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"Gateway" or "Crossover" anime

Article listing common anime that make people a fan of the medium.

When I was a kid, I was engulfed in the early Pokemon craze, watching the show every morning and afternoon. Never really got into Dragonball Z or Sailor Moon. Many years later, when I was about 12 or 13, there was a used CD/VHS/DVD store that my parents and I went to every weekend.

I eventually began to talk to one of the cashiers that always worked there. He was about 10 years older than me but was impressed with my taste in film. We eventually started trading DVDs and VHSs whenever I came in and sometimes introduced me to new music which had a tremendous impact on my tastes today.

One day, the subject of anime was brought up somehow and I didn’t understand how adults could be so into ‘cartoons’. He assured me that anime was more developed than I thought it was (of course the only exposure I had to it was Pokemon), he started bringing in anime. Fist of the North Star, Goldenboy, Dead Leaves, Cat Soup, Samurai X, Akira, Perfect Blue, Vampire Hunter D, Ninja Scroll, and more. Surely, I was proven wrong and really liked everything I watched. I started going to other stores around the area seeking new tapes and trying to see what I can find at the local Blockbusters, all which had a small animated section. Still I was able to expand my horizons and been into anime ever since, even if I take ‘breaks’ from it occasionally.

The first anime series I found on my own that I really got into was Revolutionary Girl Utena. I used to go to a book store whenever my parents took me to the mall and occasionally I went to the manga section, where I randomly found Utena and started reading it. Eventually, I was able to find the series and the film, and really loved its symbolism and themes. It was like nothing I had seen before.

  • You could talk about how anime shows became every mainstream in America in the 90's with Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon, and how anime films got popular America in the late 80's with Akira and Princess Mononoke. – Aaron Hatch 9 years ago
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  • Classics like Akira and Cowboy Bebop certainly were big players in popularizing anime in Western culture. In terms of gateway animes nowadays, most people lean towards introducing their non-anime friends to mainstream shounens (Naruto, One Piece) or to whatever is the most hyped at the time (SAO, AoT). My gateway anime is dubbed Sailor Moon that I saw on tv when I was three years old. Shortly after, I got into the mainstream shounens that aired on television. People usually first get into the big name animes before branching off into other directions. – Melony 9 years ago
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  • Any Anime by Hayao Miyazaki is a good gateway. Death Note is a great gateway because it explores a topic even non-Anime watchers can enjoy, and a common gateway is one of the big three, Naruto, Bleach or One Piece. – SpectreWriter 9 years ago
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  • I joined through the 'popular three': One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. My sister (who's three years older than me) started trough Rurouni Kenshin and InuYasha. These days people seem to start mainly through Attack on Titan. – Wolfstar96 9 years ago
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  • The problem with this is that isn't really set of anime that can be said to always be a good gateway into anime, since so much depends on taste. My gateway was Deathnote, but I can guarantee that if I'd watched one of the Big Three or one of the "classics" first, I wouldn't have been hooked. That's not to say that those shows aren't good, but it is highly unlikely that I would have seen the value in them. I think whoever writes this should keep in mind two things: 1. Don't be blinded by the nostalgia value of shows like DBZ, which won't necessarily connect with an audience that doesn't have that background, and 2. Just because it's a good show doesn't mean that people with no anime experience will like it, especially if the value in the show draws upon an understanding of anime culture. The emphasis should definitely be on accessibility of the show. Factors that can facilitate accessibility would include: 1. Conventional look - if the animation is of an unconventional or old style, it can be very distracting and off-putting to the uninitiated. 2. Length - while not necessarily a deal-breaker, it could be difficult for a person to stick with a show that is more than 50 or 60 episodes 3. Quality - there are a lot of flaws that I'm willing to tolerate in anime because I am used to anime and it's conventions; a new person to anime may not be so tolerant, so make sure that there are nothing that might jar their experience Effectively, the anime they watch needs to be as closely aligned to the person's existing tastes as possible to allow a smooth transition. I'm sorry about how long this note is, I hope it helps. – OddballGentleman 9 years ago
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  • I feel like saying that a very similar topic titled Anime for Dummies has already been suggested and claimed by myself, and it includes Gateway Anime so I highly advise whoever takes this up to wait for that article to come out and try to do something different. And don't worry Oddball, I barely like the nostalgic like Dragonball Z or even Cowboy Bebop so nobody can blind me there. :D – SpectreWriter 9 years ago
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