I'm giving everyone who posts stupid download request threads a warning. I am able to find pretty much ALL of what is asked by going through maybe 4 or 5 links on this thread. If it looks like you're someone who just registered to post crap on our forums without checking out this thread, I am banning you for 3 days. Stop posting without doing any research.
GotWoot Moderator
After seeing the same five or six answers to just about every download thread, I decided to compile a list of common places you'll find the anime you're looking for.
Some broken links have been fixed. PM Y WITH NEW SITES OR BROKEN LINK NOTIFICATIONS IF YOU FIND THEM. Thanks.
Install the Combined Community Codec Pack. It contains up-to-date medis splitters and decoders for just about everything as well as two topnotch players. CoreAVC will improve your H.264 decoding, so go get it if you want to play HD media on slower processors.
Downloading
First off, read kai's BitTorrent FAQ
You can download individual episodes out of a batch torrent by using a client such as Azureus or uTorrent and setting the other episodes in the torrent to "never download". In addition, if your existing episodes match the hashes of the other files in the torrent, you can just put them in 1 folder and the torrent will download only the missing parts.
uTorrent is pretty much the best torrent client. I can't think of any reason to use anything else.
You can find 90% of what you're looking for on the following sites.
Informational (non-filesharing) sites:
Anime Fansub Database. Find out what group subbed the anime you're looking for.
Baka Updates and Manga Updates. Another general resource for finding out who subbed what series.
Google. I'm not being a smart ass. Googling your series' name plus the phrase "filetype:torrent" can turn up results that you won't get with just a search. Of course, just Googling it helps too.
IRC Spy. This site indexes mIRC XDCC bots. If the previous sentence made any sense to you, you probably don't even need this resource in the first place, but hey, being thorough helps.
Guides:
Bit Torrent FAQ
mIRC FAQ
mIRC Leech Guide
Anime torrent sites:
Tokyo Toshokan. General anime/manga/jpop torrent resource. Good for new and old releases of all kinds.
Box Torrents. This is a general anime resource. They will host licensed anime unless they are served with a cease and desist order; among others, they do not host ADV licensed anime. This site's great for old releases.
Note: Boxtorrents requires that you are a member to use their built-in search feature, but they don't often accept new members. A good way to get around this is to use google's site search feature. Type into the searchbar "site:www.boxtorrents.com <keywords>". You should be able to find what you're looking for if it's on the site.
Scarywater. Carries unlicensed anime torrents for various fansub groups. If you know which group subbed the anime you're looking for, head here (they don't have a search function).
Animesuki. Carries unlicensed anime torrents. Unlike Scarywater, this site does have a search feature. Good for new releases that aren't licensed.
Gotwoot. Yes, the site itself. Don't be surprised at how many people ignore torrents on the front page.
Hongfire. This is a message board based torrent site.
Delta Anime Torrents: General anime torrent database. Hosted by DA IRC network.
Torrent Database. Hey, another anime torrent site.
General purpose torrent sites:
IsoHunt and Mininova are general purpose repositories for torrents.
The Pirate Bay is probably the most successful replacement of the uber-torrent database at now-defunt SuprNova and claims to be the largest torrent site in the world. It probably is.
Demonoid is a large semi-private tracker (registrations are required to download and are not always open). The site indexes a lot of content and is definitely worth a look.
Fansub Groups:
For information on fansub group names, current projects, etc, check Baka Updates.
Manga Distros:
Lurk Manga (IRC Distro Only
MangaTraders.com
MangaDownload.net
Stop Tazmo
Anime Source
Direct Manga
Tidwah Manga
Anime Wave
Souhaku
Online Manga Reading:
OneManga
Manga Volume
ReadManga.com
DVD Encoder Groups:
Anime HQ
Vision Anime (dead group, still archives releases)
Kick Ass Anime
Anime Supreme
Anime 4ever
Anime Legion
Anime-Takeover IRC Distro Only.
Direct Downloads:
Kraga Muffin Various series
Carfreaks Initial D
Anime Uploads - A new site with a bunch of series, all hosted on various sites like rapidshare, megaupload etc. Requires registration (free).
If you know of a site that I haven't listed here (a large one), or if you know of a fansub group who has releases not found on any of the above sites, PM Y and it will be added.
holla @ a balla