About a year ago I watched Baccano and it was good. Not creepy fetish animu loli manchild good, but legitimate cinema watching good. So I made a recommendation thread:
http://www.evilbore.com/forum/index.php?topic=29577.0Now it's 2010 and I have new recommendation for normal people who don't watch anime:
Black Lagoon
At first glance, Black Lagoon appears to be a generic action anime. Guns, Girls, Cursing, a whole lot of Engrish. 80s action meets Spaghetti Western; the A-team meets John Woo's Hard Boiled; pulp that Tarantino would be proud of. And on the surface that's exactly what it is.
Yet, surprisingly when you watch it and look beyond the cover, you find a show that is quite a bit smarter than what normally fills out the genre. The characters have depth to them and the stories aren't written to adhere to traditional stereotyping; in Black Lagoon the line between "good" or "evil" is rarely drawn. The show follows the escapades of a group of a Mercenaries who do jobs in a city that's become a haven to criminals. Often compared to Cowboy Bebop, Black Lagoon follows a similar style of entertaining western-inspired short stories instead of a single long plotline. What sets Black Lagoon apart is that it is a
dark and
mean show. Innocent people are often killed (sometimes by the "good" guys) and occasionally parts are hard to stomach. It's a rough, gritty show.
But instead of doing this to shock or entertain the twisted, the grimness of the world enhances the narrative. The characters acknowledge the world they live in and how the lead character (a Japanese salaryman dragged into the dark underworld) deals with the bleakness is one of the major themes of the storyline. (But despite this, it's actually a fun show!)
Often intense and always entertaining. Black Lagoon is one of the best anime of the 00s.
There's very little "anime" about Black Lagoon show. It's an intelligent action series for adults and on top of that it features a badass black man.
Highly Recommended
