Anime

You've got some good suggestions already. Here are a couple that I think are good for somebody that is fairly new to the deep rabbit hole of anime tropes/conventions:

• Mushishi - My personal favorite anime of all time. Very contemplative and melancholy. Don't binge this, just watch an episode before bed or something like that, and let it sit in your brain.
• Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - This just recently finished airing its first season and was excellent in every respect. Classic high fantasy story (think Lord of the Rings) which follows the near-immortal elf Frieren in her travels. Very approachable for previously non-anime watchers.
• Cowboy Bebop - An all-time classic space western following some bounty hunters.
• One Punch Man - A humorous take on the superhero genre. If you are looking for something more comedy oriented, this is a decent starting point.

I can't tell you where to start, but I can tell you where not to start.

Death Note is utter garbage. Anyone recommending it hasn't watched it in ten years, and is forgetting how contrived it is.

For example:

• The main characters play tennis while trying to win a mental game of rock, paper, scissors.

• They turn a scene about looking inconspicuous into one of those over-edited Indian soap operas (I'll take a chip... AND EAT IT!).

• Misa is annoying as hell.

The target audience for it are teenage boys who listen to Jordan Peterson, can't talk to girls and dream about beating their Dad psychologically.

It's a mental masturbatory power fantasy.

Best to start is series that are finished with one season (24 max). My recommendations

• Charlotte
• Odd Taxi
• Gurren Lagann
• A Place Further than the Universe
• Cyberpunk Edgerunners
• Ping pong the Animation
• Lycoris Recoil
• Tatami Galaxy

Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, Fullmetal Alchemist and everything by Studio Ghibli I can NOT recommend because after seeing them, all other anime looks like childish crap by comparison. They've ruined me, don't let the same fate befall you!

Hard to give advice with no context. What do you like in other mediums? Anime is broad.

Even your fav Ghibli movies would help. I'd have different recommendations for some whose fav was Princess Kaguya as apposed to Pom Poko or Nausicaa

Your Name

Wolf Children

I believe the best starter animes must meet some criteria:

• not too long (seeing something having hundreds of episodes is a huge hurdle)
• self-contained (no spin-offs of other franchises that you need to know)
• completed (no "if you want to know how it ends you have to read the source material or hope for a second season")
• no need to know cultural references (what the fuck is a shikigami?!)
• universal themes (love, hate, friendship, hardship, etc.. Stuff that applies to everyone)
• characters should be likable (no one keeps watching if they dislike the characters)
• interesting from the start (no "uh, it gets great from the 5th episode, just keep at it")
• interesting throughout (show shouldn't fizzle out or run out of steam)
• normal visuals (yes, shows with unique art styles can feel fresh for someone with more than 1000 shows under their belt, but for a new watcher better keep it normal)
• not mundane but not too far "out there" (just the right amount of fantastical)
• no off putting material (gore, over-the-top violence, etc.)
• it should end on a positive note (I wouldn't have touched another anime ever again if Grave of the Fireflies were my first one)

With all those criteria listed, I believe the best show that ticks all the checkmarks is Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day.

Check out the Mother's Basement youtube channel for some good seasonal recommendations. He also covers trashy anime in seperate videos from his ones-to-watch or best-of videos, if you wanted to avoid (or deliberately delve into) that.

If you liked the studio ghibli ones, try Wolf's Rain. It's a cool story. The creator then took his ideas that he didn't get to play with (subterfuge and deeply flawed characters) and created Darker than Black, a really awesome take on regular people getting superpowers.

Golden Boy, hands down.

Depends on the genre you like My favs: Frieren My Hero Acadmja Hunter x Hunter Demon Slayer One punch man

I haven't seen Angel beats in here yet, but that one was pretty solid. It was one of my firsts.

Are you looking to branch out from Ghibli or do you want more of the same?

I really liked "Dorohedoro" and "Flip Flappers". For a more surreal anime movie I think "Paprika" could be a starting point, I don't remember much knowledge about Japanese culture or other anime being needed to enjoy it.

Death Note is without a doubt the best place to start in my opinion.

Evangelion. Your brain will thank you for it!