My first exposure to anime was Gundam. I livied in Nagasaki when I was six (in spitting distance of ground zero there…) The first series of Gundam was being aired there, and I was forever scarred. I rewatched it a couple of years ago, and it actually still works pretty good. All hand-drawn of course, but really well done.
I second the Cowboy Bebop recommendation. There are very few anime series that I have actually sat down and watched all the way through and Cowboy Bebop is one of them. The characters are compelling, the setting is surprisingly complex, and it has a comedic, episodic arch that becomes serial and dramatic arch halfway through the series. Also, the music is quite good as well; it is scored by a famous jazz musicial named Yoko Kanno.
The series is well done and full of surprises.
My other recommendation is Trigun, which I’m also surprised hasn’t made the list yet (actually, it may have and I’ve missed it–if so, I’m sorry). It’s about a man (Vash) who is a red trenchcoat-wearing vigilante who travels around helping people in a western-type, steampunk, post-apocalyptic world. It also starts as an episodic comedy series and then morphs into something more serious. It is less cohesive than Cowboy Bebop, but also has compelling characters and a complex, interesting setting. The music is also very good, and is scored by Tsuneo Imahori. The music sounds like a mixture of Vangelis from Blade Runner and Led Zepplin (if that makes any sense at all).
Both are worth checking out.
Frakkin’ Awesome. Star Blazers (Space Battleship/Cruiser Yamato) holds a really special place for me. In the '79/'80 it played on really early weekday tv on a slightly unpredictable schedule (to an 8-year old at least), mixed with early Robotech. I wasn’t allowed to watch tv before school, but luckily at 6:00am my parents weren’t up and I could sneak downstairs, plug a single-ear headphone into the side of the tv, and try to watch it.
http://www.desslok.com/ for a great Star Blazers resource.
This made me think of another childhood favorite of mine
Okay, I had to find a video for Battle of the Planets (Science Ninja Team Gatchaman), except the you-tube caption got it wrong, it was adapted and aired in the US in '78 to take advantage of Star Wars, which is kinda obvious when you watch the intro. No wonder I liked it!
And check out the teaser trailers for the planned Gatchaman CGI movie. What a difference a few decades makes 
http://www.imagi.com.hk/web/eng/coming-soon/gatchaman.html
Okay, I have to reply to that one . . . I LOVED Battle of the Planets. It was litterally my favorite saturday morning Sci-Fi Fix.
Today I have the first Six of the DVD collection that was sold in stores like Suncoast. I also read a comic adaptation that was published within the last 5 years. It had a surprisingly compelling story line and gave depth to many of my favorite characters.
. . . . Transmute! . . . .
Me Four with the Battle of the Planets love. I had a LEGO space-themed set that I conveniently imagined as 7-Zark-7 and crew.
blastr.com had this new two minute segment from the live action Space Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers).
I need some more epic space battles in my life!!!
http://blastr.com/2010/12/watch-1st-two-minutes-of-new-live-action-space-battleship-yamato.php
This looks fraking amazing. I really, really want to watch this. The looks on the faces of the people in the top right are pretty awesome too.
Forgive me, but I need to cross post this. d:
Oh nice. They seem to have paid attention to BSG.
Imma going to squee in a minute… Excuse me.
Dear goodness, we need more sci-fi like this. I enjoyed BSG to an extent, but I lost it on all the extensive interpersonal this that and the other. It was amazing drama, but I would like to see a series with clear-cut space battle ossimness. Did somebody ever say they were doing a live action Robotech?
The did a live action Gundam movie called G Savior. But, it was American made and bad like Robot Jocks. Ok, not that bad, but still.
Yep the battle at Pluto from the opening of the series!
Here is another five minutes with the Ultra Menace Missile…
Fixed your link.
Thanks Man I still don’t know how to post a Youtube here
Figures they cut it right before we get to see the effect for the wave motion gun! :mad:
photonutz09, thanks for posting dude!!
Okay its not anime but I think it fits.
This rocked my world as a child
Star Fleet in the UK but I think its called X-Bomber elsewhere
Men in suits FTW
As I die hard Gundam fan…I recommend any incarnation of the Gundam anime. Any one. They’re all that great, and all tell epic space opera stories worthy of any science fiction lover.
Ergo Proxy is another great series, and Fullmetal Alchemist speaks volumes for itself, I think. 
As a series, the S.A.C. is not as “slick” looking as the original movies. However, they do a lot of character development and introduce some really “Matrix-e” philosophical concepts. You can buy the S.A.C. on Amizon dot com as a package. Also, check out the comix. There are a couple of collections of the original comix (though I bought a lot of the original issues just to have them). The comix have some heavy-duty stuff in them and the artwork is fantastic.
Thanks for mentioning Cowboy Bebop. What a great series! Too bad they killed Spike off. I just about rolled on the floor when Faye got the videotape and they made a field trip to an abandoned museum to get a tape player, only to find out when they got back that they had gotten a VCR and the tape was Betamax, so they had to go all the way back to get the right format machine. And what a great show when an old friend of Spike’s had to fire up the last existing space shuttle to rescue Spike when his ship got marooned in orbit.
I love all the characters, and they spend some time in developing them so they are not two dimensional at all. Great series!