Yeah, I shouldn’t have picked the marvel movies. I don’t think they are all necessarily simple and shallow, just that there is a certain recurring themes that one can spot. My point was just very obvious in Iron Man 2.

Many Anime are made with kids as their target, so they may introduce a cool new theme but then tend to fall into repetitiveness.

What I liked about early anime were the translater’s notes. Fanmade translations with subtitles that included additional context, mostly on the top of the screen. It explained the context of the current dialogue, or what a phrase means.

I can’t really recommend something without knowing your preferences. With that said, I currently watch “Kaiju No. 8”. Often recommended (that I also watched) are “Attack on Titan”, “Rise of the shield hero”, “Konosuba” “Ghost in the Shell” and “Code Geass”. From the top of my head. Note that all of them are vastly different stories. Short notes:

• Kaiju No 8: A world where Kaiju (monsters like Godzilla) are constantly attacking cities. There is a special force that deals with them. The story is about a guy that is part of the cleaning crew, but desperately wants to join this special force.

It’s very funny with some darker scenes mixed in. Pretty gory.

• Attack on Titan: Humanity in a renaissance like setting is pushed to near extinction behind three rings of giant walls. The enemies are giant, human lookalike titans that eat people.

There is constant agony and desperation, but also hope. Very captivating, mostly serious. Also has one of my favorite “fuck you” moments when the main character saves his friend.

• Rise of the shield hero: Isekai, where four people are summoned from our world to a new, RPG-like world.

I don’t know how to sell the story without spoilers, so I won’t go further into it. Mostly a serious story. There is betrayal and politics.

• Konosuba: The full title is “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!” or “God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!”. Also Isekai. The hero dies in our world and gets reborn in another, more game-like world. He is lazy, stubborn, sleazy and gets easily misunderstood.

Very funny anime. More of a slice-of-life style than an evolving story. There IS a story though.

• Ghost in the shell: The movies are one thing to recommend, and I do, but they can be a bit harder to follow, as they are rather old and slower paced, and also less self-explanatory. The series Stand Alone Complex is a bit more modern, plays in the future where every part of the body can be replaced by kybernetics, even the brain. The hero is part of an elite police force, tasked to bring down organized crime and is dealing mostly with heavy weapons and hackers.

Pretty confusing and serious, it’s a pretty good, futuristic, dystopian police story.

• Code Geass: In the future the world is almost completely taken over by Britannia. A boy from Britannia dumped in a sector of Britannia formerly known as Japan is the hero. He wants to live and survive with his disabled sister, but gets caught between a fight between the military and japanese insurgents and is forced to participate.

Very psychological anime, many plot twists and an almost absurd setting. Mostly serious.