Anime is simply "Japanese animation". This has developed into a "style" (Korean anime, etc.), but "anime" = "Japanese". "Anime" does not mean "giant robots".
The best anime, IMO, is in series format. This is primarily because a lot of the anime movies -- with some big exceptions, like The Iron Giant and similar -- are reductions of anime series or try to explain some plot-point that was not quite developed in the series.
Some of my favorites:
* Full Metal Alchemist. Fantasy. Definitely start here if you've never been into anime before.
* Read or Die: The TV. Sorta science-fictiony. This shows the flexibility of the medium. It's about people that took the statement in Computer Boy about "I know oragami!" to the obvious extreme. However, why I list this as one of the top two to start with is because it's very light and fluffy and you will like the characters. It's consistently on most people's top 10 anime lists.
* Evangelion. Science fiction. This is regarded as a) one of the best and most important anime, evar and b) the defining anime for the "giant robot" genre, even though these are used sparingly. 99% of all anime since Eva make some reference (sometimes incredibly blatant) to Eva.
* Cowboy Bebop. Science fiction. First, this crosses over into music and that's all good (see http://www.woodwindforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=854 -- I have lotsa links to the music). It's regarded as one of the best animated anime and one with the best plots. And it's really, really kewl. The makers of this anime went on to make Samurai Champloo. If you liked the animation style in Bebop, you'll like Champloo.
* Elfen Lied. Science fiction. WARNING: incredibly graphic (about 60 decapitations in the first 5 minutes of episode 1; nudity, etc.). This one will just blow your mind, tho. I'm not into "graphic", but it fits for this series.
Once you get into anime more, there's an entire sub-class of parody anime, with Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Excel Saga and Pani Poni Dash being some of the major highlights.
Note that YouTube has a lot of the episodes from the above, online.
The best anime, IMO, is in series format. This is primarily because a lot of the anime movies -- with some big exceptions, like The Iron Giant and similar -- are reductions of anime series or try to explain some plot-point that was not quite developed in the series.
Some of my favorites:
* Full Metal Alchemist. Fantasy. Definitely start here if you've never been into anime before.
* Read or Die: The TV. Sorta science-fictiony. This shows the flexibility of the medium. It's about people that took the statement in Computer Boy about "I know oragami!" to the obvious extreme. However, why I list this as one of the top two to start with is because it's very light and fluffy and you will like the characters. It's consistently on most people's top 10 anime lists.
* Evangelion. Science fiction. This is regarded as a) one of the best and most important anime, evar and b) the defining anime for the "giant robot" genre, even though these are used sparingly. 99% of all anime since Eva make some reference (sometimes incredibly blatant) to Eva.
* Cowboy Bebop. Science fiction. First, this crosses over into music and that's all good (see http://www.woodwindforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=854 -- I have lotsa links to the music). It's regarded as one of the best animated anime and one with the best plots. And it's really, really kewl. The makers of this anime went on to make Samurai Champloo. If you liked the animation style in Bebop, you'll like Champloo.
* Elfen Lied. Science fiction. WARNING: incredibly graphic (about 60 decapitations in the first 5 minutes of episode 1; nudity, etc.). This one will just blow your mind, tho. I'm not into "graphic", but it fits for this series.
Once you get into anime more, there's an entire sub-class of parody anime, with Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Excel Saga and Pani Poni Dash being some of the major highlights.
Note that YouTube has a lot of the episodes from the above, online.