertaker (adorably creepy) or Grell (Everyone's inner fangirl. A kickass Grim reaper with a chainsaw. He's insane and has a penchant for heels.) Plot: After Ciel's parents were killed he makes a deal with a demon. Upon learning who is responsible for his parents' murder and killing said person, he'll allow the demon to devour his soul. In the meantime, Ciel acts as the Queen's 'guard dog', dealing with threats to England, and the demon (Christened Sebastian by Ciel) acts as his butler. Season 1 is utter perfection, though I'd recommend avoiding season 2. It all goes to hell from there. The ending to season 1 was great and then they went and undermined it.
Trinity Blood- Hey look, more vampires! This time with a sci-fi twist. I'm always a sucker for sci-fi vampire stuff. To me, this is one of those 'watch for fun' animes. It's not particularly special, but it's a whole lot of fun to watch unfold. Not to mention, I might have come for the vampires, but I stayed for Abel. This anime is set 9,000 years in the future. A huge war occurred between the vampires and humans, leading to the devestation of much of the planet. Currently, a cold war of sorts is happening between the Vatican, human government and New Human Empire (Vampires). Father Abel might seem like a bumbling priest, but he's actually a Crusnik, a vampire which feeds on other vampires, and the Vatican's most powerful weapon. Prepare yourself for political turmoil everywhere. It's fun and worth watching, and I love that the bacteria that created the Methuselah (vampires) came from Mars. It makes me giggle.
Pet Shop of Horrors- Okay, while there's a large chance some of you have seen all of the aforementioned animes because they're fairly well-known, hopefully, this is one you haven't. Pet Shop of Horrors has got to be one of my favorite animes. It's a short 4 episode OVA so it doesn't take much time to watch either. It's an older anime, and the budget wasn't very large, so a lot of the animation is stills, but to be honest I hardly noticed. The mysterious Count D (No, he's not a vampire. Not everything is vampires with me you know) runs a pet shop in Chinatown. He sells 'rare' pets to his clients, though his motives are hardly pure. In reality he despises most humans and is much more fond of animals. The animals he sells often look human to the buyer, in their delusions, and the pets come with strict contracts. Break the contract and the consequences could be, and are, terrible. The atmosphere of the whole show just pulls you in. It's not horrifying in the sense of gore, it's more a study of the human condition and psychological horror than anything else. The episodes are separate stories, tied loosely together by Detective Leon, who attempts to figure out exactly what's going on with the pet shop and ends up forming an unlikely friendship with the Count.
Ghost Hunt- This anime follows the life of Mai Taniyama, who's curiosity leads her to stumble upon Kazuya Shibuya as he's investigating an allegedly haunted building. She nicknames him Naru for his narcissistic personality and becomes involved with the Shibuya Psychic Research Center. They pick up a cast of characters along the way and the rest of the series is spent in small arcs, dealing with various psychic phenomena. It's light horror for the most part, not particularly scary, though quite a few managed to creep me out. What can I say, I have this thing about dolls. Most of the arcs are pretty creative, and The Bloodstained Labyrinth seriously managed to freak me out so that's a plus. It's the one genuinely scary arc in there.
Of course, a lot of people will tell you to read the Manga instead of watching the shows, much like reading the book instead of the movie which I always tend to agree with, but I don't have much manga and therefore aren't an expert. You'll have to ask someone else about that. I've got another batch of Goth-friendly anime (About 6 I think?) but since I didn't want to drown you in one gigantic post I could do a part 2 to this. Anyone interested? If I'm just rambling to myself I could just throw them in a list at the bottom of my next post. Or I could do a proper part 2.
Before I go, I'm wondering if any of you know a good place to get a nice black capelet. I don't want to spend an awful amount of money on one, but finding a capelet that doesn't look cheap, or costume-y, or unflattering, instead of elegant, is proving to be difficult. Help me out?
But for people who haven't really watched much Anime and would like to, or are just looking for some new ones (Though I'm sticking to fairly well-known ones so you might have seen them) I've compiled a list of shows that I've seen that might tempt a few darkly inclined individuals. The summaries here aren't extensive by any means (Though somehow they ended up pretty long anyway...), and there's good anime and 'for fun' anime in there, but it should give you an idea of the respective shows. I'm taking care of the more popular ones first.
Hellsing- Oh boy. Where to start? This anime is bloody. Really bloody. When it centers around a vampire it's bound to be. Before I lay out the plot I have to clarify that there are actually two Hellsings. One is the older anime, which I think has better music, a better character design for Alucard, and more fun dialogue. However, the plot gets pretty bad around the midway mark because the manga hadn't been finished and they went off and did their own thing. Even the villain is rather...questionable. So while I like the older anime I think I'm going to recommend the newer OVAs, ten episodes that follow the manga pretty much to a tee. Hellsing is a secret organization who's sole job is to eliminate supernatural threats to England, meaning vampires. The irony being, their top agent is one. Alucard is bound to the Hellsing household and serves his masters by hunting down other vampires for the organization. He's charismatic, terrifying, flippant, violent, and just plain evil really. The series starts off with an ordinary police girl being thrown into all this vampire mess when her town is ravaged by ghouls. She has to adapt quickly to working for Hellsing, who will soon come up against never-before-seen artificially created vampires. Lots of fighting, lots of melodramatic threatening, and lots of vampire goodness. And then the vatican gets involved. And then Nazis. Intrigued yet? It's every bad cliche ever and it's fantastic.
Death Note- Ok, I'm fairly certain anyone that knows even a little bit about anime has heard of Death Note. Heck, people who don't know anything about anime have heard of Death Note. It's just one of those animes that jumps to your mind because of it's extreme popularity. But in my opinion, that popularity is completely deserved. For those who know nothing about the plot it revolves around Light Yagami, who discovers a grim reaper's notebook. (a' Death Note') There are a few rules written down, but everything boils down to the fact that if you write someone's name down in the book they're going to die soon after. Light decides the best way to utilize the Death Note would be to rid the world of criminals, and thus begins his career as the soon infamous 'Kira'. The police of course, want to do everything they can to find Kira, and enlist the help of L, a genius who brings a whole new meaning to the word eccentric. From there the plot only thickens and thickens as Light and L dance around each other, L trying to learn Kira's identity and Light 'helping' them as he tries to remain anonymous and continue his work.
Kuroshitsuji/ Black Butler- Again really popular, but really great. This was probably the third anime I ever watched and it's still a favorite. I mean even disregarding plot and the fantastic cast of characters this show is hilarious. And then when we do consider the characters I don't know how you can't love characters like Undertaker (adorably creepy) or Grell (Everyone's inner fangirl. A kickass Grim reaper with a chainsaw. He's insane and has a penchant for heels.) Plot: After Ciel's parents were killed he makes a deal with a demon. Upon learning who is responsible for his parents' murder and killing said person, he'll allow the demon to devour his soul. In the meantime, Ciel acts as the Queen's 'guard dog', dealing with threats to England, and the demon (Christened Sebastian by Ciel) acts as his butler. Season 1 is utter perfection, though I'd recommend avoiding season 2. It all goes to hell from there. The ending to season 1 was great and then they went and undermined it.
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| There are no good pictures for this anime... |
Pet Shop of Horrors- Okay, while there's a large chance some of you have seen all of the aforementioned animes because they're fairly well-known, hopefully, this is one you haven't. Pet Shop of Horrors has got to be one of my favorite animes. It's a short 4 episode OVA so it doesn't take much time to watch either. It's an older anime, and the budget wasn't very large, so a lot of the animation is stills, but to be honest I hardly noticed. The mysterious Count D (No, he's not a vampire. Not everything is vampires with me you know) runs a pet shop in Chinatown. He sells 'rare' pets to his clients, though his motives are hardly pure. In reality he despises most humans and is much more fond of animals. The animals he sells often look human to the buyer, in their delusions, and the pets come with strict contracts. Break the contract and the consequences could be, and are, terrible. The atmosphere of the whole show just pulls you in. It's not horrifying in the sense of gore, it's more a study of the human condition and psychological horror than anything else. The episodes are separate stories, tied loosely together by Detective Leon, who attempts to figure out exactly what's going on with the pet shop and ends up forming an unlikely friendship with the Count.
Ghost Hunt- This anime follows the life of Mai Taniyama, who's curiosity leads her to stumble upon Kazuya Shibuya as he's investigating an allegedly haunted building. She nicknames him Naru for his narcissistic personality and becomes involved with the Shibuya Psychic Research Center. They pick up a cast of characters along the way and the rest of the series is spent in small arcs, dealing with various psychic phenomena. It's light horror for the most part, not particularly scary, though quite a few managed to creep me out. What can I say, I have this thing about dolls. Most of the arcs are pretty creative, and The Bloodstained Labyrinth seriously managed to freak me out so that's a plus. It's the one genuinely scary arc in there.
Of course, a lot of people will tell you to read the Manga instead of watching the shows, much like reading the book instead of the movie which I always tend to agree with, but I don't have much manga and therefore aren't an expert. You'll have to ask someone else about that. I've got another batch of Goth-friendly anime (About 6 I think?) but since I didn't want to drown you in one gigantic post I could do a part 2 to this. Anyone interested? If I'm just rambling to myself I could just throw them in a list at the bottom of my next post. Or I could do a proper part 2.
Before I go, I'm wondering if any of you know a good place to get a nice black capelet. I don't want to spend an awful amount of money on one, but finding a capelet that doesn't look cheap, or costume-y, or unflattering, instead of elegant, is proving to be difficult. Help me out?
