One of the most underrated anime is Ushio and Tora. Ushio discovers a special spear, and a unique monster, in the basement warehouse. And by the finale, we are emotionally connected with the entire cast of this anime.
Spoilers? Not really.
What you might benefit from, is the way each individual belonging to the universe of U&T grows over time. Instead of some extremely poor stories, Ushio's adventure is filled with antagonists who actually have a certain level of reasoning. Sympathising with them is out of the question, but even the ultimate villain had some of the greatest dialogues, which help us understand its true desires.
Reasons for wrong behaviour? True; they do exist. Maybe in the culture of the rewards and the punishments, thinking in the terms of binary classification is more ideal.
Someone is bad, because... the hero needs to prove the heroic entitlements. Someone is a hero, just because they accidentally acquired a rare tool. Those stories may use high definition CGI - computer-generated imagery - or the voice acting by major celebrities; but such stories cannot give emotional satisfaction, which is one of the most important things in life.
Not with Ushio and Tora... they and their friends are expressing all of their inner struggles. Not through the boring epilogues in each case; but with a good amount of visual signals and symbolism.
And there are character development and moral values.
Just because someone has an unfamiliar appearance, should you hurt that entity? A monster child, happy with the fruits and the chocolates, was turned into a lab rat. Because some intelligent people wanted to ensure continuous funding for their research. Would you walk away, since it is not your problem?
Should you forget your original purpose, just because the tools aren't working well and the challenge is more difficult than your initial understanding of it?
If you let hatred and revenge be the sole source of power, exactly who has won?
Ushio, Tora and the entire cast of the anime have to face such challenges in each episode. Tora is always arguing with Ushio; whereas every character saved by them, turns out to be a really important element in the story as the episodes proceed.
For the first five to ten episodes, you might think it's about Ushio always winning, damsels in distress repeated a lot, and all the problems can be solved with that special spear. But that's not true at all.
Maybe here a spoiler alert is necessary, but this is just a hint. Most of the hyped story elements fail at crucial moments. It is the dynamic chemistry between all of the fictional characters, which saves the day. Ushio and Tora don't suffer from the dead-weight useless clueless characters syndrome, like some of the highly popular titles.
Each character doesn't just improve with some kind of self-discovery, but every other character contributes to the growth and the personality development of the rest of the cast.
However, certain characters refuse the role of others in their growth. We do that too, in our real-world life, don't we?
And we all carry some form of deep distrust towards certain individuals within a blink of an eye. Before meeting the Head of the monsters in the East, Ushio had treated all the monsters as antagonists. All monsters despised his mother for some valid reasons. But they knew nothing about her side of the story.
Like any good and deep anime story, U&T includes themes ranging from what defines us, what we leave behind after our final moments, how our treatment of others can totally redefine us, to the topics such as the consequences of bad parenting, jealousy, single-minded pursuit of the fame, wealth and success.
After the final episode, you would definitely wish for another season. Just be prepared to say goodbye to some important main characters from the story, when you start watching the first episode.