Scrolling around Netflix with my wife last night looking for a-show-not-a-movie to watch. Becoming very depressed at all the very bad looking options. An anime scrolls by. My wife says, “What’s that? Sometimes anime is good…” Flabbergasted, I do a search for anime. Neon Genesis Evangelion is on there, and I’m like: hey, I’ve never seen this, and it’s supposed to be one of the classics. She agrees and, um,
This show is extremely horny in a way that is turning us off bigtime. At least the robots are cool I guess
lmao i saw eva in netflix’s “Anime for Beginners” category (i guess because it’s Famous & Notable) and i can’t think of a worse recommendation for someone who isn’t familiar with anime fan culture & the like ~20 years worth of robot anime its riffing on. i know The Algorithm is a blunt instrument meant to push viewers to stuff netflix wants to recoup their licensing costs on but that’s a particularly bad application of it
In all fairness, tho, a ton of people get to Evangelion before a lot of other anime, partly because of its prestige. Like, Evangelion was my first robot anime. I didn’t watch any other robot anime after it for a long while, either.
It’s definitely a richer experience knowing Yamato and Gundam and Ideon and Ultraman and everything else, but there’s plenty to grab onto without the metatextual and paratextual level (also a relatively uninitiated anime viewer (Cowboy Bebop, Miyazaki) friend recently watched it for the first time and really loved it).
I mean, I guess “Anime for Beginners” might suggest like the training wheels of anime and Evangelion definitely ain’t that. But it’s not completely inaccessible to newcomers.
Also the first anime series I watched front to back was FLCL in one night, so my perspective is skewed (I guess that’s robot anime too, but).
idk both of those are really mainstream popular shows with spinoff franchises and movie series’ and stuff and both accurately demonstrate how anime fans feel about women so it’s probably a consistent introduction
a phrase as vague and useless as “anime for beginners” creates the kind of irritation in me that birthed this thread. anime has genres!! you can recommend it to people based on what they like the same way you recommend any other shit!! ahhghhgahghhg
im checking the netflix anime list right now to even see which shows are “for beginners” and— wait they got cardcaptor sakura on there?!
like idk i guess if i were to earnestly think about “anime for beginners” it would be something that’s relatively easy to follow with subtitles? (because im sure as shit not recommending any dubs)
hi I’m going to barge into the middle of this conversation bereft of context and pledge that if I find out anyone was watching Madoka that I will slap some sense into you and then point you at a good show on netflix like Beastars or Violet Evergarden or LWA
