You know, I think if you subscribe to NetFlix long enough you'll eventually get around to turning into an anime otaku. There are a lot of ways to get hooked on anime but NetFlix has an especially insidious way of doing it. Their recommendation system keeps feeding you recommendations for movies and TV shows just outside your comfort zone and before you know it a bunch of Bubblegum Crisis DVDs are in your mailbox. I mean it - these guys are sneaky!
It usually starts with a positive rating on an obscure foreign sci-fi or a CGI movie you enjoyed. Then, a little like a dealer offering you a taste of a new drug, NetFlix recommends one or two of these weird cartoons you've never heard of before. At first you ignore them because you have so many "normal" movies and TV shows to work through. But after a while you think What the hell, I'll try one and put it in the queue. This moment is analogous to Neo choosing the red pill in the movie The Matrix.
If you're lucky the first title you select will be too foreign and your system will reject it like a teaspoonful of ipecac syrup. But if it's not, or you have a latent fancy for giant robots or cyberpunk then you'll quickly find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes. And it's very deep as anime is actually a window into another culture and way of thinking.
The entrance to the rabbit hole began for me with the first Ghost in the Shell movie. For a lot of people this title wouldn't be the best choice for an introduction to anime. Its convoluted plot, cyberpunk themes and philosophical rants can leave you confused, especially if you go into it expecting to have everything spoon-fed to you as with a lot of American movies. But for me, a cyberpunk fan from the 80's when cyberpunk was still fringe and cool, it was right up my alley. It was strange and the pacing dull at times, but it resonated with me enough to queue the second movie, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. This movie was even better and visually amazing. Then I raced through both of the cartoon series, Stand Alone Complex and Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig. I was hooked.
After GitS, NetFlix recommended Cowboy Bebop. This was much more accessible, kind of reminiscent of the Serenity series in some ways. There was also a ton of really good jazz music in it. Then NetFlix guided me into Metropolis, Steamboy, Appleseed, Armitage III, Boogiepop Phantom, Akira, and The Twelve Kingdoms. That last one, Kingdoms, has a fictional world just as deep and complex as anything Tolkien ever imagined. I found it to be a bit too far into the fantasy genre for my taste and didn't finish the series. I can definitely understand why others rave about it, though.
My hard sci-fi leaning soon steered me into the weirdest, creepiest bit of cyber that I've ever seen: Serial Experiments Lain. This series is a masterpiece of mood and what can only be described as a work of strange, surreal art. I'm glad that I didn't watch it earlier on, though. This is one deep series covering a lot of the same philosophical concepts as Ghost in the Shell, religion, and what it means to be human. Except then it turns everything inside out and upside down. As Neo once said: Whoa.
Lately I've been branching out away from the sci-fi themed shows into horror, drama, and even a little romance. It turns out that anime is just the medium and it's not all mecha and Pokemon; there is something of everything in there. But I'm kind of stuck because I keep comparing everything against Lain, Bebop, and GitS. And NetFlix sometimes gets it (really) wrong and recommends total crap shows or obvious juvenile stuff.
This post is getting way longer than I wanted it to so I'll stop here. But if you find the list of anime shows useful or - even better - if you've seen these shows and know of others I'd probably enjoy, leave a comment!
