I need to watch the Wolf Brigade, it's probably one of the few shows where I've seen a lot of the style, but haven't seen the show itself. Also Wolf's Rain is really out there, I wouldn't recommend it because of how slow the pace is. I don't think I even fully got it at the time of watching it, and remembering back I definitely am lost. That show is just too surreal for me.
I'd recommend Baccano: A series set during prohibition that follows three different plot lines of related groups at the same time. The characters are super interesting and the plot is great.
Also Trigun: You follow the most wanted man in a Western Post Apocalyptic desert world where a human colony fleet crashed and you follow that wanted amazing skilled Gunslinger through his adventures.
Ghost in the Shell: You are in a cyberpunk where everyone has chips in there heads that connect to the internet or something and you follow a special police unit that stops Revolutionary/ Terrorist/ Criminal Hacker dudes in their tracks. I haven't watched it since toonami and never in a coherent beginning to end style. So I probably missed a lot about it, but it can be called one of the classics in the anime world alongside Cowboy Bebop.
Hellsing: You follow the Hellsing organization, a group of Vampire/ Undead hunters working for the UK government and there bad ass operatives, mainly Alucard one of the three holy Red Trench Coat gunslingers of the anime universe. One of the others is in Trigun and the third is Dante from Devil May Cry, because Devil May Cry got it's own decent, but short anime. I hear Hellsing Ultimate is better, I never watched it all the way through, but I enjoyed the original more because Ultimate seems to try to be more funny in ways I don't like. Although Ultimate has longer episodes and goes much further than the original Hellsing animation.
Berserk(Original Animation): Follows the extremely long back story of the Berserk Characters, you follow Guts and Griffiths band of the Hawk in an anime version of the Hundred Year war. There's a lot of fun battles and you get to see a much more artistic style than you normally see in animations. Some scenes involve even still frame paintings of stuff thats about to happen that are great even if odd for motion based mediums.
If you do enjoy Death Note, you'll probably like Code Geass. Both try to be smart animes that involve weak super smart anti hero main characters with Holier then thou good twoshoes adversaries that both have great moments and bad moments and lose touch with themselves in the second half. That said I enjoyed both in the second half even if it changes from the main purpose of the show.
There are a lot of great anime out there that are just buried by the load of crap you find on the surface. I think I can honestly say I've seen enough good anime that there are golden shows that I have forgotten just because of how long they have been out of my mind and will resurface easily when I'm reminded of them. Honestly I think the best advice I can give for finding good anime is give it some distance from today. The past 5 years have no been good for the anime industry and I'd say the best way to find gold is look through shows pre-2013.
Now I feel like talking about some of my more favorite lack luster shows. Stuff like Kiba, Ergo Proxy, Gun Sword. Did you guys ever see any of these? It also just hit me that Re:Zero is a lot like Kiba.
