Now then,
Sunrise is kind of a big deal, I guess. They are probably the largest studio we'll be looking at, have a very long history, and are responsible for a ton of the most well known anime worldwide.
Their start goes all the way back to the 70s. Back then, they were doing the typical old-school super robot shows. That is, until 1979, when a Mr. Yoshiyuki Tomino sought to spawn a little show called Gundam. Since then, they've gone on to produce many a show. While early on, they focused on the robots, like Ideon, more Gundam, Dunbine, more Gundam, Xabungle, more Gundam, VOTOMS, or more Gundam, they also stretched out to produce other kinds of shows as they went into the 90s and 2000s. There are things that people really like that I haven't seen like Inuyasha, Yakitate!! Japan, My-Hime, and some show that no one likes or has seen called Cowboy Bebop.
「つのわれ」 by ZB
Ah, Gundam. Probably the most ubiquitous anime thing on the planet. Yes, Sunrise is the progenitor of Gundam. I've already written like a billion words about Gundam already, so go on over to this thread if you want to read (or even talk!) about Gundam.
「天空のエスカフローネ」 by Zeta.Slasher
The brainchild of Shouji Kawamori of Macross fame, Escaflowne is an interesting show. First of all, throwing in mecha into a medieval fantasy world was pretty neat. And then there's the fact that the main character wasn't the guy who was piloting the fancy white mecha. Add to that the Yoko Kanno soundtrack and Maaya Sakamoto as the main character and we've got something special.
「コードギアスR2」 by KL
Code Geass is a project that has become one of Sunrise's most popular shows outside of Gundam in recent years. The basis of the show is rumoured to have been a result of the producers wondering what a show in which Char Aznable would be like. Geass basically mixes in your political intrigue, mecha, and character archetypes from Gundam and throws in high school shenanigans, magical powers, and Death Note-esque just as keikaku moments.
Remember that I only talk in depth about stuff I've seen, so I guess you can extrapolate what shows I've seen based on the things I chose to highlight! In other words, go wild if you think I missed something, just don't yell at me for not having seen it or missed it because I probably know already.
Next time:
Our journey starts, on this long, long steep slope
