Are you a teenager trying to have your parents understand
why you find anime so significant? Maybe you’re an adult whose watched it for
years and years and feels it’s time to really sit down with them and show them
what’s been more than a life obsession but a part of your life, after all we
want our parents to know our life
(sometimes). Perhaps you aren’t interested in showing your parents but know someone
who is, or someone you feel you want to introduce anime to. Anime like any
genre has a stereotype, what they assume is anime isn’t always the case and
what is has more substance and far more rewarding at times than they think.
Then again maybe you just need a list to sit someone down to
watch anime, otaku or not, well this might just be your list
Cowboy Bebop-
Hailed as a masterpiece that had led to a turning point in anime, in story
telling as well as the spread of anime in North America in a new sense. There's so many thing about the series that that go well beyond simply the name. Though I’ve found
after years of watching anime, that I have gone back to it as a reminder on what had my eyes
latched to the TV on those late nights and how it stayed with me long after I’ve gone to bed.
Shows like this, deeply thought out story telling among a wide range of styles
and sensations that it leaves you with. Ones that are filled with fun, joy, sorrow, horror or the sense
you’re just watching something real cool.
Many shows try to
be cool, Cowboy Bebop is cool and what so many strive to be, creative input
from here on would spawn so many classics though a good deal of those arguably
have come from the creative minds of this series. Space bounty hunters with
checkered pasts always down on their luck and the strange places it takes them
would normally seem like a fun but impersonal experience and yet Bebop managed
to accomplish a personal experience, a bow tie between East and West, a wholly
relatable feeling. If nothing else the name will come up when you’re
introducing anime to them whether you like it or not, you might want to give it
another viewing.
Berserk- If you
are showing your folks something, no matter your age you might have reservations showing them something well adult
oriented. If you can move past that though than why not show them a series that captures an unbelievable scope when it comes to the concept of power, the rise of it, the cost, the lives it transforms, the many roads it
leads to and all the brutal aspects that come with it regardless. Set upon a medieval
backdrop Berserk is a mostly
backstory driven show and a perfect organic combination of fantasy (mostly in the end)
with all the themes and deep moving storytelling it had shown in throughout the series.
Guts is a
mercenary that came from nothing, seemingly born with a talent for killing, he
finds some who is his better and becomes a cornerstone to this person’s
dream. A man named Griffith who leads a mercenary group called The Band of The
Hawk, as the faithful devoted follow him in his climb
in power. Becoming a faithful necessity in this dream eventually Guts finds
out more about himself than what he feels people have told him for years,
seeing the darker things that are in work beyond crosses of swords to obtain
this power, the cost to live with it and his
own dreams and perhaps his own path. Yet the series also shows
what walking from such a thing could mean, chaos and perhaps a deconstruction
of everything you could ever believe in. Riveting it not only shows others a
series that has art and storytelling beyond what they may have expected but
also the merits of other genres when done with a vision in many ways, one way,
being Berserk.
Ghost In The Shell
Stand Alone Complex – Ghost In The Shell was a landmark film that pushed
the boundaries of animation and storytelling, influencing science fiction for
filmmakers and comic creators alike on both the East and West side of the
world. So who could believe that it could be touched again and again and still
make it more profound, more thought provoking than ever thought possible, yet
it did and part of doing this was with a TV show.
Two seasons of
the show that took the cyberpunk classic, unwove it and wrote down all these
other ideas that went with what it already contained, they went together like
peanut butter and jelly. It would be easy to call it a cop show in that way and
yet impossible too. The range of topics and ways the episodes were tackled were
numerous and unique proving that revolutionizing is just something Ghost In The
Shell does. It did so by unveiling in episodes what we loved, growing closer to
the characters like Major Kusanagi, Batou and Chief Aramaki along with the rest
of the team, let’s not forget the Tachikomas.
Covering a wide
range of topics such as mortality, immortality, corruption, cybernetics/
robotics, politics, terrorism, border issues, refugees, philosophy, personal
lives, love, crime and intrigue. The stories are told with precision and the
sort of high production quality that never comes off as cheesy or cliché. In
fact a parent may sit down and forget their watching an anime, yet would learn
that they are because that’s what anime is all about diversity in storytelling,
animation, and imagination.
Fruits Basket-
There are comedies that need to be watched, why? Well because they are such an
important element in anime, one that those that are highly critical of anime
never expect to be the sort that turns them on to the genre. There are so many
classics of the sort such as Ranma1/2,
Love Hina, Tenchi Muyo, Urusei Yatsura,
the list goes on and on. What is great about comedy in anime is it becomes easy
to relate to the characters and when things take a dramatic turn, which they do
sometimes, it allows you to respect another subgenre in anime, and that is drama.
Fruits Basket is
one such show that masterly blends drama and comedy, it also has a unique
premise that instead of being a gimmick allows you to see the perspective of
the large amount of characters in the series. These characters continue to
feed back and build strong center characters like its heroine Toru Honda who
might be one of the nicest people in all existence, just saying. Toru Honda lost her mother to a car crash a
year before and since then has secretly lived in a tent ( not counting the time she stayed with her grandpa for a bit) in the forest,
unbeknownst to anyone in order to not trouble anyone. See what I mean about the
nice.
Even though her friends would gladly help Toru, who you find can easily
give sage like life changing advice doesn’t know how to take her own. So she continues to go to work and school and
lives this way when she is discovered, by the prince of her school no less Yuki
Sohma and invited to live with him and his young perverted Uncle Shigure.
That’s when she
stumbles upon a secret. The Sohma family has a curse that when hugged by the
opposite sex they turn into the twelve signs of the zodiac…and the cat. When
trusted with this secret Toru must reach out to this family filled with traumatic
secrets while trying to maintain their cover and hope that living with them
isn’t a temporary thing but one in which she finds a family of her own.
Things get real
crazy when Kyo, the outsider and the cat comes to live there as well, determined
to finally defeat his rival Yuki. Of course the true concern is the head of the
family that all fear, and he has his eyes are on Toru. Romance, friendship and personal struggles
make this a captivating show, if you’re looking for something a little
different to show your family why not this!
Chobits- On the
subject of different, I’ve seen firsthand how Chobits can win the heart of non-believers.
Young Hideki whose lived on a farm most of his life moves to Tokyo, there he is
supposed to go to cram school and hopefully then pass his college entrance
exams. The big city has lots of things to offer that he’s never seen before but
the most astounding are Persocoms. Human
appearance like robots essentially and in some ways walking, talking, personal
computers, these Persocoms are changing the way people live.
Usually in the appearance of women though sometimes men, Hideki
finds a world he hardly understands, one he’ll be thrust into when he finds a
discarded Persocom in the trash (which he mistakes for a body at first), the
mysterious Chi.
Not knowing anything about Persocoms is the
least of Hideki’s problem, taking care of her as if she was a human is, Hideki
is a hyper sensitive virgin which makes everything all the more difficult. When
he does try to learn about Chi, even with the help of his neighbor Shinbo
things just don’t seem to make sense. Chi lacks a memory disc and can only say
her name, though she has the software to learn if you teach her, even so she
seems to have the power of a supercomputer. While Hideki works through these strange things in this strange world, he soon
finds that Chi’s importance lies in something far more potent, that something
is in his own heart. Hopefully he doesn’t have a fatal nose bleed beforehand
though.
As relevant
maybe even more so since it has come out. Chobits is a major accomplishment
which is saying something considering Clamp’s track record. At the heart of it this is a story about love,
about the desire to be complete and the fear it brings in some people.
Questions in the show on how to look at Persocoms is now a question that we are
asking with robots, not so much science fiction anymore they are swiftly
becoming a pivotal part of society. Maybe a more pleasant resolution to these
concerns can be found in Chobits.
Rurouni
Kenshin/Samurai X- The essential epic of Rurouni Kenshin is a no brainer
that must be shared, along with many on the list, this is the first one I share
with those I want to give a proper introduction of what anime can be. A story of redemption and of love is as soul
searching as it asks it’s characters to be, how our past has shaped us but how
our future can have a more profound effect on us. This may sound silly to say
but if ever you needed a show that promoted peace over violence it would be
this show.
Before those that
are familiar with the series shake their head, what I mean is truly peace is all
the characters in the series want and if you want an optimistic view of
humanity, maybe that’s all we as people want. The main protagonist Kenshin
Himura is a prime example, having been an assassin in the war that would usher
in the Mejii era, Kenshin would forgo a place in politics and live a life as a
wanderer in redemption for all the lives he’s taken in his past life.
In doing this he
meets Karou who struggles to keep the swordsmanship her father had instructed to students alive, the sword
style that does not kill. Before he knows it Kenshin begins to call her home his, along
with other people affected by the war and the era that has followed, outsiders
that can become a family together. While
Kenshin having been a part of the war and taken lives knows there is no such
style that exists, he slowly through his past coming into his present finds
that like his reverse sword, there is a way to implement such a style. A
way to save lives instead of taking them.
The show wins
hearts instantly and is also a good way to showcase a certain style of anime,
the long running sort that can at times have as much substance as any other
sort, arguments against this belief are noted. If you do choose to show them
Ruoruni Kenshin then you might want to also go on the hunt for what is
considered an OVA but I prefer to look at as a two hour movie. It shows the way
Kenshin became an assassin and what would happen to change our favorite X
shaped scar swordsman into a wanderer. The title is Trust and Betrayal.
The tone is different than the TV show but rightfully so and is to me still one
of the highest achievements in anime. Might as well show them Reflection after
the TV show which maintains this feel and concludes the saga all together. Hey you can even show them the live
action trilogy based on the manga/anime. You might have just made a true Otaku
out of your parent.
Podcast Companion
*Need more otaku time, well for more ideas why not hop on to the newly minted podcast Rats On A Plague Ship. A podcast that speaks on all matters of geekdom with yours truly and my fellow co-host Sal Almaraz. The true cure to when the hours feel like they drag!
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