11/8/09 - 5 anime with the best pasts

[Cetonis]

Getting weird again -.-' This week we'll vote for 5 anime with the best pasts.

More often than not, an anime will use events that happened prior to the main story as a building point - whether it be for character development, extra dramatic effect, a more complex plot, or other puroses. Things like old folklore, or a character's personal history, a past war, some specific event(s), etc. Which anime come to mind that did the best job in this area, either by the past history itself being interesting, or by making the best use of it in the present? Sequels should probably be left out here, unless they have a past beyond things that happened in (or were presented in) the prequel.

Happy Voting ^_^

**Voting Closed**

The top 5:

Monster
Pandora Hearts
Blood+
Claymore
Fullmetal Alchemist

Thanks for voting!

[ThePatches]

1. PANDORA HEARTS <-- Does this one count? It has issues with its timeline
2. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
3. Big O
4. Ruroni Kenshin/Samurai X <-- Meji Restoration, FTW!
5. Chrome Shelled Regios <-- More interesting than the anime!

[Omurqi]

1. Tokyo Godfathers (Although only a small part of the story, the drag-queen bar was pure gold and the anime was for a big part about digging up the past)
2. Blood+
3. Le Portrait de Petit Cossette
4. Eden of the East
5. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Edit, how could I forget about this one...)

Excluded things like personal pasts if it's not a significant part of the story itself (Clannad, Bakemonogatari), so I ended up having some trouble with the list :P Seems like I need to watch more epic fantasy tales, those tend to have quite a bit of history.

[Szwagier]

1. FMA 2 : Brotherhood - Ishbalan war, fuhrers past, main characters past... lots of awesome stuff happened in the past here.
2.Monster: - finding the truth about the past is focus of the most part of this anime
3.Gungrave - heh, half of the show hapens in the past, so i'm not sure it counts :P but iit's awesome past nevertheless
4.Utawarerumono - Hakuoro past, and world's past
5.Berserk - Kinda the same issue as with Gungrave but even more extreme - not sure if it does qualify if most of the show happens in the past...

[ParaParaJMo]

1. Char's Counterattack
2. Winter Sonata
3. Tekkaman Blade
4. Ashita no Joe
5. Gungrave

[purplemo]

Twelve Kingdoms
Nausicaa
Kyuuketsuki Miyu
Triangle Hearts (not that 99% of the people who saw it actually KNOW anything about the "past")
Umineko no Naku Koro ni (Ditto here)

[ForgottenSon]

EDIT: Fuck it. I've already broken the rule about not including films unless the list is specifically for films, so I might as well break it good and hard.

La Maison en Petits Cubes
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Millennium Actress
Monster
Myself;Yourself

[Moonslayer]

Fma: Brotherhood
Blood+
Bleach
Kino's Journey

Might add more later.

[Eleison]

Twelve Kingdoms
Saiunkoku Monogatari
Millennium Actress
Rose of Versailles
Galaxy Express 999

[azanimefan]

well lets see... I'll start with honorable mention, when i started to write this reply i had like 10 anime i wanted to mention, I was able to cut it down to a top 6, but number 5 and 6 were so close i figured i'd flip a coin to see who made the final 5...

-honorable mention - Eden of the East

5) Pandora Hearts like Eden of the East is pretty much all about the past, and the investigation into it. I think it deserves a solid place on the list.

4) Fullmetal Alchemist has a big part for the role past history plays in the story... and it really brings the world to life.

3) Darker than Black this was a scifi story that started pretty much in the middle of the action so to speak. The past was a huge part of how everyone got to where they were, and where everything was going, but like the workings of the world itself this anime kept us guessing. Fascinating storytelling interesting and important past.

2) Bakemonogatari the show alludes to "golden week" and what happened to Araragi durring that week a number of times, but other then a brief intro in ep 1, and some flashed clips, we're left guessing about the main character's past. Its so interesting a story they're going to make a prequel about it, and frankly... I'll be waiting anxiously over the next year for it. I'll say this deserves a place if for no other reason then it was so interesting to the fans of the anime they're making a prequel just to tell the story of it.

1) Higurashi no Naku Koro ni probably has the best past of any anime i've watched, and it's role plays an central part of the story in helping us figure out what's happening in this town. Well done.