Ask John: What are the Must-Watch Anime?

Question:
In your opinion, which anime shows must an anime fan definitely watch before he dies?

Answer:
On one hand, I’m loathe to answer this question. On the other hand, I feel like it’s a reasonable question that can have an informative response, so I feel some desire to compose a truthful answer. I generally don’t mind providing guidelines or suggestions, especially when asked about titles within a specific genre, but I’m always hesitant to lay down definitive recommendations because I firmly believe that individual anime fans should watch whatever appeals to them and disregard collective opinion. Even an anime that is universally reviled is worth watching if you personally enjoy it. So in that respect, critical or public opinion and recommendations are pointless because watching anime is a personal experience that should be influenced by personal interest. But such a general and indecisive answer feels like superficial and useless assistance.

So I will offer some precise, concrete recommendations, but keep in mind that these represent my own perspective. I’ll also base my recommendations around the needs of a contemporary American viewer. So I’ll exclude historical landmarks like Tetsuwan Atom (“Astro Boy”), Ribbon no Kishi (“Princess Knight”), and Uchuu Senkan Yamato (“Starblazers”) because such titles aren’t really relevant to today’s American anime fans. (Whether or not they should be is a subject for a different discussion.) I’ll also distinguish a difference between “should watch” and “must watch” titles. While anime titles like Royal Space Force, Angel’s Egg, Perfect Blue, and Mushishi reflect the artistic and creative high water mark of anime, these examples are not necessarily essential viewing for a contemporary American to become conversant in anime. So without further ado.

One or more of Studio Ghibli’s films, or more specifically one or more of director Hayao Miyazaki’s classics must be considered essential viewing. Any American that has never watched a film like Nausicaa, Laputa, Totoro, Castle Cagliostro, or Kiki’s Delivery Service cannot have a first hand knowledge of the full emotional, visual, and narrative capacity of Japanese animation. For good reason, these films are widely considered not just some of the best animated films ever made; they rank among the best motion pictures ever filmed.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is the inescapable juggernaut of modern anime. Despite having some budget challenged animation quality and a story with as many questions as answers, Evangelion may be the defining anime of the modern generation. It’s intelligent, cryptic, exciting, and moving. Evangelion offers something for every viewer without ever seeming condescending or artificial. The emotional angst and uncertainty that anchors the entire series; the audacity of including existential and philosophical theory and religious iconography in an animated series; and the fascinating mystery of the series all represent the progressive, post-modern image that American fans unconsciously use as the defining character of Japanese animation.

Americans widely think of Pocket Monster as a childish marketing gimmick. But we should notice that Pokemon may be the most popular and successful anime franchise ever created. Having some familiarity with Pocket Monster, preferably the original, unaltered Japanese version that includes occasional mild violence, provides a perspective on exactly what makes anime popular in Japan, and how mainstream anime is different from American children’s programming. Americans may scoff at Pokemon, but an anime fan having never watched any of it is like a self-proclaimed rock and roll fan who’s never heard a song sung by Elvis Presley. Being an anime fan yet avoiding the biggest, most popular and successful of all modern anime seems oxymoronic.

Finally, I’ll nominate Akira. Although it wasn’t the first anime brought to America, and it wasn’t the anime that single-handed popularized anime in America, Akira is the film which launched anime into American pop culture consciousness. (Every anime released in America prior to Akira either wasn’t aggressively advertised as Japanese animation, or didn’t reach the mainstream saturation point that Akira did.) Akira is also, arguably, the film that modernized anime. Earlier films like Wings of Honneamise had intricate hand drawn detail, but Akira combined stunning visual design and state of the art animation technology with cyberpunk aesthetics and political critique. Akira turned anime into a legitimate international commodity by proving that anime had the artistic and cinematic capacity to appeal to sophisticated, contemporary, international audiences.

I’ve intentionally kept this list short by not discussing, in depth, genre defining or representational titles. For example, it’s difficult to conceive of an anime fan unfamiliar with the giant robots of Gundam, shoujo anime like Sailor Moon, landmark action such as Jubei Ninpucho, shonen adventure anime represented by Dragon Ball Z, and romantic/harem anime virtually defined in the modern era by Tenchi Muyo and Love Hina. While franchises like these provide a familiarity with the breadth of Japanese animation, they can also be considered niche, genre titles. For example, no one would expect a shoujo anime fan to classify Gundam as a “must watch” series. Studio Ghibli’s works are the pinnacle of anime as a mainstream, commercial art form. Pocket Monster may be considered the ideal representative of anime because it’s quite possibly the most widely known and watched anime ever. Akira and Evangelion are the titles that popularized Japanese animation in America and have come to represent the concept of anime for American fans. Beyond genres or audience demographics, I think that these are the examples of anime that define what Americans think of as “anime.” For that reason, I consider these to be the titles that every contemporary anime fan should be, and needs to be, familiar with in order to legitimately claim to be an indoctrinated and experienced fan of anime. Not having watched at least a representative sampling of these titles, yet still claiming to be a devoted and committed anime fan seems disingenuous, like a comic book fan who’s never read a Superman, Batman, or Spiderman comic, or a so-called science fiction fan that’s never watched a Star Wars or Star Trek movie.