Here's the original Akira English dub, which is cheesy, but it's still fits the time period and pretty damn awesome in my opinion.



And here's the great Kaneda and Tetsuo trade that is famous with fanboys.

Speaking of Anime... Everyone knows of the great titles like Ghost in the Shell and Ninja Scroll, but here's one you may have passed over. It's called Grave of the Fireflies. I recommend watching the Japanese audio with English subtitles. The Japanese little girl's voice is pretty damn precious.

Like Akira, this is an animated film released in '88. According to wiki, "It is an adaptation of the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka, intended as a personal apology to the author's own sister." And it's amazing. A straight animated drama that will certainly tug at the heart strings.

A bit nitpicking isn't it Blankfist? Most original fans fucking hated the initial awful dub, so one of the biggest features was the actual re-recording, I really doubt they even thought about adding the old one for LULZ factors. I always watch anime in Japanese with English subtitles. The blu-ray of Akira is fantastic I thought, amazing transfer and great DTS remaster.

Grave of the fireflies is actually one of my favorite animes, because it deals with very adult themes about war and loss in a format not traditionally known for that. I think Perfect Blue is along similar lines as well as Millennium Actress. One of my biggest beefs with animation in the west is that it's not in any way adult, Pixar produces really safe animated films.

All-time favorite Akira scene (shameless promote) http://www.videosift.com/video/Akira-Tetsuo-s-Trippin

Look at Farhad, all grown up and condescending. So cute. Dontcha just wanna pinch his cheeks?

Perfect Blue is not what I consider good Anime. It's merely just okay, IMO. As an aside, the old English dub is not considered a joke in the States, unless, of course, you're making another anti-USian jab at us. Take a moment to visit Amazon.com and see what the reviewers are saying there. A lot of them are sad to see that dubbed version to go. It's nostalgic, is all. It's not a competition to see who likes the most "authentic" version, you pretentious sweetheart, you.

hahaha I remember watching this as a youngin'. My japanese friend would always make me watch it in japanese and then explain it to me...I probably still don't know what REALLY happened in the movie.

^Come on, RS, it's about the big bang giving primordial power to our genes which is dormant in all of us, but in some it can be awakened... or... um... hey, the motorcycles are awesome, are they not?

Grave of the Fireflies was excellent, probably one my favourite movies of all time, horrendously depressing though. What's your favourite shows? Mine'd probably be:

1 - Ghost in the Shell: SAC
2 - Bokurano
3 - Paranoia Agent
4 - Cowboy Bebop
5 - Mushishi
6 - FMA
7 - Ergo Proxy
8 - Death Note
9 - Baccano!
10 - Planetes

Blanky, I share your pain. I too was indoctrinated with the original VHS dub and didn't care for the re-dub, not matter how much more "accurate" it is to the story. After doing some research several months ago, you can find the original dub on torrent sites, or, if you have a PAL->NTSC DVD player, the UK DVD version has both the original 2.0 dub and the new 2001 5.1 dub on it. But again, in PAL, so be careful.

I avoid the whole dubbing mess and just deal with subtitles, the original japanese stereo track for Akira has good ol Dolby effects in it as well.

Seeing Akira in 1080p is pretty nice though. I remember when it was the shit to have the Akira Laserdisc which was supposedly even better quality than the DVD, but there is nothing better than the HD release now.

Shows:
1 - Trigun, hands down.
2 - Naruto
3 - FMA (the remake)
4 - Kenshin
5 - Hellsing
6 - Deathnote was OK too I guess.
7 - Lain
8 - Wolf's Rain
I didn't get into Mushishi. Too slow and odd for my tastes. One of these days I'll have to go back and checkout Lodoss and Gundam, but I have a feeling I won't like either. I'm really looking for something special at this point and I'm just finding a bunch of generic garbage that is either terribly animated or 15 minutes and episode for one lame season. I guess it's time for Cowboy Bebop.

Movies:
1 - Memories - Magnetic Rose (Highly recommended, hard to find, very hard)
2 - The Miyazaki movies, especially Mononoke, Spirited Away, Nausicaa, and Howl's Moving Castle... but excluding Grave of Fireflies, which I really didn't get into. Too, too depressing.
3 - Metropolis
4 - Origin: Spirits of the Past
5 - Steamboy was OK

Trigun is something I really need to check out. If you like that based on what I've heard both Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo are quite similar so be sure to check them out. Both are excellent, especially Bebop which has some of the most amazingly artistic animation I've ever seen.

Also really need to watch Lain, saw the first episode but the oddness and lack of immediate direction put me off.

Naruto? Huh what's that doing on a top of anything list? I thought it was just standard shounen >_>

It took me a couple of tries to get into Mushishi but it really is great if you give it a chance. As you probably already know it's basically a bunch of mostly detached adult fairy tales. A few fall a bit flat especially in the first few episodes, but others are just brilliantly imaginative.

I forgot about Spirited Away. Genius movie. I can't wait 'til that comes out on Blu-Ray.

I just find Naruto to be fantastically entertaining, especially the end of the first show (as in episodes after 300 or whatever it is, hulu makes it easy) and all of the second. It's just gotten more and more fun over the years... if you can stand the 15 minute episodes and the DBZ-esque teaser episodes. The series starts out really basic and gets better as it goes along, but yeah, it's just basic entertainment and by no means artistic.
Fair warning on Lain... it only gets weirder, but its short.
P.S. The only way you'll likely find the Memories series (3 short movies) is through the internet for sure... and if you want to buy them on a disc, you'll probably pay quite a bit unless it's a bootleg or something.

Update:
Now and Then, Here and There FTW.

Akira: spectacular animation, kickass motorcycles and no characters worth caring about.