Category: Viral

No one ever talks about it, because no one ever actually saw it, but the 2010 romantic-comedy Going the Distance is a really good romantic comedy. The cast was absolutely stacked, featuring Drew Barrymore, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Christina Applegate, Ron Livingston, Jim Gaffigan, June Diane Raphael, and Natalie Morales, among others. Charlie Day is absolutely fantastic in it, and as I wrote in my review at the time, “much of Going the Distance feels like an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia awkwardly stitched together with a rom-com.” It was not an insult.

Going the Distance opened with less than $7 million on its way to a piddling $17 million domestic run. Justin Long still attributes the dramatic downswing in his career to the failure of that movie, and director Nanette Burstein hasn’t made a feature film since. It’s a shame, too, because they — and writer Geoff LaTulippe — all deserved a better reception.

Ten years later, and Justin Long is now hosting a podcast, and on this week’s episode, Long had his old pal from Going the Distance on the show, Charlie Day. It’s a great episode, as the two ruminated at length about their time on the set of Going the Distance, as well as Charlie Day’s many successes since.

Over the course of the podcast, however, the box-office failure of Going the Distance came up, and as something of the face of that movie, Long obviously felt some responsibility for its failure (the reality is, romcoms were already on their way out, and if Netflix had been then what it is today, Going the Distance would have been a huge hit). The weekend after it bombed, however, Justin Long attended a Labor Day party at producer Adam Shankman’s house, where he ran into Adam Sandler.

The thing about Adam Sandler is, he knows how to make a hit romcom with Drew Barrymore. He’s made three: The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates, and Blended. He obviously knows a little of what he’s talking about, so when he tried to explain to Justin Long what went wrong, Long listened.

“Hey buddy,” Sandler said to him at the party. “I saw the movie you did there with Drew. And you were good, but your body, buddy. Your body. That’s not a comedy body.”

“What do you mean?” Long asked.

“Did you work out for that movie?” Sandler asked him, and Long said he had, because he was playing the lead and he wanted to look good opposite Drew Barrymore. “Yeah, yeah,” Sandler continued. “You shouldn’t [work out], buddy. No one wants to laugh at a guy who is ripped.”

“He is right!” Charlie Day agreed. “There is some truth to that, but,” he added, there is an exception to the rule. “Ben Stiller, he was always weirdly ripped. Anytime he popped his shirt off, you’d be like, ‘Wow, you’re in great shape, man.’ And he was always funny, in everything he ever did … but ultimately, Sandler is right. Cause I always thought, if I got really fat, it would help my career,” Day continued.

To wit, Day added, Rob McElhenney was “always a lot funnier,” in the season of It’s Always Sunny when he got really fat. “And then in the season when he got really ripped, he’s still very good. He’s just not as funny.” The reason why, Day added, is what “we like about funny people is that they make us feel better about the things we are insecure about ourselves.”

In other words, Fat Mac basically proves the Adam Sandler rule of comedy: Don’t get ripped.

Source: Life is Short with Justin Long

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Chicago trio Dehd released their third record Flower Of Devotion in late July, but there was a point in vocalist/bassist Emily Kempf’s life where she thought it would never happen — and it almost didn’t.

At 31-years-old, the amalgamation of Kempf’s life choices sank in. She looked back on all the years she has dedicated to being a musician but didn’t feel as though she had “made it.” “I’d just given up everything to be a musician and I thought maybe that I fucked up,” she says on the phone while unpacking a grocery delivery. Kempf had decided college wasn’t the right path for her, instead she wanted to travel and to explore her passions. But as she reflected on her twenties, Kempf was worried she made the wrong choice. “I’m not successful yet. Should I buy a house and get married and have a baby and go to college?’” she found herself wondering. “So I quit.”

Kempf traded in her graphic tees for starched, office-appropriate clothing that hid her tattoo-covered body. “I basically tried to conform,” she recalls, “which did not work out because I’m too punk.” Kempf persisted for a year in the corporate world before the disillusionment was too much to handle. Without music, her main driving force, her life felt purposeless. Kempf quit her corporate gig, boxed her business attire, opened a tattoo shop in Chicago’s East Humboldt Park, and once again realigned herself with music. Eventually, Kempf’s quarter-life crisis subsided and she realized “being in your thirties is literally the same as being in your twenties except you’re hotter and wiser.”

Kempf’s newfound self-assurance is clear on Flower Of Devotion. But returning to music wasn’t so effortless. Kempf formed Dehd in 2014 with guitarist Jason Balla and drummer Eric McGrady at the onset of her budding romance with Balla. After nearly five years, Kempf and Balla decided to amicably split ahead of 2019’s sophomore album Water. Understandably, navigating a breakup within the band was strenuous. “I wouldn’t recommend it but it is possible,” Kempf says with a laugh. But Kempf thinks focusing too much on their relationship does a disservice to Dehd’s music. “It’s not all about romance,” she says, adding: “Our songs transcend our relationship.”

It’s true that Dehd’s music isn’t about Kempf and Balla’s relationship alone, though their music wouldn’t be the same without working through the breakup. A reliance on communication is at the heart of Dehd’s dynamic, who fondly adopt the label “mutt rock” when speaking about their genre of indie music. Coined by Balla, the term encapsulates the scrappiness of their sound and nods to the way Dehd relies on equal collaboration between all three members to produce something that is more visceral than other indie rock groups. The result is a record that examines the interplay of Dehd’s overall experience with intricate relationships while oscillating between the themes of love, loss, and isolation.

Take their track “Loner,” a song that unpacks all those themes and one Kempf took the lead on writing. A warm-toned guitar undulates as Kempf comes to terms with being alone and seeks healing through detachment. “I want nothing more than / To be a loner,” Kempf howls during the chorus. Kempf explores the differences between being lonesome and being isolated in the song, something she’s been working through since leaving a recent relationship. She’s since realized comfortable solitude isn’t a breeze, rather, it takes a commitment to introspection.

Processing her emotions through lyrics, Kempf learned she can be her own best friend, her own partner, and her own parent. “I just want to be okay alone and happy with my sick ass life and not feel the pain of being lonesome,” she says. Still, there were times Kempf was struck with pangs of loneliness and needed a way to work through it. Kempf and Balla wrote “Haha” during a charged studio session when the two bounced ideas off of each other. The track juxtaposes lyrics about laughing through tears against an upbeat guitar that plays a classic ‘60s-sounding chord progression. The contrast is a tongue-in-cheek reminder that sometimes something is so painful that you can’t help but laugh at it.

Laughing through tears is cathartic but at the end of the day, being committed to close relationships is the most gratifying experience of them all. Dehd’s album title, Flower Of Devotion, imagines interconnectedness through a metaphor of a garden. If nurturing a relationship is akin to tending a garden, the feeling of being in love is when that first flower, the flower of devotion, unfurls its petals to bloom and signals the rest will follow. While the idea originated as a romantic love, their album title continued to blossom as an analogy for the platonic love of their tight-knit friendship. Kempf, Balla, and McGrady are all devoted to each other and to their music, and that loyalty has persisted in the face of personal grief, failed relationships, and even briefly quitting music.

Flower Of Devotion is out now via Fire Talk. Get it here.

A Charlie Kaufman movie starring Wild Rose and Chernobyl breakout Jessie Buckley, Harry Potter alum David Thewlis, Toni “I Am Your Mother” Collette, and Landry from Friday Night Lights? [Extremely Al Pacino in Jack and Jill voice] Don’t mind if I do.

Based on Ian Reid’s book of the same name, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is about a girlfriend meeting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time, while she’s privately, well, thinking of ending things. It’s like a Kaufman’s spin on Meet the Parents, except instead of that darn cat, there’s a wet dog that won’t stop shaking itself dry. There’s a lot of weird stuff that happens in the trailer above, and the movie is going to lead to a lot of uncomfortable conversations between couples, but that dog is the most unsettling thing I’ve seen in a movie all year. Even more than all of Trolls World Tour.

Watch the surreal trailer above. Here’s the official plot summary:

Despite second thoughts about their relationship, a young woman (Jessie Buckley) takes a road trip with her new boyfriend (Jesse Plemons) to his family farm. Trapped at the farm during a snowstorm with Jake’s mother (Toni Collette) and father (David Thewlis), the young woman begins to question the nature of everything she knew or understood about her boyfriend, herself, and the world.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things premieres on Netflix on September 5.

In early March, concert giant Live Nation made the decision to postpone all of their upcoming tours, a call that came as the coronavirus pandemic was starting to pick up steam on a global level. While that was probably the right thing to do for the sake of people’s safety and containing the virus’ spread, the move hurt the company financially. The impact was major: Last financial quarter, the company’s revenues dropped by a staggering 98 percent.

Financial results for the quarter than ended on June 30, 2020 show that the company posted a net revenue of $74.1 million, which is 98 percent lower than the $3.16 billion they posted in the same financial quarter in 2019. Overall, the company experienced an adjusted operating loss of $431.9 million, compared to the $319.3 million gain they had in Q2 of 2019.

The difference in the amount of events they held in this past quarter of 2020 versus the same quarter in 2019 is also drastic. Globally, the company hosted 10,252 events in Q2 of 2019, while that number descended all the way down to 131 this year, a drop of about 99 percent. The numbers are similar in just North America, dipping from 7,213 down to just 24.

Live Nation said in a statement, “Over the past three months, our top priority has been strengthening our financial position to ensure that we have the liquidity and flexibility to get through an extended period with no live events. Our expectation is that live events will return at scale in the summer of 2021, with ticket sales ramping up in the quarters leading up to these shows.”

Meanwhile, the company recently announced plans to host a drive-in concert series.

It’s not often you hear about an actor retiring from the profession after starring in a movie that made $133 million at the box office ($135 million? Sure, happens all the time, but rarely $133 million), but that’s exactly what Cameron Diaz did. Following roles in 2014’s The Other Woman, Sex Tape, and Annie, Diaz stopped appearing in movies. This was by choice. “I started [experiencing fame] when I was 22, so 25 years ago — that’s a long time,” she said last year. “The way I look at it is that I’ve given more than half of my life to the public.” The There’s Something About Mary and The Mask star opened up about her decision in an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow, and revealed that she has no regrets.

When asked what it’s like to “walk away from a movie career of that magnitude,” Diaz replied, “Like peace. A peace in my soul because I was finally taking care of myself.” She continued, “It’s a strange thing to say, I know a lot of people won’t understand it, I know you understand it, but it was so intense to work at that level and be that public and put yourself out there. There’s a lot of energy coming at you at all times when you’re really visible as an actor and doing press and putting yourself out there”:

“I stopped and really looked at my life. When you’re making a movie… they own you. You’re there for 12 hours a day for months on end you have no time for anything else. I realized I handed off parts of my life to all these other people. I had to basically take it back and take responsibility for my own life.”

Diaz is living her best life in retirement — she’s married to one of the dudes from Good Charlotte and she started her own “clean” wine brand. She has no current plans to act again… until DreamWorks gives her a dump truck full of money for Shrek 5.

(Via People)

Back in early June, when the NBA announced that it would resume its season in a bubble location at Disney World in Orlando, there was plenty of skepticism. Cases of COVID-19 had continued to spike across the country, particularly in the state of Florida, where they were reporting record numbers of new cases on an almost daily basis.

Many questioned whether the NBA could adequately ensure the safety of its players, not to mention the scores of other league personnel and essential workers that would be required for such a mammoth undertaking. Even a considerable segment of the players expressed their apprehensions over the course of various Zoom calls within the union.

But, of course, when it came right down to i, just about everyone fell in line, save for a small handful of players who decided, understandably, that it wasn’t worth the risk to their health and their family. To the league’s credit, the safety protocols inside the bubble in Orlando are thorough and complex, to say the least. The players are tested daily (and must quarantine and miss any team activities should they miss a test). Upon arrival, they each received a personal health app device that requires them to fill out a questionnaire each morning and monitors their temperature and oxygen levels.

Players are also required to observe social distancing rules and wear masks in all common areas, and just about everyone, save for Dwight Howard and a few other apparent accidental incidents, has adhered to these rules and have done a good job of policing themselves — with some continuous reminders of protocols and punishments from the league. The league, in part, took many of its cues from the other pro sports bubbles that restarted prior to the NBA, like the NWSL, NHL, MLS, WNBA, and TBT, which have likewise seen success once settled in the bubble — the MLS’ two major outbreaks occurred as teams arrived and the bubble was yet to be sealed, with nothing but negative tests since.

For the NBA, their record, so far, has been pretty much pristine. The league announced on Wednesday that, for the third consecutive week, there were no positive tests among the 343 players in Orlando. The only two positive tests the entire time they’ve been in the bubble occurred upon arrival in Orlando last month, but those two players never made it past quarantine and did not expose anyone else there to the virus.

There were also two very high-profile cases early on of players breaking quarantine protocols to receive food delivery, but the only semi-controversy since then had to do with just how long Lou Williams spent at an Atlanta area nightclub after attending the funeral of close relative. But both he and Zion Williamson, who likewise left the bubble for a family emergency, have since returned and passed quarantine without incident to rejoin their teams.

In the event of any future positive tests inside the bubble, there are strict guidelines in place that will require said player to go into isolation until they are fully recovered and cleared by medical personnel. Overall, the league deserves credit for its success thus far, and the players deserve credit for abiding by the guidelines set forth by the Players’ Association.

Still, the proof is in the pudding for how the bubble works. There were a number of positive tests when the league began testing players in home markets, leading to facilities shutting down, but those were kept away from the bubble until they cleared a number of negative tests. The other soccer and hoops bubbles have proven the same, that testing and isolation is the solution to keeping the virus out, despite likewise seeing positive tests before arrival.

All of it begs the question of the NFL and MLB, which has seen two teams have to halt play due to outbreaks on the Marlins and Cardinals, who attempt to play without a bubble. Given the spread of the virus in the United States, allowing players to come and go from facilities with interaction with the real world is, sadly, downright dangerous and it seems like just a matter of time before positive tests arrive.

We are in the early stages of the restart, and for everyone in Orlando, consistency in regard to following these safety protocols is the only thing that will ensure that everyone remains as safe and healthy as possible over the next few months. But so far it’s off to a good start, and combined with the NHL, WNBA, MLS, NWSL, and others, the bubble concept appears to have been the correct one.

In recent days, there have been reports that Kanye West’s presidential campaign has ties to the Republican Party (despite his independent affiliation), as people said to be working on his campaign are members of the GOP. Other reports surfaced more recently saying that Donald Trump associates have worked to help get West on states’ Presidential ballots in an attempt to boost Trump’s re-election campaign. Now, the POTUS has addressed rumors that he himself has worked to help get Kanye’s name on ballots.

At a White House press conference last night, Trump said:

“I like him. He’s always been very nice to me. I like Kanye very much, but no, I have nothing to do with him getting on the ballot. We’ll have to see what happens. We’ll see if he gets on the ballot. But I’m not involved.”

Meanwhile, Kanye has actually been critical of Trump and his presidency in recent times. In his now-infamous Forbes interview, he suggested he was no longer supporting the President, saying, “I am taking the red hat off, with this interview. […] It looks like one big mess to me.” He did also offer praise for Trump, though, saying, “Trump is the closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation.”

It probably wasn’t the intended effect, but there was something soothing and comforting about Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow. It’s also probably a good guess that I wouldn’t have felt that way, say, six months ago – or in the alternate reality where there isn’t a pandemic, the same alternate reality that haunts me in my dreams every night. In those realities, I’m fairly sure I’d find Seimetz’s eerie, haunting film about the inevitability of death spooky and disturbing. Instead, now, I felt a serene sense of peace and calm.

Hearing the premise of the film doesn’t really prepare a viewer for what they’re about to see. Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil), despondent at her home, becomes aware that she will die tomorrow. There’s no real reason ever given, but she just knows this is the truth. Amy’s friend Jane (Jane Adams) stops by to console her friend, but by the time Jane leaves, now she is also convinced death is awaiting her the following day. Jane goes to a birthday party and the tone in the room slowly changes from, “Hey, Jane, you’re bringing us all down with all this death talk,” to everyone in the room also now realizing they will all die tomorrow.

Everything is a pandemic movie now. Even during movies I’ve just rewatched since all this started, I see allegories in everything from The Lost Boys to Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Every week there’s a “new movie of the pandemic,” because every movie is now about the pandemic. And how could it not be? All our lives are different, so of course we are going to watch everything through a different lens. And now here comes a movie where people come in contact with other people and the result is they all know the next day is their last.

The reason I mentioned earlier that the premise doesn’t really prepare a viewer for the experience is because, on its surface, it sounds like a “cool horror movie” like It Follows or You’re Next (You’re Next director Adam Wingard even makes an appearance in this movie.) But this isn’t a traditional horror movie. The people who learn their grim fate don’t react with horror; there’s almost a peaceful tranquility to the whole endeavor.

The movie itself is quite the mood itself, never showing anyone with any real sense of urgency. And the movie itself takes a cue from its characters, moving along at a nuanced pace, though it never feels slow, and still maintains a tight running time of under 90 minutes. Again, it’s a comforting ride for something so grim. (Also, I am not at all saying you will react to this movie the way I did. It has everything to do with the particular headspace I’m in at this moment.)

The notion of acceptance is what made me feel a bizarre calm. I’ve watched this play out with our current situation time and time again. There are people mentally fighting against what’s happening, still trying to hold on to a semblance of what their world was like back in February. I, too, did this for a while, but the realities of what became the devastating epicenter that was New York City made me realize, fairly quickly, life as I knew it was over for the considerable future. When I accepted this, I felt better. There’s always that weird moment when my brain is trying to convince me a terrible situation isn’t that bad. That it can still be easily fixed. That’s when things are at their most stressful. But once I accept, yes, this is bad, now let’s make the best of it? That’s when the stress alleviates.

The condemned in She Dies Tomorrow never panic. They accept their fate and, yes, try to make the best of it. Each person has a different interpretation of what this means, but certainly no one is racing into the local Burger King without a mask demanding to be served. Every last action is a testament to kindness, compassion, or just his or her own self-care and amusement. This is what I find comforting: where the first reaction to bad news isn’t selfishness. Instead, all the mental gymnastics of how to change their fates is replaced instead with what to do with the time they have left.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

There is a lot of late-night lore about Conan O’Brien’s brief ascension to The Tonight Show, his struggles while Jay Leno hosted a primetime talk show airing ahead of Conan’s The Tonight Show, and Conan’s eventual ouster so that NBC could replace O’Brien with the man he replaced. There was a lot of nastiness in that debacle, and a lot of hurt feelings. A “few people were not good human beings,” Conan O’Brien once said about what he called a “clusterf*ck.”

I have heard a lot about the debacle, but one story that somehow seemed to slip by me was the fact that Jeff Zucker — the President and CEO of NBC at the time, who ultimately made the call to fire Conan — also once had Conan arrested. In fact, Nick Offerman mentioned it in a recent episode of In Bed with Nick and Megan while speaking to Rashida Jones who — like Jeff Zucker and Conan O’Brien — attended Harvard (although obviously not at the same time). Offermam mentioned that Conan — who was the head of The National Lampoon — frequently pranked the school newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, which Jeff Zucker ran at the time.

I did some more research into this story, and discovered that there is quite an interesting backstory of pranks to go along with the arrest. The arrest was something of the last straw after O’Brien and The National Lampoon pulled a series of pranks on Zucker, including a fake phone-sex ad with Zucker’s dorm-room phone number; stealing the Crimson’s “prized collection of caricatures of its past presidents” and mailing them to Duluth, Minnesota; and stealing the newspaper’s presidential throne.

But the prank that got O’Brien arrested was when he stole an entire run of the Harvard Crimson daily newspaper. Here’s how The New Yorker captured the incident in 2001:

Early one morning fifteen years ago, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the entire press run of the Harvard Crimson disappeared from the front hall of the newspaper’s offices. Jeff Zucker was the president of the paper at the time, and he vividly remembers his reaction: “I was pissed. I knew it was Conan who had stolen it, of course. So I called the police.”

The Harvard Crimson itself described the incident thusly, in 2004:

“O’Brien cut his teeth in comedy as president of The Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine. In fact, O’Brien first met Zucker, his current boss, one day when O’Brien and the Lampoon editors stole all the copies of that morning’s Crimson. Zucker, then Crimson President, called the police and met O’Brien face to face while he was being arrested.”

According to O’Brien, Zucker didn’t forgive him for that until 2005. Conan was fired in 2010, so maybe Zucker didn’t forgive him, after all. In fact, just last year, O’Brien zinged Zucker during an upfront presentation for WarnerMedia, which owns TBS (where Conan works) and CNN (where Zucker is the president). In joking that a movie would be made about AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner, Conan said that “new chairman of WarnerMedia News and Sports Jeff Zucker will be played by Mini-Me. Now that’s just good casting! We go way back, he and I.”

They certainly do. Thirty-five years, in fact, and these two just can’t seem to escape from one another’s orbit.

Sources: New Yorker, Deadline, In Bed with Nick and Megan

Oh, you thought Netflix was the only place you could stream quality anime?

Get ready to have your mind blown then because Hulu is stepping into the game in a big way. From nostalgic offerings and cult classics to inventive new series and mega-popular franchises, the streaming platform is giving fans what they want. More kickass action, criminally cool characters, and imaginative storytelling all done in the signature animation style.

Here are the best anime series streaming on Hulu right now.

One Punch Man

2 seasons, 24 episodes | IMDb: 8.8/10

This fan-favorite anime series has two things going for it: a killer heavy-metal theme song and more action than a Marvel flick. That feels appropriate since the show follows an invincible superhero, who can take out his enemies with just one punch. What’s truly brilliant about this series, though, is how it ranks and classifies lower-tiered vigilantes and how it subverts stereotypes by making Saitama, the hero, apathetic about his own abilities. It’s darkly comedic as some of the best anime typically are.

Cowboy Bebop

1 season, 26 episodes | IMDb: 8.9/10

Even if you’re not an anime fan you’ve probably heard of this ’90s series. It’s a cult classic, a legend in the scene, and it holds up decades later as one of the more exciting, adventurous anime shows. The short synopsis: it’s a world-hopping space western starring a group of misfit bounty hunters, but that doesn’t really capture what a cultural phenomenon it’s become. Just watch a couple of episodes, listen to the dope theme songs, and then you’ll get why so many people cosplay this series.

My Hero Academia

4 seasons, 90 episodes | IMDb: 8.5/10

Speaking of superheroes, this is another anime series that reinvents the genre, giving fans a school setting and an imaginative take of supernatural abilities and the people who wield them. In a world where latent superpowers labeled “Quirks” show up in chosen people, Izuku Midoriya is glaringly average, until someone shares their Quirk with him. He must figure out how to use his new abilities while attending a school for the gifted. Okay, so maybe it kind of sounds like X-Men, but it’s not. Trust us.

Naruto: Shippuden

9 season, 502 episodes | IMDb: 8.6/10

For a lot of anime fans, this Manga-based series was a kind of gateway into the animated world. This show is the second part of a larger story about Naruto Uzumaki, a loud-mouth orphan who hopes to become a famed ninja, so while you’ll probably need to watch his origin story first, it’s this installment that’s the most action-packed. Naruto’s an adolescent now, still chasing glory with his group of badass friends. There are tons of filler episodes in this one but if you can stick it out, you’ll be treated to a thoroughly good time.

Bleach

26 seasons, 366 episodes | IMDb: 8.1/10

Bleach is another well-known anime with a fantasy element built-in. Kurosaki Ichigo is a high school student who, after an interaction with a hollow, gains the ability to see ghosts. So, naturally, he becomes a Soul Reaper. Truth: the first 60 episodes are this series best. It’s plagued by filler arcs later on, but it’s still an addictive watch, especially if you’re new to the scene.

Attack on Titan

3 seasons, 69 episodes | IMDb: 8.8/10

This series is a juggernaut in the anime world, spawning movies and multiple seasons and garnering a legion of devoted fans. To understand the hype, you’ll have to watch, but expect inventive action and a gripping storyline. Set in an alternate universe where humanity has caged itself off from giant monsters known as Titans, the show follows a group of fighters trying to protect their people when one of those walls is breached, and the Titans attack.

Demon Slayer

1 season, 27 episodes | IMDb: 8.8/10

Rich visuals and interesting plot twists elevate this Shonen anime to an inventive take on a typical plot for the genre. Tanjiro is a young boy whose family is attacked by demons. Only he and his sister survive. While Tanjiro sets out to become a demon slayer, his sister begins slowly turning into one, forcing Tanjiro to hide her condition as he searches for a cure.

Sailor Moon

5 seasons, 200 episodes | IMDb: 7.7/10

This ’90s anime series is another must-watch for anyone looking to get into the genre, or rediscover what makes it so great. The show follows a group of schoolgirls who learn they’re the reincarnation of alien princesses who must use their newfound abilities to defend earth. The word “girl-power” was created because of this series.

Space Dandy

1 season, 26 episodes | IMDb: 8.1/10

Another space epic, this one is truly out of this world in terms of storytelling. It focuses on a cosmic adventurer whose crew goes looking for new alien species. That on-the-move theme means each episode takes us to a new planet, explores a new genre, and offers up some rare experimental plot devices you normally don’t see in anime. It’s basically a new show every episode, which means you’ll never get bored.

Dragon Ball

5 seasons, 153 episodes | IMDb: 8.5/10

As another classic anime offering, this one stands out because of its oddball characters and nostalgic flair. It follows a weird monkey-boy named Goku who goes on a quest with the help of some equally strange comrades, to find the mystic dragon balls — large crystals that, when collected, gives their owner whatever they desire. Anime’s come a long way since this fun romp, but you’ll never tire of revisiting its roots with this show.