Approved Anime

This is a list of /tg/ approved anime, organized loosely into genres.

Add important details (e.g. tv series or OVA, number of episodes or movies) in brackets.

Science Fiction

• Cowboy Bebop: Animu fans will argue forever if this is the best anime or not, but it is probably one of the best space-westerns anybody has made ever. An astounding look into one of the best parties an RPG could ever have. [tv series: season 1 - 26 episodes; 1 movie]
• Ghost in the Shell: /k/ makes a show about cyborgs and politics. The two movies and TV series take place in different continuities, and have very different feels. You may love one but hate the other. [2 movies; tv series: season 1 - 26 episodes, season 2 - 26 episodes, 1 made-for-TV movie]
• Legend of Galactic Heroes: 18th century Prussian politics IN SPACE. the first five episodes are slow, but after that expect moments of tactical genius and awesome. [OVA Series - 110 episodes]
• Bokurano: A bunch of kids playing on a beach find themselves forced to pilot giant robots in order to save the planet. Did we forget to mention that piloting the machine kills you by draining your life-force? A grimdark show which can help GMs hone their tragic storytelling skills.
• Outlaw Star: Cowboy bebop's younger ADHD brother. Badass catgirls, cyborg samurai, grappling spaceships, Taotist space wizards and hot android chicks all search for the Galactic MacGuffin. Asses are kicked and adventure is had!
• Fang of the Sun Dougram: 3025-era BattleTech: The Anime. The main protagonists are a bunch of guerrilla teenagers (who can be annoying at times, though for some BT fans that is not much different from the Steiner-Davion kids) operating the state of the art mech during the War of Independence. Also includes a lot of political backstabbing, which is arguably more important to the plot than the titular mech. [TV Series - 75 episodes]
• Armored Trooper VOTOMS: Heavy Gear: The Anime. The grittiest mecha anime, it follows the adventures of the soldier of few words and fewer expressions as he tries to uncover the plot that got him framed. Various OVAs focus on his pre or post-series exploits. [TV Series - 52 episodes; OVA - lots]]
• Guyver Imagine if Ironman was an awesome Biomechanical suit of armor that that gruesomely tears apart hideous monsters. It had three different anime series (but only the second was good), the manga is still ongoing and is one hell of a good read. If you like old school gritty anime you'll love this.

Action

• Baccano! : Pulp fiction with alchemists set in the 1930s. Confusing at first, but fucking awesome by the time the last scene rolls. [TV Series: 16 episodes]
• Black Lagoon: A Japanese salaryman gets abducted by modern pirates, only to find working with them is more fun compared to sucking up to his bosses. Loud dumb fun with a smart, gritty edge.
• Tiger and Bunny: Corporations create their own superheroes in mecha suits to fight crime.
• Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: A dynasty of manly badasses travel the globe in search of ways to refine their study of the mystic arts and defeat the evil vampire who has plagued their family for generations. The most FABULOUS anime ever made. [ OV: 12 episodes, TV Series - ongoing]
• Darker than Black: A world where super-powered sociopaths began to appear after the stars overhead changed forever, intelligence agencies and criminal organization hire these new breed of humans as their agents. The exploits of Chinese electric Batman are fun the first season, but the second season is skippable.
• Hellsing Ultimate: A show about how vampires really work: via ultraviolence, badassery and lots of bloodshed. Team Four Star turned it into: "One-Liners: the Anime" [OVA: 10 episodes]
• Fist of the North Star: The manliest show ever made.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan: The Orkiest show ever made. [TV Series: 30 episodes; 2 movies]
• Sengoku Basara: It's the Sengoku era Japan, where Oda Nobunga is a literal demon trying to conquer Japan and Honda Tadakatsu is a giant robot. Serious history can take a hike, we're too busy pole vaulting up mountains on our giant spears!

Gaming anime

• Liar Game: Our heroes are trapped on a high-stakes cruise ship, with cleverness and mindgames ruling the day. Expect awesome.
• Kaiji: Our hero is trapped on a high-stakes cruise ship, trying to work off his debts. Expect tears.
• Hikaru no Go: A young child is possessed by the Go obsessed spirit of a long dead Japanese gentleman. Epic gaming showdowns ensue.
• Legend of Koizumi: A Fist of the North Star version of former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi competes with world leaders and saves the world repeatedly by playing Mahjong. Inexplicably awesome.

Horror, Grimdark & Mindfuckery

• Neon Genesis Evangelion: A philosophical character drama and Lovecraftian Horror Mindrape that pretends to be a mecha anime for its first half. Inspiration for Adeptus Evangelion. Obviously. [TV series: 26 episodes; 5 movies]
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: A newer show about girls with magical powers who fight mindfuck eldritch abominations called witches. It begins as a seemingly innocent and fluffy moeblob series (following all the standard conventions of "magical girl" anime), but quickly becomes more and more like the depressing from-bad-to-worse tragedy of Faust (which popularized the Deal With The Devil plot). [TV series: 13 episodes]
• Paranoia Agent: A cartoonist is attacked by a mysterious teenager on roller skates wielding a golden baseball bat. Copycat attacks start to occur all around Japan. This is an Unknown Armies campaign done amazingly right.
• Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni: In the small town of Hinamizawa, a series of interrelated stories of a group of friends in school club slowly unravels the horrific town's dark secret, and the madness, murder and horror which abound within. Gory, scary, and mind-bendingly bizarre, the individual murder-mysteries slowly piece together into a surprisingly complex and largely satisfying puzzle of a series.
• Mononoke: A wandering medicine seller exorcises evil spirits by puzzling out the sinister events which led to the creation. it's an Agatha Christie murder mystery where the murder weapons are ghosts, the detective is a wandering mystic, and the animation resembles an acid trip. Not to be confused with Princess Mononoke.

• Devilman OVA An awesome anime with demons ripping and tearing each other apart in the most gruesome ways possible and the main character becomes a bad ass mini Bloodthirster. (fun fact: the original manga inspired Kentaro Miura to make Berserk a long with many others to make manga)

Fantasy

• Berserk 3.X DnD: The Anime. Guts, a brutal and unstoppable swordsman, walks the land of grimdark as he recounts his impossibly bad-assed past. Noted for being GUTS HUEG because HUEG GUTS has HUEG GUTS.
• Claymore: Hot-but-tasteful women are hired by The Organization Inquisition to kill the fuckoff huge demons. Epic as hell. Imagine Grey Knights, but they are all women who have standard uniform and some armor on them ( they are not cover entirely in armor like their older brothers ), without all that fancy high-tech weaponry but instead carrying a HUEG swords, more humanity and you get Claymore. These badasses are fast as a lightning and can break down entire building using only their swords. Their enhanced strength comes from a fact that their bodies are mixed with daemon flesh thus giving them unique abilities. The anime is awesome except for the last 2 episodes that sucked. Manga is still ongoing and much better than anime itself. Spoiler! The Organization is making the demon in part of a super solder project for the REAL war on the mainland!
• Drifters: Writer/Artist of Hellsing's current manga. Take D&D and have all the PCs be famous figures in history. Two main parties Drifters (people who were killed in combat) who are currently leading and army of elves fighting an evil Empire founded by Hitler. And Ends (people betrayed and murdered) who are uniting the monster races to kill all humans and build an new peaceful nation on top of the ruins (its lead by JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF!!)
• Record of Loads of War: ADnD the Anime.
• Slayers: 2E the Anime.
• Rune Soldier Louie: An optimized D&D Fighter was raised from childhood to be a mage. Shit goes down as he goes down the path of becoming a Muscle Wizard.
• Princess Tutu: Yeah, go ahead and laugh. Imagine a Changeling: the Lost campaign written by Neil Gaiman while chugging the nightmare fuel. [TV Series: 26 episodes]
• Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemy: Brotherhood: In a world where alchemy is the dominant form of science, two alchemical prodigies try to use forbidden secret to bring their mother back from the dead, and they pay the ultimate price. The two brothers strive to research the legendary Philosopher's Stone, in order to undo their mistake. The original series deviated from the manga, while brotherhood was a remake which followed the manga verbatim. Impressive world-building, likable characters, surprisingly serious rumnations on the nature of hubris and excellent action scenes make both series worth your time.
• Fate/Stay Night: Wizards summon the spirits of famous heroes as familiars and having them beat the fuck out of each other in order to acquire the Ultimate HAX (referred to as the Grail). The concept is awesome, plot is also good but the movie was terrible because they had to vut a LOT from original storyline. Also, swording so hard you summon a girlfriend who IS a sword. The prequel 'Fate/Zero' is somewhat better having a lightly less stupid cast and a main character who thinks and acts like a Shadowrunner. Even if anime storyline is great it is perhaps better to read original visual novel if you have the time, the novel itself have three separate storylines ( all three are considered canon by the way ) and anime is 80% first plotline with 20% mix from the other two. It also has epic music, so epic that you want to cry in the end... [Fate /Stay Night: TV Series: 24 episodes. 2 Movie's. Fate/Zero: TV Series: 26 episodes]
• Spice and Wolf: A show about Horo, wolf-girl pagan goddess of the harvest (Often mistaken for Leman Russ.), and also economics. Proof that not all medieval fantasy has to be sword-and-sorcery to be interesting. [TV series: Season 1 - 13 episodes, Season 2- 13 episodes]
• Maoyū Maō Yūsha: Spiritual successor to Spice and Wolf. Wouldn't your economics class have been much better if it centered on fantasy settings and your teacher was a demon with eggplants for breasts? Yeah, this anime thought so too.
• Strike Witches: (Little Girls in Panties). WWII flying aces redrawn as loli airplane machines which zap aliens while flying around without pants. Not really beloved by /tg/, but someone thought something about it would make a good homebrew.
• Moribito: A spear-wielding bodyguard is charged with the protection of a young prince in a lush fantasy kingdom on the brink of a changing era. Kickass actions scenes, great characters, and fascinatingly humane villains make this a great series.
• El-Hazard: A bunch of kids get sucked into a fantasy world where they discover each of them has a power and they decide to save the world. Solid entertainment and a solid dub.
• Utawarerumono: An amnesiac masked man awakens in a land of cat people, only for political intrigue to manifest. Interesting ideas to piece together. Pronounce it "Underwater Ray Ramano."
• Brave Story: A boy enters the world of Vision after his parent's divorce and mother's attempted suicide. Lovely animation and a gutsy kid hero.
• Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust: A human-vampire hybrid is contracted out by a human family to rescue their daughter from a Vampire noble in the post-Apocalyptic vision of the year 12,000 AD. Gorteous animation and kickass fights.
• Twelve Kingdoms:A high-school girl is spirited away to another world, to find out that she is the chosen one, her friends become key political players, and that politics and skullduggery must be wrestled with if there is any chance of getting home. Arguably the best 'trapped in another world' story to come from Japan.
• Magic Knight Rayearth: Magical girls are spirited away to a fantasy world where they pilot gigantic mystical mecha to fight the BBEG. Badass yet family friendly, with a neat twist on the 'save the princess' motif.
• Guin Saga: Exiled twins of a royal lineage are left to die in the wilds outside their kingdom. however, they are rescued from death by the jaguar-headed warrior Guin, who is far more cunning and wise than he appears to be. This is like Japanese Robert E. Howard - sword and sorcery with a clever, gritty edge.

Comedy

• The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi : A crazy-as-fuck high school girl starts a club. Psychics, Time-Travellers, Aliens join it (without her knowledge), and the striaght-man Kyon has to keep everything together, all while keeping said girl from knowing she's omnipotent. /tg/ specifically likes a transgendered female version of the main character of the series, Kyon.
• Haiyore! Nyaruko-san: It's one of those wacky highschool comedy bits that Japan shits out every season, except starring Nyarlathotep. Yes seriously. Pop culture references, /d/eviance, and gratuitous canon rape ensue. "She's an Eldritch Abomination, not your waifu!"
• Fireball: And the second season, Fireball: Charming. A CGI piece about robots made by Disney Japa-Wait, no, don't go!! It's full of absurdist humor, and every kind of off-kilter pun, all while being a precisely accurate depiction of the Men of Iron incident from Warhammer 40,000.
• Those Who Hunt Elves: The GM for this campaign was on crack. One of the PCs is a pear-tank powered tank that's possessed by the ghost of a kitten. A fun anime comedy.

Things Which Aren't Anime, But People Think Are

• Touhou, which is not actually an anime or manga but is frequently confused as such by those unfamiliar with it. It has however, received several official manga spinoffs.
• Wakfu: A French cartoon about a kid named Yugo who discovers he is part of a long-lost race of people with the ability to create portals. A fun world with fun characters and a surprisingly deep Big Bad.

A SupTG thread on this very subject - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/23320304/