I can't watch Sword Art Online. I've tried but the whole thing is so bleak and depressing that even episodes with a genuinely happy ending depress me.
I don't know how you can even bring yourself to care about these characters. Let's talk about Asuna. When she's introduced, she's this shy girl who's a really powerful player, but feels too vulnerable around others. She pretty much has to be strong-armed by Kirito, also a socially maladjusted weirdo, to join a party with him.
She is not in the next episode.
In the episode AFTER that, she's suddenly 2nd in command of this army-like guild tasked with clearing the hardest floors. She's suddenly outgoing, talkative, & boisterous.
What. The. Fuck. What happened during the completely unfunny comic relief episode?
The whole thing's like that, too. Most of the main events (so far) have happened completely off-screen. The first episode basically ended with "nothing happened for 2 whole months." We don't see anything about the outside world. All we get are Kirito's random adventures in his black pimp coat. It's like they said, "We're going to rip off .hack//SIGN, but so no one catches on, we'll do the exact opposite of what they do." Characters died in grayscale? Make them die in an explosion of color. Gave attention to all of the characters, possibly even favoring the supporting cast over Tsukasa? Focus entirely on Kirito, we don't need to see his friend from the first episode ever again. Focused on dialogue with only a tenuous grasp on how that game worked, that seemed to change as the plot demanded? Infodump on inane rules for 5 minutes.
It's fucking weird.
And no, I've never watched Evangelion and I don't plan to.
I am trying so hard not to perform the No True Scotsman fallacy. This is like...up there with Dragonball in terms of importance, & with Cowboy Bebop in terms of critical acclaim. It's about my 2nd or 3rd favorite anime ever, & easily one of the ones you should watch if you want to see what all of this anime business is all about.
It shouldn't intersect with your Buffy recording at all.
Buffy's the real asshole. It airs several different story arcs at ass-random times & keeps changing its schedule. I'm not even going to try to set it up so that it doesn't record over something, I'm basically just going to hope by the Grace of God that everything works out.
Last time I tried watching some of the more popular stuff, a friend suggested One Piece
I'm not saying you'll like anime, but there's a very basic error of judgment in here.
You've got this thing called "western animation," right? You want to see the best it has to offer. So you ask what's popular.
BAM, you've just skipped over action shows like Batman & Gargoyles, adult comedies like South Park & Futurama, & skipped straight to My Little Pony. But, in reality, My Little Pony is unashamedly for little girls, people are very divided over whether or not this show is good, & it hasn't exactly stood the test of time yet.
That's basically One Piece. It's designed for 13-year-old boys, part of a genre that is routinely criticized for cliches & asspulls, with authors mostly drawing inspiration from Dragonball Z. It's not necessarily "bad," I like Bleach after all, but it's a very limited scope of information, & even the fans are going to be divided on it.
Personally? I don't like One Piece. The whole idea is too absurd &, after all of these years, they're only halfway to finding that fucking treasure. NOPE. Want no part of that mess.
It might be that some are only in Japanese and I have to read subtitles over horrible, cacophonous voices, or I can't access any, or just the whole stigma of being a fan of a such medium and having my parents walk in while watching one.
Holy shit, an anime fan who's NOT a Sub Snob? I don't know, in my experience, family should be able to get over it. It's like, "Yeah, Mom, I'm watching cartoons. Wanna tell me again about how that guy in your show was really his secret twin brother who was presumed dead in a boating accident?"