I'm in the middle of two anime series right now, and enjoying them both
Full Metal Panic (2002) - This is a lot of fun. The general story is that teenager Sgt. Sagara Sousuke works for Mirthril, a top secret anti-terrorist agency. Together with his two partners, he must protect the life of high school girl Kaname Chidori, as she apparently has some latent tie in to some "Black Technology", the technology that powers Mithril's (and others) mecha and other weapons systems. Sagara's problem is that he pretty much is a military geek and knows *nothing* about living in civilian life, and takes his job seriously to the extreme. Kaname is confused, frustrated, and slghtly attracted to Sagara's over the top gung-ho action combined with stoic dead-pan seriousness. This series has a good balance between serious mecha combat mixed with fish-out-of-water romantic sillines. At one point, Kaname's entire class field-trip is hijacked by some pretty bad dudes who want her secret (and to her, unknown) knowledge, and it's played straight up serious and deadly. In another episode, the socially inept Sagara is roped into pretending to be another girl's boyfriend to impress her friends, with humourously disasterous results. As I said, good animation, good characterizations, and a lot of fun.
Gasaraki (1998) - More Mecha Mayhem, played totally serious, with some very good artwork and animation. It's also more than a bit confusing. The general plot is that the Gowa family/company is developing TAs (Tactical Armor - your obligatory mecha) to sell to the Japanes government, and maybe others. One of the members of the military unit that is testing the TAs is Yushiro Gowa, youngest member of the Gowa family and technically a civilian. Meanwhile the Gowa family is also involved in some research project which is not clearly defined but involves Yushiro having to do a traditional Japanes dance that summons...something of incredible power. Before the summoning is complete, Yushiro is touched mentally by...someone...warning him not to bring back The Terror* As this is happening a similar experiment is conducted in a fictional Mid East nation and the results of the experiment are detected by satellite and mistaken to be some sort of Weapon of Mass Destruction testing, leading the UN, driven by the US, to invade. Except, like the Gowa family pulling the strings of the Japanese Self Defense Force, there is another organization behind the leadership of this mid-east nation, and the whole test, and invasion, are just a setup to do some weapons testing and other sorts of research.... But the Japanese do send Yushiro and the TAs into combat in the mid-east, where Yushiro finds a women (Miharu) who has the same strange powers as he does...and she's working for the other side. This is a complex and indepth story involving politics, mysticism, and mecha. Well worth your time if you can get through the confusing opening
I'm only a few DVDs into both series and...so far so good.
*The Terror - I had to stilfe a grin when it was called 'the terror' as I just had watched "The Terror", an early 60s Roger Cormon movies starring An old Boris Karloff and a ery young Jack Nicholson
One other trivial note. Monica Rial plays the voice of Miharu, the enemy "invitator" and mecha pilot in "Gasaraki", and Kyoko, Kaname's friend in "Full Metal Panic". I first noticed Rial in the fan-service spectacular "Najica:Blitz Tactics" as Lila (mostly because the actor commentary between her Kira Vincent-Davis on the first DVD is hilarious) I see now looking through IMDB that she has been in several others I have seen, such as FullMetal Alchamist and Neon Genesis Evangeloin
