You had me here, then you lost me on Future boy conan. Which makes me wonder if I need to watch it. We might just have become best friends.
Claymore- My favorite anime of all time. Half Demon(Yoma) Half Humans are the only things that can kill demons. All the different claymores have unique abilities and it is interesting seeing them interact with one another. Berserk- Bloody, dark, gritty tale of a band of mercenaries rise to power in the land. Guts main character OP Bacanno!- Character driven plot with some action. Story is told like a Quentin Tarantino movie out of order.
One Piece Dragon Ball Z Doraemon Slam Dunk (This one is actually my all time favourite Manga. It's about basketball, very high quality, funny, intense and inspiring. Though the anime is not that great and does not cover the whole story)
It's all so silly and the plot is always the same. This guy will destroy planet x, the fighters must stop him! So they take turns getting beat up, transforming/powering up to beat that guy up, that guy then transform to beat them up again...then Goku comes back from whatever has kept him absent to get rid of him. Naruto gets a knock by some people because of how kiddy it looks. I remember thinking the same thing about it and then I sat down and watched it. Some of the best animated fights I've seen, variety of characters, and the plot is interesting. Anyways for me Cowboy Bebop, Death Note, FLCL Also I'll mention Bleach since no one else has and its early seasons were great.
No love for Samurai Champloo?? Yu yu Hakusho Samurai Champloo FMA: Brotherhood All have a perfect mix of story, humor, drama, and action.
Itachi Uchiha is probably one of the most well received characters in anime history. Obito vs Kakashi, Pain vs Naruto, Rock Lee vs Gaara were incredible fights.
surprised trigun took this long to be mentioned. you nailed my three dbz/trigun/bebop honorable mention: Samurai Champloo
I feel like it ages pretty well. I did a rewatch of it maybe two or three years ago. It's one of the rare animes where I prefer the dub to the sub. Yusuke's voice actor killed it, and Kuwabara has such a unique voice that I can't imagine him not having that voice. The animation style does look old compared with modern animes, but it didn't ruin the experience of watching it for me. I'm glad Yu Yu Hakusho is getting so much love in this thread.
The DBZ, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece debate is really silly to me They all stall, are full of filler, recycle plots and power up the characters when the plot calls for it. Naruto and One Piece stall, have way more filler, and ridiculous power ups than DBZ ever did. They both go from Boss to Boss too.. Naruto doesn't get a knock because it looks kiddy; I don't think that was ever a reason (some) people dislike the show. Be honest, do you have any Idea what is really going on in Naruto? It's complicated just to be complicated.
I don't think Naruto is complicated at all. It's a world riddled with war, villains get tired of never ending war, decide to make reality into a fantasy using a jutsu. I don't want to spoil the rest but what's going on at the moment is also pretty simple. I do agree the shows biggest faults are the ridiculously long fillers although the most recent Itachi ones were badass.
Never said it didn't have filler and yes, it is a reason people dislike the show. Also yes, I do know what is going on in Naruto and no, they do not all go from boss to boss since Naruto's whole story is based on a rivalry with an ex-friend. The problem with DBZ is that they literally recycle the same plot for every story arch. Those other shows don't. This is basically every story arch during DBZ Spoiler Dragonball was much better.