Sure, why not:
The first anime I ever saw, probably in 1989, was Maya no Bouken on Croatian TV (here it was known as Pčelica Maja). No one knew it was anime then of course, I was 3 years old or so when I first saw it, but I can't be certain.
Fast forward to:
1990
I just turned four and my family got bored with our regular video-store (Fontana) so we decided to join a new one (Fox).
Lo and behold, an amazing section of new cartoons. Voltron, Saber Rider, Robotech - the three I saw and fell in love with. Of course they were dubbed but we can consider them anime, no?
Anyway, something else was there too: Lily C.A.T. and Crystal Triangle. Saw both of them as a kid, and I clearly remember knowing they were Japanese cartoons, maybe they weren't even dubbed in English. All of the tapes were bootlegs, of course, no one in Croatia would distribute that shit.
I recorded most of that stuff for my personal collection on VHS, so I watched it for the next few years, with other cartoons, of course.
I also remember in 1992, when I was six, my father bought me a Sega Genesis (he was a sailor on those huge fishing boats, basically traveled through most of the world), and a Japanese copy of Battle Mania, and I also remember knowing that it was drawn in Japanese style. I have no idea how I knew that, but I know I did.
1994
A new anime I saw on VHS, this time dubbed in Croatian so it was an official release, was They Were Eleven. I loved that movie, I saw it at a friend's house and we were both blown away.
That year a new kid came to class, his name was Mijat, he was fat and he lived in Germany. He had and amazing collection of SNES games (I fell in love with Street Fighter as an 8-year old kid in his apartment) and a satellite dish. This meant all fo those crazy German channels with all those crazy cartoons and anime of course.
Although I was mostly interested in Power Rangers then, I remember watching Saint Seiya with him, as well as DRagonball and maybe Sailor Moon (this might have happened a bit later).
1997
My father bought an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly and Ultra Game Players for me (one of those had some Soul Blade cards with character info on them - Hwang was absent) and I saw pictures of DBZ action figures on the last few pages of EGM. I stared at those characters for hours, drew them, imagined stories between them, tried to figure out what the yellow hair color means - I was basically a fan before having seen a single episode of DBZ.
Soon I found out that my cousin had a satellite dish with Italian TV and they had DBZ on it. I was basically making up excuses to go visit him every day just so I could watch some DBZ. Didn't understand shit, but I loved every minute.
Later that year Croatian television started broadcasting Candy Candy in it's entirety. I followed it with my uncle everyday. Good times.
1999
Finally got a satellite dish, decided to turn it to the side that lets me watch German TV (Italian TV had much more anime but I was under the impression that German television was better, plus I wanted German MTV - a good decision, as we will see later).
Anyway, Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Dragonball, Digimon, everything was there (not DBZ though), I enjoyed all of the shows a lot.
In 2000, Croatian TV started broadcasting Pokemon and Dragonball (and Sailor Moon later) so everyone was watching that for a while, it became quite popular. You basically had your school bullies talking about the tournament in Dragonball, what characters were cool and so on.
2001
I guess anime became quite the fad in Germany, because a bunch of shows started broadcasting that year.
Let's see:
- Dragonball Z finally started on RTL II (August 27th), first an episode a day (starting at 7:30 PM), then they switched it to two episodes a day.
Some other stuff was airing on that channel too: Doremi, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Monster Rancher, Pretty Cure, Wedding Peach, Power Stone and One Piece.
Probably some more stuff but it's hard to remember it all.
- Tele5 started broadcasting Gundam Wing, my first Gundam. I loved it, naturally.
- The channel VOX had this segment called Anime Nacht (Anime night) where they would show a bunch of OVAs or random episodes during the entire night. It aired on Friday nights, once a month I think.
Some of the stuff I saw there includes a bunch of Hentai (yeah, first time), X The Movie, A Kite, Gunsmith Cats, Record of Lodoss War (the OVA and the TV show in it's entirety), DNA2, Phantom Quest Corp, Midnight Panther, The Hakkenden, El Hazard, Saber Marionette R (and some of J), Orchid Emblem, Sakura Wars, Tokio Private Police, Heat Guy J, a LOT of stuff basically, all in the span of two or three years.
- VIVA (a German music channel, something like MTV) started broadcasting a lot of shows - Agent Aika, Blue Submarine No. 6, Candidate for Goddess, Hellsing, X (the CLAMP show), and Noir and Najica Blitz Tactics some time later (those are the ones I can remember)
-and finally, German MTV was basically the king for me: it started with Golden Boy (I forgot to mention watching this earlier, probably in 2000 for the first time), then some Lupin III (they basically edited some of the movies and TV specials in a TV show of sorts),
and THEN Cowboy Bebop and Escaflowne in late 2001 I think. Dear God, I can't begin to describe how I was feeling while watching those shows, I believe that was when I realized I truly loved anime.
Some years later we got Gantz, Gits: SAC and Wolf's Rain from them, but I had already seen those shows by then.
I think that's the most of it. Phew.
~2002-2003
Around this time I saw my first fansubs - the first two episodes of the Rurouni Kenshin Reminiscence OVA, the Bebop movie, and GITS and Akira.
Loved it.
That was basically when I started to follow some show weekly (or almost weekly). The problem was, my internet was slow so people had to send stuff to me so I could watch it, so they would send me 2 or 3 episodes of a show every couple of weeks (gott love those Anime fans). I watched Naruto that way, and later FMA and Bleach.
After that, things got a little better, Croatia started getting decent internet, and we could finally start ordering stuff online,which was something I always wanted.
Oh, and the first time I really followed a show every week was in Spring 2007, and the shows were Claymore and TTGL.
This post turned out pretty long, so probably no one will read it, but I had some fun remembering everything.
