Anime

Moriarty The Patriot: genuinely blows my mind that this one isn't more well known. Sherlock yaoi + murdering rich bastards feels like such a slam dunk, and despite delivering plenty on both I don't think I've ever seen a thing about this anime.

Blood Blockade Battlefront: This one is honestly just okay, but the animation is solid and the VAs have some pedigree. Idk if it just came out at a bad time or if people didn't vibe with some of the episode plots, but it always surprised me that it only managed two seasons and then kinda faded out completely.

Now and Then, Here and There, a very heavy anime, I guess it's heaviness is the reason why it never became super popular, but still, I think it still had what it takes to become an anime of cult.

Shiki, also deserves more recognition than what it has.

Kemono no Souja Erin, I didn't finish this one, but the first half is amazing, unless the second half looses quality this one should have been popular too.

Also, it's worth to mention Gunslinger Girl.

All these shows are kinda dark, so maybe that's why they never got the recognition they deserve.

Charlotte - story about a guy with a weak power to take control of people for just a few seconds. Since it's weak he uses it ro cheat on tests and convince his crush to like him. Others with powers find him to make him not to abuse his power. Its a subtle slice of life anime the builds into a great story with some of the best character growth I've seen.

Heavenly delusion - horror anime aboutbtwonkids in the aftermath of an apocalypse where monsters roam, and they're trying to find an old school. At the same time there's a strange school with mutated kids all being taught by robots and doctors watch them constantly. Its very interesting sci-fi based on this Buddhist idea that heaven exists right in front of your nose, but disappears if you look elsewhere. Does have a scene of SA. Im waiting for the second season.

Deadman Wonderland

What the hell happened? They even had an original OST for the intro in English. Studio Manglobe wanted this to go places....and It just. Failed.

BLUE gender, an odd show at late night, shows a bunch of bugs suddenly show up on earth out of nowhere after they did some experiments with DNA(sounds very familiar to evangelion if not the same story/premise).

the fun thing about the bugs was thier ability to evolve against human machinery, and consume both organic and inorganic matter like metal and concrete for energy, which made them the perfect weapon against humans. very evangelion like. by the end of the series the earth sent a signal to cause the bugs to go extinct, and the ones on the space station too. but left the scattered survivors. they were very obscure as to the origin of the bugs, and the strange guinan origin of bugs and the structure energy beam.

the OG full metal alchemist, i dont think it has much viewership as brotherhood. because it was on late night.

also Ghost in the shell, convoluted and hard to follow but i did get the jist of it by the end.

Perhaps not my time to watch it, but I found it boring and too long.

Vivy Fluorite Eye's Song

Stumbled upon it in ~2023 while I was away from my PC, nothing on my phone, and borrowing the family TV and their Netflix. A real hidden gem.

Beserk memorial edition the 13 episodes so good

There's quite a few that I'm surprised I've never seen anyone talk about outside of dedicated forums.

Akudama Drive ruled start to finish. It's worth watching for the animation alone.

Xam'd: Lost Memories feels like it's only a few years old, but it came out less than a year after Gurren Lagann. In 2008. Bones makes real pretty shows.

Speaking of Bones, Carole and Tuesday was solid. My only issue was that it didn't take a hard enough stance against AI, but also it came out before ChatGPT and long before AI generated music was a real issue so I can't really blame them.

Outlaw Star

planetes... enjoyed the heck out of it. I've only met one other person irl who's watched it... :|

These are my submissions

Katanagatari (Bumping OST and cool fights with Nisio Isin writing)

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (vibing isekai too busy surviving to care)

Ben-to (Stupid premise combat anime that lives rent free in my head)

I just watched Pluto in the last few months, one of the best Anime I've ever seen.

I'm watching Hell's Paradise right now. It's clearly done on a decent budget, but the animators are pretty good at knowing where they need to focus that cash. Meanwhile, the story is actually pretty good. For something like a Shonen-style power-system story, there's a lot more going on than just flashy martial arts. I'm enjoying this one, and am surprised I haven't heard of it before last month.

Terminator Anime. It is surprisingly good but it had been cancelled because it wasn't popular enough.

1. The OG BanG Dream series. Born too late to define the CGDCT genre (that went to K-On). Born too early to radicalize it (that went to Bocchi the Rock). MyGO!!!!! and Ave Mujica, fortunately, capitalized on the post-Bocchi surge of girls band genre.

2. Perrine Monogatari. I find this the superior series to Ie Naki Ko. Both overlapped in the seasons they aired.

It wasn't completely ignored, but I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder that Apocalypse Hotel didn't get way more recognition than it got. Should've won all the awards.

Going back a little deeper, I can't pretend to be surprised that Akagi isn't mainstream, but Kaiji by the same mangaka deserves more popularity. It's a tragedy that the anime ends at part 2 when part 3 was the peak.

Dennoh Coil (2007), it's basically if Studio Ghibli did Sci-Fi. Won a bunch of awards in Japan, but never got mainstream.