Atashin'chi, Nube and Sorcerer Hunters come to mind. At least they're relatively unknown to me.

im gonna toss out King of Bandit Jing (short series but pretty good) Blue Seed (not sure how to descibe this one) Irrisponsible Captain Tylor (good comedy) 12 Kingdoms (very worth watching) and last but not least Heroic Age (another not sure how to describe) almost forgot the one that got me into anime Armitage the III

i swear most of these anime that legit are just way to old. others are pretty popular and known, just the hype is no where where it used to be.

and the person stating bleach and naruto, lol made my night. now back to studying for my exam.

I'm surprised by how many people are listing things that were released on DVD in English, and a lot of it is still readily available in the retail channel... That stuff isn't rare.

So, I'll go with The Squash Seller.
It's a rare short film by Masaaki Yuasa. As far as I know, it never made it to DVD, nor was it ever fansubbed.

Dominion Tank Police, of which this exact image is forever burned in my mind :

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

How about Windaria? It's certainly old as hell.

As far as things I'd choke a bitch for, Mermaid's Scar on VHS. Knew I shoulda just kept that shit from Blockbuster back in the day.

Saw someone mentioned Devil Hunter Yohko; I have that as well.

My first and still my favorite anime is also one that probably is not well known, especially to younger viewers.

Kimagure Orange Road.
48 episodes and a movie from 1987.

Its well worth the time to watch it if you've never seen it before.

Synopsis from wikipedia:
"Teenage romance meets fantasy in this series as a love triangle develops between the main character, an indecisive esper named Kyōsuke Kasuga, Madoka Ayukawa, a mercurial and enigmatic girl with a tough past, and Hikaru Hiyama, Madoka's ditzy and energetic best friend. Kyōsuke falls in love with Madoka, and Madoka wants to return those feelings, but can not because of Hikaru's involvement with Kyōsuke."

I would have to say that Hyper Speed Grandoll and Maps were fun anime that I wish could have been more than just ovas.

crying freeman, nobody cared about it except me, bc I'm a misogynist and it was really bad which attracted me.

Does anybody remember Viz Manga heroes? Genocyber was intense, back in my day.

AAAAAAAAAAUUUGGHHHHH!!!!! NO NO NO NO NO I WILL NOT ACCEPT IT!!!!!

<huff, huff, pant>

Okay, I'm better now. I just can't stand the thought of KOR being considered "Rare" or "Unknown". To an anime fan of my vintage, that's almost sacrilege. But.... (cringe), I guess you're probably right about this. Sigh.

I had a bit of a similar reaction to the previous poster who mentioned Haibane Renmei and Serial Experiments Lain.

The good news is, if some of these younger folks get the message and start digging these titles up, they have a lot of great anime waiting them. Just as long as they don't do like my sons do. (Take one look, say, "It's not in HD? The heck with this!" and go watch something else. Very frustrating.)

Both are pretty rare moreso for the VHS subbed version of Black Magic M-66.

This made me go look for it and I watched it last night..stayed up till about 3:30am watching the entire 13 episodes!

Your review didn't let me down at all!

I have suggested this to a couple friends, it should be watched more!

Ima Soko Ni Iru Boku is awesome indeed.

Yamato Takeru - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8AWY58inzc
Yaiba - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PkO37bVH0A
A Dog of Flanders: My Patrasche - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-154nka-x74

hmm i watch a lot of rare ones apparently since a lot of shows i watch no one has ever heard of lol

Diamond Daydreams
Black Blood Brothers(even though the ending is kinda blah lol)
Saiyuki (Not sure how popular it is)
Knight Hunters/Trinity
Jing King of Bandits + the ova
Ergo Proxy
Miracle Train
Princess Princess
Utawarerumono
.hack/sign/roots/twilight/g.u...etc lol
my bride is a mermaid
Babel II
Nabari No ou
Pretear
Kiba
E's Otherwise
Gun Parade March
Those are the only ones I can think of right now im sure there are a lot more lol

The otaku is strong with this one...

Congratulations on hitting one of the real treasures out there.

I've been doing the old man gripe about young folks not knowing about various titles from the 90's and back, but it occurs to me there are also some much newer titles to tell people about.

First on my list is "Dennou Coil". If you like good science fiction, especially of the near-future variety and with a touch of the surreal, this is a great choice. Sadly, unless you have a region 4 DVD player and understand Japanese, you have to go underground for this one; despite being an award-winning series from Madhouse and Bandai, it somehow never managed to get licensed in the English speaking world.

(CR take note!)

"Texhnolyze" has received a couple mentions already, but I want to add my own "Oh heck yes!" to the chorus.

I'm not entirely certain how obsure "Tokyo Underground" is to the younger crowd; it's one of the many titles that disappeared into Geneon Limbo and may still be stuck there. The manga is better, but the anime is still pretty good.

If you enjoyed the gut-wrenching mind-f&*k that was "Madoka Magica", then "Shadow Star Narutaru" and "Alien 9" may both be right up your alley. If you didn't enjoy it, then stay the crap away from both of these titles. I mean it. Really.

And.. I just realized that "Hare + Guu" is now more than ten years old... someone please tell me it isn't considered "obscure"!!!