What got you into anime? What was the first anime you saw? Share your anime-related memories. Oh, and I'd like to mention that I will judge you.
So. Personally, I grew up with anime. Atom (Astroboy), Ultraman, Gatchaman, Dragon Ball, Ranma, Doraemon, and a whooole bunch of others that I don't know the English titles for. However, my biggest obsession was Mado King Grandzort. I was so bummed when I immigrated that it wasn't very big in the US. Culture shock's a bitch when you're a little kid.
Card Captor Sakura
Don't blame me for first being exposed to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z through Cartoon Network. I was a dedicated fan, and actually seeing such (what were at the time) crisp animation styles (as opposed to American cartoons) inspired me to draw more.
Back in the Philippines, where I grew up
Japanese media is very popular and they go waaaay back.
Before i was even born, that was when Astroboy, Voltes V and Daimos were popular..also the help of Super Sentai series like Maskman, which most consider the best show in their childhood days.
Before I get offtopic,
The earliest memory I experienced anime was either Dragon Ball
or Doraemon.
Though I've watched various anime shows since TV stations will air it 5 days a week..so i'm not really sure.
Crayon Shin-chan, YuYuHakusho[Ghost Fighter as we call it there], and Hunter x Hunter.
Judge me if you want, OP. Call me a loser, its okay :]
All I can say it, i like anime and I'm glad it came to my world and to local TV.
My first significant exposure to anime proper (as opposed to stuff like Robotech), came in the mid-90s, when I was a teenager. I got a TV in my bedroom when I was 15, and had a tendency to stay up watching it very late at night, at least in part to see if anything which might have the least bit of nudity would come on. Since all we had in our house was over-the-air channels, there wasn't much, aside from the occasional bit on PBS, which meant I did a lot of channel surfing.
In the course of this, I stumbled across a late-night (IIRC, it came on after ECW Hardcore, which I think came on at either midnight or 1:00) block of what they were calling "Japanimation" on the local WB affiliate. I was immediately enthralled, and only partly because they frequently aired hentai (I recall tentacle rape being a frequent theme), and with only minimal censoring (e.g., they might show nipples, but lightly pixelate genitalia - just as in Japan), at that. Sadly, I can now only recall a couple of titles by name (neither of which is hentai). I can only clearly remember watching Dirty Pair: Project Eden (one of the very first shows I saw, IIRC) and Akira.
It probably ran for a year or so before ending, after which I mostly forgot about it. I had few friends, and none of them were interested in (or even aware of) anime, so I had no real opportunity for continued exposure to it. It was only as an upperclassman in college (where I had access to cable in the dorms from sophomore year on) that I regained my interest, when I started watching shows like Tenchi Muyo and DBZ on Toonami. Big O and Outlaw Star premiered when I was a senior, and so I kept watching after graduation (by which time my parents had a dish); and once [adult swim] came along with Cowboy Bebop, the rest was history.
My first anime was Digimon on the WB of Fox, can't remember which. I only watched the first two series, and got tired of it cause after a season, it'd start all the way from the beginning again. That was back in 2000-2001. Never got around to finding the scene until 2003 when I started playing Ragnarok Online, and found out that there was a anime for it, which was when I first downloaded bit-torrent and entered the p2p scene and started downloading anime. I still haven't watched too much, full time college and a part time job take a lot of time. After Ragnarok the Animation, I watched FMA, than Chrno Crusade, Boogie Pop Phantom, ROD, Spiral, DMC and finally just finished Evangelion (well the tv portion, haven't watched the movies yet). I'd have to say my favorite anime so far is Chrno Crusade. Currently watching Mouse, which is kind of stupid and filled with fanservice.
As for subs/dubs, I can go either way. It really depends on the anime and how the english voices are. For the most part I'd rather watch subs.
I also have to say, I liked hentai way before I really started watching anime. Hentai just means more now that I know what the characters are from.
I first watched anime before I knew what anime was, even before I knew it was japanese XD
I stuff like Pokemon, Digimon, Dragon Ball Z... basically any anime on Cartoon Network..... but I did like them more than the american ones.
Once I found out about "anime" I watched more of it...... pretty much all i watch now :D
When I was in fourth and fifth grade, I ran into a lot of fanart on the internet. I liked the style and realized that they sold comics drawn in similar styles in bookstores, then realized that there were actually cartoons animated in that style. c: I think the first anime I watched 'seriously' was FLCL when it was on adult swim.
last 2 or 3 months, iused to despise anime and think the userbase/fanbase was a bunch of faggots.
then i watched gurren lagann.
SDF Macross!
Even though it wasn't an Anime, my first exposure to anything Japanese was Power Rangers, which got most of it's footage from Super Sentai series. I was two or three at the time it came on, and I became obsessed with it, to the point that I recorded every single episode(I still have them too) and bought all the action figures that were available in America. About 80% of my early childhood memories are somehow related to Power Rangers, and my mother would actually sing "Go Go Power Rangers" to me as a lullaby.
When I was about five or so Fox started airing Digimon, Zoids, and Shaman King, which I really liked, but kept forgetting what time they came on and so only saw a handful of episodes.
After that my memory gets kind of hazy. I know at some point the Pokemon craze hit my school which led to me discovering Toonami, but I can't shake the feeling that I was already watching Dragon Ball Z and by that time. Which ever came first, Toonami soon began airing Gundam Wing and G Gundam and a couple other shows, which kept me watching.
It wasn't until 2003, though, that I found out that all these shows I had enjoyed up until then were connected, that they were called "anime" and that they all came from Japan. That was the year Toonami aired Rurouni Kenshin. I still remember that night. Earlier in the week I had seen the advertisement for it and it had intrigued me, though I didn't catch the date of when it was going to air. The show before it had just ended and I was about to turn off the T.V. and get in the shower when what I thought was the commercial came on again. I stuck around to catch the date, only this time, at the end, that awesome deep-voiced announcer came on and said "Toonami is proud to present Rurouni Kenshin". So I decided I'd watch a few minutes and see what it was like. And then a few minutes turned into 15. And 15 turned into 30. And when it was done I sat there in shocked silence until I realized that show had so engrossed and entertained me that I was still in the same position I was in when it first started, holding remote in the air, leaned against the chair arm, ready to get up. And then I thought "This is the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life". And the next morning I yahooed it and spent 8 hours reading all about the show and from it learning about anime, manga, Japan, and what have you.
A few months later during summer break I was up at night channel surfing using the menu guide of my dish when I noticed a show called "Inuyasha" was playing on Cartoon Network. I turned to it and with a rush of exhilaration I saw it was one of those anime thingys, like Kenshin, and that another one called Trigun was on after it, and that yet another one called Cowboy Bebop was on after it. The rest is history, although even after all these years Kenshin is still my favorite.
>11
>And when it was done I sat there in shocked silence until I realized that show had so engrossed and entertained me that I was still in the same position I was in when it first started, holding remote in the air, leaned against the chair arm, ready to get up
Good times.
>I turned to it and with a rush of exhilaration I saw it was one of those anime thingys, like Kenshin, and that another one called Trigun was on after it, and that yet another one called Cowboy Bebop was on after it.
aghghhghghgh..... I loved it when Adult Swim was pretty much anime time! Eventually it got into more american crap......... Then because of that I stopped getting cable :D
Besides the obvious digimon/pokemon, the first anime I watched was Interstella 5555.
Serial Experiments Lain made me realize not all anime was bubbly.
I'd say it was Vampire Hunter D. It was circa 1994. It was broadcasted in cartoon network, i believe. And in english, no lees (i'm a spanish speaker). By that time my english was really poor, i could only get about 30% of the dialogs, But i was so absorbedin it that i wouldn0t care. It was so different from all the other shows i used to watch back then.
My, i want to watch it again.
My first foray into anime began with Cowboy Bebop. And honestly, I don't think I could've had a better start. It was the English dub and to this day, CB is the only English dub I can stand to listen to. It was immediatelly followed by Lain and my love for anime was pretty much cemented.
The preconception that animation was only satruday morning cartoons was gone and I was able to enjoy a new medium of storytelling.
As a kid I saw Astroboy, Galaxy Express 999, Saber Rider and the Star Sherrifs (Sei Jyushi Bismarck), and if you count it, Transformers.
When I actually knew what anime was, I saw Ranma 1/2 in the mid-90s as I was starting high school, and because the local Blockbuster had way more of it, Urusei Yatsura. I pretty much spent my high school years as a hardcore otaku, though no one knew what it was back then - partway through Sailor Moon started airing, so people assumed any anime image was Sailor Moon. :p
(These days... I'm more of a casual fan who checks out one or two of the best shows I can find. I don't usually come here anymore.)
Ranma 1/2 manga bit me on the hand in a comics store.