The following shows I’ll call the prerequisite pillars for anime in general. These are shows you should do your best to watch as soon as possible. Even if you can’t watch the entire show, watch at least an entire story arc. These are not neccessarily the ‘Best Shows’, but serve as a reference and foundation for many anime afterwards.
Dragon Ball Z
Mobile Suit Gundam (The original)
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Those are probably the three pillars of modern anime. Cowboy Bebop is another show you should watch ASAP, but it is not as important overall as those three shows.
It’s fine for you to think that “Naruto is the Best Thing EVER”, but if you’ve never watched DBZ you’re really missing out on a lot. A good number of today’s action shows are inspired by DBZ, in fact the creator of Naruto directly credits DBZ and its creator for inspiring him. While I wouldn’t argue that Naruto may be a better show, once you see DBZ you can draw a lot of similarities to the core elements.
Mobile Suit Gundam/First Gundam is undoubtedly the single most popular franchise in Japan. The Big Mech genre existed before Gundam of course, but Gundam really made it explode. The Gundam series is still going strong today, with many different seasons and spinoffs of the show with varying themes, some better than others. Still, it is best to go back to the original, and see where it all began.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is much more recent than Gundam, but it serves as a significant milestone in anime. (In fact, the creator of Evangelion actually worked on a Gundam series). Eva was a very different kind of action/mech show, and it dove much more into the psychological thinking and behaviours of the characters, and humanity itself. After Evangelion, there were many more ‘psychological thriller’ types of shows about. While many of them may not have been directly inspired by it, Eva created a clear path for those shows to reach a wide audience.
Ultimately, you cannot deny that there have been shows since DBZ, Gundam and Eva who have surpassed them in terms of overall quality. But you also cannot deny that they had to start somewhere. Without DBZ, there may not have been a Naruto or a Bleach. Without Gundam, there may not have even been an Evangelion. Without Evangelion, we may have never seen Serial Experiments Lain or Paranoia Agent. These three shows all have their own culture around them that has been ingrained with the anime community. Ask any casual fan of anime what a Kamehameha is, and he could probably tell you. Go to anime discussions and you’ll inevitably see some whiny, sissy hero be compared to “Shinji”. Find out why one blonde man with a mask fetish goes by at least three different names.
Now, on to the list.
Lazy Onion 