Obscure Anime

We all know about the more popular anime series like Naruto, Attack on Titan, etc., but what about the lesser known anime?
If you know any obscure anime that deserves more attention, feel free to post them here and give us a synopsis or somethin'. I like to go into detail about things though, so my entries are gonna be looooong.


For me, I have two animes (Wait...'animes'? Is that grammatically correct? Does the plural of anime have an 's' at the end? If there are any English majors out there, please let me know cause this question has been killing me for a while.) that I think deserve more attention.

Mushishi
Okay, I'm willing to bet that some of you out there know this one. Mushishi isn't what you automatically think of one someone says 'anime'. There's no action scenes, or zany comedy, or anything like that. That doesn't mean this is a bad anime, not at all--it's actually up on #2 on my favourite anime list.
Mushishi is a very calming experience that has no distinct plot or story, it's just about the strange beings called Mushi, that inhabit our world, and the people who are affected by them. It's episodic in nature, each episode going over a different case, and each one is memorable in its own ways. It's real pretty to watch, having a beautiful soundtrack and amazing backgrounds. There isn't much character, since there really is only one main character, but all of them are somehow relateable and likeable. (there are a few arses though, but they're rare and only last one episode)
I can understand if Mushishi isn't your kind of thing, I can see why, but if you're looking for a breath of fresh air when it comes to anime definitely check this one out.
Side note: the English Dub is actually pretty good. They got Travis Willigham, AKA Roy Mustang, to voice the main character. Unfortunately, only the first season has been dubbed.

Mononoke
No. I'm not talking about the Studio Ghibli film. Mononoke is a...weird anime. So weird that I'm having difficulty describing it. It's a paranormal, detective anime, and you know what happens when paranormal and Japan mix, right? Answer: we get weird.
Mononoke is split up into arcs, each about a different Mononoke or evil spirit. The main character, the Medicine Seller (yeah, they never give him a name. everyone else just calls him the Medicine Seller) is the one who exterminates these Mononoke but he has to find their Form, Reason, and Regret (what kind of specific spirit it is, how it was created, and what it wants, respectively) in order to exterminate it. All the characters in each arc are somehow associated with the Mononoke and who or what it was before death and it's really just a big puzzle how everything fits in.
Unlike Mushishi, there is some action in it, albeit you won't find anything to the extent of... I dunno Dragonball or... Naruto (I honestly don't know, I don't watch a lot of shonen) in it. It's animation style is very unique, having a Japanese woodblock print aesthetic and lots of bright and trippy colours and patterns. I can't really say much for character unfortunately, the side characters in each arc are all characters we've seen before and the Medicine Seller doesn't have much besides a cool design and an aloof personality, he's a lot of fun to watch though.
Mononoke is weird. I cannot stress that enough. Seriously, if you're not prepared or courageous enough, you might not want to watch this anime. If you're the artistic sort though, check this one out. Warning: it's weird.

 

Sorry, I have to jump in again with 2 more entries.

Hotarubi no Mori e
Hotarubi no Mori e, or "Into the Forest of Fireflies' Light", isn't a series, I wouldn't even call it a movie. The running time is just over half an hour and it follows a young girl as she retells the story of how she got lost in a forest full of spirits and is saved by Gin, a human -like spirit. The two play together everyday, every time she visits for the summer. As she grows older into young adulthood, Gin stays the same age.
It is a romance, just telling you that now in case that's not your thing. It doesn't go into lusty Twilight territory, don't worry. It's all very sweet, think of the first ten minutes of Pixar's Up. The soundtrack is pretty good too; the ending song is particularly saddening.
If you like Natsume's Book of Friends, the original manga was written by the same person, Yuki Midorikawa.
It's really short, so definitely check it out.

Persona 4 the Animation
Not sure if this really counts. No one talks about it, so it's obscure in my book!
Persona 4 is based on the game of the same name and follows the same plot. A city boy goes to a town in the country, Inaba, to live with his uncle and cousin for a while. He goes to school and schmuck, but more importantly there's a string of strange murders in Inaba and of a weird channel that only shows on rainy nights on Midnight, aptly named the 'Midnight Channel'. The protagonist steps inside a TV (no, he seriously goes into a TV. Just walks right into it) and finds a world behind the TVs. He and friends find out that the TV world in somehow connected to the murders in Inaba, and they take it upon themselves to find the killer.
That's just me paraphrasing the plot. There's a lot of other stuff in there too, like things called 'Personas' which are summons of sorts, teenage camaraderie, school field trips, and shenanigans. Lots of shenanigans.
Like the game, it has its serious moments, but also lots of sweet moment and humour and too. (There are times when I cried laughing watching this series.) If you've played the game and you like it, for Izanagi's sake watch the animation! If you're a newbie to the Shin Megami Tensei series, you don't have to pick up the games to understand the anime; sure, you won't be able to recognize the summons, but they don't put much emphasis on them.
If you're one of those people, like me, who prefer watching with English dub, they have that--and it's not ear-bleedingly awful! The VAs from the game make a return for the anime, and some of them are easily recognized voice actors (Johnny Young Bosch, Yuri Lowenthal, and Troy Baker--later replaced by Matthew Mercer)