i cant watch anything anymore without being irrationally annoyed at how theatrical 99% of anime is. the dialogue, the action, etc makes me start imagining whatever nerd wrote it without experiencing anything even remotely similar.
gimme something real!!
Paranoia agent has some pretty grounded dialouge for the most part.
Also visual novels are an option: anime adjacent yet you mentally supply the voices.
I think genuine grounded realism doesn't really work in most animation, even supposed "down-to-earth" cartoons like King of the Hill are very caricatured. But in terms of stuff that feels less nerdy, idk, Great Pretender was still exaggerated but in a way that felt more like a Bond movie than a D&D table