3 Netflix Anime for Beginners

So, you want to start watching anime. Your friends have told you about so many incredible shows, animated beautifully and just waiting for you to sink hours of your life into them. Trust me, you’re in for a treat once you get started but how do you get started? What should you watch first, and on what platform? Let’s assume you don’t want to navigate endless, ad-riddled proxy websites and go for the main streaming service: Netflix, specifically UK Netflix. After all, if you’re already using VPNs to change which Netflix you have access to, you probably don’t need my help. With all that said, let’s begin the recommendations.

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Without fail, if you’ve ever asked what anime you should watch first, the person you asked recommended this. Split into 5 parts, each containing 13 episodes, FMA: Brotherhood looks you in the eye and expects you to commit to a long story, as many anime will but it is not without reward.

The series follows Edward and Alphonse Elric, two brother who are skilled alchemists. In this series, an alchemist is someone who can perform a particular kind of magic, so long as it complies to the Law of Equivalent Exchange. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, it’s literally the very first thing the show will explain to you, but essentially you can only get out of magic what you put in. Hence why, after the passing of their mother, the boys try to revive her by collecting the “ingredients” that comprise a human.

[For those interested, the basic ingredients of an adult human are listed in the show: Water (35 L), Carbon (20 kg), Ammonia (4 L), Lime (1.5 kg), Phosphorous (800 g), Salt (250 g), Saltpetre (100 g), Sulphur (80 g), Fluorine (7.5 g), Iron (5 g), Silicon (3 g) and fifteen traces of other elements. Presumably so you can use the same ingredients for your own purposes.]

When it fails, it literally costs Edward an arm and a leg and Alphonse loses his whole body, rewarding them with the burned and moaning husk of a freshly made corpse. Elric attaches Alphonse’s soul to a suit of armour and the series begins.

What makes this series easier for new anime-watchers is that it’s considered a more westernised show. A lot of the characters are designed as westerners and the world seems to have trademarks of many western countries; the capital’s architecture is European, complete with London-style telephone booths, and areas outside the capital include picturesque forests that can be found in any country, Fort Briggs a frozen buffer zone that holds back a seemingly endless onslaught from a neighbouring country, the country of Xing that seems reminiscent of the traditional view of Asian countries, and other areas that also emulate significantly different real-world cultures. Traditionally, anime is set in Japan and adheres to Japanese expectations and customs, which is to be expected of products primarily made in Japan by Japanese people. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood doesn’t do that to the same extent, which is why many people recommend it to new anime-viewers; it’s simply easier to watch when you don’t have the context for certain anime tropes yet. “Yet” being the operative word, don’t worry, we’ll get you there.

Now, truth time. I did not finish Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood in one sitting. I couldn’t. It’s a 64-episode show, which to One Piece fans probably sounds like a jaunt, but it took me a good three or four tries to finish the whole thing. It’s a commitment and nobody will judge you for not going from start to finish all at once, but my word is worth it. By the end of Part 2, I didn’t stop watching because I wanted to stop. I stopped watching because I thought my eyes were going to fall out if I didn’t do something else.

Final note. If you look for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood on Netflix, you will see it and another option called Fullmetal Alchemist. Brotherhood is the second attempt at the series and follows the originally manga much closer, whereas Fullmetal Alchemist was created before the manga was finished and had to come up with a lot of its own content. It’s not bad, but it’s generally agreed that Brotherhood takes the gold medal, but the choice is yours.

2. Devilman Crybaby

My first piece of advice before watching this show is be prepared for a series that earned its 18+ rating. Orgies, drugs, bloody murder and the threat of global annihilation from both sides of the Christian theology are what you will see as your eyes seemingly forget how to blink while watching Devilman Crybaby.

This series follows Akira, who begins as a meek and forgettable character before his childhood best friend turned renowned-archaeologist-demonologist-millionaire invites him to a party. Aw, what a nice offer to get Akira out of his comfort zone, right? Then someone opens a door and suddenly there are violent, neon-coloured orgies, drugs slipped into Akira’s mouth by someone’s tongue, the best friend whips out a tommy gun, and Akira is forcibly possessed by a demon king that instantly turns him from a wimpy nerd into the hottest thing to ever walk on two legs and sometimes fly on two wings. Keeping up so far?

Devilman Crybaby has precisely zero time for you to ask questions and will drag you into the chaotic madness of dealing with school, sexuality, public image, morality, propaganda, fear-mongering, and forces you to watch as characters try their best and suffer the consequences. Why? Because the world is full of injustice, without question, and the only options you have when faced with that are to either comply or rebel without ever knowing if you’ll succeed in the end. The show is constantly asking the characters what they will do in the face of failure; when their best efforts are put forward, when they strive to use every advantage that they have to simply find slithers of peace and still lose, it shows unrestrained emotions and knee-jerk reactions as natural. The vices of humanity; selfishness, panic, self-destruction, martyrdom, sacrificing the most culpable people regardless of what they’ve actually done just so people can feel in control of their lives, these are not pretty pictures. Yet, they are a part of us. Another anime product (also HIGHLY recommended) called Persona 5 is a video game, and one I’ll likely write about another day, has one particularly fitting line: “The world is filled with both beauty and vice. It is time you teach people which is which.” This line, in my mind, is what director Masaaki Yuasa said to the finished draft of Devilman Crybaby. If you can stomach the truly gratuitous visuals, I highly recommend you watch Devilman Crybaby. And as you watch episode 10 and realise you literally haven’t blinked for the past half an hour; you’ll curse the time you wasted having not watched it.

3. Your Lie in April

Full disclosure, I cannot watch this show anymore because every time I think about it, I start to well up. I’m not joking, I can feel the tears building up in my eyes as I write this. If you love music, if you want to watch anime, if you enjoy painful romances, Your Lie in April is everything you’ve ever wanted. The last two entries are what are described as Shonen anime; the flashy fights, the super powers, the buff dudes screaming at each other, that’s the most pervasive form of anime currently. Your Lie in April is set in the real world and is all the more heart-wrenching for it.

The series follows Kousei, a seriously depressed piano prodigy. Kousei has given up playing piano after the passing of his mother until the meets a violinist, Kaori. Kousei is a talent at playing pieces “perfectly”. Kaori couldn’t care less for that style of playing; she plays erratically, passionately and in a way that doesn’t impress judges but gets people out of their seats and living for the sound. Such contrasting styles, ultimately, set both of them free from their bonds.

I have never felt so emotionally charged by classical music as I was when listening to Kousei and Kaori playing together. Whether that’s simply the excellent writing and pacing creating the illusion of exemplary music, it must be said that I’ve listened to the performances from this show many years later and still feel it in my heart. The show itself truly works at its best with minimal spoilers, but I must implore you to watch it. Even if you don’t like classical music, even if you don’t like romantic stories, actually especially if you don’t like overtly romantic stories, you should watch Your Lie in April. It’s sombre yet hopeful. It finds the purest shards of love buried in trauma and tragedy and pierces your heart with them. Prepare to cry, laugh and headbang to Liebesleid and Beethoven because Your Lie in April, and I’m not qualified to say this, is a masterpiece that I wholly did not expect to stumble across.