Is there any good new serious science-fiction anime? I get Otaku USA, but all I see lately is things like overly cute magical girls and supernatural stuff.
Yeah, I second that Space Battleship Yamato 2199 rec. I don't know of anything else that's current. Psycho-Pass from earlier this year may also fit the bill.
I've been thrilled by Aku no Hana, or Flowers of Evil lately. Crazy loner girl bullies emo teen boy who takes quivering to amazing levels. It's drawn over live actors, looks naturalistic, but more over-dramatically emotive than any cartoon or live action character, so every single movement is utter hilarity, while rawly tragic. You know you want to watch it... 7 out of 13 episodes have aired. First one is funny because of how ludicrously portentous it can be, even though nothing happens. After that every episode is better, and more eventful than the last.
Actually that's been the trend in Japan for a bunch of recent years, and since what we get is what they get first...
At least Madoka is a serious sci-fi, if with little girls, and core ideas nicked from Evangelion. Haven't watched much sci-fi anime, a few non-sf dramas I did watch and enjoy a lot (NHK, Kaiji), as the few I tried semi-randomly were lame (Macross Frontier, RahXephon), or I had no idea what was happening, for one reason or another (Lain, Ergo Proxy). Little girl shows they do consistently well.
Yeah, I like lots of different stuff, myself so the current trends are still in line with some my tastes. Right now I'm watching 2 violent hack and slash action shows, a mecha anime, a supernatural show, an epic space opera, 2 sci-fi comedies, a romantic comedy/drama, an action/fanservice show, and a street racing anime.
Magic girls are a specific genre of japanese children's fiction that has been around for decades. Madoka was a recent attempt at selling it for adult audiences much like what Eva did for mech. The more recent trends is trying to insert a high school setting in everything such as Gundam AGE.
Region A BD/DVD Combo pack from Funimation will only run you $38 for part 1 and the same for part 2. Or you could just just wiait for the inevitable complete collection in a year or two. Not only just an attempt, but a huge financial success. Although, I think things like the Lyrical Nanoha franchise which came before it, deserve some credit too for giving people the idea that magical girl stuff can be tweaked to appeal to a different audience. Case in point: me, because normally I wouldn't touch magical girl stuff with a ten foot pole, but I did enjoy the heck out of Madoka Magica and Nanoha franchises.
I will recommend Aria just because. Oh wow, they actually put the entire first season up on youtube, but only for the next few days: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=ELUBu-GdB_TS0
Here's a new title worth keeping an eye on if you like submarine based scifi: Arpeggio of Blue Steel No release date yet, but it'll probably be Fall 2013 or Winter 2014 at the earliest.
That series had the exact opposite effect on me. I'm usually a patient easy going person and I've watched a lot of slice of life anime, but I really had to force myself to slog through it because as you noted literally nothing ever happens. It's just fluff. Never bothered with the sequels. I suppose it has therapeutic value as a sleep aide...
Stein's Gate looks cool, I'm set to watch the whole series soon. I wanted to clarify a comment I made about The Legend of the Galactic Heroes...when I called it silly, I only meant one aspect of it, not the whole thing, it is a very good though extremely long series. RAMA
I can't say it's my favorite (That's reserved for GITS), but i devoured it almost whole when i found the series on DVD, and i read the manga on-line, and all the while i was consuming both i was thinking "I should hate this," but i couldn't bring myself to. My first experience of it was a sample episode on an insert DVD. It cut out halfway through the viewing and I couldn't get it to start up again, so I had to look elsewhere to see the rest of it. And I found it, and I was hooked.