- Buzz ·
Posted on 16 Nov 2016
These are the anime that will get you hooked.
1. Death Note
2. Sailor Moon
5. Mawaru Penguindrum
7. Claymore
8. Toradora
9. Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
10. Fruits Basket
11. Neon Genesis Evangelion
12. Trigun
13. Clannad
14. Howl's Moving Castle
15. Tokyo Ghoul
16. Vampire Knight
17. Berserk
18. Fushigi Yuugi
19. Sword Art Online
20. Lovely Complex
21. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
22. Hunter x Hunter
23. Elfen Lied
24. Nana
25. Black Butler
26. Bleach
27. Ouran High School Host Club
28. Psycho-Pass
I used to be an anime-hater. An anime-hater isn’t someone who hasn’t watched any anime, or doesn’t really have any interest in the medium — it’s for people who actively hate it, people who make anime fans “stay in the weeb-closet”, like I did for a number of years.
This list also doubles for older fans who have been left behind in the wake of the breakneck pace of the new anime medium, which was once a slow trickle of cult shows that would rarely get official dubbings. This list doesn’t have any high schoolers, memes, or seasonal “trash genre” shows [trash, once derogatory, has now more or less become it’s own strange genre].
This list is by no means definitive either — add your suggestions in the comments. This list is also 100% biased, obviously. I didn’t add anything I’ve not watched, and I clearly have a tendency to darker, grittier shows.
There are obviously some things missing as well. I’m not considering shows written for non-adults here, nor anything I’ve just never seen and can’t recommend in good faith, no matter how stellar the reviews [e.g. Grave of the Fireflies].
The order I’ve put them in isn’t a ranking, but instead a recommended watch order, from easiest to most difficult.
1. Cowboy Bebop
The motley crew of the Bebop
The bounty hunters, who are gathering in the spaceship “BEBOP”, will play freely without fear of risky things. They must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. The work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called… COWBOY BEBOP
Yeah, yeah, everyone was expecting this one. But its 26-episode run is a legendary work of genius by Shinichiro Watanabe, and it rightfully takes it’s comfortable place at number 1 in this list.
A series of loosely connected episodes features a set of bounty hunters in the future of 2071 [as imagined when the series was created, so cut it some slack there]. The solar system has been colonized, and space travel is commonplace. Each of the four characters is unique and interesting, with often competing personalities and overlapping themes. They struggle to deal with their respective pasts, and eventually they all must confront who they are [or aren’t], and the people that they’ve left behind.
Jet, a former police officer who grew disillusioned with his role in the world, set off to be a bounty hunter with his ship the eponymous Bebop. Faye, who seems like everything wrong with anime at first [fan-service male bait, to be exact] actually inverts the trope — she’s doing it on purpose, and it’s part of her character, which is by far the most nuanced in the show. Ed, the lunatic hacker who’s actually the only Earthling in the gang. And the main character, Spike Spiegel, an impossibly but subtly cool bounty hunter with a dark, sad past.
Cowboy Bebop starts off with action and a healthy dollop of goofiness, but make no mistake — this show deeply explores ennui, loneliness, despair, greed, and redemption in its characters. And like improvised jazz, upon which much of the show’s soul is based, the characters come together seemingly randomly, and don’t quite fit, but in the end they create a beautiful work of art, with the one of the most iconic endings in all of anime.
Combining deeply soulful jazz music, jaw dropping action and animation, and witty, succinct, but revealing writing all the same, Cowboy Bebop also nails all of its technical categories as well. Also, it’s got cool spaceships and fun action scenes. It’s considered the best English language dub ever, with most people rating the English version as better than the original Japanese, a feat which is exceedingly rare.
Also, while it flopped in Japan, it enjoyed the longest run on Toonami of any show, with only 26 episodes. I could go on and on — but you should just watch it. Also, the opening theme song is downright awesome.
2. Monster
Tell me, what do you think is the ultimate fear? I really thought I’d already reached the darkest of the dark, but then, ahead of me, I beheld a darkness even greater still.
Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a brilliant neurosurgeon in West Germany, pulling even the most extreme cases from the brink. He has everything — a beautiful fiancee [who is the daughter of the hospital director], a career on the rise, and a fulfilling job that he loves. As you’d expect by now, this doesn’t last very long.
One night, two patients needing brain surgery come in. One is a child, a young boy who’s parent’s were brutally murdered in a robbery, with a bullet wound in the head. The other is the mayor of the town. Tenma makes what he feels is the right choice, and he performs surgery on the child. He leaves the mayor, who came in slightly after the child, to other surgeons, but the mayor dies on the table. The child is saved by Tenma’s skilled hand, however.
The upper management is furious, blaming Tenma for the death of the mayor. His fiancee dumps him in dramatic fashion, and he is told his career is going nowhere. The director and his cronies begin to push Tenma out, who contemplates leaving Germany altogether.
Then, suddenly, the director and his cronies are found dead. The boy Tenma saved, along with his traumatized twin sister, go missing.
Nine years later, Tenma is the Chief of Surgery. Things are going well again, but the killings start again. And Tenma, as innocent as he is, is the only one to directly benefit from the crimes. And so he begins his quest to find the real killer, the little boy whose life he saved all those years ago.
Monster is a slow, dark, and downright creepy look at what happens when pure good meets pure evil, and how a twisted childhood can raise a heartless killer. Johan Liebert, the antagonist, is probably the most unsettling, hair-raising villain in the medium. This show isn’t for the impatient, or the faint of heart, but it is of the highest quality, and should be watched immediately. Warning, it’s long, clocking in at over seventy episodes, but it is worth it.
3. Ghost in the Shell
Chief Nakamura: Nonsense! There’s no proof at all that you are a living, thinking life form! Puppet Master: And can you offer me proof of your existence? How can you, when neither modern science nor philosophy can explain what life is?
Originally a manga [Japanese comic] by Masamune Shirow from 1989, Ghost in the Shell [sometimes referred to as GitS] is a media franchise, and an icon of 90’s anime in general. The movie that followed the manga, Ghost in the Shell, is generally considered a critical success and a cult classic. It received overwhelming praise from critics, and the Wachowski brothers openly admit it as the direct inspiration for The Matrix. James Cameron also cites it as an inspiration for Avatar, which has a similar premise.
But don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it outside of that one Scarlett Johansson live-action remake — outside of the older anime circles, it’s widely unknown in the West. That’s the last I’ll mention of the live-action reboot — I haven’t een it, but it got a rather tepid reaction, so I’ll leave it be for now. What follows is a synopsis of the original 1995 movie.
Yeah, I am fibbing a little here, as it’s not technically a show, but a movie. Its spin-off shows are good too, so I’ll let it slide.
The year is 2029. Moore’s law remains unbroken, and humanity is on the verge of a Kurzweilian singularity. Cyberization — the practice of voluntarily replacing parts of yourself with advanced prosthetics — has offered humanity a leap forward. Now, even brains have become cyberbrains, electronic facsimiles of the natural human brain. The Internet is now inside our heads. Humans have enjoyed the advances in technology, but something is gravely wrong.
Motoko Kusanagi, working under the newly formed Section 9 of Public Safety, takes on the case of the mysterious “Puppet Master”, a hacker that commits crimes by hacking into the cyberbrains of others. Herself a master hacker, she and her team work to track down this hacker, and encounter questions about themselves and their own existence along the way. She’s joined by Batou, an old military comrade who provides even more muscle to the super-strong cyborg, and Togusa, an ex-cop who is one of the few remaining totally organic humans. He provides a different, traditional perspective, and in a world of uber-cool cyborgs, hit-men, and super soldiers, he’s just a family man with an old revolver.
Ghost in the Shell is a deeply thought-provoking work that asks what the real definition of life is, and what constitutes a living being. It ponders the nature of existence, and in an age where the Internet was just starting to blossom, asks audiences to consider what the wider ramifications of interconnectedness really are.
Also, while it probably didn’t invent cyberpunk, it, along with the original TRON, made cyberpunk into what it is today. It’s not afraid to confuse you either — it requires your full attention, and it won’t slow down for you. It freely mixes politics, philosophy, technology, and other themes without hesitation.
The movie spawned multiple series, including the two Stand Alone Complex shows and the Arise reboots. They play fast and loose with self-consistency [read: don’t expect consistent backstories, or even consistent characters across series], but they’re all high quality for the most part.
4. Neon Genesis Evangelion
“Man fears the darkness, and so he scrapes away at the edges of it with fire. He creates life by diminishing the Darkness.”— Rei Ayanami
“Evangelion is my life, and I have put everything I know into this work. This is my entire life. My life itself.”
— Hideaki Anno, The Director
Neon Genesis Evangelion [usually NGE or Evangelion, or sometimes just “Eva”] is widely considered the “final boss” of anime. It’s darker than Monster, more confusing than Ghost in the Shell, and more nuanced than Cowboy Bebop. It requires an understanding of the tropes of mecha [read: giant robots] as well as the story of the director itself.
This story takes place in the future [I’m beginning to notice a trend…], but honestly, that hardly matters. The actual content of the first six or seven episodes are actually a fairly normal show, with the standard tropes of any giant robot anime. That’s what it was supposed to be.
Hideaki Anno descended into a deep depression [among other mental illnesses, but he’s okay now] throughout the production of the original 26 episodes. What was supposed to be a normal action show [albeit still definitely not appropriate for kids to watch], transformed into something else. It became a case study in depression and psychosis, and not in a subtle manner like BoJack Horseman, but in a raw, brutal fashion that really doesn’t pull its punches.
The lore is confusing as hell, and that’s intentional. You’re as helpless as Shinji Ikari [the main character], trying to understand his confusing, terrifying world over which he has no control. You see him crumple under life-altering trauma that most other fictional characters just sort of shrug off, as if the author didn’t want to deal with it.
The characters all slowly crumble under the weight of their responsibility, and a conspiracy from within humanity’s highest echelons threatens to torpedo their efforts. All the while, terrifying, mind-bending aliens called “angels” [get ready for some pseudo-kabbalah-mysticism in this one] attack the already devastated Earth one by one. All the while, Gendo Ikari, Shinji’s estranged father, watches heartlessly as his son screams out in agony and fear while fighting the terrifying monsters.
And we haven’t even talked about the robots themselves. They’re a whole other can of worms that require a lot of spoilers to talk about, so I won’t.
The infamous final two episodes are a jumbled, borderline psychotic mess, a result of the complete breakdown of the director and the money for the show drying up. Afterwards, as the money poured in, End of Evangelion was produced, two feature length animations that provide what the actual end of the show was supposed to be. And it’s not for the faint of heart.
This show is also hard because it embraces the tropes that make anime-haters hate anime, but keep watching — it turns those tropes on their head, makes them look sad and ridiculous, and generally messes with your head. It knows what it’s doing. Probably.
There’s a reboot series of movies, which are a bit brighter in tone and a bit easier to understand, made years after the original. The story is somewhat different as well.
On the bright side, the opening theme song is really catchy.
There are plenty of other shows that belong on this list, and calling Cowboy Bebop easy is questionable at best — it’s just the “easiest” of this list for people who normally would never watch anime. It’s much more nuanced and dense than the average show.
But there are shows that you should watch that didn’t quite fit the criteria of this list [avoids anime stereotypes, written for an adult audience].
Honorable Mentions
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
This is actually a fantastic show, that only missed the list because of the criteria I set out at the beginning. Widely considered the “gateway drug” of anime, it’s appeal is universal. Bright and colorful characters in a diverse and fascinating world, with a thick but easy to follow plot. Also, along with Cowboy Bebop, it’s widely considered to be the other “good” dub, worth watching in English dubbing rather than subtitled. Also it has amazing opening songs, second only to the legendary Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion openings.
Sure, there’s politics, full-blown magic masquerading as pseudo-science, heartwrenching tragedies, and ancient evils and prophecies, but the show hinges on the axis of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric. I won’t say any more here, because this one should just be enjoyed without any other preconception. It has a confusing first episode, but it clears up after that.
The animation is stunning, the writing is a case-study for concise, neat, but still emotionally sound and connected story crafting, but the music is what seals the deal. Yes, it’s got its goofy [and sometimes a bit cringy] anime comedy moments, and yes, it was actually meant for people under the age of 18, but please don’t let it’s exclusion from the list above discourage you from watching it. It’s a true masterpiece of the medium, usually considered the overall best anime out there, and one of my personal favorites.
Just steer clear of the Netflix live-action movie, and remember that Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is actually the faithful manga adaptation. There was a series before it, just Fullmetal Alchemist, that halfway through begins to take some controversial liberties with the story.
2. Death Note
A teenage genius, Light Yagami [cough symbolism cough], gets a hold of a notebook, a special notebook called the “Death Note”, once owned by a shinigami [Japanese Death God]. Whoever’s name he writes in the book dies.
So, naturally, he loses his goddamn mind and begins cleansing the world. But he’s got to deal with an equally smart investigator, hell-bent on finding him out.
Cue the most intense game of cat and mouse since Monster. It’s a bit less serious than Monster, but it also takes the time to pose deep questions about morality and crime in general. In a really twisted way, what Light Yagami does isn’t a bad thing. But his descent into madness alongside his investigator’s unscrupulous techniques create a gray zone between the light and dark.
A thrilling watch, it does suffer from some less than perfect writing near the later parts of the show and has some tropes that bar it admission from the above list, but it is otherwise an intelligent, deep, and thrilling tour de force that is worth a watch by anyone.
Again, don’t watch the live-action movie on Netflix.
3. Baccano!
A vastly underrated gem in anime, Baccano! is an impossible to define story with no definitive main character. It’s non-linear, and it starts off very confusing. But I promise, it’ll all make sense in the end.
A rare anime set in the good old US of A in the 1920s and 30s, it mostly takes place aboard a train, the Flying Pussyfoot, filled with colorful, vaudevillian characters, each on the train for a different reason. Then, people start dying, and things get interesting. The story jumps around to different arcs, but they are all strangely connected.
It’s goofy, raunchy, funny, but also very dark and gory, so definitely not meant for the faint of heart, but it is a very tightly-written tale that happens to nobody in particular, but to everyone all at once. It revels in great musical taste, stunning animation and action, and fascinating characters. It’s also got a jazzy opening to rival Bebop and Brotherhood, and is definitely deserving your attention, even though it didn’t quite fit the criteria of this list.
In the end, I can’t make you not hate anime. I can’t also stop the ever-increasing tidal wave of anime that reinforce the stereotypes of the genre as hopelessly weird, foreign, needlessly hyper-sexualized, and worst of all, childish. But I hope that you at least give a few of these an honest shot. Find some private time if you’re embarrassed, and don’t tell anyone if you don’t want to. Almost all of these are available on either Netflix, Hulu, or Crunchyroll.
You don’t need to dress up as anime characters, speak Japanese, understand complicated memes, or only watch anime. I watch all kinds of shows, read all kinds of books, and enjoy all kinds of music. I’m just asking you to keep an open mind.