New to anime? Start here

Pick what you're in the mood for, answer a few quick questions, and we'll point you at a show. Or open the full map and follow the arrows yourself. Every pick here is a good first anime.

What are you in the mood for?
- Action: Action: What kind of fights do you want?
  - Superpowers: Want a classic long-runner (100+ episodes)?
    - Yes: Pirates or ninjas?
      - Pirates: One Piece. Luffy sets out to find the legendary One Piece treasure and become King of the Pirates. Huge, but the guide shows you where to start and what to skip.
      - Ninjas: Naruto. An outcast ninja kid wants to become his village's leader. The classic that got a generation into anime.
    - No: Played straight, or played for laughs?
      - Straight: Hero school or curse hunters?
        Hero school: My Hero Academia. A boy born without powers in a world of superheroes gets a chance to attend hero school. The most direct "anime superhero" story there is.
        Curse hunters: Jujutsu Kaisen. A student swallows a cursed object and joins a school of sorcerers. Modern, fast and full of great fights.
      - For laughs: An unbeatable hero, or a shy kid with psychic powers?
        Unbeatable hero: One-Punch Man. A hero who can beat anyone with a single punch is bored out of his mind. A parody of superhero stories with spectacular action. Season 1 is the one to start with.
        Shy psychic: Mob Psycho 100. A shy teenager with enormous psychic powers just wants a normal life. Funny, warm, and some of the best-animated fights around.
  - Swords: Demons, samurai or Vikings?
    - Demons: Demon Slayer. Tanjiro hunts demons to turn his sister back into a human. Simple, heartfelt and gorgeous to look at.
    - Samurai: Rurouni Kenshin. A legendary assassin swears never to kill again and wanders Meiji-era Japan with a reverse-blade sword. The 2023 remake is an easy way in.
    - Vikings: Vinland Saga. A Viking boy lives for revenge, then has to find something else to live for. A war story that turns into something much deeper.
  - Monsters: Giants behind walls, or devils with chainsaws?
    - Giants: Attack on Titan. Humanity hides behind walls from giants that eat people, until the walls fall. Every season changes what you thought the story was about.
    - Devils: Chainsaw Man. A broke young man merges with his chainsaw devil dog and becomes a devil hunter. Violent, weird and darkly funny.
- Adventure & fantasy: Adventure & fantasy: Where should the story happen?
  - Transported to another world: Serious or silly?
    - Serious: Dying over and over, or building a nation?
      - Dying and retrying: Re:Zero. Subaru is pulled into a fantasy world where dying sends him back in time, and he has to keep trying until he saves everyone. Tense and emotional.
      - Building a nation: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. A salaryman is reborn as a slime with absurd powers and starts building a nation of monsters. Easygoing and fun.
    - Silly: KonoSuba. A boy is reborn in a fantasy world with the most useless party imaginable. A sharp parody of fantasy adventures.
  - A fantasy world of its own: An epic quest, or a quieter journey?
    - Epic quest: Alchemy or hunters?
      - Alchemy: Fullmetal Alchemist. Two brothers pay a terrible price for breaking alchemy's rules and set out to fix it. Many fans' pick for the best first anime.
      - Hunters: Hunter x Hunter. Gon sets out to become a Hunter and find his father. It gets darker and smarter as it goes.
    - Quieter journey: What kind of journey?
      - After the adventure: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. An elf mage outlives the heroes she once saved the world with, and sets out to understand them. Quiet, beautiful fantasy about time and memory.
      - Cooking in a dungeon: Delicious in Dungeon. Adventurers who can't afford supplies cook and eat the monsters they fight on their way down a dungeon. Funny, inventive and surprisingly deep.
      - Into a deadly abyss: Made in Abyss. A girl descends into an enormous, deadly pit to find her mother. Be warned: the cute art hides some of the darkest moments in anime.
  - Our world, with spirits: Gentle, epic, or a film?
    - Gentle: Natsume's Book of Friends. A boy who can see spirits returns their names, one gentle story at a time. Calm, kind and quietly moving.
    - Epic: Inuyasha. A schoolgirl falls through a well into feudal Japan and teams up with a half-demon to collect the shards of a magic jewel. A long, classic adventure.
    - A film: Spirited Away. A girl stumbles into a bathhouse for spirits and has to save her parents. The perfect first anime film.
- Comedy: Comedy: Do you want romance in your comedy?
  - Yes: What kind of love story?
    - A battle of wits: Kaguya-sama: Love Is War. Two student council geniuses are in love, and each refuses to confess first. Sharp, silly and sweeter than it looks.
    - Endless teasing: Teasing Master Takagi-san. A middle schooler keeps trying to get back at the classmate who always teases him, and always loses. Short episodes, very wholesome.
    - Painfully shy: Komi Can't Communicate. The school's most admired girl can barely speak to anyone, so a classmate helps her make 100 friends. Gentle and very funny.
  - No: Pure absurdity, or comedy with action?
    - Absurd: Short sketches, parodies, or college chaos?
      - Sketches: Nichijou: My Ordinary Life. Ordinary school life played with blockbuster energy. Short sketches and some of the best comic timing in anime.
      - Parodies: Gintama. Samurai, aliens and an odd-jobs crew in an alternate Edo. It parodies everything, then hits you with serious arcs. Long, but very rewarding.
      - College chaos: Grand Blue. A freshman joins a university diving club that mostly drinks and strips. Loud, rude and one of the funniest reaction comedies around.
    - With action: Spies or psychics?
      - Spies: Spy x Family. A spy, an assassin and a mind-reading girl pretend to be a family, and only the girl knows everyone's secret. Warm and very funny.
      - Psychics: The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.. A teenager with every psychic power imaginable just wants to be left alone. Rapid-fire, deadpan gags in short segments.
- Romance: Romance: Teenagers or grown-ups?
  - Teenagers: Sweet, messy, or fated?
    - Sweet and easy: Horimiya. Two classmates discover each other's secret home lives and fall for each other. Short, sweet and easy to binge.
    - Messy and dramatic: Toradora!. A scary-looking boy and a tiny, fierce girl team up to help each other's crushes. One complete story with a real ending.
    - Fated (a film): Your Name.. A city boy and a country girl start waking up in each other's bodies. A gorgeous, twisty romance that works for any audience.
  - Grown-ups: Fantasy road trip or office life?
    - Fantasy road trip: Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf. A traveling merchant and a centuries-old wolf goddess trade, bargain and bicker their way across a medieval world. The 2024 remake of a beloved classic.
    - Office life: Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku. Two childhood friends, both secret otaku, start dating as adults with office jobs. Short and relatable.
  - With a supernatural twist: A family curse, or a love across time?
    - Family curse: Fruits Basket. An orphaned girl moves in with a family whose members turn into zodiac animals when hugged. Starts sweet, gets surprisingly deep.
    - Across time: Steins;Gate. A self-proclaimed mad scientist accidentally invents a way to message the past, and has to fix what it breaks. Slow start, huge payoff, and a real love story.
- Slice of life: Slice of life: Hobbies with friends, or something quieter?
  - Hobbies with friends: Which hobby?
    - Rock band: Bocchi the Rock!. A painfully shy guitar prodigy finally joins a band. Hilarious, creative and full of great songs.
    - Tea-time band: K-On!. Four high-school girls form a band, drink a lot of tea and occasionally practice. Pure comfort.
    - Camping: Laid-Back Camp. Friends go camping around Mount Fuji in winter. Gentle, funny, and it might make you buy a tent.
    - Cafés: Is the Order a Rabbit?. A cheerful girl moves to a European-style town and works at a café with a rabbit on the counter. As cozy as anime gets.
  - Quieter: Island life, folklore, or work?
    - Island life: Barakamon. A prickly young calligrapher is sent to a small island and gets adopted by the local kids. Warm and funny.
    - Folklore: Mushishi. A wanderer helps people troubled by mushi, strange life forms tied to nature. Calm, eerie and beautiful.
    - Making anime: Shirobako. Five friends chase their dream of making anime, and we see the deadlines and chaos of a real studio. Great once you've caught the bug.
- Drama: Drama: Are you ready to cry?
  - Yes: Real world, or a touch of magic?
    - Real world: Music, guilt, or family?
      - Music: Your Lie in April. A piano prodigy who stopped playing meets a free-spirited violinist. Music, first love and a lot of tears.
      - Guilt (a film): A Silent Voice. A former bully tries to make amends with the deaf girl he tormented in primary school. An honest film about guilt and forgiveness.
      - Family: Clannad. A delinquent student meets a girl repeating her final year, and the story follows them into adult life. Its second season is famous for making people cry.
    - A touch of magic: Letters or ghosts?
      - Letters: Violet Evergarden. A former child soldier becomes a letter writer and slowly learns what feelings are. Stunning to look at, and famously emotional.
      - A ghost: Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day. A group of drifted-apart friends is brought back together by the ghost of a girl they lost as kids. Eleven episodes of heartbreak.
  - No: A school band, or a lonely prodigy?
    - School band: Sound! Euphonium. A high-school concert band tries to get to the national competition. Grounded drama with beautiful music and animation.
    - Lonely prodigy: March Comes in Like a Lion. A teenage professional shogi player struggling with loneliness finds warmth with three sisters. Thoughtful and healing.
- Sci-fi: Sci-fi: Robots, space, or the near future?
  - Robots: Psychological, over the top, or strategic?
    - Psychological: Evangelion. A reluctant boy pilots a giant robot against mysterious Angels. It turns into a deep, strange story about people and pain.
    - Over the top: Gurren Lagann. Two boys break out of their underground village and keep escalating until they're fighting across galaxies. Pure hype.
    - Strategic: Code Geass. An exiled prince gets the power to command anyone and starts a rebellion. A chess match full of cliffhangers.
  - Space: Bounty hunters or castaways?
    - Bounty hunters: Cowboy Bebop. Bounty hunters drift around the solar system to a jazz soundtrack. The classic "anime for people who don't watch anime".
    - Castaways: Astra Lost in Space. Students on a school trip are stranded light-years from home and have to get back together. A fun survival mystery with great twists.
  - Near future: What kind of future?
    - Time travel: Steins;Gate. A self-proclaimed mad scientist accidentally invents a way to send messages to the past. Slow start, incredible payoff.
    - Surveillance: Psycho-Pass. In a future where a system measures how likely you are to commit a crime, a rookie inspector starts doubting it. A sharp cyberpunk crime show.
    - Cyberpunk: Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. A street kid in Night City gets cyberware implants and joins a crew of mercenaries. Ten explosive episodes from Studio Trigger.
    - Rebuilding with science: Dr. Stone. After all of humanity is turned to stone, a teenage genius rebuilds civilization one invention at a time. Fun and genuinely educational.
- Mystery & horror: Mystery & horror: Mind games, detectives, or horror?
  - Mind games: A killer notebook, a prison escape, or a trip back in time?
    - Killer notebook: Death Note. A student finds a notebook that kills anyone whose name he writes in it, and a genius detective starts closing in.
    - Escape: The Promised Neverland. Children at an idyllic orphanage discover the horrifying truth about it and plan their escape. Season 1 is a tight, tense thriller.
    - Back in time: Erased. A man is sent back to his childhood, weeks before a classmate is murdered, and tries to save her. A tense 12-episode mystery.
  - Detectives: Long-running, historical, or dark?
    - Long-running: Detective Conan (Case Closed). A teenage detective is shrunk into a child's body and keeps solving murders while hunting the people who did it. Dip in anywhere.
    - Historical: The Apothecary Diaries. A sharp-tongued apothecary working in an imperial palace solves poisonings and court intrigue. Clever, funny and a little romantic.
    - Dark: Monster. A surgeon saves a boy's life, then learns the boy grew up to be a serial killer, and sets out to stop him. A gripping thriller set in Europe.
  - Horror: A cursed village, or aliens taking over bodies?
    - Cursed village: Higurashi: When They Cry. A boy moves to a sleepy village where people die every year at the festival. Cute characters, real horror, and a puzzle to solve.
    - Body-snatching aliens: Parasyte -the maxim-. Alien parasites take over human bodies, but the one that infects Shinichi only gets his right hand. Body horror with a big heart.
- Sports: Sports: Team sport, or one-on-one?
  - Team: Which sport?
    - Volleyball: Haikyu!!. A short kid who loves volleyball joins forces with his rival. Every match feels like a final.
    - Basketball: Realistic, or with near-superpowers?
      - Realistic: Slam Dunk. A delinquent joins the basketball team to impress a girl. The classic that inspired a generation of sports anime.
      - Near-superpowers: Kuroko's Basketball. An invisible-seeming player and a newcomer take on the five prodigies of the Generation of Miracles. Basketball as a shonen battle.
    - Soccer: Blue Lock. 300 young strikers compete in a cutthroat training program to build Japan's most selfish striker. Soccer played like a battle royale.
  - One-on-one: Boxing, racing, or table tennis?
    - Boxing: Hajime no Ippo. A bullied teenager discovers boxing and fights his way up. One of the best sports anime ever made.
    - Street racing: Initial D. A tofu delivery boy turns out to be a street racing legend. Eurobeat and drifting down mountain passes.
    - Table tennis: Ping Pong the Animation. Two childhood friends with very different attitudes to table tennis grow up through the sport. Rough art, brilliant storytelling.