Man, I love Samurai Champloo! I can appreciate Cowboy Bebop on just about every level except the characters--but with the exception of Jet and the adorable techno-corgi, god love him, Bebop's characters leave me cold,* and I can't love the show. I adore the Champloo characters, so I love the show without reserve.
*They're good characters, and they work fine. I just dislike them personally, if that makes any sense.
The show I pimp out to all comers is Mai-HiME, because I think it's one of the best damn things I've ever seen--it just works on every single level, and every technical aspect of it is beautifully executed. As I work my way back in to an academic mindset, I may have to stop calling it subversive, but I still want to, because I remain impressed by easily it reverses gender roles and rewrites cliches without every dropping its poker-face--no meta-commentary on what it's doing, never once pulling outside the story to talk about the story--and yet, you can't deny that there's some kind of conscious commentary going on, the show just makes you work it out yourself. (It's also pretty fan-servicey, although in ways that completely serve the characters and the plot--like Empowered, Mai-HiME is proof that you can have your cheesecake and eat it, too.
Ahem. Anyway, although it's a very entertaining, appealing show, and not a bad rec, I'm sure that I've recommended it to people who ended up thinking ugh, no, because I don't stop to make sure they like enough of the right things to appreciate it on even a superficial level. I generally only recommend anime to people who already watch anime (manga is another story), which makes them better equipped to evaluate for themselves the answers to "What do I watch next?", but I am also guilty of indiscriminately recommending favorites instead of thinking about what the asker really wants.
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*They're good characters, and they work fine. I just dislike them personally, if that makes any sense.
The show I pimp out to all comers is Mai-HiME, because I think it's one of the best damn things I've ever seen--it just works on every single level, and every technical aspect of it is beautifully executed. As I work my way back in to an academic mindset, I may have to stop calling it subversive, but I still want to, because I remain impressed by easily it reverses gender roles and rewrites cliches without every dropping its poker-face--no meta-commentary on what it's doing, never once pulling outside the story to talk about the story--and yet, you can't deny that there's some kind of conscious commentary going on, the show just makes you work it out yourself. (It's also pretty fan-servicey, although in ways that completely serve the characters and the plot--like Empowered, Mai-HiME is proof that you can have your cheesecake and eat it, too.
Ahem. Anyway, although it's a very entertaining, appealing show, and not a bad rec, I'm sure that I've recommended it to people who ended up thinking ugh, no, because I don't stop to make sure they like enough of the right things to appreciate it on even a superficial level. I generally only recommend anime to people who already watch anime (manga is another story), which makes them better equipped to evaluate for themselves the answers to "What do I watch next?", but I am also guilty of indiscriminately recommending favorites instead of thinking about what the asker really wants.