Anime For Absolute Beginners

One evening, while on Reddit, you find a post titled “Top 10 Anime Every Beginner Must Watch.” The replies are wild. People are arguing about Jujutsu Kaisen vs Death Note. Someone dropped a 70-show spreadsheet and there’s a gif of a girl late for school with toast in her mouth that somehow has 10,000 upvotes.

You have no idea what’s going on. Let’s change that.

What Is Anime?

Anime is animation made in Japan. That’s it. It’s not a genre. It’s not a style. It’s just a medium, like film, but animated. Inside anime, there’s everything: sad romances, bloody battles, dystopian sci-fi, high school drama, ramen shop owners with secret powers and even vending machines that turn into people. It’s not “just for kids.” So no, anime isn’t just “big eyes and fighting.” It’s storytelling, and it’s for everyone. And yes, Studio Ghibli counts. Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro ,  that’s anime. So is Attack on Titan. So is Mob Psycho 100. So is that clip you saw of a guy punching a mountain in half.

Where Do You Start With Anime?

The first thing to understand is that anime isn’t organized like Netflix categories. You’ll hear terms like shonen and seinen, shojo and josei. These aren’t genres, they are demographic categories based on audience.

Here’s what they usually mean:

Shonen (“for boys”)
The most common beginner space. Action-heavy, emotional, coming-of-age stories about friendship, rivalry, or personal growth. Think Naruto, Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia.

Seinen (“for men”)
A bit darker, more complex, sometimes violent or philosophical. Less yelling, more trauma. Think Ghost in the Shell.

Shojo (“for girls”)

Romance, drama, friendships, often with a soft visual style. Like Fruits Basket.

Josei (“for women”)
More realistic and mature than shojo. Slice-of-life relationships, working life, subtle emotional arcs.

Don’t Try to Watch It All

There are thousands of anime. You will not “catch up” and you can never “finish”. What matters is finding a few stories that hit you, particularly the ones that make you laugh at 3AM, cry at episode 19, or think about a fictional sword fight while working out. You might go deep. You might just find two or three shows you love. Either way, you’re doing it right.

Start with subtitles if you can: Japanese audio, English text. But dubs are totally fine if that makes it easier for you. No one’s keeping score.

How to Begin?

Anime can feel like a giant maze at first, but there are a few tricks to make it easy:

• Pick one show, stick to it and don’t jump around till you get a hang of the arc
  

• Use Netflix, or Prime Video: both have legit anime libraries
  

• If you’re watching something long (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece), search for “filler episode list” and skip the fluff
  

• Maybe keep track of what you’ve watched. It helps more than you’d think
  

Your Gateway List

The beauty of it is that everyone remembers their first anime. However, there isn’t a definitive starting point. No official gateway or correct first watch. But some shows tend to do the work better than others.

These titles here are meant to unfold over time. They carry plot, character arcs, filler episodes, cliff-hangers, season breaks and all the mess that makes anime a world you can live in. This is for people who want to start watching anime, the way most people do. In bed. At 2 a.m. with no plan except to find out why everyone keeps talking about this boy with a sword and a sad backstory. The ranked list below might be a path you want to follow.

1. Spy x Family

A spy has to build a fake family for a mission. He ends up with a deadly assassin wife, a child who can read minds and a dog who sees the future. None of them know the truth about each other but somehow they work better than most real families.

2. Pokémon

You already know this one. A ten-year-old runs away from home with an electric mouse and a dream. Somehow it’s still running and it still makes you want to catch them all.

3. Haikyu!!

A short kid with a massive jump joins a high school volleyball team. That’s it. That’s the show. And yet it’s more intense than most fight scenes you’ll ever watch. 

4. My Hero Academia

Imagine living in a world where everyone gets superpowers except you. Then imagine still believing you can be a hero. 

5. Demon Slayer

A kind boy finds his family destroyed and his sister turned into a demon. What follows is some of the most beautiful sword fights ever animated and a story that keeps its heart 

6. Naruto

A lonely loudmouth with a demon fox inside him just wants to be seen. Naruto might just be the reason half of the anime world exists.

7. Death Note

A bored genius finds a notebook that lets him kill anyone whose name he writes. That’s not a spoiler. That’s just the start. 

8. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Two brothers try to bring someone back from the dead and break the biggest rule of alchemy. 

9. Jujutsu Kaisen

A high schooler stuck in a world of monsters, curses and a very cool blindfolded teacher who fights like he’s dancing. Peak cool, peak chaos.

10. One Punch Man

A hero trains so hard he goes bald and becomes unbeatable. But it turns out winning every fight in one punch is extremely boring. This is the show that makes fun of shonen anime while also being one of the best shonen anime out there.

11. Dragon Ball / DBZ

A kid with a tail grows up and fights aliens. This is where the yelling and glowing started. It’s loud and historic. You don’t have to love it but it helps to know where all the other shows came from.

12. One Piece

A boy with a rubber body builds a pirate crew to chase a treasure that might not even exist. It starts silly, then quietly turns into one of the most emotional stories you’ll ever stick with. People don’t watch One Piece. They commit to it.

13. Attack on Titan

Humans live inside walls to keep out giant monsters. That’s what you think at first but this show keeps changing shape. By the end, you’re not even sure who the monsters are anymore. And that’s the point.

No need to rush. Watch one and see how it feels. The point is not to finish the list but to find the one that stays with you.