You can’t throw your friends into the deep end when it comes to anime—they have to be primed for the medium’s sometimes silly and cringey nature. Rather than scare your friends off with hundreds of episodes of One Piece, try these series instead.
5
Dragon Ball
Watch Dragon Ball on Crunchyroll
Do you like action, martial arts, and adventure? Dragon Ball has those in spades, and then some. It follows Goku, a good-natured teenage boy, on a quest with his friends to find the mythical Dragon Balls, which are said to grant any wish. Along the way, they’ll fight and survive deadly challenges, while earning a reputation as heroes. The show is also pretty darn funny!
With a sample of three, I have a 100% success rate in introducing Dragon Ball to people with little to no exposure to anime. I suspect it’s because Goku is just so lovable as a character, which is really hard to do when he has so few flaws. He’s similar to Superman in that way—no negative bones in his body.
As an aside, Dragon Ball Z, the sequel series, is also a great place to start, even if you haven’t watched Dragon Ball. I chose Dragon Ball for its lower stakes and fewer characters. Either way, watching this series will prime your friends for other action anime, like Naruto, One Piece, and Jujutsu Kaisen.
Watch Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood on Netflix and Disney+
In the world of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, people who practice alchemy can manipulate the world around them, like raising walls of stone or weapons out of metal. The Elric brothers, the protagonists, are two such alchemists—the youngest State Alchemists, in fact. After a botched human transmutation, the two brothers are now on the hunt for the Philosopher’s Stone, which is said to ignore the law of equivalent exchange and make it possible to resurrect people.
Although I’m not ranking these picks, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood would supersede Dragon Ball as my number one recommendation for anyone getting into anime. It’s a great mix of action, philosophy, political intrigue, interesting powers, and multi-faceted characters. Where Dragon Ball focuses more on action and training, Fullmetal Alchemist emphasizes story. It also has a knack for incorporating humor without undercutting heavy moments. And the series has less than half of the episodes of Dragon Ball, with only 64 episodes, so it won’t take long to finish.
3
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Watch Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix
I don’t hold the opinion that anime needs to be made in Japan to be considered anime; otherwise, your friends will miss out on one of the best representations of the media. Avatar: The Last Airbender is made in the U.S., but it is 100% anime at its core, and don’t let its target audience fool you. This may have been made for kids, but it doesn’t treat the audience like a kid.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is set in a world where some people can manipulate one of four elements: air, earth, water, and fire. The Avatar can control all four, of which there is only one at a time, and when the last Avatar dies, the Avatar Spirit is reincarnated into another. In The Last Airbender, the Avatar is Aang, a 12-year-old boy who has been in a magical stasis for 100 years. When he wakes up, he learns the Fire Nation, a fascist, authoritarian dictatorship, has been waging war on the other three nations ever since.
2
Cowboy Bebop
Watch Cowboy Bebop on Crunchyroll and Disney+
Set in the year 2071, Cowboy Bebop focuses on a group of bounty hunters aboard the ship the Bebop, jumping between planets in the Sol system (that’s where we are), hoping to bag a few wanted baddies for money. The mix of noir, western, and science fiction makes for a rich world and, well, characters who want to get rich as bounty hunters, too. Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed (and Ein)—these characters all have their little idiosyncrasies that cause friction between them, but I love that they become this strong, ragtag crew watching each other’s backs over time.
Being just 26 episodes long, Cowboy Bebop is very easy to start and finish in a single month, and with it, you get a big heaping portion of everything that makes anime so good and fun to engage with. Even the soundtrack is this wonderful collage of jazz, funk, blues, and more.
1
The Way of the Househusband
Watch The Way of the House on Netflix
The Way of the Househusband is downright hilarious and also incredibly touching and heartwarming. It’s a feel-good kind of anime series that chronicles ex-yakuza Tatsu and his life as a house husband. He takes the position very seriously, going out of his way to find the best deals, cooking delicious recipes, and tidying the house. If he’s this dedicated to being a house husband, I can only imagine what he was like when he lived a life of crime.
Sometimes the humor in anime can come off a little cringey, but I urge new viewers to give it a chance. I swear it’s just a side effect of the English dub, which you can sidestep by watching the subbed version. However, The Way of the Househusband has such phenomenal English and Japanese OVAs, I have a hard time choosing one over the other. Kenjiro Tsuda and Jonah Scott offer different inflections in their performances as Tatsu, and yet both heighten the goofiness of Tatsu’s intense seriousness at being a confident and doting husband.
To get your friends hooked on anime, you have to treat them like a frog in boiling water. Warm the pot with something easy to fall in love with, like Dragon Ball, then start introducing stranger stories, like One Piece and Death Note. Either way, I guarantee at least one of these shows will be your and your friend’s next favorite anime!
