There doesn't seem to have been much activity in this group for a while, so I thought I'd start a little topic to discuss some of the shows I've liked that are recent in Japan.

One of my favourites is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which was the new one from Gainax and I'm sure you've all heard of. It has a very distinct visual style to it and is also a great, slightly bonkers story, with a great mix of comedy and drama. There are some great characters too.

One of the great things about gurren lagann was also what it represents. Gainax are one of my favourite studios, and I like them cos they're generally so innovative and exciting, which shows like eva and flcl. Recently they seem to have gone on a bit of a backwards spin, making stuff that's built on past efforts, rather than newer stuff (I'm thinking of gunbuster 2 and the eva remakes especially), but gurren lagann shows they can still pull it out of the bag.

Another show that I like great from recent times is Darker than Black.

A lot of it is relatively formulaic and stuff I've seen before, but there's a nice little edge to DtB, whereby things always end tragically. So in DtB the hero often doesn't save the girl, or the character doesn't find redemption--things often don't have trite "happy endings", iow, which is a nice little twist.