Good obscure anime -- Share your knowledge:

[GloriousZote]

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit:
A Young spear-wielding bodyguard takes on the young prince of New Yogo as her charge in an effort to protect him from the Mikado. He is the eighth and final life that she must save to atone for the eight men that she has killed. This charge is unique in that the one that is believed to want him dead is his own father and he seems to be possessed by some sort of water demon that the Mikado had previously defeated centuries ago.

Mononoke:
The Medicine Seller traverses feudal Japan, on the hunt for malevolent spirits referred to as "mononoke". His expertise in the occult makes him a formidable adversary, but prior to vanquishing these entities, he must first uncover their Form, Truth, and Reason, as well as wield the potent Exorcism Sword. Before proceeding to the ultimate phase of destroying the spirit, the Medicine Seller must undergo a perilous initiation that involves meticulously analyzing his psychological state and scrutinizing the nature of the mononoke.
(Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror episodes 9 through 11 feature another story about this Medicine Sellert)

The Girl from the Other Side:
Once upon a time, in a far, faraway place, there were two lands. The world was divided into an inner land and an outer land. People feared the outer land. Inhabited by eerie beings, the carriers of curse. One day on the border to the inner land inhabited by humans, one such being find a girl on heaps of abandoned dead bodies. The girl says her name is Shiva and shows affection to the "being" who found her, calling him "Teacher". This is a story of two people; one human, one inhuman, who linger in the hazy twilight that separates night from day.

[Lune]

Trigun : some random blondie go around do some cowboy stuff

[Kamiyama]

Moribito is really good. I haven't seen mononoke but I think I will give it a watch. I like psychological horror.

[Sixtyfivekills]

Judo Boy/Kurenai Sanshiro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYQSkOhfXBo


For the longest time this show was impossible to find online, and only recently did I see people upload it. I remember seeing it on some random channel back when it aired on TV, thought to myself it must be super old since it looked so horrible, but the story got me kinda hooked. It's a revenge story where a guy searches for his father's killer, a one eyed man, and in one episode he fights an actual tiger because it had one eye LOL.


This is owned by Tatsunoko, and to give you an idea how obscure it is, he didn't even appear in that crossover fighting game called Tatsunoko vs Capcom despite being one of the most fitting characters for such a game.

[GloriousZote]

Publicado originalmente por Kamiyama:

Moribito is really good. I haven't seen mononoke but I think I will give it a watch. I like psychological horror.

Really wish we got more Moribito, apparently the novels got tons more stories to tell.

[Grynn]

Most obscure animes I know people already know of.

Denpa Teki Na Kanojo. Only 2 episodes were made.

First episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmzA_ixGY2E

Angel's Egg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YopWyb75G7o

I'll add more if I can think of any. I know theres a bunch of late 80's and 90's forgotten anime but can't think of them right now.

[Vinz Clortho]

Dumbell nan kilo moteru

[steven1mac]

I don't know if it is obscure, but it is a good example of the diversity in anime.

https://youtu.be/8SlB-SpDMKI

[GloriousZote]

Publicado originalmente por steven1mac:

I don't know if it is obscure, but it is a good example of the diversity in anime.

https://youtu.be/8SlB-SpDMKI

Not obscure, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ masterpiece, though.

[Kenneth Adams]

As like the OP mentioned, those made by Ghibli come to mind first.
The Castle of Cagliostro (movie) is also created by Hayao Miyazaki who is a co-founder of Ghibli. Since I abhor the Rupan Sansei franchise, The Castle of Cagliostro is the only one Rupan Sansei movie I know. I hate the franchise, so I don't recommand it, but this one is well known in Japan.
Heidi, Girl of the Alps and Future Boy Conan (TV series) are ones I allegedly watched when I was a child. I don't remember them well though xD Anyways, these are famous too.

[Tonepoet]

Sakura Wars, although perhaps it is not as obscure now as it used to be since Sega finally started porting the game series from which it is derived over into the west. Still though, it is not one of their lesser known game franchises, and we're talking about a year 2000 anime series based off of a four years older Sega Saturn game that Sega never even bothered porting to the west.

The core premise is that in an alternative timeline 1920s where the Japanese government has a secret squad of females called the Flower Division, operating small scale steampunk mecha, operating undercover in the guise of a theatrical troop. Why all female? Well, initial testing had shown that only females are capable of operating the equipment in the first place.

Turns out they didn't do enough testing though. Males can operate the device. The distinguishing factor that determines whether or not you can operate the device is spiritual power, not sex. This is used to introduce a generic male protagonist in the show. I didn't particularly care for him.

My favorite characters on that show were Sakura Shinguji herself, and Li Kohran when I was watching it. Here's a link to the opening music.

It's really a bit of a shame that they didn't bring the original game over. I kinda get why Sega neglected to do so. It was a very distinctly Japanese game, and it was half visual novel/dating sim type stuff (half turn based tactical battles). The Sega Saturn really desperately needed games though, and I can't help but think if Sega brought it over it could've been a killer app that helped turn things around for the company.

Another obscure one is Saber Marionette J. This is a bit of a goofy one where biological women do not exist for some reason, and humanity is perpetuated largely by cloning males. In missing the fairer sex, the men decided to create hyper advanecd sentient battle gynoids in their image, although I think something happened and rendered the world in a post-apocalyptic state with technology that is otherwise only about comparable advanced as feudalistic Japan. I can't relly tell you too much about this one, because I only bought a V.H.S. of it when a video rental store in a previous locality of mine was going out of business. Maybe I liked this one a little bit more than it deserves to be liked, but I'm a sucker for flashy 1990s cel animation.

Publicado originalmente por 8bitter:

Trigun : some random blondie go around do some cowboy stuff

Trigun isn't really that obscure. It was part of the Adult Swim lineup. Now I am not going to say that a show isn't obscure just because it was part of adult swim, but it was part of their core lineup on the anime half of the block, and run many times over. If I recall correctly, there was also somewhat of a meme about misidentifying Vash or even characters from other series as "Trigun", as if the name of the show regarded some eponymous character. Something along the lines of "Trigun and his [something] does [something something]". Maybe it has forgotten about though.

Still, if we're going to characterize adult swim cartoons as obscure, then I think Big O is more obscure than Trigun, but I wouldn't really start characterizing even that as too obscure. Indeed, Big O was even more popular in the west than it was in Japan, which is what prompted the creation of the second season. Witch Hunter Robin and Read or Die though? Yeah, I'd give you those.

Speaking of Read or Die, that's another one that's pretty neat. I couldn't tell you much about it other than that Yumiko Readman is one of the best bookworms in anime, and her ability to control paper was relatively unique. I think she mostly used it to deflect and obsucre. It's probably the one I'd recommend watching the most if you had to pick just one, even though I remember it the least. It's a bit of a special ops. type show where Yumiko and other characters act as a special ops. force for the British empire.

I'll try to think up more, but I think that's enough for a start.

[Kamiyama]

Ghost of the Shell ran on adult swim for a while so it's pretty mainstream but people might not be familiar with Masamune Shirow's other works. Both Appleseed movies are pretty good and Black Magic 66 is pretty obscure. I was able to track down a copy on ebay and good luck finding it anywhere else.

Metropolis is another cyberpunk anime movie that you might not have heard of. It made 100 million in Japan but only 4 million worldwide. Which is pretty terrible. But I liked it. I only learned about it from a Conjure One AMV.

https://youtu.be/s6kj0EJWEvw

Metropolis has that very early anime look. Reminds me of the Astro Boy era.

[Entity]

Don’t know a lot, but I enjoyed D-Frag and Paprika.

[aqua star]

Odd-Taxi you should give it a watch.

[King Of Lolis]

whats the name of that anime where jesus christ and buddha are best bros and just chill together?

[Kamiyama]

Publicado originalmente por King Of Lolis:

whats the name of that anime where jesus christ and buddha are best bros and just chill together?

is it Saint Young Men?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Young_Men

Haven't seen it.