Edit:
I was inspired by the other thread to find some anime I'm willing to watch. I need some assistance.
My requirements:
-Normal colored hair.
-Limited amount of that female baby voice (only on little kids is it not grating).
-Nothing with too much fan service or really pervy.
-More realistically stylized art.
Anime's I like that best represent what I'd watch:
Memories
Robot Carnival (mostly)
Makoto Shinkai (anything similar to stuff by this dude)
Neo Tokyo
Jin-Roh
Tokyo Godfathers
-Welcome to the Space Show, Wolf Children and Summer Wars things that I've liked that I was just a tiny bit bored by the story, but found them really enjoyable all the same. I enjoyed the bright and colorful visuals.
I'd think you might really enjoy Hyouka. Fits your criteria perfectly and I think it's sort of similar to Shinkai's work, too. I mean I love 5cm/s a hell lot and that's in part because the film does 'show, don't tell' right and takes a subdued approach in how it handles all it's romance and drama elements. Instead of having excessive inner monologue spelling out a character's every thought, Hyouka conveys everything you need to know by simply showing the characters behavior with much nuance.
It's also a candidate for the best looking anime series. Not only does it look very detailed and beautiful, the very strong direction makes everything that just the more appealing.
Last but not least it contains some of the best written characters and character development.
I could recommend others, but I think this would be the seemingly best fit.
Digimon Tri 3
The use of music in this is really weird, either it's full on insert-song or it's this fucking creepy-ass silence. What the heck? Okay, I guess there's some more somber stuff.
lol everyone ignoring izzy. This stupid drama about 'oh noes our digimons are doing damage they're seen as the *enemy* is so... blah. It's so anime, I dunno. At least it's a good excuse to immediately revert back to the standard "Matt and Tai are fucking idiots" storyline. That Jo scene got a laugh though.
OH SHIT MATT'S still got his harmonica! Siiiiiiiick
this sunset scene's pretty good yo.
izzy none of what you said makes any sense, but i'll give you props for somehow having a fucking server rack in a tokyo apartment. Good thing the Japanese MIB are on your side
The overall direction is just really bad. Sound, cutting, type of shots, timings and whatever else there is. It just all doesn't rhyme well together. In the 4th episode when all the flashbacks take place and the hesitation afterwards where Tai and Matt keep moving their heads strangely...just what the fuck. Every time this director tries to make a moment stand out it...well, I guess he succeeds in making it stand out; sadly just negatively.
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@ sonicmj1
Going from The Wire Season 4 to Clannad...Jesus Christ the disparity in quality should crush you. For what it's worth, you're at least about to reach the last third of Clannad Afterstory, which I consider to be actually quite good when regarded on their own. I don't want to spoil everything but even there's some stupid bit but yeh, even though i despised pretty much everything else of Clannad, that last third of Afterstory actually worked well for me.
