Miyazaki.

Let's start with the true classics, films that both exemplify the best of Japanese cinema and have touched many of our own childhoods in the West. I'm talking about Hayao Miyazaki, the legendary animator, writer, and director of Studio Ghibli, who has created such works as SpiritedAway, Howl's Moving Castle, Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, and dozens of other incredible films. The reason I mention those four, in particular, is that they will probably be the most well known of his films among Western audiences and they will be the easiest access point for a beginner in anime.

His films are highly whimsical and emotional in nature, not least of all because Miyazaki draws his films before even drafting a screenplay. He encounters the story frame by frame, creating a quintessential, wandering quality to every film and truly immersing the viewer into a journey of images and discovery through vision. His are films that can truly inspire, stirring at universal human emotions within all audiences, and their beauty and power is something that can be enjoyed with any kind of company. In other words, unlike many of the remaining works on this list, these films are ones that you can watch even with your family.

True, each movie ranges widely in subject matter and focus. Spirited Away is about a girl whose trapped in the spirit world and the fact that she ends up working at a divine bathhouse being just one stepping stone in her quest to turn her parents human again. Howl's Moving Castle, on the other hand, is about a young Welsh woman who has been cursed to be an old woman and it follows her journey to overcome said curse as she falls into the employment of famed sorcerer Howl and subsequently becomes a player in an international war that has begun to recruit and corrupt witches and wizards from across the land. The concepts themselves sound like a doozy and may even if you scare you away from watching them, but in actuality the plots of these films often because secondary to the messages that drive them, messages of endurance, understanding, and personal growth, all of which are delivered through some of the most strikingly beautiful frames of animation that you will ever see on film.

Paprika

Speaking of whimsical, strikingly beautiful films, Paprika fits this description to a t and pushes the limits of even those adjectives in what is considered one of the most influential animes of the century. I was hard pressed to pick which film should fit this spot on the list, reserved for a more conceptual and mind-bending piece, and though I eventually whittled it down to Paprika and Ghost in the Shell, this visually unparalleled spectacle is simply too amazing and too unknown by Western audiences to not be given a mention.

While Ghost in the Shell is amazing, many people have already been introduced to the work through the fairly recent live action Hollywood adaptation with Scarlett Johansson. Paprika, on the other hand, is both criminally underloved by and extremely accessible to Western audiences, and it's time to show some appreciation Goddamnit.

This film, clearly one of the unspoken sources of inspiration for Christopher Nolan's Inception both in concept and in many visuals, is a thriller that tells the story of Dr. Atsuko Chiba, aka Paprika, who moonlights as this alter ego when providing illegal psychotherapy to mental patients through the use of a device that allows use to enter into someone's dreams. After a series of thefts of the device and "robberies" into people's minds, the race is on to figure out what renegade has stolen the machine for themselves and using it to wreak havoc on the mind.

If that description doesn't peak your interest, then even one peak at the visuals will have your eyes widening in surprise. This film is stunning. It's an incredible creative project that truly captures the essence of dreaming through the fluidity of its transformations of objects from one thing to another and it's incredible capacity for understanding how insane associations and cognitive processes in the brain can become when put onto the screen. While I love Inception, Paprika is far superior and far more inspired in its depiction of the true chaos of dreams.

Even if it's only to compare these two films, you should give Paprika a look—it thoroughly deserves your attention.

Death Note

Many people new to anime may have still heard of Death Note, likely in part due to the crappy Netflix live-action version that was floating around a few years ago. As you've probably picked up from my language, that thing does not accurately represent the anime at all, just as the Scarlett Johansson Ghost in the Shell film misses what made its source material so spectacular and impressive in the first place. While Netflix's Death Note is a dumb, gory slasher movie about an inept teen who happens upon a Notebook that kills whoever's name you write in it, the 2006 Death Note series is about Light Yagami, a young genius who discovers the supernatural book and uses it to masterfully eradicate crime from the face of the Earth, evade police detection, and engage in a gripping battle of wits against the world's greatest detective and his only intellectual equal. Netflix may have given us a stupid, fumbling encounter with a cursed object and an idiotic lead, but the 2006 anime explores deep and twisted arcs of corruption, complex moral systems, and genius set at odds.

This is a disturbing but deeply engrossing story that has truly earned its place in the spotlight, though it was hardly given its due rewards by Netflix. Nevertheless, the streaming platform does carry the original 2006 anime series, though you might have to brace yourself before you dive into this particular show. Though it's not especially gory, the moral depravity of Light's actions may make your stomach turn while his incredible intellect will make your head spin.

Berserk (1997)

While we're on the subject of disturbing and intense television series, let's stroll down memory lane and take a look at the 1997 tv adaption of Berserk, the incredibly famous and influential manga that has since been adapted into numerous films and multiple television show runs. The most iconic and beloved of these film attempts, though, is definitely the 25 episode 1997 miniseries, which follows the adventures of a rugged and brutally violent warrior named Guts (I know, kind of on the nose) after he joins a party of brigands called "The Band of the Hawk," who are vying for legitimacy and recognition from the ruling monarch and who seek to elevate their frighteningly determined leader, Griffith, into the upper echelons of the ruling class. This is a story anchored by themes of ambition, entitlement, dreams, and friendship versus notions of utilitarianism.

This brief description hardly does the show justice, in all of its brutal and twisted glory, and you'll just have to watch the show yourself to understand why everyone cringes in discomfort when you mention its name. This series has aged exceptionally well, both in its visuals and in its own rendition of the Berserk "golden age arc." I strongly encourage you to find time to watch this anime, though definitely not with your parents and begin to understand why this is one of the most definitive works in the anime canon.

Be aware, though, that this spectacular, albeit short, show is absolutely drowning with huge triggers, including sexual assault and rape and extreme violence. You have been warned.

One Punch Man

Okay. Now that we've got the disturbing heavy hitters out of the way, let's focus on the lighter side of anime. This one's a charming and absolutely hilarious anime that's just released its second season of episodes on Netflix. This series follows the struggles of Saitama, the titular One Punch Man, whose greatest strength is also his greatest misfortune: he always defeats his enemies with just one punch. The bored and ridiculous superhero soon acquires a host of other problems as he is belittled by the league of superheroes that he seeks to join, saddled with an eager and relentless pupil in the form of sexy cybernetic Genos, and constantly made late and distracted from his trips to the grocery store.

Yes, you heard right.

This series is gleefully absurd and is something of a parody of the anime genre in and of itself. It's constantly poking fun at anime tropes and conventions, like endless battle sequences and fantastically sexy heroes, with a character who is incompatible with all of those things and will crack a smile from you with his mere presence. I'm not exaggerating. The show only gets funnier and funnier as you grow more aware of particular tropes in the anime genre, but even a total newbie will get more than just a kick out of this hilarious ongoing series.

Cowboy Bebop

For the sake of pleasing everybody, I've even included an anime for any of you out there that watch your animes dubbed in English. If that's especially what you're looking for, I also highly recommend Space Dandy, which is damn hilarious and seems like it was made specifically to be watched with dub, but for now let's focus on the king of English dub and a core classic series for any anime lover: Cowboy Bebop. Running from 1998 to 1999 with a mere twenty-six episodes, this series nonetheless made a lasting impression with its cast of raunchy, devil-may-care bounty hunters, crew members of the intergalactic ship Bebop, an old lug that doesn't look nearly as impressive as it sounds, who spend the brunt of the series chasing down criminals, ruffling countless feathers, and more often than not losing the money that they've earned.

A cheeky delight from beginning to end, this show proves not only that English dubs can work well for some stories, but that for certain projects, the best way to present them is with a smokey, lazy American accent. Cowboy Bebop, with its fumbling, ratty cast of too-cool vagabonds, is definitely one of them.

Dororo

Now, while everything else I've recommended is super foundational or extremely definitive in the anime canon, this one is more of a personal favorite that, while it's something of a classic considering its original '60s manga and anime release, has only recently been gaining true popularity and critical acclaim for its 2019 television series adaptation which is currently still airing its first season of episodes. The reason I chose this extremely new piece of media rather than giving you another classic like, say, the aforementioned Ghost in the Shell is because I wanted to create a diverse list of shows and films that includes an array of genres and not just things that have helped to create the voice of anime, but things that are currently being spoken and maybe are still being realized in anime today.

The series is Dororo, a beautiful and violent romp through feudal Japan as young orphan Dororo and the limbless, mute, and senseless warrior Hyakkimaru quest through the countryside in an effort to rid the region of demons and recover Hyakkimaru's stolen body parts. The kicker, though, is that Hyakkimaru's body was willingly sacrificed to the demons upon his birth by his own father, who from this terrible deal and similar ritual sacrifices has been able to maintain a continuous era of prosperity for the nation.

True, the anime does require a bit of flexibility from the imagination, one example being that Hyakkimaru's prosthetics are somehow able to bend and operate like true human limbs, but in all honesty, every anime from this list requires a little bit of leeway and this particular show is definitely worth the watch.

True, it can be extremely violent and even some of the concepts alone are disturbing, but the moral complexity that it pairs with this violence and the stunning quality of its animation only serve to strengthen the overall work. Furthermore, the story conveys an incredible range of emotions, only one of which is horror. The series is more often than not full of charm, beauty, and humor, and the fact that it's already skyrocketed the Dororo brand into the public with both its popularity among fans and its respect with critics speaks volumes about this show considering that it hasn't even wrapped up its first season.