Starting anime for noobs

I have found that the first anime you recommend to a friend can make or break the idea of them enjoying them. Give them bad anime to watch and they start to think that all anime is trash.

Nah guys! Show them Excel Saga! If they can survive that then they are worthy of Anime culture. Hail Lord Il Palazzo! https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog1663590/excelicon.jpg

D B Z. Old skl dbz not the new age super with god mode and parallel universes and shit

Yeah, that's a great choice. The only problem with that is that people see it kind of like pokemon, it's just another cartoon. They are too main stream to invite people to explore anime culture. Take it from me. I didnt explore anime until I was like in 11th grade. I had seen DBZ, Pokemon, Digimon, Voltron and even Sailor Moon and i didnt really get into the whole anime thing. I had seen clips of Naruto and thought to myself "that looks like trash". It actually wasnt until I read the first Naruto shippuden manga that it peaked my interest. A girl from my cooking class had let me borrow it and told me to read it. I didn't really have anything to do cause we had a sub and we couldn't cook if the teacher wasn't there. So i decided to give it a chance and well.. here we are XD

I think FMA: Brotherhood can make for a solid starter anime. Yu Yu Hakusho as well.

Death note is usually a safe bet. Older people particularly avoided anime because of the cartoony for kids aspect of many shows, so a thriller like that works just fine.