What anime would you recommend to "normal people"?

I’ll be the token normie here: take memfis’ challenge and impress me. Post a video preferably 10 minutes or less and I’ll watch it tomorrow. As memfy says you have one chance.

I second this. Never watched the show sans for like a episode or two but if my brother who doesn't like anime watched it completely then I stand behind this one.

Also, "Fist of the North Star". It's old, guaranteed gold. Manliness, blood and tears, morale and honour, stuff like that, great stuff.

The Gunsmith Cats OVA as it is only 3 episodes long (so it'll only take a little over an hour to watch it all), takes place in America, has a great English dub, and is upbeat and entertaining so it'd be nice to watch with a hamburger and your weapon of choice. I love it, s'great.

I sold someone before on Cowboy Bebop with the opening scene from the movie:

I will name some shorts that I believe can be enjoyed by just about anyone. They are quite different in style from what most people think of when they hear the term "anime", so you could say I'm cheating, but whatever.

Memory (5 minutes) - about the weird ways in which human memory works. Funny.

Out of Sight (5 minutes) - don't want to spoil anything, just watch it. Colorful and touching.

Aquatic Language (9 minutes) - to be honest I don't remember this one too well, but I think it was a cool short about human language. Make sure to enable subtitles.

Glassy Ocean (23 minutes) - musings on how we perceive time. Nicely surreal.

You guys were supposed to give recommendations in English! Most folk who first saw anime on television heard them in English! You can't expect the family to sit down together and just read subtitles! Cool stuff though Memfis I've seen the memory one and the Out of Sight one of the artsy stuff so far.

I'd also toss in a recommendation for BERSERK!!! Not only does this MANime come in glorious English, but the opening song is also in English!

This is one of my favorite parts in Berserk (Episode 6) and all of y'all need to see this: 
PUT YOUR GRASSES ON  SLAY DEMONS 

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! I'd also toss in Redline as possibly normie-friendly! POPCORN ZOOOOOOM RACING SPACE CARS BWOOSSSHH!!

I almost always choose to watch in English dub if I can. One argument I can give to support that is that I'd rather keep my eyes on the art displayed than keeping them at the bottom to read. Plus I can just listen if I'm multitasking so I don't really miss any dialogue.

Also yeah for me there are some artstyles that I can't stand looking at and refuse to watch a show because of it. The only show I can think of like that off the top of my head is K-ON! which is girly girls playing musical instruments and hanging out so I don't think I'm missing anything anyway. There's something off about their faces and it irks me. The eyebrows, eyes, and mouth... eek.

Cowboy Bebop is the only anime I can think of that you can give to pretty much everyone (who isn't a teenager anymore) and expect them to like it. Any other anime that you can hand a normie might have to be tailored towards their personality.

Maybe if someone likes science fiction, thriller films, and a taste of conspiracy theories then you could hand them Steins;Gate. I figured most of us here would like Berserk since we all like Doom which has demons and blood stuffs. TOS might like Berserk or even Gunsmith Cats hehe 8-).

The only anime films I've seen that catered well to "normal people" would be Fist of the North Star and Ninja Scroll.

I found Terror in Resonance on Netflix to be remarkably "normal" for my tastes, despite being an anime. It's more of a political thriller than anything else, although it falls into the usual anime trap of having the main characters with agency be late school age.

To be honest, with the cultural embrace of comic books and the like, anime is looking less weird. It's just the strangely Japanese things, like having unbearably annoying female side characters and a fascination with school kids that makes it difficult to not roll eyes at. I've watched a fair few short series now and generally found them enjoyable. However, this is predominantly due to strong settings and well animated action sequences, rather than anything the characters are doing for me. Although when a character is deliberately OTT badass they can be a lot of fun.

I just want to pop in again to say that I love Berserk (1997) and that I hope at least one of you decides to watch the anime if you haven't already.

Yeah I agree Spirited Away works! Fantastic Ghibli film indeedy and the only one I've seen aside from Howl's Moving Castle lol.

Doomkid, you might like this anime.