Sci-fi and crime: Psycho Pass (Season 1 only)

Spice and Wolf is an anime about a traveling merchant, i couldn’t recommend it enough. Although there is a new anime of it coming out soon if you want to wait

Made in Abyss is a horror anime about kids exploring what has affectionately been called “Uncle Lovecraft’s fun time murder hole”

Girls Last Tour is an anime about two girls exploring the apocalypse. The music is literally addicting, i typed the name and it’s stuck in my head. You will cry.

Those all hit an exploration Itch, i recommend going to myanimelist.net to help keep track of what you might want to watch.

Maybe something like Shinsekai Yori?

I personally highly recommend Mushoku Tensei. It has some controversial points, and I feel that during the course of the story (particularly in the LN) they were straightened out since the main character stopped identifying himself as his pre reincarnation person and fully went in as Rudeus.

The art, animation, and music are all gorgeous. The world building is there, quite in depth too. Also, the first four of the first season has some of the best intros and outros I have ever seen in 40+ years of watching anime.

I may a bit biased. 😅

Hello! Lots of good suggestions here already.

But I am here to shill for my favourite manga, now being adapted into an anime, Dungeon Meshi.

The first 12 episodes are on netflix and so far the execution has been stellar. I’m running a community for it here: [email protected]

You mention the slow character build up and detailed world building of Frieren being enjoyable, and Dungeon Meshi excels at those same things. Personally I’d even dare say it keeps up the quality of that stuff, while it eventually kind falls off a bit in Frieren in favor of focusing on arcs that can feel like B-plots. That’s not even a criticism, it’s simply a different kind of story, and the anime hasn’t gotten to that point.

Dungeon Meshi in comparison is fairly short (I currently estimate it will wrap up in 48 episodes, after a second season), but it is a deep and complex story featuring far more than one character worth focusing on, set in a world with a rich history. Its rate of publishing was a single chapter every other month, which I think resulted in a level of attention to detail few weekly published mangas can achieve.

It merely masquerades as a simple comedy/cooking story with a fantasy gimmick.

And now we are getting an anime adaptation of that masterpiece, by none other than Studio Trigger!

If you give it a chance, pay attention to the details, as it starts to set things up from episode one, that will come together only much later.

Madoka Magica, Vinland Saga

To Your Eternity and Violet Evergarden are some good anime to watch after Frieren.

Apothecary Diaries Stein’s Gate Violet Evergarden Odd Taxi

or some classics like

Legend of the Galactic Heros Initial D

Spy x Family

Land of the Lustrous

Yuru Camp

One Piece

Madoka Magica

Nichijou

A Place Further Than The Universe

Vivy

Violet Evergarden

Welcome to the NHK

Fullmetal Alchemist

Blue eye samurai was so dam good.

It’s not anime but the silent voice manga was super good with good personal growth

Kino’s journey, Mushishi, Violet Evergarden are all excellent shows but I would add: girl’s last tour

And if you have time for more: 86

There’s already quite a lot of good recommendations here. I’ll just add another voice recommending Kino’s Journey and To Your Eternity.

Also, I’d say don’t expect Frieren levels of polish and awesomeness with the recommendations given, as Frieren is just a different level altogether (with lots of deserved hype).

As for my own recommendations? Let’s see:

• Aria the Animation, Natural, and Origination — this is but one anime series with three seasons of varying length. Every episode is more or less self-contained, but the characters develop slowly over the span of a lot of episodes (I counted 72 for all three seasons, could be wrong though). In a way, the character growth and exploration here is more comparable to real life. The pacing might be a bit too slow for a lot of people though. and the overall tone might be a bit too sweet for some. There’s some world-building here, but it’s really subtle at times—with the episodes focusing instead on the everyday and sometimes, the supernatural goings-on around the city the characters live in.

• Natsume Yuujinchou [Nastume’s Book of Friends] — six seasons of varying lengths. This is also mostly episodic with some character growth happening but the kind that you’d easily miss just watching the episodes. This one, however, has more supernatural themes, but also touches on how the youkai (non-human entities–to put things simply) differ from humans not only in mindset, but also in their perception of time.

• Mushishi — I haven’t yet watched this one in its entirety, but this is favorably compared to Natsume Yuujinchou, and so it might hit the same notes as that one.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood might interest you. Thinking about interesting character studies - if you like stories with horror elements, Monster is great. Cowboy Bebop is a classic sci fi story. I was personally a big fan of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit.

I would suggest Magical Index.

It has a pretty broad spectrum of themes and characters.

The spinoff series Scientific Railgun tells a similar story from a different perspective. That is also quite enjoyable. You can decide if you want to watch one or the other or both.

Wolfs rain is an overlooked gem about wolves and a girl at the end of the world. It was the next project the storyboard director from evangelion went on to work on iirc, one of studio bones first projects and fantastic music by yoko kanno throughout. Every character in it both good and “bad” has a motive, has a reason for their actions, and is wonderfully fleshed out. It plays a bit with character archetypes and how they break down when they are actually real people, reminiscent of EVA. Wolf’s Rain is also on my short-list of great animes that also finish well.

You will cry through. Oh yes.

Imma go watch it again