Rob, if you're open for recommendations? Â Photon. Â A six-episode OVA on a single DVD. Â No sequels or alternate versions. Â It's practically a clone of El-Hazard in places, but it holds up well as its own story in the end. Â And it's very, very, very funny. Â It's even funnier than Excel Saga is supposed to be Â
 The problem I have with the OVAs is that, most of the time, I don't know what the heck is going on.  There's so much back-story in the story that I have to take notes.  Maybe that's just me.  Or maybe I just need to watch them a few dozen more times.
So general consensus has The TV series leading 3-2. Anyone else care to add?
Another series I think you'd enjoy Rob is Dual Parallel Trouble Adventure. 14 eps on 4 DVDs. Masaki Kajishima (Tenchi Muyo) created it and AIC produced it. It's known to fans in Japan as Shin Tenchi Elhazelion, for it's parallels to and light parodies of El Hazard, Tenchi Muyo and Shin Seiki Evangelion. All I can say is, with alternative worlds and love trianlges, how can you go wrong?
Now I feel compelled to see Photon  so I will!If its even half as good as you guys say it is, I'll be sold ^_^Of course, I have a long list of anime I wanna see in the near future. like Twelve Kingdoms, Vandread, the rest of the Sakura Wars TV saga (as well as the motion picture) as well as some others. But I'll up Photon into the top 5 Â
Twelve Kingdoms looks really cool. I'll probably be picking it up at some point. My only beef with the Sakura Wars movie is, Pioneer only seems to be releasing one version; the special edition with a bunch a "collectable" pencil boards and it's like $36 or something.
I remember seeing the Sakura Wars movie available from ADV Films as a normal DVD release. *shrugs* Maybe not.