If you are into anime, you have likely already seen these.
But in case you are not... you MUST try it! Anime is NOT just like your everyday animations. These tales are exceptional, chock filled with extreme characters, and gorgeous animation.
Action, play, sci-fi, emotional, terror, apocalyptic, comedic, what it means to be human, people merging with machines, the significance of life.
You May Have seen Pokémon or Sailor Moon. There is many more complicated storylines and characters than that. A lot of anime is a manifestation of Japanese and contemporary society's response to globalization and technological changes of the 21st century. Therefore don't hesitate to discover extreme themes in these tales. It may even be somewhat hard to completely digest the significance of a number of the anime.
So... there's my pitch.
Incidentally, I've just recently gotten into anime, so don't hesitate to suggest other amazing anime from the comments below!
11. Tokyo Ghoul
Length: 12 episodes
Genre: Action / Drama / Horror / Emotional / Dark Fantasy
Plot: Kaneki gets in an accident and receives penis transplant out of a ghoul. He struggles to keep his humanity whilst alive as a half-ghoul who has to consume human flesh to live.
Intense character growth and symbolism contained! There's a postmodern feel you'll be able to view in Kaneki's hopelessness. The narrative criticizes contemporary society's surplus intake and discrimination.
10. Haikyuu!!
Length: 25 episodes
Genre: Sports / Notebook
Plot: Hinata has desired to play volleyball since junior high. He gets the opportunity in high school. That can be a story of teamwork and inspiration between buddies.
You know a great deal about volleyball out of this anime. It's a fun, light narrative. If you're searching for something not too dim but with fun personalities, this is the story for you!
9. Passing Note
Length: 37 episodes
Genre: Psychological / Drama / Detective
Plot: Light Yagami is a genius high school pupil who one day picks a Death Note. He finds its capacity to kill people and constructs a loony elaborate strategy to rule to world and remove corruption during tactical murders.
It becomes pretty intense and complicated. The amount of mad plot twists in this narrative is going to keep you on your feet. This story appears into systemic corruption. However, the most fascinating part is the way Light keeps finding such complex plans that somehow operate each moment.
8. Strike Titan
Length: 25 episodes
Genre: Dark Fantasy / Post-Apocalyptic
Plot: Eren Jaeger resides in a calm town walled away from man-eating titans. But following a colossal titan fractures through the outside wall, insanity ensues. Eren joins the army so as to resist against the titans.
This story brings to light the annoyance of losing the illusion of peace. It poses issues of the present state of Japan's army, calling for forces to be in the ready1.
7. Blood: The Last Vampire
Length: 45 minutes
Genre: Action / Horror
Plot: Saya is a vampire that kills other vampires aka chiropterans. She moves as a pupil on a US army base in Japan to ruin the dangers. Her motives for doing this? Unknown. Unknown.
Saya is an intriguing character. She is super hardcore and trendy. Aside from the actions, this narrative is also a manifestation of American and Japanese relations.
6. Steins Gate
Length: 24 episodes
Genre: SciFi / Mystery / Romance / Notebook
Plot: Okabe is the normal man with an intense curiosity about time travel. He stumbles upon a conspiracy between the use of human subjects in time travel experiments. Okabe and buddies must use their wits and determination to stop the world from descending to an authoritarian dystopia.
Time travel makes this story a little confusing, but as soon as you get beyond the first couple of episodes, things start to create sense. The best thing about this particular story is that the profound and meaningful connections between personalities.
5. Spirited Away
Length: 124 minutes
Genre: Fantasy / Miyazaki
Plot: Chihiro is moving to another house with her parents. They stumble upon a soul world and her parents have been transformed into pigs after ingesting the soul food. Chihiro faces several challenges so as to rescue her parents.
That is a coming of age story that incorporates profound topics about evaporating traditions, ecological degradation, optimism1, plus guts.
4. Grave of the Fireflies
Length: 89 minutes
Genre: Drama / Anti-war / Ancient Fiction
They fight to look after one another and survive in dire times.
This story talks about WWII in a remarkably humanistic way. It's profoundly sad.
3. Ouran High School Host Club
Length: 26 episodes
Genre: Romantic Comedy / Drama
Plot: Haruhi gets admitted into the prestigious Ouran High School on scholarship. She befriends the host team members and shares lots of humorous adventures together.
Lots of the other stories I recorded were extreme and profound, but that one is simply amusing. It speeds so high in my list since I have never seen anything that funny before.
2. Ghost in the Shell
Length: 82 minutes
Genre: SciFi / Cyberpunk
Plot: Kusanagi is a cyborg woman working for people safety service Section 9. Their duty is to discover a hacker called the Puppet Master that has been focusing on people's heads and allow them to commit crimes.
This narrative explores technology's potential for improving or degrading the individual race. It addresses philosophical and societal ideas about what it means to be human.
1. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Length: 64 episodes
Genre: Adventure / SciFi / Action / Notebook
Plot: Edward and Alphonse Elric learn alchemy in a youthful age. In an endeavor to bring their mother back in the dead, Al loses his whole body and Ed loses his leg and arm. The 2 brothers travel the globe looking for a way to recover what they've dropped.
This story has everything. Adventure, drama, hope, courage, inspiration, and a fantastic soundtrack. Ed and Al's narrative is inspiring as they confront hardship after hardship with strength and a real belief in the good of humankind.
Footnotes:
1. Mike Dillon introduced this notion in his lecture at 2015 at JAPN 390 - Western Society and Culture: Anime in California State University, Fullerton.