After the beginners' course of anime, a survey of the more advanced 200-level anime (some knowledge of Japan required), and a survey of the longer-running titles out there, it's time now for the 400-level titles. This is anime's advanced course, a selection of shows for those who are ready to sample anime at its most adventurous, fan-oriented, and culturally sophisticated.
Note that all of those things can also be read as negatives -- to wit: difficult, exclusionary or incomprehensible. Not all anime is a good place to start, which is something I hope I've been able to make clear throughout this cycle of articles.
But the more you come to understand anime -- where it comes from culturally, what it's designed to do and who it's aimed at -- the easier it gets to seek out anime at both its most challenging and rewarding. Seeing FLCL (shown above) "cold," without at least some grounding in anime's tropes and conceits, makes for baffling viewing. But after you've had a few other titles under your belt, this outlandish allegory about growing up absurd might just make perfect sense.
The same dynamic exists with other forms of entertainment. I don't know if you'd want to make Watchmen your first foray into graphic novels, despite it being heralded as one of the greatest of them all (and in my opinion, the praise is on-target). But if you've already put other, more accessible titles under your belt, Watchmen becomes that much more worth checking out.
Check out our advanced course in anime, and chime in with suggestions for the list below. Note that as with the other lists, I've been favoring diversity of titles. Example: if there's already a samurai-themed title on the list, other samurai-themed titles probably won't be included.
Image: FLCL. Image courtesy Pricegrabber.
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