I guess I'll be mentioning the ones that inspire my story for now...I would mention series that influence my general OCs, but they're quite all over the place plus these ones left a bigger impression to not only my OCs, but my overall interest and artstyle, hahah.
Also, it's good to see Digimon being mentioned and praised here. I agree that it's really surprising that an anime targetted for kids deals with issues like child facing difficulties such as harsh expectations, being forced to deal with deaths and family divorce, etc. It shows that no kids' life are entirely perfect, and they can deal with these issues even at a young age... Which is well, as you can see, its a recurring theme among my OCs and story that they're facing their first "misfortunes" and will have to survive hardships that early of an age with little choices and assistance to rely on. While my story is not entirely kids-demographic targetted, the main cast consists of that because I believe the concept of misfortunes turning someone's life upside down impacts the youngers more compared to...well...can you imagine a middle-aged salarymen, with so many stuff to worry on their hands, having to care about a magical sports? Hahah.
Aside from Digimon, my other favourite series of all time is...well, called Crash B-Daman. I won't lie that its THE biggest influence in my art, designs and many other things. If you look hard enough into my old works of my OCs there's clearly a lot of inspirations being drawn from the series despite how much I'm trying to lessen the obvious inspiration now fgsgdgdhasgdgd- Crash B-Daman is...not perfect, and considered the worst post-2000's B-Daman series by fandom, but people fail to acknowledge that Crash B-Daman exist because they want to target to larger demographic including mature audience, which is why some themes is considered "darker" compared to other B-Daman series... (especially the manga, its barely about the toys and more nightmare fuel tbh) plus its mangaka is one of my biggest inspiration as a creator...
Idk, as I mentioned in another thread, I like those kiddy sports/tournaments based animes despite how predictable or long they are is because I adore the concept of "the power of friendship", no matter how cheesy it is? Plus a lot of stuff for general audiences sometimes deals with depressing themes really good because you want audiences of all age to be able to relate to the characters' POV and all, which is a thing I'm aiming in my characters ( regardless of audience type) hahah.
Other than these two, highlights to other favs of mine that includes Metal Fight Beyblade, Angelic Layer and Cardfight!! Vanguard...And few others outside of similar genre like Angel Beats, M.A.R and Black Rock Shooter. Clearly these series have contributed at least one thing into my OCs :^D A bit of a shame that despite all I list are just animes, I barely watch them anymore because none of the newer stuff will ever give me the same feeling as my favourites that I used to watch.