looking for an anime recommendation

[threeplusfire]

Many of my fine friendslist gave me excellent leads on good anime in the past. I now have a very specific question, and hope some of you will be able to point me in the right direction. My friend is looking for some anime to show 11th & 12th grade students in a school environment. (So about 16-18 years old, no tentacle rape) She is especially looking for stories that have strong female characters, and stories of individualism versus conformity.

My first thoughts were Serial Experiments Lain and Death Note. I think both of those have solid, fascinating stories that present large ethical/moral issues. Lain is probably one of my favorite female anime characters ever. Any others I should add to the list?

Comments

[brienze.livejournal.com]

Rick suggests Ghost in the Shell. I actually watched that one too, so it's more accessible to non-anime types like me (by way of contrast, I take Princess Mononoke and the other well-known movies as a challenge and sit there and MST3K through the whole thing to show how unimpressed I am).

GitS definitely has the strong female character, but I'd say conformity issues are more on the governmental/organizational level than individual most of the time. I have a vague feeling that there might be some sex with non-US-approved age ranges involved, but Rick couldn't remember the episode when I tried to describe it.

[halfacork.livejournal.com]

I will keep an eye out, thank you!