Well, I suppose I could give the obvious, generic response to the question; DBZ, Pokemon, Yugioh, Digimon, etc. (Just a note; Zoids: Chaotic Century was somewhere between real and childrens anime for me.) But I can't say I ever really counted those as anime.. Well actually they were anime, but they lacked all the themes that 'real' anime had, the stuff that made it something only a teenager (or someone older) would watch. For example; would any of you let your kid (let's say hypothetically between the ages of 5-13) watch "Elfen Lied"? Logically, no. And why? Because it would probably scar them for life. DBZ, Pokemon, Digimon etc were anime designed for children (which makes them no less awesome, they were and still are amazing to watch), but the first "real" anime I ever watched was Wolf's Rain. The plot made no sense at times (but it eventually all got figured out in the end), and there was much more blood than I was used to. But the story went deeper than anything else I'd ever watched. There were no supernatural abilities like the all powerful "Kaaaa-meeee-haaaa-meeee-haaaa!", nor the creation of creatures that resembled all different types of flora and fauna from centuries past and present. But it had something that all the childrens anime had, but on a totally new and incredibly deep level; emotional depth. After watching all 30 Wolf's Rain episodes (which I watched in a matter of days on the school holidays) and becoming distraught at the ending (for a number of reasons), I decided that I loved this new idea of anime. My girlfriend was overjoyed to hear this, giving me the entire first series of Fullmetal Alchemist - which was pretty good. But then I found out about "some new FMA series that actually followed the Manga" and eventually uncovered Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. To this day, there hasn't been an anime to top it (in my mind) and not once have I looked back at the first series (Brotherhood made me realise how crappy it was because it hadn't followed the plot of the awesome Manga!) I've now watched both the FMA series, Wolf's Rain, Death Note, and currently looking for eps of Bleach, Zoids: Chaotic Century (I never got to watch all of it). I've watched the first two or three episodes of Elfen Lied and I've been shocked to the core by it (it was by no means bad, but.. well remember how I said Wolf's Rain had a lot of blood? It paled in comparison to the sheer amount of blood and gore in EL.) Sorry for rambling.. haha