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You're living your life like usual, watching mostly mainstream shows on your TV like CSI, Smallville or House MD. You do know there are some other things out there, but they don't really catch your interest. Living in a blissful cloud of Public Medium Ignorance, you think of anime as Weird Japanese Stuff, Naughty Tentacles, or that kinda childish stuff your 13-year old brother watches on Cartoon Network. Or maybe all you know about Science Fiction is the new Star Wars trilogy. You know these exist, but they don't really catch your attention.
Then, somehow, you stumble upon something like you've never seen before. Something new, unique, and totally awesome. Maybe it was something not so popular, but enough to show up in late night TV. Maybe it was something you never actually watched until you got a cable/satellite TV subscription, something you stumbled upon while browsing around on YouTube, the TV show that was aired before your favorite one, or something your friend gave you saying it was good stuff. Whatever the way you found it, it turns out to be from one of these "non-mainstream" genres.
That new stuff you found is so cool and so different from what you used to watch, that you become completely enthralled with that thing. Now you've watched the entire series/movie/whatever they gave to you in a couple of days, and now you want more. You start lurking around the Internet fora looking for suggestions to get what you want. Then you look at yourself, and before you know, you've become a seminal fanboy.
Congratulations. You just watched a Gateway Series. Your life, from now on, is going to be completely different.
In the drug world, a gateway drug is a drug that entices you, or makes it easier to try other drugs (though this name is more often used by anti-drug programs and its actual effect is debated). Likewise, a gateway series is a series that makes you start watching an entire new genre you never used to watch.
Usually, after watching a Gateway Series, you end up with a good first impression of the entire genre, which makes you look for more of the same stuff. If you don't grow too passionate about the genre, after a few years you usually end up with a vast knowledge about that stuff and maybe a big pile of DVDs. If you do become passionate, you might as well end up with all your room devoted to your new addiction. It all depends on how strongly you embrace your new tastes.
Also, this series will be granted immunity from criticism thanks to the Nostalgia Filter.
Gateway series often have some things in common, mostly anything that causes a good first impression, both from the series and the entire genre. As with anything each genre has a certain pattern it repeats with itself, so in order to enjoy it you have to grow accustomed to those unique quirks. You'll find that that most Gateway Series start to blend styles together, so often you'll see Japanese Anime that has a healthy dose of Western-style storytelling become popular. And maturity level is also a major factor, believing Comic Books are solely about spandex superheroes fighting brightly colored villains can catch you by surprise when you learn that they have an entire sub-genre of realistic Film Noir style comic books.
Deep, intricate storylines or massive loads of action are also common, as well as being really weird in a fun and upbeat way, because this helps you realize that this genre can have a lot of good and different stuff to offer. And of course, overall quality and low squick factor can also be found in these productions, otherwise, you would be completely turned off from the entire genre.
Contrast Its Popular Now It Sucks. Not to be confused with this. See also Tv Tropes As A Gateway Drug.
Examples:
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Anime
- Virtually anything aired on Toonami and/or Adult Swim has been a gateway anime for many viewers. Of course, Cartoon Network seems to have been pretty careful about selecting shows with mainstream appeal — and clearly they've been successful. This makes it even more alarming that both daytime CN and Adult Swim have drastically decreased their amount of anime programming over the last year or two.
- This is partly because Cartoon Network had a small fallout with Viz and Funimation over merchandise...
- Anime reached France en masse at the end of the 70s, and for a good part of the 80s, almost the entire kids programs were anime. Also, due to Animation Age Ghetto syndrome, some totally non-suitable for kids series were broadcasted. It backfired spectacularly in the late 90s (until Card Captor Sakura then Pokemon made their way). Let's just list the biggest ones: Goldorak, Gigi, Albator (this one being extremely well-beloved. Did you wonder how Daft Punk knew Leiji Matsumoto ?), Space Adventure Cobra (which main character was explicitly modeled after a french actor), Candy, Lady Oscar (there even was a movie by a famous french director), the furry version of Sherlock Holmes, Cats Eye, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z of course, Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque, Mahou Tenshi Creamy Mami (provided the Magical Girl page picture), Ken le Survivant (Sadly, not kidding. The dub deliberately Macekre-d it to tone down the violence.), Juliette je t'aime, City Hunter, Max et Cie. And so on.
- Latin America had gateway anime quite sooner than the US, with series such as Mazinger Z, Saint Seiya, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Space Adventure Cobra (!!!), Kotetsu Jeeg, Space Dragon Gaiking, Magnet Robot Gakeen, Candy Candy, Gatchaman, Astro Boy and many more being shown regularly after school and on the weekends.
- Not to mention Rurouni Kenshin, Dragonball (and Dragonball Z), and Cyborg009 among others like Pokemon/Digimon.
- Those are quite new compared to the other mentioned. Dragonball and Pokemon were first shown around 1997-98, while Candy for example appeared around 1980.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion. A lot of otaku became interested in anime after they watched it. (On the other hand, it had the opposite effect on a lot of people too...)
- One would think that the ways in which the series extensively plays with — and brutally subverts — anime tropes, the notoriously confusing plot, the highly divisive characters, and the all-around weirdness of the show would make it less than ideal viewing for someone unfamiliar with the medium. A whole new generation of Eva fans has arisen ever since the series was broadcast on — you guessed it — Adult Swim.
- The pilot anime for Adult Swim was Cowboy Bebop, a series great for getting people interested in the medium.
- One of the first well-dubbed series imported into the United States was Ranma 1/2.
- Having a good dub helped, but the manga was a breakout hit too. (It was what introduced me to the world of anime beyond Pokemon and Cardcaptors.) Pretty much any Rumiko Takahashi series functions as a gateway series, thanks to her impeccable skills of characterization that transcend cultural boundaries. Just look at how many people in more recent years got hooked on anime after watching Inuyasha on Adult Swim.
- The films of Studio Ghibli.
- Not all shows like this have to be absolute masterpieces. Preteens who watched Pokémon in the late 90s went on to watch DBZ in their teen years and, in some cases, find themselves watching Adult Swim and beyond now.
- DBZ succeeded mostly because it was a brilliant visual showcase of shonen stories— insane battles fought with hefty amounts of collateral damage. Most prior anime known in the U.S. tended to be more dialogue heavy, with some light action in between.
- Genres inside a medium do it too. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Kanon, The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya, Clannad, and AIR have converted many a shoujo fan to the seinen series they once dismissed as fanservicey junk.
- A movie example: Akira is widely credited with introducing the anime feature film to the West in the late 1980s. Alas, Manga Entertainment capitalised on this by releasing a tide of unmitigated pap straight to video which left the general impression that all anime was Legend of the Overfiend and Violence Jack.
- As the owner of one of the major anime video companies once told a con audience concerned about bad dubs: "Sailor Moon is a gateway drug."
- An early "gateway movie" for many early otaku was the Dirty Pair movie "Project Eden". Many came to it through Adam Warren's Amerimanga adaption of the characters, and it was frequently fansubbed.
- Another early "wave" of anime fans came from Robotech, Star Blazers, or Voltron.
- Battle Of The Planets caused many fans to look into anime when they discovered, to their surprise, that the show they had enjoyed as a child was actually Japanese (and horribly edited).
- Initial D is something of a Gateway Series for car guys to get into manga and anime.
- The games too are like this. If you've never played arcade racers competitively before, Initial D Arcade Stage will help you break yourself in.
- Kannazuki No Miko could be considered a Gateway Series, or an attempted one, for mixing robots and the standard young male robot pilot that could get the girl...but really leading into Seinen about Schoolgirl Lesbians.
- It's the gateway yuri series.
- Death Note was a gateway series for many into anime period, though for most it was a gateway series into a specific genre (not necessarily bound to anime either) containing darker themes, intense character interactions, strong dubbing, avoidance of the more obvious anime cliches and a decidedly anti-hero for a protagonist, leading many people to search for more "gray-area" genre series like the aforementioned Code Geass.
- Trigun is another common gateway series, based on the mix of action and humor, and the particularly memorable characters. This, along with the aforementioned Cowboy Bebop was one of the first animes to premier on Adult Swim and one of the first to get a strong fanbase.
- For several people, ARIA is gateway series to Slice Of Life anime.
- Gundam Wing was one of the first animes to be shown on Cartoon Network that dealt with Real Life politics, in a stark contrast to the more fantastical and superpowered plots of Ronin Warriors and Dragonball Z. It was the success of the late night "uncut" showings that helped start Adult Swim. Unfortunately, Gundam Wing, while being the first Gundam to be officially introduced in North America, did not exactly whet American viewers appetites for the classic Universal Century Gundam that came before it.
- Gao Gai Gar (or Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann for a more recent example) is an excellent way to introduce someone to the Super Robot/ Humongous Mecha genre.
- For older anime fans Speed Racer and Star Blazers were gateway series in the 1960s and 1970s, respectively.
- Naruto could be considered the the third Big Boom of modern anime watchers (the first being Dragon Ball and Toonami and the second being Adult Swim).
- Also, Naruto and Bleach have introduced many anime fans into the Fan Sub industry.
- Know someone who likes shows like CSI and Law And Order, and who thinks of anime as "kids stuff"? Show them Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex. It seems to work quite well.
- Similarly, the original Ghost In The Shell movie was one of the first anime to get attention from mainstream critics, and counter the steriotype that all anime was senseless sex and violence.
- Nadia The Secret Of Blue Water managed to convert many Japanese proto-fans when it aired in 1990.
- Sci-fi Channel's initial "Japanimation Week", back in the early 1990's, consisting of Robot Hunter Casshan, 8-Man After, Project A-ko: The Vs. Battles, Demon City Shinjuku, Lily C.A.T., Galaxy Express 999, and Robot Carnival stretched across the whole week. And let's not forget TBS' late-night showings of heavily edited Vampire Hunter D and Heavy Metal.
- For the kind of people who had the reputation of anime thrashed by Neon Genesis Evangalion and began to think it was all wangsty kids in outlandish situations (like piloting mechas) or Dragonball Z and thought it was all drawn-out fights with lots and lots of shouting, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann tends to smash the stereotypes and get people who have had their opinions of anime tarnished back into it.
- To a lesser extent, Hamtaro.
- Fullmetal Alchemist, which boasts good animation, fabulous story-telling, great characters and a pinch of dark themes. Both manga and anime are the kind of thing you'd introduce your friends to.
- Tenchi Muyo or Love Hina as gateways to the Unwanted Harem genre.
- You wouldn't think it, but stories abound of guys and gals who got into anime thanks to watching Rurouni Kenshin on Toonami.
- Astro Boy could have been a gateway series, except there wasn't anything to come afterwards. Nonetheless, people who never watched another anime again know Astro.
- Inverted with Eyeshield 21, where the series instead is a gateway to get anime nerds into football.
- The Mysterious Cities Of Gold.
- Card Captor Sakura is considered by many to be one of the best magical girl series of all time, not only because of its own merits, but because it was a gateway series into the Magical Girl genre or anime itself.
- Monster is set in Germany and drawn in an extremely realistic style which some people find atypical for manga and anime. It uses very few Anime Tropes, favoring classic detective and crime tropes instead.
- The Big O is heavily influenced by American fiction, having been called Batman with robots, so it's easy for Americans to follow. For a time Adult Swim showed it on weeknights just after Family Guy and Futurama, and it got a large enough following in the U.S. that they were able to finance a second season, showing new episodes at the front of their Sunday night lineup.
Comic Books
Film
- Star Wars was a gateway to science fiction for many people when it first came out.
- Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was many people's gateway to Wuxia, or Asian cinema in general.
- Batman Begins set a standard of believability in Comic Book movies that eclipsed all previous attempts. This was successfully recreated in the Iron Man film and the standard was set once again with The Dark Knight.
- Casablanca or Citizen Kane for classic films
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 must have gotten plenty of people into B movies.
- The 2007 Transformers movie got a lot of people into the franchise. It is currently enjoying success it hasn't had in nearly 25 years. The toys had original shipping numbers based on the previous line (Transformers Cybertron), only to find empty shelves for weeks while they scrambled to meet demands.
- The 2009 Star Trek film was intended primarily to introduce an audience to an "introduced" Star Trek universe without relying on knowing the prior films or the series. It that regard it has largely succeeded, but has also alienated some fans in an Its Popular Now It Sucks way.
- The myriad of Philip K. Dick adaptations (Scanner Darkly,Total Recall,Paycheck, Blade Runner, Minority Report) and also the William Gibson adaptation/basis of movies like Johnny Mnemonic or Strange Days as an introduction into sci-fi beyond laser beams and space ships.
- While it was much less popular than Star Wars, and had much less of an effect overall, Children Of Men apparently served as a gateway to science fiction. For some reason, it wasn't subjected to the Sci Fi Ghetto itself, and its lack of self-conscious "coolness" allowed it to stand as an example of science fiction in general rather than an example of cool action-style sci-fi like The Matrix or The Terminator.
Literature
Live Action TV
- Doctor Who can be a gateway series for non-Brits to introduce them to British Telly, or British culture in general. They may then move on to Life On Mars or something similar. Generally anything shown on PBS stations.
- Stargate SG-1 is an excellent show for getting people into sci-fi shows, with it involving modern day soldiers in a variety of settings and starting off with more of an action feel, before going deeper into the sci-fi.
- Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger is a gateway series for those who entered Sentai fandom earlier than Gekiranger.
- This is becase Deka was the first Super Sentai series to be subbed in its entirety.
- A popular gateway series to Kamen Rider is Kamen Rider Den-O. Only Decade and W are like Den-O so it's not especially representative of Kamen Rider.
- If it weren't for Star Trek there probably wouldn't be half as many sci fi nerds as there are now.
- Skins was also a gateway series to British Shows like Misfits and The Inbetweeners
- Iron Chef was a gateway series on two levels, one for the Cooking Show genre and two, for Japanese Game Shows in generals.
Professional Wrestling
Music
- With the help of YouTube, Straight No Chaser and their humorous renditon of "The 12 Days of Christmas"
 make a nice gateway into a cappella groups such as the Clef Hangers.
- Not to mention Rockapella's appearances on Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, probably the first exposure many had to a cappella groups in the 90s.
- In the late 70's and and through much of the 80's, Sha Na Na occupied the same position as gateway group to a cappella singing, sharing it with The Manhattan Transfer. Which group was your gateway primarily depended on whether your preferred musical style was doo-wop rock-and-roll or swing/jazz.
- Sha Na Na has been a gateway group since Woodstock.
- In the 60's and early 70's it was The Swingle Singers.
- The music composed for shows such as Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica can be a gateway for more classical music and famous composers.
- For many, Daft Punk have been a gateway into the world of House Electronic music.
- Similarly, Aphex Twin is one of the most well-known electronica artists in the world, and is often the first one people listen to before exploring others.
- Green Day, Nirvana, AgainstMe! and NOFX are all punk bands who, though derided for going "mainstream" often act as Gateways to real underground and DIY punk rock.
- Some of the more mainstream nu-metal bands like Linkin Park, Slipknot and Ko Rn, while not particularly heavy, have served as good Gateways to much heavier and varied subgenres of the heavy metal musical umbrella.
- Pendulum is this for drum & bass.
- The Prodigy is this for electronic dance music in general.
- Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War's usage of Hispanic-styled music has led many to look into the style, Or So I Heard.
- Enya serves a gateway to both Celtic music and New Age music
- Nirvana, and to a lesser extent Pearl Jam, serve as a gateway to grunge at first, and then to alternative music in general. Sometimes this also leads to non-mainstream music of other genres in general.
- Joy Division often serves as a gateway to all manner of 70s and 80s punk, post-punk and goth bands.
New Media
Software
- Mandriva Linux and Ubuntu Linux are meant to be easy-to-set-up, easy-to-use gateways into the world of Linux, as reflected in Ubuntu's slogan, "Linux for human beings", and with people often switching to more complex distros such as Red Hat, Fedora or openSUSE, and some of them later graduating to technical distros such as Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, Arch, or even leaving Linux and switching to BSD or OpenSolaris.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons And Dragons Fourth Edition in particular has been rather successful at being friendly to new players.
- New editions of D&D in general seem to do this. Much the same thing happened when 3rd Edition came out, and the gaming scene in general saw a big boost in the wake of the open-content d20 System.
- With a few exceptions; Jonny-Come-Latelies joining at the height of 3.5 (Or now since 4th edition groups are rather rare) would probably find themselves swarmed with dozens upon dozens (if not even a hundred or more) of the various kinds of books, including but not limited to the player's handbook, monster manual, magical items, expansion books, class-detail books (Like Complete Divine), update books, and more.
- Vampire : The Masquerade of the World Of Darkness has been a more recent gateway game.
- Board games such as HeroQuest often serve as a gateway to Tabletop RPG gaming
- As did the Figting Fantasy and Lone Wolf books
- Tunnels And Trolls was explicitly designed as a simpler, easier-to-play clone of D&D, in an attempt to bring in new gamers. It never did achieve the popularity of D&D, but there is a sizable group of tabletop gamers that cut their teeth on T&T.
- Western Computer RPGs
- The Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy books were a gateway for many roleplayers of the 80s.
- The Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh card game led eventually to Magic The Gathering for lots of players. Helped by the fact that a lot of sanctioned tournaments of the former shared venues with tournaments for the latter.
- And, in turn, a number of Magic pros who become accustomed to making high-stakes probabilistic decisions end up transitioning to poker (most notably David Williams).
- The Dark Eye is the Gatewaysystem in German speaking countries, despite beeing the deepest system around.
Theater
Video Games
- After The Great Video Game Crash Of 1983, people thought gaming was dead... but then enters Super Mario Bros bundled with the NES...
- Final Fantasy VII was a gateway RPG for a lot of players — to the detriment of the genre, some might argue. And it doubled as a bit of a gateway introduction to anime as well.
- Not only can Pokémon count as a gateway to anime, it's also a gateway to the Mons genre and to some extent to RPGs in general.
- Many games designed by Nintendo for the DS and Wii were intended to be gateway videogames for people who never tried them before — like Wii Sports, Nintendogs, Elite Beat Agents, and so on.
- Nintendo has the reputation of being the video game company that makes games to introduce people to videogames who never played them before.
- In fact, let's just say, Casual Games in general. This article elaborates.
- The Tony Hawk games are a two-way gateway — they've gotten a lot of skaters into gaming, but it's when they get gamers into skateboarding that Hilarity Ensues.
- The Super Smash Bros. series has a wide variety of Nintendo characters, and some players might become more interested in the individual series if they see a character they'd never heard of before. The appearance of Marth and Roy in Melee for example, led to the introduction of the Fire Emblem series to the US. It remains to be seen whether the appearance of Lucas in Brawl will lead to a second chance for the Mother series...
- Brawl even has demos of several of the characters' starring games.
- A variation of this trope: a lot of people become regular readers of GameFAQs after getting stuck in Guide Dang It moments.
- Long-time series such as Castlevania — espeically Symphony of the Night tend to be gateways for modern players into the world of retro gaming, especially those curious about references to characters from previous games.
- "People who don't like video games like Myst."
- World Of Warcraft is the most infamously addictive MMORPG out there nowadays, but those who have played it and quit often try to seek out other MMO's afterward.
- Halo for Multi-player FPS. (Arguably before then, it was Doom) Being a launch title for the Xbox, many gamers who did not play FPSs before played it.
- They obviously hadn't played GoldenEye 007 then...
- It's argued that Halo was the killer app that allowed the Xbox to compete in its early days against the wildly successful Playstation 2. So that's gotta count for something.
- This troper was introduced to FPS games by Quake 3: Arena and Unreal Tournament 2004: Game of the Year Edition.
- Thief, a stealth simulator, was marketed as a big new twist on the overinflated First Person Shooter genre. It got quite a few action gamers interested in stealth games.
- Metal Gear Solid served an almost identical function to Thief on an entirely different system.
- If you stick around the Dance Dance Revolution community long enough, you may come to try out other Rhythm Games — up until the release of Guitar Hero, this would be things like beatmania IIDX and Dance ManiaX.
- Although for a lot of people it now works the other way around, with Guitar Hero or Rock Band being the gateway game that leads them to discover Dance Dance Revolution.
- This can also work across media — Guitar Hero and Rock Band inspire people to buy and get into music from the games.
- These two games can also turn people on to real instruments. Hilarity Ensues when they realize a real guitar's nothing like the plastic controller (no matter what the Stop Having Fun Guys tell you.)
- Of course, neither of these games would have been possible if Parappa The Rapper hadn't opened up the world of rhythm gaming to start.
- Street Fighter does this for 2D fighting games. The series is relatively user friendly and easy to pick up and play, leading many in more complicated games like Guilty Gear.
- Play one addictive puzzle game, and you're bound to wind up hunting for more. Peggle is a good example.
- Tetris for older tropers.
- Many gamers' first Real Time Strategy game was Warcraft II, and for good reason, too. The graphics are nice to look at, the mechanics are fairly simple compared to other RTS games, and most importantly, it's a lot of fun (including against your friends, even if they do kick your butt in 95% of the games you play with them).
- If your first RTS wasn't Warcraft II, then it was probably Starcraft.
- Someone forgot Command & Conquer — Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert
- Command & Conquer? You forgot Dune II.
- The Super Robot Wars series can potentially be a good Gateway Series for many Giant Robot Anime, considering that the plot for each game basically takes the plot of every series involved in the Massive Multiplayer Crossover and shoves them all together.
- Nintendo games almost always serve this trope, but this console generation aiming for this has basically become their entire marketing strategy. The self-proclaimed "hardcore" gamers may lament that women and old people are getting in on their hobby, but it's hard to fault Nintendo when they're clearly getting results — games and systems, Nintendo and otherwise, are selling better than they ever have even in the economic recession.
- The Humongous Entertainment games were designed to be like this.
- Although Rogue was, by definition, the first Roguelike, many fans of the genre get their start with the Trope Codifier, NetHack, leading into more difficult games like Angband, and a greater acceptance for ASCII games in general. It's probably not a stretch to say that Dwarf Fortress wouldn't exist if it weren't for NetHack.
- Touhou has introduced many a gamer to the wonderful world of Bullet Hell shmups.
- Although two games predate it (in America, at least), Tales Of Symphonia was the Gateway Series to Tales Series for a lot of Western fans. It being one of the better RP Gs on the Game Cube meant that it drew a lot of attention from people who had previously dismissed the previous games in the series. Also, Tales Of The Abyss to an extent, purely because it was for the PS 2.
- Quite a few people have been introduced to either the First-Person Shooter genre, PC gaming, or both by way of Team Fortress 2.
- Sakevisual, the artist of RE Alistair, wants her game to become a gateway series for fans who don't yet know about otome games.
Webcomics
- In 2000, Penny Arcade linked a new webcomic they found, which caused Mega Tokyo to have an almost instant fanbase.
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