So I started with the weirdest array of recommendations. I mostly wanted to fit in with this newish friend group so watched all the anime they told me to watch even if it hurt my brain.
First we have Madoka Magica. Peak media plain and simple and the main reason I tried others but it all goes downhill from here.
Attack on titan, started off interesting and very rapidly got weird I don’t think i lasted long the second the plot got strange i bailed. Probably stopped after the first season lol.
Ouran high school host club, love hate relationship with this one. The obsession with trying to make Haruhi more ladylike rubbed me the wrong way back then and still does now.
Highschool dxd…… i was really trying hard to fit in. I think this has to be the worst anime i have ever seen?
Re: zero. No no i think this is the worst anime i have ever seen and also gave me the ick for the screaming voice acting. Infact i hated this anime so much i took to the anime subreddit and argued with everyone there until i got banned wondering how a single person could like such utter garbage.
Shugo Chara, i think my friend recommended this to me to torture me for being born. Or to see how far id go to be accepted.
Angel beats, i rewatched this recently and still dont remember a single aspect of it.
Sword art online, anyone who likes isekai should be banned.
Nichijou, still definitively the best anime ever created.
Mirai Nikki, again i dont remember any of it
A bridge to the starry skies, there are chunks of my memories that feel like black holes and this is one of them
Hyakka ryouran…
kaichou wa maid-sama… this friend group was an elaborate plot to torment me I think.
Log Horizon, I actually liked this one it was just a bit boring
So i stopped listening to recommendations from others and picked my own which were
- cowboy bebop
- plastic memories
- your lie in april
- beyond the boundary
- 5 centimetres per second
- the pet girl of sakurasou (it has problematic tropes but for the time was like the most important being neurodivergent at school show i have ever seen)
- steins gate (my taste is very good as you can see)
- black lagoon
- SOUL EATER AAAAH AAAAHHH PEAK PEAK PEAK AAAAAAAHHHHH AAAAAAHHHHHHHH
- Full Metal Panic (the more i remember that I picked for myself the more i realise my taste is objectively better than everyone elses)
- Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom
- Maoyu: Archenemy & Hero
- Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
- Tokyo Ghoul (fell off so hard after the first season it isnt even funny)
- Toradora! (i watched so much romance)
- Clannad
Ok thats all of them, I kept the themes of every single one ehe
I think my own picks were better. But overall i think after watching these i stopped watching any anime at all for the next 12 years until picking it back up again for demon slayer, dungeon meshi and freeerreeennn. The last i watched before quitting from john attack on titan hoodie and merch as his only clothes that i swear never got washed was Seraph of the end which sucked so hard i disregarded the entire medium. His taste was exceptionally trash
Edit: god damn everyone watched dbz and pokemon except me. Dbz i avoided like the plague because its what boys watched and i didnt like anything boys did (still dont) and pokemon felt like it happened to me because of the era it couldn’t be avoided. My hot take is i never really liked pokemon, i even got fire red purely so i could fit in at school i didnt even like the game back then and only like it now because of nostalgia but if i could have chosen to not engage with Pokemon i would have just ignored it completely.
Now digimon however….
My take away is to be trans and to be violent
My takeaway is to be non binary and cause chaos
re:zero has lots of deeply disgusting and annoying elements, but because most of those elements are basically typical of a lot of anime, people who are used to it (or like it because they’re misogynistic creeps) can much more easily look at the other elements, and some of the other elements are interesting, though it takes a while to get off the ground.
We should not be getting people used to it, because even if we say “I disavow x, y, z” we are still ultimately participating in normalizing it when we go show such things to others with a positive recommendation.
There are a lot of anime where I wish we could have a version that is purged of these elements, though in some cases it would require serious structural changes.
Soul Eater is a good example, iirc, because it has pedo elements but they could very easily be purged without it affecting the narrative basically at all.
re:zero is a perfect distillation of everything I hate about anime in one neat package of shit, it actually made me declare war on anime fans I hated it that much and picked an argument online every time i saw it mentioned.
The only other anime i hate just as much is JJK but not for the same reasons its just an afront to shonen and i resent its existence
You hate Re:Zero I get that.
But what is your beef with Jujutsu Kaisen ? I think I watched like 2 seasons and thought it was fun enough. Not trying to argue just legit curious to hear your perspective on it .
Cause I dont remember many problematic things about it for example.
(I only watched like 2 things of it though) didnt read the manga either.
If there’s one criticism of JJK I have it’s the convoluted exposition dumps on how powers work. DBZ is the total opposite where characters just shout their attack and fire it off. I don’t need a 10 minute explanation for why Krillan’s Destructo Disc cuts through everything. It’s fucking baller that it does and he’s gonna cut bad guys in half.
JJK will explain every minutiae of how stuff works, despite the fact it’s literal fucking magic. Who cares how Gojo’s Domain Expansion works? He trapped some demon in an infinite bubble. We don’t need him to explain it. Just show him slowing down time and punching fuckers in the face.
Also, Itadori is a terribly boring protagonist. Like every character except Itadori is interesting. It’s because he’s supposed to be an everyman the audience can project themselves onto as he undergoes the hero’s journey. This means he’s bland and not very interesting. How do you have a talking panda or an angry salary man exorcist as characters and think “Oh I know! I’ll make some cookie cutter high school kid the main character.”
If there’s one criticism of JJK I have it’s the convoluted exposition dumps on how powers work. DBZ is the total opposite where characters just shout their attack and fire it off. I don’t need a 10 minute explanation for why Krillan’s Destructo Disc cuts through everything. It’s fucking baller that it does and he’s gonna cut bad guys in half.
JJK will explain every minutiae of how stuff works, despite the fact it’s literal fucking magic. Who cares how Gojo’s Domain Expansion works? He trapped some demon in an infinite bubble. We don’t need him to explain it. Just show him slowing down time and punching fuckers in the face.
Theoretically, there are two reasons:
- To allow the fights to have strategy and 2. because the fantasy is more specific than action figure mashing (e.g. that’s not even similar to what Gojo’s Domain does, in theory or practice).
In reality, JJK is very spotty on point 1 because some characters just casually break the system in a way that isn’t interesting, especially Sukuna, and several elements do not make sense anyway, like Black Flashes being “exponentially” more powerful or that framerate technique. The Sukuna thing also undermines point 2, but not as badly.
While JJK has its own merits, in some ways it is a bad clone of Hunter x Hunter (which the author admitted, and also the exponent thing), where the detail given is much more intentional and much more justified because it usually genuinely matters later on. For example, in the most recent chapter of HXH, 85% of the chapter was dedicated to explaining one guy’s ability and it’s great because, like has already happened several times this arc, these specifics will be important to the strategies employed.
Those are all fair points I just thought the word “hate” felt a bit strong for an imho perfectly servicable show. Not even saying its high art or anything but it has nice animation and cool fights.
I will also have to say subpar protags are pretty common in anime. Especially kinda boring or cookie cutter ones ? Like you have amazing worlds and casts but then you have a blue haired nobody as protag.
Oh JJK isnt problematic in any way I just found it so offensively crap I was legit angry it wasted so much of my time. So it pissed me off the same amount but for completely different reasons but equally felt like a complete waste of my life watching where id rather have stared at a wall for the same amount of time.
- every character is unlikeable voids
- story bounces all over the place
- literally don’t care about anyone except maybe hammer girl who gets erased from 90% of the story
- antagonists are just boring
- over explains every power for like half an episode killing the pacing every time to the point every fight scene just goes on for 7 days but not in the fun dbz way
- the show assumes im stupid and cannot see what is happening in front of me
- for the love of christ i do not care about your power system i literally couldnt give a fuck im not keeping track of the rules in the background
- incest characters (mei mei) i guess it does infact have some problematic bits they just weirded me out
- it just feels so amateurish and edgy with no real substance the only bit i like is the art and character designs and thats about it
A lot of people dunk on demon slayer for being basic but like it has the core idea of MAKE LIKEABLE CHARACTERS I WANT TO SEE SUCCEED and an antagonist I really really want to see obliterated.
I don’t see why you’d hate JJK that much. It’s got its problems, but like I don’t think that’s remotely comparable to re:zero. Like, it’s kind of dumb and pandering in terms of some basic elements of its writing, but it’s got lots of good aspects too.
Probably Dragon Ball. I thought that this new type of cartoon was neat.
Watched a few things here or there over the decades.
- Cowboy Bebop (I respect it but do not enjoy watching it, Tank! is still the goat of course)
- Black Lagoon (Fine)
- One-Punch Man (Oh S1, how I miss when the studio had the all-star team)
- Evangelion (S-tier)
Only started really watching anime in 2021 and went through a bunch of the all-time most recommended shows:
- Steins;gate (problematic fave)
- Madoka (S-tier)
- Gurren Lagann (worth watching if only to see how far it can escalate)
- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood (a solid shounen)
- Mob Psycho (S-tier)
- Kaguya-sama Love Is War (S-tier)
I think the first one I ever saw was Sailor Moon and what I took away was “holy shit I wanna be a pretty girl” but that took longer than a 30 second transformation sequence lol, and then after that either Ranma 1/2 or Inuyasha. Dont remember which came first!
Double whammy of Ranma and Sailor Moon was nice
So the thing is I was always aware of Anime’s existence, but I generally didn’t like the look of it and in my childhood always wrote them off as childish cartoons. Back then I hated anything that would come off as childish or immature, and I didn’t allow myself to enjoy things. Funny thing is that I was also way into YuGiOh way back when. Didn’t watch the anime but absolutely fucked with the TCG.
I only started watching anime in 2020-2021. I don’t really remember which ones I watched first, but I know Naruto was one of the early ones. Also did Mob Psycho, Puella Magi etc. I think in terms of which anime I watched I stayed relatively mainstream.
What I did notice was that, way more than with live action tv shows, whether I’d like an anime or not was way unpredictable. Basically every anime was a coin toss as to whether I’d like it or not.
Some notable ones I didn’t like:
- Attack on Titan (great first episode, second episode teleported me to snorkmimimiland and I didn’t continue)
- Psycho-Pass
- Yuki Yuna Is A Hero
- City
- Chainsmoker Cat
And in terms of favorite anime I think I’m right in the mainstream pocket as well, as they’d be:
- Frieren
- Bocchi
- Spy X Family
- Steins;Gate
- Lycoris Recoil
I definitely appreciate the medium a lot more now than I ever did, but I’ll stick to my “real” shows hehe
First anime I can remember watching is the first season of Pokemon, I think. I’m sure there are others I can’t remember, but that was the first anime I actively remember. I thought it was the coolest shit ever, and soon I got a Game Boy from my parents and played Pokemon Red Edition. I’ve completed over 300 anime and probably watched a bit over 400 throughout my life.
I would say I’m a fan of the medium, but I don’t watch thaaat much new stuff. I also dont consider myself much of a weeb . Like I do legit watch more western cartoons and real shows/movies these days.
Recent shows I watched and liked are Frieren and Dungeon Meshi.
My favourite gerne is probably Mecha and I do like various Gundam shows. Liked Seed and Iron Blooded Orphans. Witch from Mercury was cute.
The Sonic the Hedgehog OVA was extremely formative to my being. I read a lot more manga as a kid though, the first thing I went out of my way to watch was fucking Bakuman of all things because I’m a walking billboard for US Shonen Jump.
Idk how i managed to avoid watching any sonic at all considering i had every single game in the series. I vaguely recall moments of sonic underground and X.
Anime sonic be like
It was Pokemon but at the time I didn’t really recognize it as anime until later
Maybe it’s that phenomenon where a group of people pick the worst food order that makes no one happy but anime watchlist choices.
The gun season of Sword Art Online was my first anime. It made me get gender feelings about being transformed into a woman. Funny how that works
The GGO season was the least bad mainline SAO season, although Alicization had some redeemable features like putting Kirito in a coma and making a fantasy setting where the only ontologically evil people were Americans. The GGO spinoff was better than mainline SAO too (it had a completely different author), or at least the first season was (I haven’t watched the second season).
I was watching dbz before i could walk i literally don’t remember
My first one was Initial D and what I learned is:
Hatchbacks are cool
Beach episodes are lame
Don’t be in the Lonely Drivers Club
Simplify, then add lightness
No one sleep in Tokyo
One of the eurobeat musiciand that was featured in initial d (Ken Blast) is a trans woman, goes by “Odyssey eurobeat” now.
P.S she said Ken is short for Kendra so it’s not a dead name
That’s extremely rad!
Hexbear beach episode when?
Nichijou, still definitively the best anime ever created
Spitting hard facts.
I started with Naruto, as recommended by my dad of all people. We also watched a weird but kinda fun one called Kage Kara Mamoru - short and fairly cliche, but it was new and interesting.
Other early ones…
- Blood+ - It was fine
- Clannad - Amazing
- one I can’t remember about a Mom in post-apocalypse Tokyo agreeing/basically forced by circumstances into being some experimental human weapon - Weird but okay
- Bleach - It was fine
- Full Metal Panic as well, it was neat enough.
- Azumanga Diaoh I really tried but couldn’t get into it.
- Same for Evangelion, I just don’t like mecha.
- Is what I thought until I loved the fuck out of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- Lucky Star was a fun and interesting introduction to slice of life.
- Haruhi was super weird but consequently interesting
- Soul Eater is a touch cliche but I still think about the setting to this day, done well
- Don’t @ me but I tried Cowboy Bebop then, I tried it now, and I still can’t get into it
So really just fairly standard stuff, what I enjoyed though is what I enjoy of anime now - they treat fantasy/sci-fi seriously (without being too grimdark) but often without taking themselves too seriously either. For some reason that’s something that western media has largely sucked at for decades. The animation aspect also means they can try a bunch of different new ideas. I’ve watched plenty more since.
Honestly the half of your list that I have watched, I loved, so I may give your others a try.
Some of my recommendations to newbies I’d consider, depending on the person obviously:
- Nichijou 100% mad fun
- Mushi-shi rocks my world and calms my soul like nothing else
- Clannad for crying
- Plastic Memories see above
- Steins Gate yes
- Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood - Just endless coolness
And more I can’t remember rght now
Id recommend Full metal panic fomoffu specifically as its the comedy spin off series to the main mecha storyline which is the characters just living their normal lives. Its very very fun
I think the first anime I ever saw was the original Pokemon run when it was first airing in the US. For whatever reason it was being aired at like 6 am on weekdays before it started airing on saturday mornings, so I’d wake up early before school and watch it. I may have seen a few episodes of Dragonball before that, and sometime around this I’d watch Sailor Moon and occasionally DBZ after school, but I can’t remember a clear timeline for what I saw when so I’m just gonna go with Pokemon being the first of these.
Highschool dxd…… i was really trying hard to fit in. I think this has to be the worst anime i have ever seen?
I watched a couple of episodes a while back while binging on garbage, and it’s one of the few things I’ve seen that actually made my skin crawl. It was unwatchable garbage even compared to something like To-LOVE-Ru, which is completely unwatchable garbage that manages to be both bland and problematic at the same time.
I’ve seen worse animes (like the worst thing anyone has ever made), but that one stands out as something I couldn’t even be bothered to hate watch.
Made in abyss makes me feel physically unwell.
I actually did watch the digimon movie as my first ever anime but I would more count it as the first ever box office youtube poop rather than an anime or even movie. I made my dad play it on loop and he hated it.
ok i unironically love the digimon movie so much. i also had it on repeat as a kid but even now it never fails to be so fun to watch, it’s so good and makes me laugh xD
The Outlaw Star English dub on Cartoon Network.
I was blown away by the magic system and the drama. And wierded the fuck out by the naked android girl navigator in the vat.
They, of course, skipped the hot springs.
I still have a fondness for all the unique SciFi elements.
