Why this doesn't make anime more popular, I'll never know.

4 seconds into first anime, high pitched squeal coming from female lead

10 minutes in, realize the main character is 15, girl phobic, and being put in charge of serious military equipment nobody has the right to touch until they undergo a year of training and are willing to follow orders; starts wondering if the person giving the child multi-billion dollar military equipment is more incompetent than the main character.....it's really a close call

15 minutes in, bitches like the child they are for the rest of the episode

episode ends

I love anime, but boy are some of the tropes really annoying and is a massive part of why so many people just turn it off shortly after it starts.

TIL why I can't get into anime but didn't know it.
Bit OP isn't wrong about medical, legal, and police procedurals.
- The put some damn fan service into Law and Order: SVU and I might start watching!
  Am I right fellas!?
- There must only be slop.
Get in the robot
🔫 Now.
this is just ender's game

I mean... I like anime myself but there are so many animes out there that feel like carbon copies of each other.

As you type this, you're suddenly transported to a fantasy world where all anime is imaginative and original! Also the world is full of buxom maidens ready to serve your every will.
- Also the world is full of buxom maidens ready to serve your every will.
  This is what I am talking about. Where are the twinky femboy harem animes? I need balance!
I heard someone say that 64% of new animes last year were Isekais. I can't prove it, but I believe it.
Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is shit. This applies to anime just as much as it applies to every other medium.
Just watch the 10% that isn't shit.
- Just watch the 10% that isn't shit.
  How to find the top layer though...

Not all anime is good, a lot is straight up shit. Not all things that aren't anime are shit some are quite good.

Edit: some recommendations for good live action TV that's neither a police or medical procedural:

I May Destroy You - an analysis of consent and modern dating
The Sopranos - one of the first shows to really smash the episodic format apart with its sprawling, long running narrative
The Wire - while it does involve some elements of the police procedural format, it's really a novel about a decaying society in TV form
Freaks and Geeks - spawned it's own sub-genre, possibly the most influential teen drama ever
Deadwood - framed as a western but it's really about how you build a society, crying shame it got cancelled before the conclusion but some of the best characters and dialogue ever written
Battlestar Galactica (2003) - the perfect series to capture the paranoia and changes in society following 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan
Chernobyl - just incredible
Band of Brothers (honourable mention to The Pacific) - suffers a little from some American Exceptionalism but an incredible look at the effects of war on ordinary people
The Deuce - an unflinchingly honest look at the sex and porn industry in 70s and 80s New York

You'll never convince OP of that. In fact, I'm shocked that several rabid amine fans haven't shouted you down already
- ...because it's true? That's why the really good anime is seen as really good

Here's my problem with anime: I keep getting burnt on recommendations.

Anime fans do not share my distaste for sexualized child-coded characters. Which would be tolerable if they would even acknowledge the CONCEPT.

It's a dice toss whether the anime is a Cowboy Bebop or something with loli side characters halfway through season 2, and I'm just rarely up for spending the time to do that research for a recommendation.

And "Achshually, these are just drawings not real people", "umm, she's really a 1000 year old dragon who just chooses/got stuck with a small human body" fuckery just tires me.

Solo Leveling - early 20s male protag, action sci-fi, no romance subplots atm
The Faraway Paladin- Fantasy adventure, found family
Claymore-women/monster hybrids fighting bigger monsters, only one male mc and he's absent for over half the episodes
That's what I can come up with that doesn't have chibi, loli, or romance. They're all on crunchyroll with good English dubs

I wish more anime focused on adult characters instead of highschoolers.

A few recommendations with that in mind (Boy does that one restriction really just nuke the list! Common Japan!):
Spice and Wolf (2008 series, I have no clue if the 2024 series is good)
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Gate: And Thus the JSDF Fought There
Crest of the Stars
(Roughly in that order, too)
This so much, I'm tired of shonen and kawai nonsense, most of the mainstream Anime plots and characters are generic, and I'm too old to related to 14 year old protagonists, I'll take something like Arcane over another Anime any day

It's slop. It's all slop.

Post non slop for me to check out below please

Akagi
The Apothecary Diaries
A Silent Voice
Azumanga Daioh
Bocchi the Rock!
Cowboy Bebop
Delicious in Dungeon
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Kaguya-sama: Love is War
Kaiji
Little Witch Academia
Spy x Family
Steins;Gate
Takopi's Original Sin
Violet Evergarden
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
  Casshern Sins
  Monster
  Ergo Proxy
  Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
  Haibane Renmai
  xxxHolic & Tsubasa Chronicles
  Gintama
- Apothecary Diaries, Delicious, and Frieren are my faves on this list. And of course Cowboy Bebop is a classic.
  Also, I will never stop loving Akira. The animation, direction, the score, just chef's kiss. They don't make 'em like this anymore.
- Lot of solid choices, I've got 3 new ones to check out. Much appreciated, the ones I recognize are good so I'll be giving the new entries a fair shot
mushishi
chihayafuru

Don't worry, this new NCIS spinoff is different! It take place in... throws dart at a map ...Oswego.

I'm in neither camp. I don't watch much anime, and I hate these detective/murder solving shows. There's plenty of third options to choose from here as well. Lots of good stuff.

See, there's a big problem. Medival/Legal Dramas are boring, samey and unimaginative. But at least there isn't a 50% chance to get random incest/pedophile/sexist scenes pushed in your face out of nowhere and without any significance to the plot.

I love animes, but the amount of time I put into filtering out disgusting fan service is too damn high and also stopping me from recommending it to most of my friends. We need more anime like Frieren, Dungeon Meshi and One Piece pre timeskip and less Shield Hero and Goblin Slayer!

“imaginative” anime