>>41780Anon, be careful with the pseudo-intellectuals recommending anime that are DEEP PHILOSOPHICAL MASTERPIECES or whatever, which I'm seeing a lot of in this thread (especially ignore those /a/ chart images!!!). Nothing wrong with liking those, but they don't really represent the majority of anime, and people recommending them are implying that said majority of anime is trash not worth bothering with. There's no problem with watching "generic" or "moeshit" anime or however they would describe it and if anything that's what makes you a true anime fan.
Anyway, I would recommend you to stop treating recommendations as gospel and just watch anything that catches your interest. If you like a particular type of anime (eg. more action focused, more romance focused, more slice-of-life focused…) you can keep watching similar anime.
Personally, my favorite anime are Clannad and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Both are based on visual novels.
The former starts like a normal high school harem, but in the second season the characters become adults. It has a lot of sad and emotional moments and may make you cry. By visual novel adaptation standards it's pretty good, but the visual novel is still a better experience.
The latter is basically about a guy that moves into a small village with a dark history, and the crazy and tragic stuff that happens there. It mixes cute and funny slice-of-life with intriguing mystery-horror in a nice way. Though the second season has a thematic shift from horror to tragedy, and has more drama than violence. To be honest the ending ends up feeling like a Saturday morning cartoon, but it doesn't completely ruin the story. Be ware that the anime cuts a lot of stuff and the visual novel is a much better experience, but as an anime it's still pretty good even if you don't read the visual novel. Also recently there was a sequel (erroneously marketed as a reboot), Higurashi Gou and Higurashi Sotsu. It does a lot of bizarre things to say the least, so you may skip that one, but there's no problem with watching if you're curious as long as you already watched the original anime.