Anime 500 Challenge

While checking in library materials this morning, I came across the book 500 Essential Anime Movies: The Ultimate Guide by Helen McCarthy. Now I'm a sucker for a good list book, and this one intrigued me, so I checked it out. Browsing through it, I decided to take up this challenge: to explore the genre by watching as many as I reasonably can.

Now I must confess that I've never really understood anime as a genre. I know it's a popular genre within nerd/geek culture, but I've never really taken to it myself. (I've never really understood the aesthetic and it's appeal. So the real point of this challenge is for me to really watch them and to reserve my judgment of the genre until the very end.)