Anime/Manga What interests you in a series?

What grabs your attention and makes you interested in watching an anime or reading a manga?

The biggest thing for me is art/animation - I feel like I can watch and enjoy even a bad series if it looks beautiful. Something about cute-looking anime (like Gochuumon or Dragon Maid) just really pulls me in and makes me want to watch all the way through. My standards for plot/story are pretty low typically lol, especially when it comes to series that look good already anyway.

Animation is definitely a big deal. A show can have a great story and great characters, but if it looks like someone drew it in mspaint (without that actually being their artistic vision, kinda muddy clarifications there tbh but "art" can be art) I probably won't watch it. I try to give everything 3 or 4 episodes, but sometimes it's really hard to justify carrying on with something after the first episode - which is where story comes in. There has to be an interesting premise surrounding the anime/manga/manhwa/whatever in order for me to want to give it those 3 or 4 episodes. But at the same time, info dumping in the first episode is also a really big turn-off.

Gonna cut myself off here before I ramble into everything I don't like about anime but still put myself through bc masochism to say this... I guess what it boils down to is, if it's got a memorable and also reasonable name, and some good art, I'm probably about it.

This is...harder to answer than it should be. My taste is so eclectic sometimes I wonder what I actually do like. xD

But I think, generally speaking, I like anime with one of two things: a good narrative, or a strong cast of characters with strong chemistry between them. I need one or the other to keep me invested...both is ideal, but it seems anime these days rarely have both. With the cast though, usually I need a good villain, because villains drive the plot forward and protagonists are boring. A villain that either a) actually does meaningful things, b) wins, or c) does a believable heel-face turn is the best kind. I want someone unredeemable who I can cheer on whilst hating at the same time, or someone who goes through a solid redemption arc to become the best character in the show. If there isn't going to be a decent backstory to draw me in with a lack of characterisation - i.e. early stages of Gundam anime, especially ones like Iron-Blooded Orphans and Seed - then the characters need to be appealing right off the bat.

...that said, I will also settle for a large ham. The bigger the better. You don't need a complicated personality with believable motivation or even a character arc when you're JEREMIAH STORM OF MY MOTHERFUCKING LOYALTY GOTTWALD or your personality has been PASSED DOWN THROUGH THE ARMSTRONG FAMILY LINE FOR GENERATIONS.

Animation isn't a big deal to me...as long as it isn't disgusting like Eureka Seven's. I'll put up with a lot on this front, and I actually prefer older art styles for some things - I still think Char Aznab---sorry, I mean, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is the best looking Gundam to date. What IS important to me, though, is sound design. Any anime worth watching for me will have a strong soundtrack that will carry it through the more dramatic moments and give real weight to the mood the scene is trying to set. It's the difference between, say, Smile Precure's transformation theme and Star Twinkle's. The former is energetic and complements the animation perfectly, the latter is just a fluffy mediocre song that doesn't really add anything to the scene other than background music. A good song will really lend the right amount of weight to any given situation. Like every time Vogel Im Kafig plays in Attack on Titan you KNOW shit is about to go down and it's absolutely chilling, and Cross Ange is just filled with moments like this because of Akiko Shikata's amazing vocal work. But anime OST should not just be background noise, and any anime that treats soundtrack like just background noise is immediately less because of it. Most of my favourite shows have a very strong soundtrack.

most anime i have watched is the good ole slice of life or isekai. So basically i would say something along the lines of a little twist of humanity, romance, and/or comedy usually pulls me in.
Im not really a hard pleaser, but some anime just turn me away somehow even if its a SOL anime with comedy (which has happened several times) so i guess the story has to be intriging in my eyes to consider continuing it.

The story; character development, plot. If the animation is eye pleasing too, then sure that'll interest me also.

I usually tend to find interest in the series, that are really overlooked. I like a strong cast of characters and voice actors, too.

If I find out that one of my favourite voice actors is in something, I tend to go and watch it.

interesting characters. i can deal with a subpar plot if i like a character enough. i tend to gravitate towards one, maybe two characters in a show (or even video games) and just get focused in on them and how they interact with the world around them. it's actually very difficult for me to just sit down and watch a series...i just don't have the attention span, something has to really grab me. the only anime i've actively watched in the last...god. decade? lol were because of characters. i thought dazai from bungo stray dogs seemed interesting and i've binged through the series three times. my partner and my friend lured me into death note this past weekend like "hey you'll like L he's a cryptid that eats sweets" and well. damn. got me. lol but yeah, i just really need a solid character to latch on to usually. a good plot helps, don't get me wrong, but i'm more likely to watch something if someone captures my interest. usually the story is what hooks me first and then i find some strange little sad man to attach myself to like a leech.

Likeable characters and intereactions, I think. Romance is often really nice in anime (or any media imo!), I'm just a sucker for that genre. But for anime, romance mixed with comedy is maybe the absolute best imo. Even if there isn't much romance to talk about, comedy or some nice comedic tone to an otherwise very grim story is basically a must for me. I can't get interested in extremely serious stories - there just needs to be some kind of comedic light thrown in, or overall comedic air to it. Take FMAB for example. The story is very serious, all from the very start. But there are definitive comedic tones to the world and characters and their relationships are very meaningful and pull you in, even though it isn't really a romance story. So yeah :) That's probably my key thing.

For me, I think a big part of it is characters. Ojamajo Doremi, Evangelion, Hunter X Hunter, Berserk, and Haruhi are all very different series, but these either are or have been my favorite anime/manga at one point because I felt attached to the characters and the way they interact with each other. Especially for shows that are longer, after a good 100 or so episodes I can feel like I've gotten to know these characters in such a way that I genuinely feel upset when I have to say goodbye (Doremi is kind of the key example here- I bawled at the final episode, and I'm not usually one to cry at media). I've found that if I don't really buy into the characters then its easy for me to lose interest.

Other than that though, things such as visuals or action also play a big part in my enjoyment of anime. Like, Promare is a movie I feel doesn't show off its colorful cast of side characters as much as it should and that's a crime but jesus christ that movie is one of the best things to grace my eyes that I can almost entirely overlook that and shamelessly give it a 10/10. Really, visuals have enhanced my enjoyment for a lot of shows I enjoyed because of the characters, such as Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill, Yu Yu Hakusho, Utena, Evangelion, Doremi just to name a few. And I don't mean visuals specifically in the sense that I mean fluid animation with lots of in-between frames, but even more picture-esque style animation you see in a lot of old anime such as Berserk '97 or even stuff that takes advantage of having limited in-between frames (I struggle to think of an example most people would be familiar with so uh, ep. 4 of KLK? fuck somebody back me up here) are all great in their own right and I think it's a massive shame how a lot of people's idea of "good animation" is so limited, but I digress.