As recently mentioned earlier, I've been watching
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood on Hulu.
However, I don't know the last time I've seen a truly great anime series, so permit me to do the sideways pointy gesture towards FMA:B. I'd go so far as to rank this among the top anime TV series ever. It has everything you want in an anime: beautiful visuals, tremendous world design, awesome characterization, and a far-reaching storyline that glues you to the screen as you stay up way too late to catch a little more of it.
While it was a good experience overall, I wasn't the greatest fan of the original anime, with its meandering first half (the part based on the manga), interesting second half that left you hanging, and follow-up movie that just plain sucked. FMA:B condenses that first half of its predecessor, proceeds down the path of the manga it's based on, and becomes a completely different and marvelous show that includes far more characters and situations that all come together nicely by the end. And it has an ending that takes, oh, about a dozen episodes to fully develop...it could have been a problem had it been simply drug out, but it was so satisfying to see every loose thread tied and every character done proper justice.
When the full anime box set comes out, this is BOUGHT to rewatch (I still prefer dubs, so I'd like to hear it in English...I hold Funimation's existing localization efforts in high regard) and preserve for posterity. Manga-ka Hiromu Arakawa is a mother-loving genius, and hats off to Studio Bones for a top-notch effort. If more anime were this good, the industry wouldn't be going to hell in a handbasket.
Another interesting fact, at a con earlier this year I attended a panel with Dai Sato and he basically said that the animation funding is only going to shows that basically copy manga, and that few companies are putting forth money for original content or even for shows that tell a different story than the manga.
It is an interesting parallel to Hollywood here.
This is not a bad thing, if you ask me. This way, only shows based on successful books will be greenlit, which means the manga medium (which I generally don't read) will serve as a filter for anime in the future. This should result in better shows, if not visually (like GTO, a great series that got middling artistic quality in the anime).
I agree with the Hollywood connection only in that they're looking for known, successful quantities and not just comic books. I don't know if that's what you meant or not, so I thought I'd make the delineation.
