Radaghast

When I started counting what anime I have watched, it turned out I was nearing the 'otaku' border (two months) but was not quite there, which looked like a challenge too much and I couldn't resist beating it ;) Now I'm more relaxed and can afford spending more time on books, non-anime movies, music, manga, etc. I still like anime a lot, though, it's just shifted from "one series in two days" to "one series a month".

Most of the stuff I've watched is shounen or something that looks like shounen to me. Unfortunately, I happened to watch almost all mainstream shounen series, so now I'm enjoying the less popular ones or some that I accidentally missed.

My absolute favourites among the 'dark horses' are:

• Kekkaishi (and Kekkaishi manga!) — deserves to be counted together with the big shounen monoliths, and if they ever finish animating the whole story, then it will deserve a place higher than most of mainstream shounen
• Shura no Toki — nicely historic, also a well-designed narration with a separate style per episode
• Gosick — a beautiful detective story, well-drawn, wel-thought and well-told
• Grenadier — worlds apart from the usual combat+boobs combo series
• Bamboo Blade — positioned sometimes as a slice-of-life, this one is actually a very decent sport/shounen piece, with the hero being a talented yet polite girl and not an arrogant boy
• Hunter × Hunter (and Hunter × Hunter manga) — kinda popular series, but just not enough to make the mainstream cut, while the plot is of excellent quality (some reasons it is not that popular as listed in this wonderful review of its remake)
• Beet the Vandel Buster and Excellion — a game-like series of the likes of Rave Master, Dragon Quest or Greed Island, very nicely executed and drawn (it would be my topper if I were that much into JRPGs)
• Katanagatari — a peculiar drawing style, but very powerful, action-packed and dramatic
• Deadman Wonderland — a sane crossover of Dead Leaves and Akira, done right
• Sunabouzu — modern series which is postapocalyptic yet not extremely dark, a kind of Hokuto done nowadays with tech instead of martial arts
• King of Bandit Jing — the plot makes no sense, but the setting is on par with Soul Eater, and the drawing style is very much enjoyable
• Airmaster — you cannot find anything negative to say about this one, unless you hate streetfighting and tournament anime

My favourite seiyu (voice actors) are:

• Tachiki Fumihiko (Zaraki Kenpachi from Bleach, Kugashira Bunji from Gungrave, Don Krieg from One Piece, Souma Sanzo from Grenadier)
• Yao Kazuki (Franky & Bon Clay from One Piece, Tawara Bunshichi from Tenjho Tenge, Dark Schneider from Bastard)
• Ohtsuka Houchu (Jiraiya from Naruto and Shippuden, Kuki Masayoshi from RahXephon, Samekichi Shirogane from Kaze no Yojimbo)
• Nakai Kazuya (Roronoa Zoro from One Piece, Kojima Yajiro from Grenadier, Mugen from Samurai Champloo)
• Yamaguchi Kappei (Rokuta/Enki from 12 Kingdoms, L from Death Note, InuYasha from InuYasha, Usopp from One Piece)
• Nobuyuki Hiyama (Madarame Ikkaku from Bleach, Viral from TTGL, Hiei from YYH)
• Wakamoto Norio (Onsokumaru from 2×2, Cell from DBZ, Paladin Anderson from Hellsing, many others)

When I'm not watching anime, I also occasionally enjoy drawing fanart.