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.

Before you add anything...READ THIS

/tg/ likes its anime, but if we listed every single one that could be interpreted as being /tg/-related this article would be large enough to be its own wiki. So before you add in a new title, ask yourself these questions:

• Is it a licensed material from a traditional game? (If yes, add it right now, no questions asked. And homebrews don't count- it has to be a real, established game.)
• Does it feature traditional gaming? (If it's an important part of the show, add it.)
• Is it fantasy or sci-fi? (We have a huge boner for that, but explain how it's relevant first.)
• Does it cater to our demographic? Fa/tg/uys tend to be males in their 20s. (Again, see if it fits the other criteria well enough.)
• Does /tg/ talk about it a lot, or does it have some historical relevance to /tg/? (Like the one directly above, it's not enough on its own, but it might get a pass if it fits more criteria.)
• Is this just /a/'s flavor of the month bleeding over into /tg/? (NO. Your addition will likely be reverted, so don't bother.)

Updated to add 2013 titles, etc.

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 a campaign could ever have. [tv series: season 1 - 26 episodes; 1 movie]

Related games: Traveller, GURPS Space, Diaspora

• Fullmetal Alchemist: Forever regarded as the most popular anime EVER, it has a young alchemist trying to recover both his missing limbs (his right arm and left leg) and his brother's ENTIRE BODY, which was lost following an alchemical accident. There's a newer series titled "FMA: Brotherhood", with updated animation and a slightly different storyline. Which version is better is up for debate.
• 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]

Related games: Eclipse Phase and Shadowrun

• Robotech/Macross: One of the most well-known anime series of all time, it basically revolves around humanity fighting against multiple alien invaders with transforming mecha. It helped influence the Transformers franchise and is a must-watch for mecha/sci-fi enthusiasts.

Related games:Battletech

• Serial Experiments Lain: The trippiest philosophy class you will ever take. A near-future anime set around 2020 or so, diverging around 1990. A must-watch for cyberpunk and conspiracy fans, as well as existentialists.

Related games:Shadowrun, Eclipse Phase, and maybe Paranoia and Server Crash.

• The Big O: Batman meets mechs meets Japanese monster movies in a post-apocalyptic world where nobody remembers anything prior to forty years ago and advanced androids walk the streets of an otherwise 1920s-era city dominated by glass domes. One of the biggest contenders for "Most Confusing Ending" award, it is otherwise well-regarded by the anime community and it's lack of a third season to answer all the questions is much-lamented. That said, the director had originally been given two seasons to plot out his story, had it cut to one, then had a second season greenlit thanks to it's performance in the US, only to give us another season of questions.

Related games: Mekton, Dungeons & Dragons: Eberron, Spirit of the Century

• Trigun: An impossibly skilled and improbably young outlaw (Arbitrator) roams a barren Wild West planet helping people out with his skill at shooting people, aided by a somewhat faithful party of well-armed priests (Clerics) and insurance agents (Adepts). Replete with pseudo-religious symbolism and Metal Gear-worthy antagonists.

Related games: Dark Heresy, Deadlands

• Armored Trooper VOTOMS: A Mecha pilot of few words and fewer expressions seeks revenge on those who framed him, uncovering an ancient conspiracy along a way. One of the grittier and "realest" entries of the real robot genre without going into the hard sci-fi. Inspired Heavy Gear, which the japanese described as "The Votoms mecha in the Dougram setting", the latter referring to Fang of the Sun Dougram, VOTOMS creator's earlier real robot series.

Related games: Heavy Gear

• Fang of the Sun Dougram: A pack of Guerillas with Real-Robot 'mechs fight a war of independence on a shitty-ass planet. Fairly strong amounts of cynicism and grey morality and minimal wacky shit firmly separate it from Gundam and the like. Was one of the direct inspirations for Battletech, which cribbed all it's 'mech designs verbatim and much of the extremely mad-max-esque setting.

Related games: Battletech, A Time of War

• Log Horizon: Now with it's own TRPG core book. Players of an MMO all over the world awaken to what is seemingly the game world, but now they're living it instead of being merely trapped in the game.

Related games: Log Horizon

• Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Space Prussia fights Space France/America in in of the longest running debates on the relative merits of Dictatorship and Republicanism ever written. Aside from the 19th century army tactics IN SPACE, is well regarded for the enormous amount of very well-written characters and an even more bloody disregard for the lives of main characters than GRRM. Also quite possibly the single most screencapped anime on /tg/, for it's wealth of brilliant monologues. Technology level is basically Traveller to a tee. [OVA series: 110 episodes; Prequel: 52 Episodes; 2 movies]

Related games: Traveller, GURPS Space, Full Thrust

Action

• Fist of the North Star: The singular manliest show ever made.

Related games: Street Fighter the RPG (by White Wolf),Playing a monk in d&d

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The singular manliest, and most FABULOUS! show ever made. Hop in the car, we're gonna get posin'.

Related games: Mutants and Masterminds, FATE

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan: The singular Orkiest show ever made. [TV Series: 30 episodes; 2 movies]

Related games: Mekton, Toon

• HunterxHunter: Two futa boys fighting dudes [TV Series: 148 episodes;]

Related games: FATE, FATAL

Gaming anime

• Girls und Panzer: Just what it says on the title. WWII Tank warfare for sport, done by schoolgirls. You will make a Ōarai Girls' Academy themed Leman Russ tank company after watching it. The anime is now officially associated with World of Tanks.

Related games: hexmap historical war simulations, Flames of War, too fucking many quests

• Kantai Collection: originally a browser game and now getting its anime, it's about WW2 naval warfare, where the ships are girls. Yes, seriously, it's in route of becoming something akin to Touhou given the amount of material out there getting mass-produced by the fans. When combined with Girls und Panzer and Strike Witches you got to moe armed force to end all moe armed forces, period.

Related games: Battleship, Axis & Allies, quests, quests, quests.

• The Legend of Koizumi: The world leaders all play Mahjong to determent the fate of the planet. Later on a team of Koizumi, The Bushes, The Pope, Putin, and Yulia Tymoshenko fight Hitler who took over the Moon.

Related Games: Mahjong

• Saki: The journey of Miyanaga Saki and her friends to rise to the inter-high school and eventually, the National Mahjong championship. Also lots of fan shipping between the girls.

Related Games: Mahjong

• Tonari no Seki-kun: The Master of Killing Time: A slice of life High School show following a girl and her classmate who spends all class playing miscellaneous strange games. The manga it is based on is a gold mine of reaction images.

Related Games: Board Games

• Sword Art Online: A teenager is trapped in a virtual-reality MMO with a sizable amount of other players and needs to defeat an absolutely RIDICULOUS amount of bosses and enemies (not to mention other players) to escape the game. If a player dies in the game, he/she also dies in the real world. Contains both heartwarming and tear-jerking moments, as well as an overall amount of badass.

Related Games: WoW and basically any other fantasy MMO

• Record of Lodoss War: particularly noteworthy because it actually started life series of role-playing game sessions (first edition D&D!) that were turned into novels and then an Anime, that alone give's it major points. Plot wise it's a bit standard as you can expect but it is still well regarded.

Related Games: Dungeons & Dragons, Table top RPG's.

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. Either one the greatest anime ever produced, or an overrated piece of tripe that collapsed under the weight of its own pretentiousness, depending on who you ask; there is no middle ground. Inspiration for Adeptus Evangelion. Obviously. [TV series: 26 episodes; 5 and counting movies]

Related games: Adeptus Evangelion, JAEVA Project, CthulhuTech

• Now and Then, Here and There: A young Japanese boy and American girl are transported through time and space to a dying world orbiting a dying star, and are forced to fight as a child soldier for/raped and bred by evil men while the humans of the planet slowly fight themselves to extinction over water. Not for the faint of heart, or for anyone who thinks Warhammer 40k is as grimdark as humanly possible. This is true, hardcore grimdark.

Related games: Dark Sun so very much, FATAL, Gamma World

• M.D. Geist: A psychotic super soldier is released on a post-apocalyptic abandoned colony to breach a former governmental compound and prevent the activation of an army of killer robots that are programed to exterminate all surviving humans on the planet. He blasts his way in, slaughtering the cybernetic defenders... then releases the army himself so he can fight forever, and if the rest of humanity is wiped out, who cares?

Related games: Black Crusade

• Death Note: Mostly known in /tg/ as the source of the JUST AS PLANNED meme, it revolves around a high school senior who happens to have Tactical Genius-level intelligence coming into contact with a notebook that kills whoever has their name written in it. With it, he decides to kill everyone in the world that he perceives as criminals. Contains a MASSIVE amount of manipulation, mindfucking, and balls-out grimdarkness that would make Tzeentch weep tears of joy.

Related games: Chess, checkers, and any such strategy game

Fantasy

• Berserk: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: 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 GUTS is HUEG, meaning he has HUEG GUTS HUEG GUTS.

Related games: Warhammer Fantasy

• (The) Slayers: AD&D 2nd edition: The Animation. Known for being a significantly more realistic take on what tabletop roleplay is like than the previous, despite not actually being based off on actual campaign. Loads of War has been described as being the campaign the DM planned, whereas Slayers has been described as the campaign the players ended up playing.

Related games: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

• 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.

Related games: Settlers of Catan, GURPS Fantasy Setting

• Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: (Geopolitical Economic Theories in My D&D?): An anime in which the brave Hero (named Hero coincidentally) enters the Demon Realm in an attempt to kill the evil Demon Lord. In retaliation the Demon Lord (named Demon Queen/Lord) diplomances him into submission, explains how the economy works, then proceeds to dominate the southern human realm with basic human rights, intelligent farming methods and smart business strategies. Originated as a webnovel published on 2chan's text boards, and matriculated into the spiritual successor Spice and Wolf.

Related games: Settlers of Catan, GURPS Fantasy Setting, Ironclaw, Road to Enlightenment, Deus Vult: Wargaming in the Time of the Crusades, Reign

• Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings: Several feudal cults fight each other in massive battles, spearheaded by OP samurai with their own special attributes. Somehow includes a massive fucking cyborg titan.

Related games: Civilization, LoL

• 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 the show would make a good homebrew.

Related games: Axis & Allies, Axis and Allies Angels 20, Ace of Aces, a metric fuckton of quests

• No Game No Life: Two basement shut-ins, who win every game they play, are dropped into a world where everything is decided with games, even national borders, where they have to save the humans from getting steamrolled by 15 other races, all of whom use magic to cheat since Humans can't sense magic being cast.. Involves plenty of traditional-of-traditional games being played, with metagaming tricks and cheating.

Related games: A lot of "normal" board games.

• Escaflowne: What you get when you combine Dungeons and Dragons with Mecha anime.

• Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they?: Sakamaki Izayoi, Kudou Asuka and Kudou Yoh are invited and transported to a place called "Little Garden", a sprawling meltingpot of races grouped into communities. The three children are given "Gifts" and participate in the high-stakes "Gift Games", that can win back the prestige and territory of their community. The setting has analogies to Planescape's Sigil in general.

Related games:Planescape, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Comedy

• 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, Sanity loss (complete with Call of Cthulhu character sheets), and gratuitous rape of canon ensue. "She's an Eldritch Abomination, not your waifu!"

Related games: Call of Cthulhu (barely), Maid RPG

Things Which Aren't Anime, But People Think Are

• Touhou: An arcade-style, shoot-em-up vidya series, featuring a 100% loli cast, barring one or two NPCs here or there. Its fandom is incredibly large and kooky, and so fanart of its characters get plastered all over 4chan, causing newfags to ask what anime they are from and incite much derision. It has however, received several official manga spinoffs.

Related games: /v/ stuff, shmups, D&D 4th edition (that's a joke, a joke someone made terrifyingly real)

• 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. Not to be confused with your waifu.

Related games: /v/ stuff, generic mid-Europe fantasy setting, and apparently has its own RPG rules in France.

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: we argued about it once

Related games: Exalted, Legends of the Wulin