The Rising Sun has definitely cultivated a strong following over the past few decades with their main entertainment medium using riveting storylines and colorful animated scenes. It’s no wonder that we’ve begun to treat them as Western releases allowing them to be showcased in American cinemas with the notion that they’ll bring forth the masses.

To make that sentence less wordy: Anime is hella good!

I’ve been around the block myself. My first time watching anime was with my father when he’d sneak away from my mom to watch Fist of the North Star. I couldn’t understand why he loved the thickly outlined characters on screen with over protruding muscles stacked on everyone who even had a sliver of screen time, but I knew it was something different. Watching that, I learned that there was something out there, more than the Looney Tunes my mom always loved to force upon me. (And yes, Space Jam was indeed trash. Let’s talk about that another time.)

With that being said, I’ve had a swell time with the anime shows that have come and gone within the last 30 years and would like to dedicate this list to the ones that hold themselves up over time. This list is in no way ranked in any order, just ones I have to show. Without further ado, here are the eleven anime shows that have made me into the viewer I am today!

So let’s digest: the main character Satou is a hikikomori (Japanese term for low-achieving home dweller) who has been given a contract by a neighborhood cure to cure him of his non-social woes. Meanwhile, there’s a conspiracy he’s created that the actually real-life NHK, the Japanese broadcasting service, is sending spies to make sure he stays this way. The anime is well worth a watch and is a great eye-opener for any viewer, both successful in life or not. I watched this at a specific low point in my life without realizing it and grew to sort of pity Satou and hope that he eventually improved. An amazing show indeed!