Serial Experiments Lain was one of the first series I ever watched that was Japanese.
Azumanga Daioh was the first Japanese comedy series I watched, and I still put it up as the bar for how all-ages comedy is done right, and I also compare it to its original, superior comic book version and how the studio replicated the feel of the pace to varying success.
Scrapped Princess is one of my favorites because it has a standard to everything it does and doesn't feel pandering at any point. Even the simplest insignificant detail, like how one character is shown in a single scene pushing away peas on his plate aside with no comment, gives the series personality that is in short supply in a lot of mainstream animation. I tend to attribute this to it being made off an actual book instead of a comic. It also has an amazing orchestral soundtrack.
Slayers is one of my favorite all-time parodies of fantasy (and before anyone says anything, yes I read Discworld - this is just in the genre of animation.)
Excel Saga is one of my favorite all-time parodies of anime.
These things are double-isolating for me, because I fucking hate weeaboos with their "omg look at the dwagon lesbians weawing maid dwesses KAWAII"-shit, and I goddamned hate fan service. Fan service is entertainment's version of padding a news broadcast with a puppy and shitty puns. This all leads to anime fans seeing me as a grump that "has no fun" while they're off masturbating to teenage magical girls and playing Fortnite or some shit.
Watching anything on this list still means I am seen as "an anime fan" because I enjoy the writing and characters no matter what medium so the normies think I'm some eternal manchild. They probably would've thought that if I mentioned I enjoy watching TaleSpin and Chip'n'Dale Rescue Rangers as well, but Japanese animation is somehow even worse to them. Meanwhile these people eat up garbage like Game of Thrones and are then surprised the final season is fucking shit. I suggest Babylon 5 to these cunts and all I get is a "oh man, it looks old, though" at which point I want to piledrive their jaws through a kitchen sink.
Moving on to video games, I actually like games as a story-telling medium. Fucking shocking. Every time someone says they "play video games" I have this cynical fucking look on my face as I turn and ask what they play. The answers are always multiplayer-lootbox-pop culture-trash trying to get into the cancerous e-sports market. Trying to explain the appeal of the world of Hollow Knight, Shogo, Ori and the Blind Forest, Ookami, Cave Story, the original Fallouts instead of the Bethesda crap that chopped story writing into a fucking confetti, etc. is just met with a "sounds interesting, maybe I'll watch a playthrough."
Every time someone quotes me statistics shit on how about 50-50 men and women play games and how it's now a mainstream past-time makes me want to punch them in the face. It is meaningless to call gaming mainstream if the only thing that appeals to this audience is mainstream games, games that were specifically formulated to appeal to a vapid shithead with the attention span of a baked potato and a loose wallet. It's like saying that a lot of people love reading yet the only books on their shelves are the Twilight Saga and 50 Shades of Grey. I can't fucking stand these people.
Bitch can talk about Overwatch and their gay ships all day, but it'll never compare to the pure character-driven joy of finally breaking the curse and destroying Ballos.
Friends are for suckers anyway.
