recommendation time!

sorry for listing so many lmao

SHOWS

• revolutionary girl utena: no hyperbole, the greatest show of all time. surreal exploration of abuse, systems of power, and how to break free. if you watch one show i recommend please make it this one, i cannot say enough good things about it. it's where the base premise of witch from mercury was taken from, and is significantly gayer than you'd expect from a show that aired in the same timeslot as season 1 of pokemon. content warnings for a LOT of shit, lmk if you need anything specific
• serial experiments lain: great show that i don't really know how to describe. about the ways the internet and associated technology alienate us
• universal century gundam: you can just watch 0079 (which i recommend! it's a good show that really makes you understand where a solid 30% of scifi anime comes from, and will expand the way you see some bits in ibo) or you can try and watch the whole thing. the only other standalone universal century gundam i'd really recommend is 0080: war in the pocket, which is a fantastic 6 episode miniseries, all the other stuff you really need to watch 0079 first
• turn a gundam: this is only kind of a standalone alternate universe, but it's the best that gundam gets. just as frank about the horrors of war as ibo but in a completely different perspective. after 2000 years, the people of the moon come down to resettle an alternate earth that's basically pre world war one europe. if you thought mobile suits in modern edmonton was bad, imagine them fighting in victorian london. and the show goes so many more places than you could imagine with that, being both incredibly gentle and brutally horrifying in equal measure. also the protag has Gender in a way that's remarkably well handled considering it was 1999 and coming from yoshiyuki tomino

MOVIES

• liz and the blue bird: absolutely devastating quiet drama about the relationship between two members of a high school band. gorgeous, just absolutely beautiful
• vampire hunter d: bloodlust: you liked hellsing, right? here's that but in a post apocalyptic fantasy world where the alucard equivalent is hired to rescue a kidnapped woman as things go rapidly off the rails
• millennium actress: satoshi kon's masterpiece. the story of a famous actress, melding her movies and her life together seamlessly as we're just along for the ride
• inu-oh: medieval japanese rock opera about a blind monk who invents playing like jimi hendrix teaming up with a monster who wants to regain his stolen humanity through the power of song and interpretive dance
• ghost in the shell: introspective, moody cyberpunk piece about personhood and being subsumed by the state. easily the single biggest influence on the matrix's visual style. has a lot of gender going on

.
those are basically all must watches. below are more recs behind a spoiler to avoid being too obnoxious to read