Best anime for beginners
9 Best Anime for Beginners: Where to Start
Our picks for the best anime for beginners, from Cowboy Bebop to Frieren: shows that hook you fast, finish well and need zero background.
If a friend keeps asking you where to start, or you've bounced off anime because there's just so much of it, this is our list of the best anime for beginners. Every show here works cold. No prequels to hunt down, and nothing that asks you to sit through twenty episodes before it gets good.
Our main test was simple: the first couple of episodes have to hook you on their own, and the story has to actually end somewhere. After that we mixed genres on purpose. There's a thriller, a volleyball show, a space western and a fantasy about grief, made between 1998 and 2023, so you can work out what you like before you dig deeper.
My 9 Animes
9 Best Anime for Beginners: Where to Start
The nine picks
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Bones · 2009
Edward and Alphonse Elric try to bring their mother back with alchemy. It costs Ed an arm and a leg, and Al his entire body. Brotherhood follows the manga all the way to its real ending over 64 episodes, and you can tell the whole thing was planned. If you only ever watch one long series, we'd make it this one.
- Best for
- Anyone ready to commit to one long, finished story
- When to watch
- A few episodes a night for a month
Death Note
Madhouse · 2006
Light Yagami, a top student, picks up a notebook that kills anyone whose name gets written in it. A strange detective known only as L comes after him. It's a cat-and-mouse thriller more than anything, which is why people who swear they don't watch anime tend to finish it in a weekend.
- Best for
- People who like crime shows more than cartoons
- When to watch
- A weekend, lights off
Cowboy Bebop
Sunrise · 1998
Bounty hunters, broke, in space, in 2071. Most of the 26 episodes stand alone, so you can pick it up in almost any mood. Yoko Kanno's jazz and blues soundtrack is half the reason to watch.
- Best for
- Fans of noir, westerns or old jazz records
- When to watch
- Late at night, one or two episodes at a time
Attack on Titan
Wit Studio · 2013
Humanity lives behind giant walls because outside them are Titans that eat people. Season one is a pure survival story, and the fights, with soldiers swinging between buildings on wires and gas jets, still look great. Fair warning: it's gory and it gets bleak. It's also the show that pulled a lot of today's fans in.
- Best for
- Action fans with a strong stomach
- When to watch
- When you're fine losing a whole Saturday
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
ufotable · 2019
Tanjiro Kamado comes home to find his family dead and his sister Nezuko turned into a demon, so he trains as a demon slayer to find a cure. That's the whole setup, and the show never pretends to be deeper than that. People stay for ufotable's animation. The sword techniques look like ink paintings that move.
- Best for
- Viewers who want a kind hero and big fights
- When to watch
- Friday night with friends on the couch
HAIKYU!!
Production I.G · 2014
Shoyo Hinata is short and very, very into volleyball. At Karasuno High he joins a team that used to be good. You don't need to know anything about the sport, because the show teaches it to you as the team figures it out, and before long the matches are as tense as any fight on this list.
- Best for
- People who are sure they don't like sports anime
- When to watch
- When you need a kick to get off the couch
SPY x FAMILY
CloverWorks, Wit Studio · 2022
A spy needs a fake family for a mission. He adopts a girl who, unknown to him, can read minds, and marries a woman who is secretly an assassin. Nobody knows anyone else's secret except the kid, who hears everything. It's the easiest show here to put on with a partner or your parents.
- Best for
- Watching with a partner or your parents
- When to watch
- A weeknight when you're tired
Mob Psycho 100
Bones · 2016
Shigeo Kageyama, called Mob, is a quiet middle schooler with enormous psychic power who mostly wants a normal life. He works for Reigen, a smooth-talking fake psychic and easily the funniest character on this list. Most episodes play as comedy. Then a fight breaks out and the animation goes completely wild.
- Best for
- Anyone who likes their comedy with a weird edge
- When to watch
- When you want to laugh, then gasp
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
Madhouse · 2023
The Demon King is already dead when this starts. Frieren is an elf mage who will live for centuries, and after her old friend Himmel grows old and dies, she sets out to understand what their ten years together meant. It's slow and quiet, with the odd sharp magic duel. We put it last because it shows how grown-up anime can get.
- Best for
- Fantasy readers and anyone who likes slow TV
- When to watch
- A lazy Sunday with tea
Make it yours
That's nine very different ways in. Whichever ones stuck, put them in a My 9 grid, swap the ones you dropped for shows you found on your own, and share it. It'll save you some typing the next time someone asks where to start.
Opens the maker with these nine in the grid. Swap any of them for your own.