| I would say what matters most to me is the person that you watch your first anime with. If there is someone in your life that you really look up to or like hanging out with (for me it was my older brother), watching your first anime with him/her will make it a very memorable experience regardless of the series. I know some of the first anime I watched were Fruits Basket, Chobits, Love Hina, and Mahou Sensei Negima. I really enjoyed them, but I don't think those series would necessarily be the ones someone would pick out for a 10 year old boy. They just happened to be what my brother watched at the time. |
| A good ending... I hate when anime have open endings |
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| Something awesome that hooks you in right away like Death Note or Attack On Titan |
| My Manga List My Anime List Shabada shabadabadaba I am DjG545 aka Dj Fo Fo aka The Mutha Fkn Name I'm Usin Now |
| Death Note or fma:b, both loved/accepted by almost everyone. And maybe AOT? |
| Something that can appeal to a wide audience, rather than only being for a specific group of people. |
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| I will probably end up repeating what most people said, but here are my thoughts on this. 1- It should have a good or at least conclusive finale, or a second season already aired. People in the west aren't used to "read the manga" endings. Sometimes a good season finale is enough though. 2- It should be a show that balances it's mood between light/normal/dark right. This is only if you don't know what kind of thing the person you want to recommend something is into. Maybe he/she would like a comedy like Danshi Kokousei or a grimdark and edgy show like Black Lagoon or Hellsing Ultimate, but better go for the safe. 3- It shouldn't be "too japanese". This is important, you just don't go and recommend Gintama or Bakemonogatari to someone as their first show, they won't get a lot of references and will be lost while watching. 4- Don't mindfuck first time watchers. This is kind of obvious, I'm pretty sure most people would just say "WTF I'm watching" if you tell them to watch Cosette no Shouzou or NGE as their first. 5- A cast of likeable and/or interesting characters is always a big bonus. So don't recommend Accel World or the kind of anime where characters make you face palm every single episode. 6- The lenght can be as long as you want, but you should consider the amount of free time of your friend. Anything below 50 episodes is always safe I think, but people with a lot of free time wouln't have trouble to binge 75+ shows (My first anime was Bleach and I watched it in about a month). 7- Avoid incest, lolis and Yaoi. If someone likes that kind of things he/she will end up searching it by themselves. 8- It should be consistent with it's themes, mood and progression. Anime that aren't consistent require a lot more patience to watch. 9- Visuals should be good. People are used to smooth animation from Disney movies and Avatar, so you should have that in mind. Also the character design shouldn't be too moe or weird. 10- If the anime appeals to a western audience it is a bonus, like Baccano!, Cowboy Bebop or Black Lagoon. 11- Last of all, ecchi isn't totally out of question, but you should know when to recommend an ecchi show, and not just randomly recommend Highschool DxD. |
Willwatch4food said: I don't think there is a definitive "Ultimate First Anime", because everyone has their own predispositions. Ask what kinds of movies/tv shows/books they like, and find an anime similar. There is at least one anime for literally every kind of western genre out there. If they like Comedy, try something like Working or Azumangah Daioh. If they like sports, try the latest sports show, which I guess is Haikyu. If they like horror, give suggestions like Shiki or Higurashi. I hear people all the time point to either Cowboy Bebop or Dragonball, and say "This show is the best show for newcomers, and while they are both fine shows, they are not for everyone, and showing them to someone who doesn't like sci-fi, or action shows is going to turn them off, and do more damage than if they were to just randomly pick a show from netflix or crunchyroll or something. Cowboy Bebop tends to work as a great first anime since it's Western as fuck. It's perhaps the most Western anime in existence, which makes it easy to slip into. Anyone familiar a little with Western cinema will easily be immersed. |
| WEAPONS - My blog, for reviews of music, anime, books, and other things |
| Nothing, depends on person. My first anime was Highschool DxD ;ddd. I didn't even know it was ecchi , before I watched it, lol. My little sister first anime was Guilty crown. And my big sister first anime is Steins;Gate. And my Dads first anime was TG. xD Everything can be a first anime, if it can make you want to watch more anime or if you are entertained by it. ;) |
| Watch SAO, look at everything they did with it, then do the complete opposite and that makes a good first anime |
SomeEdgeLord said: I WILL report you from this forum if this continues. In real life, I am one of the coldest, unsympathetic, people you'll ever know, who's grown up in an even colder household, you really don't want me to break my persona, I know how to make people feel bad. YearnsforAttention said: hm who has 1656 friends on MAL that's right me bye bye YearnsforAttention said: I don't want your approval how many damn times do I need to say it I enjoy irritating you I am gonna do things MY way |
| It contains content, like genres and themes, that the individual already liked in non-anime form basically. |
| "Laws exist only for those who cannot live without clinging onto them." -Souske Aizen "Bleach"  |
| A balance between novelty, well defined processes and conventions, as well as a consistent and non-bloviated premise tend to be the fundamental markers of a good first anime. In more technical terms if a good first anime doesn't ignore the diachronic (long term) conventions (narratological, graphic, phonetic, legal, industrial, socio-cultural etc.) but does not rely on them. At the same time simultaneously introducing innovative/novel synchonic (short term) themes, mechanism, and devices that are specific to that particular anime and might compliment or contradict the diachronic. Though one would tend to say "whatever suites your fancy", I kinda find that what people (as a whole) value tends to consistently oscillate between what they find familiar and what they want they find intriguing...never an easily balance to find. Too familiar and its cliched, too intriguing and abstract and it becomes irritating or otherwise incomprehensible. In addition, I avoided explicitly citing things like genre and themes because those are emergent/arbitrary categories that shouldn't be imposed but rather be aggregated...they are really not useful definitions when you start to seriously thinking about it or when it comes to their consistent application. If you look at what anime people tend to generally give a high rating versus what they vote down, it tends to fall somewhere on this continuum. With higher rated anime being in the middle whereas lower rated anime is located at one of the two extremes. This another reason I never really cared much for the "personal preference" argument, or giving too restricting definitions such as "it has x convention" but instead prefer saying it has "y tendency". People tend to be, as a whole, rather consistent when its comes the valuing something as "good"...this is particularly true when looking at "first anime". So if you find yourself agreeing with the majority, then chances are you will enjoy what they are suggesting (just not guaranteed). First anime always start off unfamiliar but will quickly establish where they fall on familiar-intrigue continuum in their first couple of episodes (e.i how familiar they are to other, previous, anime series in addition to differentiating themselves from them through expressing a particular novel concept). This kinda also explains why there isn't too much deviation between how an anime is rated in the first three episodes compared to the last three episodes. (three episodes was chosen partly for standard scoring based on the data, but also because after 60 minutes attention spans etc. become a factor that can lead to obfuscating the results) I would tend to say that the continuum is also true for anime adaptions, though perhaps you will find a bigger deviancy between the first 3 episodes versus last 3 depending on if the series is trying to cram/rush the ending. The wild card for the continuum outlook on "good first anime" would be parodies and satire which a bit more complicated and hard to pin down by a set of consistent conventions...they require a different critical lens basically so not really suited for starting out. Essentially if you are starting out, just watch everything and anything in order to get a handle on what you find familiar (enjoy) because all the anime will "seem" novel at first. If you already have a favoured non-anime media (literature, film, television) then you probably have a familiar set of conventions so can already artificially cut down your viewing list. Over time you will then be able to pick out what "familiar" animes have a particular well executed novel content. Just avoid relying of genre tags etc. because they are a REALLY broad and often an inconsistent guide....though at the same user rating and recommendations "can" be useful (particularly those that bullet point their reasons). Basically don't rush, keep an open mind and pay attention to everything and don't rely on others to give you your values =P |
| Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is the answer and anything alike. |
idk why I was here but I'm prob back to playing Dragon's Dogma 2 again when you read this |
| Short Popular and an interesting setting Something like Attack on Titan or One Punch Man |
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| Accessibility: A show short enough for the casual viewer to be able to watch without much trouble. Engaging enough to maintain interest, but not overly complex as to lose the viewer. Nothing too tropey or something with a ton of fanservice. Death Note was one of the first I watched when I actually started getting into anime (not including childhood nostalgia shows). To this day I still think it's one of the better "gateway anime" out there. |
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