I've been watching anime for quite a while now. Started out 3 years ago, as an anime enthusiast. Or maybe earlier than that, if watching dubbed Mojacko and Cardcaptor Sakura as a child on local TV stations after school counts.
It first started out with manga. I started reading Detective Conan chapters for a school assignment. Yes, you read that right. "For an assignment". While reading it, I got hooked on the storyline and eventually caught up with the recent chapters. After catching up, I decided to watch a few of its movies. And it was awesome. I guess that was the time when I began to be curious about anime.
Although I haven't watched a lot of anime, I've seen enough and ones which I think are honorable mentions when suggesting animes to watch.
And here are my picks, in no particular order.
NOTE: Japanese names mentioned in this list are in the "Given name-Last name" order. However, I will refer to the characters using their last name by default, unless the anime character is usually addressed in some other way.
EXTRA NOTE: Even though I've mentioned Mojacko, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Detective Conan, they won't be in the list anymore. And just so you guys know, Pokemon isn't in this list either.
Naruto
Starting out with something pretty mainstream: the famous blonde-haired orange ninja of the manga/anime world. Naruto is a well-known ninja battle manga/anime around the world. Hell, you've probably AT LEAST heard of it.
For those of you who do not know the setting: Main character, Naruto Uzumaki, was treated as an outcast by his own village because of a powerful entity sealed inside him: the Nine-tailed Demon Fox. In spite of everyone's cold treatment towards him, Naruto found teachers and friends that are willing to help him. As he gained a little more sense to living, Naruto now dreamed and vowed to become the Hokage (the village's prime leader), to make everyone pay no attention to the beast inside him and acknowledge him as a fellow ninja, as a part of the Hidden Village of the Leaf.