You can thank him for gems such as Devilman Crybay, Keep Your Hands Off Eizoken!, and Ping Pong the Animation.
Maasaki Yuasa is quite possibly my favorite anime director, but he typically does TV. Night Is Short, Walk On Girl (2017) (Toho) Mechs, a general feeling that clothes are overrated, queerness, stakes that suddenly escalate into world catastrophe levels, stunning animation-it’s all here! 7. Promare, to me, reads as a primer to the ways of Studio Trigger. But they’re behind quite a few iconic series, like Kill la Kill. Trigger is especially hot right now, thanks to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. While I am not part of this cult, I would recommend Promare mostly as a way to check out one of the most ubiquitous anime studios, Studio Trigger.
Promare is a film that, even though it’s only a few years old, has a kind of cult following. If there’s a film where the director has done other films you should watch, I’ll list them. Here’s a vaguely ordered countdown of the best anime films that are not from Studio Ghibli. These other directors are, at least to my knowledge, not quite so allergic to the term. What’s more, he hates it when his films are called “anime.” But, unfortunately for Miyazaki, it happens all the time. I put “anime” in quotes because, famously, Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki absolutely despises the term. But what happens when you run out? Where should you go next? And because there are so many Studio Ghibli films, you can hang out in the magical, melancholic realms of Ghibli for a very long time.
Point is, that in addition to ubiquitous TV shows like Pokémon or Dragon Ball, Studio Ghibli films are one of the most common entry points into the “anime” world for Westerners. Or else maybe Kiki’s Delivery Service or Princess Mononoke. If you live outside of Japan, there’s a very high chance that the first piece of Japanese animation you ever saw was Spirited Away.