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Introducing people to anime


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So in my circle of friends, the majority of us either watch anime regularly, or have watched it in the past. Except for one of us. He's never watched any anime, except for maybe two or three episodes of DBZ years ago, so assume zero experience. Recently, he agreed to watch a few episodes of any show to try and give them a chance. After some consideration, we told him to watch the first 5 episodes of Attack on Titan. We thought the twist at the end of episode 5 might grab his attention, but he walked away thoroughly unimpressed. Which leads me to this question:

If you had to introduce someone who was completely unfamiliar with anime to any show, what would it be and why? Assume they would only watch the first 5-8 episodes.

 

We had a lot of trouble coming up with an answer, and we all still feel like we picked the wrong one.

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I have a friend who only watched Naruto for a long time until I somehow convinced him to watch SAO when it first aired.  He really enjoyed it, but still refused to watch any of the other series I told him about, claiming he didn't have the time to watch a lot of series.(He spends too much time with his MTG cards heh.)  I finaly got him interested in watching another series last summer with Attack on Titan, since he had heard some of our other friends had been watching it as well.  I almost managed to convince him to watch Railgun S, but he apparently prefers shows that have swords in them. @_@;;

 

Otherwise most of my friends who do watch anime only like the action/adventure or the gory/horror/sci-fi types of shows and want to hear nothing about slice of life or romcom unless it's Miyazaki or something like that.

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The tricky part comes with introducing it to a completely new person though. The majority of anime watchers I know started with shows like Naruto, DBZ, Bleach, or One Piece and then did one of two things:

1. Got really far into the series, finally asked "What am I doing, there's been over 200 episodes and I really don't care anymore" and stopped watching anime entirely.

OR
2. Got really far into the series, finally asked "What am I doing, there's been over 200 episodes, and I bet there's far better stuff out there" and then proceeded to find shows that were shorter and more interesting.

 

It's a lot easier to get people from the first option back into anime by showing them something interesting, but for somebody who hardly knows what anime even is, finding a starting point proved to be quite a challenge. We all agreed not to pick shows like Naruto since we view them as shows we watched, in my friend's words, "Before we knew better."

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Guest hairybumslapper

I have an uncle in his 40's who didn't even watch anime, but i convinced him to watch Attack on Titan, since he is into movies with lots of action set pieces and high production value. After the first five episodes, he was hooked. I ended up marathoning the whole season with him in a whole day :P. Anyways, i think it boils down to what someone's preferred genre in movies or books are. For example, if someone enjoys romance and drama, show them a good romance & drama anime. the same goes for someone who is into action/adventure. It's generally good to start off with the well known popular shows first, since they wouldn't know any better.

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hairy bum slappers absolutely correct you need to tailor the choice of anime to your intended target . when i was much younger i got my friend who is a martial arts fanatic in to anime with ninja scroll and fist of the north star. but my friend who was in to fantasy novels and rpgs was trickier i had to use slayers and lodoss wars. its all about tailoring it to the persons tastes and individual preferences. 

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I recommended Kill la Kill to a friend that only watches ecchi and shounen, but he said the animation was too flashy and made his head hurt, on the other hand i talked about Clannad in front of an friend who has only watched Spirited Away and Ouran HS; and she loved it, she still hasn't made it to After Story though.

With that i meant, knowing his/her tastes is not enough, i was surprised when i watched Clannad (my first slice of life and romance) and slice of life has been my favorite anime genre since then.

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My roommate has zero interest in anime, but I bought Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt on blu-ray the other day and he actualy sat down watched some with me, which almost never happens when I watch anime on our main TV.  I think the uniqueness of the visuals and the vulgarity of the dub probably got him curious.  He usualy only pays attention when I watch some of the more visually interesting shows, like when I was watching Monogatari Series.

 

Also, my friend I mentionned earlier still watches Naruto religiously despite refusing to watch almost anything else.  He seemed a bit miffed that there would be guns in the next season of SAO lol.

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We talked about it today and we realized something else; He's never seen any Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli films. Not sure if those count as "anime" per se, but it's still a situation which we need to rectify. It might be easier for him to digest Japanese animation in movie form first. It's a lot less daunting than a long list of episodes.  Now we're trying to figure out which order to make him watch them in. I think we settled on Spirited Away, then Princess Mononoke, then Totoro. Thanks for the feedback everybody! :D

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I got my mom to watch Shinsekai Yori with me (and she almost never reads any sci-fi or fantasy) so that's a title I reccomend.

 

Attack on Titan, Ghibli and Hosoda movies and Chihayafuru are all titles I have been pretty lucky with.

Spice and Wolf, Evangelion and Madoka are also good.

 

Avoid stuff like Clannad that has a lot of buildup. Many people not into anime would probably enjoy After Story but they aren't going to bother with 30 episodes of school comedy first.

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Guest hairybumslapper
Spice and Wolf, Evangelion and Madoka are also good.

so long as you don't make them sit through a slide show at the end, though the remakes are a better alternative in terms of animation & budget, which i assume are what you were referring to.

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Nah I was talking about the originals. I haven't watched either (Well I have watched a little from the original but not much) but I know people who got other people into anime by reccomending Evangelion. Most people who aren't into anime won't care that much about animation and budget anyway from my experience and the appeal of Evangelion isn't in the budget or animation or action anyway. It's not the reason I'm interested in it at least. And most people I know who like the original Evangelion doesn't like Rebuild so yeah.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've actually successfully convinced my elementary school friend which I haven't really talked to for a long time. He wrote me a message once if I don't have any new games recommendation for him, since he has nothing to do. It was around that time I started watching anime, so I thought I could convince him to start watching it so I have someone to talk with about anime.

 

Things that immediately came to mind were Steins;Gate, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Shingeki no Kyojin. I knew many other excellent titles but they were mainly romances so I didn't know if such thing would interest him. He eventually saw all three of these and kept asking for more and more recommendations until his anime list would consist of over 20 animes, which is considerable for someone who never had interest in this and had around four months to watch. He's still long distance away from my over hundred titles list which I completed in just six months. I never thought it could captivate anyone to this extent.  :)

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Well yes, you need to take their taste's into consideration. If they're a guy, or accurately a "dude" or a "bro" you probably should NOT show them something like Madoka or Spice and Wolf. Madoka is unconventional even to people entrenched in the anime scene and as such it can turn casuals or newbies off just because of how strange it is. A person's first impressions of anime will alter the lens through which they view it for a long time to come and more importantly if your first recommendation is too heavy he may wind up discrediting your tastes as being too different from his.

 

The biggest rule of thumb I can give you is if you couldn't imagine the person watching it as a live action television show or in a movie  then don't show it. It also helps that the series is in English, just because subtitles are a barrier to enrty. And, since they'd only be watching 3-5 episodes, you need to make sure that the first episodes of the show have a really good hook to them so that, after you've finished showing them it, they'd want to go out and watch it themselves.

 

I don't know if your friend has netflix or whatever, but the most "entry level" shows on there at the moment are Trigun, Samurai Champloo, Full Metal Alchemist (both the original anime and Brotherhood), Soul Eater, and OFCOURSE Attack on Titan. I bring up Netflix just because if your friend already uses it it'll be easier for him to go and watch the episodes on his own then streaming online or torrenting.

 

Out of everything I've mentioned though, I'd really recommend Attack on Titan because I myself have gotten three other people into it just by showing them the first three episodes (yes, it must be the first three because that's where the series really drops).

 

Though, if Netflix isn't a concern, then Baccano!, Black Lagoon, Code Geass, Cowboy Bebop, or Darker than Black come to mind. And if your friend isn't too "bro" or "dude" and likes things that are more clever or witty, you've got quite a space to work with. Clannad, FLCL, or even Last Exile. The key is that none of the anime are too anime and that a normal person who knows nothing of Japanese conventions or perversions will be able to understand it. For example, Steins;Gate. Very, very good, funny, fine English Dub, good characters, but if you're not familiar with the concepts of Harem, Tsundere, Moe, Ecchi, etc, there can be too much too fast coming at you.

 

I know I'm making a lot of presumptions and assumptions here but I really want your friend to like anime and I just want to avoid the culture shock that can happen to people that watch anime and don't get what's going on.

 

EDIT: Oh, I forgot Ghibli films. Light, happy, fairly western, not too violent, very good first time animes.

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