Better Than It Sounds/Anime and Manga P-S

Please sort new titles alphabetically by their official (not fansub) English-release titles to avoid double-entries.

Genesis of Aquarion: Robot powered by orgasms fights every fairy tale ever.
Godannar: A husband and his much younger wife pilot two giant robots that combine into one giant robot to battle giant monsters from outer space. Gainaxing ensues.

Pandora Hearts: A cheerful, 15-year-old boy tries to figure out how he became the main character in Alice in Wonderland.
- Alternatively: A teenage boy who is secretly 25 tries to get his daddy's approval with his useless servant and a bunny girl. Alice in Wonderland references are everywhere. Similar to a story written by CLAMP, minus the noodles.
Pani Poni Dash: An eleven-year-old college graduate and her mopey, long-suffering pet teach an eccentric high school class in Japan.
Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt: A nympho and a Sweet Tooth fight the demonic personifications of everything disgusting in a city under siege using their frilly things that turn into energy weapons. Gainax ensues and the biggest mindfuck in the studio's history ends it.
- Or: Two siblings use their various undergarments to fight off the forces of evil. The art design could easily be confused for The Powerpuff Girls.
Paradise Kiss: Stiff and dull student is abducted by technicolor-haired aspiring fashion designers. Flamboyant jerkass dandy makes her his muse. The author loves Vivienne Westwood.
Paranoia Agent: A girl has a period cramp, and because of this her dog dies. Tokyo is destroyed as an indirect result.
Parasyte: A teenager's hand turns into a sentient penis. They fight aliens.
Peach Girl: A tan girl falls in love.
Perfect Blue: A pop idol becomes an actress, but her manager isn't sure that she should. At least one character is insane.
Pet Shop of Horrors: Mysterious Bishonen runs evil pet shop with poor customer service and no return policy.
Piano: A high-school girl helps her best pal find a boyfriend. She plays piano too. Sometimes.
Planetes: Garbage collectors In Space!.
- Alternatively: Garbage collectors discuss morality and associated political issues.
- Or: Garbage collector is nearly driven insane by trauma, seeks to make something of himself. Terrorists and a romantic side-plot almost screw everything up for him.
Please Save My Earth: Babysitter knocks charge off balcony. They get engaged.
Please Teacher!: Alien teacher marries a narcoleptic high-school student.
Please Twins!: Two teenage girls move in with a teenage guy. One of them is his sister, but none of them know which one. Ecchi scenes ensue.
Pluto: German robot seeks information from Robo-Hannibal Lecter and Saddam Hussein. Is thwarted by evil teddy bear.
Pokémon: Boy walks the Earth with his collection of compactified combat critters while being stalked by a redhead, a runaway heir to the world's biggest fortune and a talking cat.
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Darkness: An amnesiac kid with psychic powers teams up with a different geek and a hyperactive girl. They go out to defeat a perverted dragon and get a scale.
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Beyond Time and Darkness: Said amnesiac psychic kid causes a time paradox.
- Pokémon: The First Movie: Clone gets the Cloning Blues and wants revenge on the world. He stops after nearly killing somebody.
- Pokémon 2000: A collector of rare things accidentally triggers severe climate change. The fate of the world is saved through a pun.
- Pokémon 3: Little girl who loses her parents uses a magic alphabet to replace them. The alphabet accomplishes this by providing a fire-breathing beast for the dad and brainwashing someone else's mom.
- Pokémon 4Ever: Nature Spirit escapes capture by Time Travelling into the future, only to be captured anyway.
- The Legend of Thunder: A generator draws electric Mons toward it, and a legendary beast is caught in the confusion.
- Pokémon Heroes: Two thieves try to steal strange gem. Two voluntary shapeshifters who can make themselves invisible fight back.
- Pokémon: Jirachi Wishmaker: Magician makes a wish to summon a beast with the powers over the earth. He gets an Eldritch Abomination instead.
- Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys: Aliens pay a visit and are mistaken for invaders.
- Pokémon: Lucario and The Mystery of Mew: A tree is collapsing and a desperate struggle is underway to save it. Meanwhile, two cats and a mouse play in a tree.
- Pokémon Ranger and The Temple of The Sea: Young girl becomes a mommy at the age of ten. A Pirate demands sole custody.
- Pokémon the Rise of Darkrai: Two Kaiju considered gods by the locals have a fight that threatens to make a town literally not exist. Meanwhile an Eldritch Abomination tries to convince people that he is not evil.
- Pokémon: Giratina and The Sky Warrior: Another Kaiju is ticked off at the previous two for trashing its home. But first it needs a hedgehog with an attitude in order to leave home.
- Pokémon Arceus and The Jewel of Life: The above three Kaiju's parent awakens due to their fighting. It's God and it's enraged at the humans about its missing jewelry.
- Pokémon Zoroark Master of Illusions: A Mama FOX goes on a shapeshifting rampage after her baby gets kidnapped.
- Victini and the Black Hero: Zekrom/Victini and the White Hero: Reshiram: One Film For The Price Of Two
Pokémon Special: A bunch of kids walk the Earth, keep befriended animals in portable habitats and battle with them. Has a more serious tone than the above. A plant with glasses draws some of it.
Pom Poko: A group of forest animals become eco-terrorists, with unpleasant consequences.
Porco Rosso: A pilot becomes the other white meat, then beats up pirates and a pushy American.
- Italian fascists don't like it when pigs fly. Harmless pirates and a lounge singer are involved.
Potemayo: Daily life of a boy and his new pet.
- Alternatively, the daily life of a Huge Schoolgirl and her wild, laser-firing new pet.
Prétear: A girl is hired by a group of Bishonen to help fix changing weather patterns. Though it's actually more complicated, they appear to turn into clothes.
Pretty Face: Through the magic of plastic surgery, a teenage boy comes back from the dead as his crush's twin sister.
The Prince of Tennis: Skill at sport bestows ability to defy physics and commit genocide against the dinosaurs.
- Or: Hitting a fuzzy rubber ball better than anyone else is more important than grades, a future job, or one's physical well-being.
- Or: A sports anime where the opposing players are way more interesting than the protagonists.
- Or: Ho Yay: The Sports Manga.
Princess Mononoke: A dying man helps a misanthropic woman save her home from governmental development.
Princess Nine: Going against tradition, nine high school girls form a baseball team and compete against the boys in the national baseball tournament.
Princess Princess: Three boys improve the school's morale by crossdressing.
Princess Resurrection: A princess and her siblings find some... interesting ways to avert a Succession Crisis.
Princess Tutu: If you simply make a wish, fairy tales do come true. Giving them happy endings is a lot harder.
- Alternately: A duck, a girl who can't dance, and a magical girl ballerina princess are the same person. She/they heal people with the power of dance.
- Or: A duck dances strangers' problems away because she can't confess her love to a boy with no pants.
- Or: The Nutcracker and Swan Lake do coke lines off a Magical Girl duck ballerina's back. Drama ensues.
Project A-ko: Girls with lettered names fight off alien invasion.
Prunus Girl: Girl claims to be boy, but may in fact actually be a girl. Male lead is confused.
Psyren: Teenagers with psychic powers travel to the future to change the past.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica: A Weasel Mascot recruits young girls to fight Eldritch Abominations. Recruitment involves Faustian deals.
- Alternatively, being a Magical Girl is... traumatizing.
- Alternately: A Magical Girl travels through time to convince her best friend to refuse jewelry.
- Alternatively: The anime you already know everything about.
- Jane was a Magical Girl. And then Jane was a witch. Now Jane is God. Any questions?
Puni Puni Poemi: Magical girl with severe mania uses a dead fish to save planet from aliens who watched our porn.
RahXephon: Boy meets girl. Boy is trapped in Human Alien time-slowing orb of death for many years. Boy uses Mecha against his will to kick copious amounts of ass.
Rakugo Tennyo Oyui: Wannabe comedienne and friends go back in time to fight demons.
Ranma ½: An extremely masculine boy/girl attracts loads and loads of fiancées, girlfriends, and psycho stalkers. Of both genders. Completely against his/her will. Hilarity Ensues.
- Teenaged boy goes swimming with panda against tour guide's advice and loses his manhood, delighting and/or horrifying everybody he knows.
Rave Master: Some people travel the world to find four stones and destroy a bunch of other stones.
Ray the Animation: Girl makes like Black Jack (who shows up) while looking for her eyes; her replacements have X-Ray Vision.
Read or Die (OVA): Shy bookworm must kill Beethoven and other historical figures with paper.
- Read or Die (Manga): Said shy bookworm has her ex's best friend trying to beat her to the library for stealing said ex from him.
- Read Or Dream (Manga): Three blood-sisters use their powers to solve book-related cases in Hong Kong.
- R.O.D the TV: Blood-sisters protect a famous author from the bookworm's former boss.
The Record of a Fallen Vampire: Dhampyrs chase vampire. Then there are aliens.
Record of Lodoss War: A typical D&D party teams up to save the world from an evil witch that wears purple lipstick.
Red Garden: Four dead girls fight middle-aged men in suits.
Red Line: A technical pacifist wants to join the galaxies most illegal and deadly street race. This makes chaotic evil cyborgs angry. Enough Scenery Porn to make some officially declare every frame should be a screenshot.
- Can aptly be described as "Whacky Racers tripping on LSD."
Reign: The Conqueror: Alexander the Great is persuaded not to take a trip to India.
Revolutionary Girl Utena: A girl enrolls in a mysterious academy where fencing is practically a way of life and everyone has issues.
- Or: Jumped-up preps duel each other in order to gain metaphysical powers to solve their problems instead of learning common sense and proper communication skills.
- Or: A pervert with a mullet encourages pretty teenagers to solve their problems through metaphorical violence and pop philosophy for no particular reason.
- Or: Girl insists she is straight despite spending the entire series fighting with Bishonen boys to remain engaged to a girl.
  - Adolescence of Utena: Same thing, only with more Mind Screw and lesbianism. Also, the heroine turns into a car because the director wanted to.
Requiem from the Darkness: Darker and Edgier Scooby Doo in Feudal Japan.
Rinne no Lagrange: An omniskilled schoolgirl, a klutzy alien princess, and Mugi pilot color-coded Transforming Mechas to defend the Earth from Space Bishounens.
Rizelmine: Boy likes older women, but he's forced to be with a younger girl. She cries Nitroglycerin. In the end, the younger girl was an older woman all along.
- Japanese teen is forced to marry a little girl by the government to keep her from crying despite not being a lolicon. No one sympathizes with him for not wanting to consummate their marriage.
Robot Carnival: Robots reenact Fantasia.
Robotech: First giant human aliens attack the Earth. Then their normal sized human bosses attack the Earth themselves. Finally, their older own enemies, alien quasi snail/insectoids sometimes taking human form, attack the Earth.
- Or American company decides to combine three unrelated series into one and stop the originals from reaching the United States.
Rocket Girls: A Japanese company can't build a rocket capable of lifting a full grown man into space, so they use a teenage girl instead.
Rockman EXE: Boy surfs the internet, saves the world.
- Shooting Star Rockman: Boy gets on radio, saves the world.
Romeo X Juliet: Crossdressing rebel MacGuffin Girl falls for dictator's son.
Rosario + Vampire: Boy stumbles into an Extranormal Institute and becomes popular. Come for the panties, stay for the plot.
Rose of Versailles: Sparkly, alcoholic Bifauxnen protects the Queen of France from everything except her own passions.
Roujin-Z: A parable on health care and the elderly.
Rozen Maiden: Seven sisters fall asleep in the Victorian era and awaken in the 2000s. They begin to congregate around a reclusive Japanese boy while searching for their father, never once thinking that he might have died of old age.
- Seven wind-up girls with Verbal Tics compete to become the perfect Victorian ideal of maidenhood by killing their sisters and ripping out their hearts for daddy. Meanwhile, a shut-in ignores real girls to play with toys.
Rurouni Kenshin: In Meiji-era Japan, a former assassin fights evil with a backwards sword.
S-Cry-ed: A rebellious man with a powerful arm fights a stoic guy with a killer robot named after his dead dog. Otherwise, pretty much X-Men with more rainbows. The theme song can only be described as 'Japanese Mexican salsa'.
The Sacred Blacksmith: Katanas Are Just Better: The Anime
Saijou no Meii: An Adult Child slices open children, and gains friends and followers for doing so.
Saikano: Boy has sex with dead robot. Everyone dies.
Sailor Moon: Overdeveloped girls in underdeveloped uniforms live vicariously through past-life regression.
- Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: A group of high school girls marked by their matching plastic jewelry can never quite be sure if they're all friends or not.
Saint Seiya: Five young men wearing magical armor fight for an heiress who is later revealed to be a godess.
Saint Young Men: Jesus and Buddha celebrate their divine bromance by moving to Japan and renting an apartment together.
Saitama Chainsaw Shoujo: A boy breaks up with his girlfriend. She goes Chainsaw Crazy.
Saiunkoku Monogatari: A girl agrees to marry an emperor in order to get him to rule his country properly.
Saiyuki: Four guys are sent west in a very small jeep by a hermaphroditic deity. Hilarity Ensues.
Saki: Ahem, er, so twenty Ambiguously Gay schoolgirls walk into a mahjong bar...
Cromartie High School: Idiots go to high school with a robot, a gorilla, and a rock singer look-alike.
Sakigake!! Otokojuku: Delinquents way too ripped to be teenagers enroll in a totally-not-military school where they either die or grow to become great men inprinted with the values of nationalism, xenophobia and sexism.
Sakura Gari: Ronin in Taishou Era Japan comes to work for screwed-up noble family, gets sexually harassed, eats Korokke. Also, everyone is crazy.
Samurai Champloo: A tavern waitress cons a ronin and a bandit into following her around Japan, looking for a guy she can only recognize by smell. They do it all to the tune of a hip-hop soundtrack.
- Or: Admittedly a Very Loosely Based on a True Story version of Feudal Japan.
Samurai Seven: A retelling of a classic Japanese tale, only this time with the heroes facing down an evil emperor and Humongous Mecha.
Sand Land: Satan's son looks for water.
Sankarea: A boy turns a girl into a zombie. And then dates her.
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: A teacher copes with his dissatisfaction with society by encouraging people to kill themselves. Hilarity Ensues.
- Or: Large Ham teacher is suicidally depressed. His entire class falls for him. He's the sane one.
- Or: I'M IN DESPAIR!: The Anime.
Scrapped Princess: Girl was chucked off a cliff by her parents because they didn't want to deal with her sweet sixteen.
School Days: A young man gets himself into a twisted Love Triangle... with heavy emphasis on "twisted".
- High school harem show happens without a Chaste Hero. Consequences ensue.
School Rumble: Reformed delinquent turned closet Mangaka falls heavily in love with a ditzy girl with wiggly pigtails. Comic misunderstandings and love dodecahedrons result.
- Or: A tale of love and morons that tends to wander off course.
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman: Ninja superheroes battle evil organization led by masked freak with weird secret.
Seikon no Qwaser: Warriors of the periodic table fight over religion with breasts.
Seirei no Moribito: A spear-wielding chick protects a prince who's pregnant with a water spirit.
Sengoku Basara: Historical Samurai do almost nothing that they did in real life and fight obvious evil with the power of Engrish, hot blood, explosions and cameo appearances based on a video game.
Senki Zesshou Symphogear: Magic Idol Singer si ngs while fighting Eldritch Abominations.
Senko no Night Raid: A Japanese secret government agency comprised of members with psychic powers being dispatched to Shanghai, China during 1931 to conduct covert operations.
Serial Experiments Lain: Middle school girl gets computer so she can go online and stay there.
- Girl is not using a computer. Girl is using a computer. Girl is a computer.
Seto no Hanayome: Boy gets saved by mermaid. Boy ends up in a Shotgun-esque Wedding with mermaid. Mermaid's yakuza family does not approve and tries to kill boy. Oh, and The Terminator is a recurring character.
Shakugan no Shana: An Ordinary High School Student becomes the servant of a hot-headed demon hunter after a monster erases him and his friends from existence.
Shaman King: Every 500 years, Native Americans have fun making people kill each other with dead people so they can control God.
Shichinin No Nana: A girl becomes her own best friends and gets through middle school by dressing up as a Sentai heroine.
Shigurui: Two crippled men hate each other, a sadistic noble makes them fight to the death, and the audience learns a lot about internal human anatomy.
Shikabane Hime: A teenager unintentionally stalks a dead girl who fights other dead people that turn into monsters.
Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-hen: That giant robot with a lot of firsts gets to destroy monsters by turning into a fist!
Shinesman: Man joins a company and is recruited to fight evil with office Supplies. Hilarity Ensues.
Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars: Aliens attack earth with Giant robot acorns, unraveling a millennia-old Masquerade. More importantly, a Tsundere can't decide whether she likes the narrator or the mysterious transfer student.
Shoujo Sect: An all-girl high school is attended by students with male brains. Sex ensues.
Shoujo Shounen: A boy dresses up as a girl, joins the entertainment business, gets exposed, and finds love, in no particular order. Each volume showcases a new Wholesome Crossdresser!
SHUFFLE!!: God and Satan are now BFF's and move their families in together. Nobody really notices. However, their daughters fight over a human high school student that will one day succeed one of them. Hilarity ensues.
Shugo Chara!: A schoolgirl who hates her personality uses magical eggs to break out of her shell.
- OR: Some kids fight corporate evil with the help of magic eggs.
Shut Hell: A psychotic murderer is taught how to read and write by a kid trying to protect a bag of rocks from his dad.
Silent Möbius: A very special team of policewomen battle monsters.
Simoun: Lesbian Space Muslims[/Catholics?] doodle in the sky. Stuff blows up.
Sister Princess: Unlucky Everydude gets exiled to an island to live with a dozen or so inhabitants that all attach themselves to him in borderline-illegal ways.
Sketchbook Full Colors: Shy girl becomes involved in local art club, draws scenery. Also, there's a Canadian.
Sket Dance: Gintama set in high school.
Skip Beat!!: Unlucky Childhood Friend attempts to take Revenge upon the man who dumped her by beating him at his own game...Show Business.
Slam Dunk: A guy proclaims himself to be a genius on a sport he hates out of spite to impress the girl of his dreams.
Slayers: Hot-headed sorceress/thief teams up with empty-headed swordsman to fight evil.
- Or: A greedy, vain, violent, underdeveloped sorceress. An idiotic, easily-distracted swordsman. A girl who thinks she's in a Magical Girl anime and is very destructive as a result. A broody mutant who tends to be dark at best. They're the heroes.
- Or alternately - The quest for food and treasure is key, but keeps being interrupted to save the world.
Sola: "A skywatching guy with an Ill Girl albino sister meets a mysterious girl being hunted by the Highlander, who has connections to an Elegant Gothic Lolita who hangs out in garbage cans eating riceballs." (- Description taken from the show's page.)
Solty Rei: Grumpy old man forms Odd Friendship with Robot Girl whose life he saved.
Sonic X: Illegal immigrants must stay hidden from the authorities, though they aren't very good at it. Later, they go home, only to find that they have to fight aliens that think they're doing the right thing but are really destroyers of worlds.
So Ra No Wo To: A young girl joins the army so that she can learn to play the trumpet. She is assigned to a platoon situated in a Spanish-inspired town. They spend their time fixing a tank and waiting for the phone to ring.
- Or: Treason Apologism: The Anime
- Or: After the End, K-On Expies are sent to the front lines; nothing happens. Amazing Grace always works.
Sora O Kakeru Shoujo: A confused schoolgirl and a boiled potato work to convince a one-eyed box to come out of seclusion.
Soreike! Anpanman: A living loaf of bread fights crime and feeds himself to the hungry. His archenemy is a germ from space.
Soukou no Strain: Sibling rivalry on an intergalactic scale.
Soul Eater: A scythe and the daughter of a scythe attend an Extranormal Institute and fight a snake witch.
- Death employs children to fight a mad god, and watches while they end up going mad in the process. Author is pop culture fan who does it for the lulz and the cool over, and over again.
- A girl with self-esteem issues and her Jerk with a Heart of Gold non-boyfriend fight insect-related or pop culture-related villains with their dysfunctional friends, including an arrogant ninja (and his non-girlfriend) and a boy with severe OCD who eventually goes mad. Other characters include a klutzy teacher who smokes a lot and a teenager with an ambiguous gender.
- Or "Tim Burton: The Anime."
Soul Taker: The hero dies in the first scene. His little sister has multiple personality disorder, except worse. There's also a guy with a toothache.
- Nurse Witch Komugi: Earth has to be cured of its supernatural ills by an amateur cosplay idol.
Space Adventure Cobra: A Jean Paul Belmondo look-a-like teams up with scantily-clad women and travels through space to look for treasure. He often encounters an evil bald guy made of glass.
Space Runaway Ideon: Everyone Dies over the course of 39 episodes and a movie... especially in the movie. By the man himself.
Speed Grapher: Man who hates his superpower travels with technically-prepubescent girl. Romance develops.
- A combination of drugs and fetishes gives superpowers to many people who probably should not have them.
Speed Racer: Racing heavily modified cars is Serious Business.
Spice and Wolf: A travelling merchant finds a furry in his cart. She becomes his "trading partner", and he keeps doing his merchant thing.
Spirited Away: A ten-year-old girl helps and is helped by a spa employee with partial amnesia after her parents' bad table manners nearly cause her to fade from existence.
- A ten year old girl works in a bathhouse. Not like that, you pervert.
- Greedy family pigs out and leaves their grade school daughter stuck with the bill. She works hard to pay it off and falls in love with a river.
Squid Girl: Keroro Gunsou with a moe-ized squid.
Star Driver: A boy swims across ocean because he was late to school. He proceeds to become the Galactic Pretty Boy and pilot a giant robot which fights other giant robots powered by libido. Lots of hot blood and faaaaaaabulousness ensues.
Starship Operators: Reality TV meets Embedded Reporting... IN SPACE!
Steamboy: A boy's father is killed for a new power source that he invented. He turns out to be not so dead. London freezes.
Steins;Gate: Self-proclaimed Mad Scientist and his lab members create time paradoxes using text messages.
Strawberry Panic: Members of a girls-only Absurdly Powerful Student Council engage in a Love Dodecahedron. The only men involved are those in the audience.
- Glorified beauty pageants are serious business. Add in a bit of Gayngst and Schoolgirl Lesbians for extra flavor.
- MariMite without the subtext.
Stray Little Devil: A high school girl gets pulled into a spirit world and turned into a devil. Hilarity and Les Yay ensue.
Strike Witches: Schoolgirl Lesbians from all over the world strap airplane engines to their legs in order to fight aliens. Fans largely discuss clothing choices.
Sugar Sugar Rune: An overly shy princess and her tomboyish best friend are cute witches. They go to the Human World to make guys fall in love with them, then about half way through things get worse.
Summer Wars: A computer programmer, his "girlfriend" and her extended family fight a supervirus.
- Or: Computer whiz responds to a spam email; the spambot steals his password for Animal Crossing: The MMORPG.
Super Dreadnought Girl 4946: A boy routinely helps his girlfriend fight alien monsters by letting her eat him. Surprisingly, it's neither Squick nor Fetish Fuel.
Superior: Guy teams up with his girlfriend (and some other people) to hunt down his girlfriend, who he doesn't realize is his girlfriend. Deals with racism.
Suzuka: Ordinary High School Student becomes a world class sprinter to impress the title character, who hates him for being a more socially awkward stand-in for her dead ex-boyfriend.
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu: Love tetrahedron develops amidst various Twilight Zone-esque Negative Space Wedgies. Existence hangs on the outcome.
- Or: Protagonists have to keep Canon Sue entertained or she destroys the world. Again.
- Or: Protagonists attempt to prevent the wrong tropes from being realised by someone who does not know the difference.
- Or: Teenage girl thinks the world revolves around her; it does.
- Or: Girl forms a club and bullies one of the members, none of the other members ask her to stop.
- Haruhi-chan: Same as above, but with chibis.
  - Nyoron Churuya San: One girl's quest for dairy products. With the exception of her and the resident Knife Nut, everyone is a Jerkass.
- Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu: A High School AU of... a High School Sitcom, via a mis-timed Wonderful Life plot.
Sword of the Stranger: Swordless samurai murders drug addicts.