Support NeoGAF

[Rice-Eater]

Robotech got me interested as a kid. Gundam Wing as a teen and then I got into Cowboy Beebop and others but Robotech was my stepping stone.

Man I loved this series so much as a kid, and it was the reason I got into anime. The funny thing is that I came to love it even more as a adult once I had a better understanding of the show and everything in general. I finally went on to watch the original Macross in its original language and loved it as well. As much flack as people give Macek for hack job he did and changing the names and music, I can't help it I still love Robotech just a little more. It was the original to me, same for the music and the way it told the story despite how much hate it gets from many others. Still my favorite anime of all time, movie or series.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

If going by childhood it's DBZ, easily. This is before Toonami started bringing it on, too; I'd wake up like 5:30 on Saturday morning just to watch it at 6 a.m on channel 2. They'd never play past the episode Goku arrives on Namek, but damn was it cool. I was about 7-8 at the time (this was back in '95 and '96. I don't think Toonami started bringing it on until 1997).

A lot of the other Toonami shows made me start appreciating it too, like Outlaw Star, Kenshin and

But the anime that made me respect it as a medium? I think that was some of the more adult stuff like Wicked City, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Armored Trooper Votoms, Gundam etc. And some of the more indie-like stuff like Kakurenbo, Neo Tokyo etc. Those were the ones that made me convinced it could tackle complex themes in meaningful and inventive ways.

It took Western animation a lot longer to click that way for me, but thankfully I found stuff like Spawn, Aeon Flux and Technotise: Edit & I (technically a Serbian production) to convince me so.

 

[Blues1990]

It was a combination of Bubblegum Crisis, Ninja Scroll, & Porco Rosso that had got me into it. Recently, I had just finished watching Redline & Boogiepop Phantom, both of which were pretty bad ass.

I've also heard some good things about the film 'Colorful', which was directed by Keiichi Hara, but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

 

[Moaradin]

I haven't watched anime for awhile, but just got done with Space Battleship Yamato 2199. I'm still in amazement, the space battles, the music, all so well done. The ending was kinda rushed though. Why is this not getting a dub again? I even heard this got a live action movie in Japan, it looks interesting.

Is there any Anime out there that even comes close to this?

Don't bother, it's shitty. Watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

 

[Dysun]

Dragonball Z
Gundam Wing

Came home from school to watch Toonami

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

Don't bother, it's shitty. Watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

And then they'll get frustrated when they find out only the first few episodes ever got subbed

Did anyone ever finish subbing that series, I wonder...

 

[ZdkDzk]

Detective Conan was the first anything that I watched and fell in love with. I didn't really realize that it was anime but it opened little kid me's eyes to what tv shows and movies could be.

FLCL was the first anime that actually got me into anime and forced me to realize that there was a difference between it and other films/tv. Nothings managed to beat it for me

And the first opening to Bl.each which tricked me into watching 200 epsiodes of a show that was mostly filler.

 

[Parallax]

i had been watching it for years, but my turning point was macross plus. the music, the locations, the battles. it all clicked.

 

[Xyber]

Well, apart from watching Pokémon as a kid I didn't really get into anime until I watched Steins;Gate a few months back. That mainly happened because I clicked on the wrong thread here but I got a bit interested and decided to watch one of the shows being recommended.

Almost felt like I started with a showstopper, it was just so good. The I followed it up with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, one hell of a show that too.

 

[Currygan]

Fist of the North Star serie, which i started watching at 7

 

[Daingurse]

This was the moment that truly solidified my interest in the medium.

I am a child of the Toonami era, so I really got into the medium with DBZ, Gundam Wing, Yu Yu Hakusho and the like. To this day I still have fondness for a good shonen series.

 

[FlashbladeGAF]

i had been watching it for years, but my turning point was macross plus. the music, the locations, the battles. it all clicked.

"I've been waiting for you..."

I had mainly been anime movies only!
I was a picky kid who didn't want to take risks on buying an unknown title as well as only wanting the highest of production values

...but then I came across Macross Plus.

Realized even miniseries can have stellar animation/stories.
Obviously MP wasn't low budget, but at the same time it wasn't a movie.

That opened me up to OVAs and eventually ...series.

 

[HolyBaikal]

This post was a bit too embarrassing. So I removed it. ^^;;

 

[pgtl_10]

Eight Man After. I saw that film and said wow Japanese cartoons are way cooler than American cartoons.

 

[Helmholtz]

DBZ I suppose. Used to love that show when I was a kid. Definitely made me interested in the medium and caused me to seek out other series.
After that I was into stuff like Naruto and Beck and eventually moved on to series like Samurai Champloo and Death Note. More recently I watched Berserk, Monster, Planetes, and Steins;Gate.

 

[Aaron-Lagann]

Originally Pokemon, Yugioh and DBZ. But the first actual anime I watched that got me in was Gundan Wing.

 

[Afrocious]

Outlaw Star

 

[BasilZero]

Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon.

 

[SDBurton]

I'm going to be the first honest person here and say Bible Black.

I was expecting this title to pop up here, what I did not expect was it coming from you. :lol

Personally I'd have to say Sailor Moon made me a fan, but I do want to give a shoutout to another amazing work that I feel that everyone should check out:

I hope you have your tissues ready.

 

[HolyBaikal]

I am was a child of the Toonami era

Me, too. Though I'm a little bit embarassed to admit that.

I wasn't a big fan of Dragon Ball Z. It was macho. But I did really like Sailor Moon and Tenchi Muyo. I remember I recorded a Sailor Moon marathon with Moltar from Space Ghost... which was kind of... um.. anyway. And he kept making jokes about... true eclipse of the heart or something like that?

Um.. anyway.. I didn't much care for the Moltar parts. But I loved Sailor Moon and wanted to watch it over and over. So I watched and record the whole thing. I think I watched those VHS tapes for months.

 

[Afrocious]

I grew up on Toonami, and I'll spare people the long posts about it. Loved all of it save for naruto.

Outlaw Star Toonami Promo

Outlaw Star opened my teenage mind to how a cartoon series could tell a story and not have a million episodes.

I loved it. OS was what got me into writing as well.

 

[pablito]

Akira introduced me to it. I watched it on Sci Fi channel's Saturday anime in the morning. Then I started watching DBZ, also on Saturday anime. I think what made me a full fledged fan was when Toonami had the run with Sailor Moon, DBZ, Ronin Warrios, Gundamn Wing, Tenchi Muyo, etc. As soon as I got home from school all those shows would be starting up. Good times.

 

[Savitar]

A favorite of my child hood and one that I will never think badly of.

There were a lot of anime I watched as a child and didn't even know they were from some place called Japan. To me cartoons was cartoons but some like Robotech stood out, they handled issues and situations you just didn't see in others and I loved what they did. I wanted to see what happened.

Ah memories...

 

[HolyBaikal]

I wrote a long story... that I'm a little bit afraid of people reading. I thought maybe if I put it in spoilers it wouldn't be as bad. It's just a bunch of black stuff, if people want to ignore it.

Maybe there's an easy way to explain what my first anime was. I'll try...

I think the first anime movie I watched was My Neighbor Totoro. I was really young, umm, maybe six years old when I first saw it. But I didn't know it was anime. I watched a lot of cartoons back then and I thought it was just called a cartoon.

And the first anime series I ever saw was Samurai Pizza Cats. I think this was before Toonami. I didn't know it was a bad joke dub, and I really liked the characters. It was a funny show I liked to watch.

The first time I saw anime and knew I liked it was in NES and SNES video games where I liked the art style and didn't know what it was called. Like in games like Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger and The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang. I remember I had an issue of Nintendo Power where I stared at the Spike McFang part of my Nintendo Power magazine and played my Game Boy, on vacation trips with my family. And wanted to play it. But I didn't know it was called anime.

And my first anime series that I knew was anime and made me fall in love with anime was Sailor Moon. Which was on Toonami sometime when they were still having Space Ghost characters instead of Tom. I remember Moltar hosting things.

 

[P3P5I]

I grew up on Toonami, and I'll spare people the long posts about it. Loved all of it save for naruto.

Outlaw Star Toonami Promo

Outlaw Star opened my teenage mind to how a cartoon series could tell a story and not have a million episodes.

I loved it. OS was what got me into writing as well.

Outlaw Star was one of my favorite Toonami shows. I also love the Toonami promos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfadJj4d5K4

Where mah Zoids at?

 

[MercuryLS]

The only anime I ever really loved was berserk, I haven't really watched any others since the early 00s.

 

[SimplyJah]

I got into dragon ball Z as a kid but I don't think it got me 'hooked' on the medium. However, once I saw Ghost in the Shell, Akira and Princess Mononoke within a year or so it was over for me I loved it.

 

[ElTopo]

Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Urotsukidoji, Wicked City, Perfect Blue.

Not really a big fan. I'd watch anything on Adult Swim but I've yet to find anything as good as Cowboy Bebop when it comes to a series. As far as movies, I don't really like the new age of anime movies too much.

 

[GameGuru59]

Originally?

DBZ, Gundam, and Roboteck.

Now?

Samurai Champloo, Outlaw Star, Cowboy BeBop, Miyazaki

 

[srst]

I had exposure to anime when I was kid (DBZ, Akira, etc.) but it didn't draw me in until recently with Attack on Titan and SAO. This stuff is worse than crack.

 

[generaldane]

Rurouni Kenshin for me

 

[Lumpy Onion]

Robotech was the one that got me hooked. I must have gone though all 86 episodes six or so times on some crappy VHS tapes my brother made of the original 85' recordings. He did edit out the commericals so it flowed quite nicely. Carl Macek was a genius in releasing and melding these 3 separate shows together into one series. In a lot of ways I actually prefer it to the original series which they originated from. Awesome voice acting and catchy music (minus a few Minei songs).

The animation in Macross blew my mind. But the best part was seeing a story in a cartoon that actually had some real continuity and maturity in it's storytelling. Nobody felt safe, and it was gritty, full of drama that I didn't expect from animation. Macross was my favorite portion, but Mospeada was damn good as well. Southern Cross was kinda goofy at times, but had some interesting sci fi themes that fascinated me. Although some shows have come close (Evangelion, Eureka Seven. Attack on Titan), Robotech is still my favorite anime to this day.

 

[Savitar]

It's so damn nice to see Robotech recognized so much.

 

[Shiv47]

Speed Racer in the mid 70s, and then Battle of the Planets in the late 70s. Akira, followed by Ghost in the Shell and the stuff Sci-Fi showed on what was it, Saturdays? Galaxy Express and so on.

 

[Sinistral]

Robotech for me as well. I didn't catch the original airing but my Uncle had the entire VHS collection.

 

[DarknessTear]

I've seen anime, but I didn't really get into it until my best friend passed away. Her mother gave me her Cowboy Bebop Asteroid Blues VHS and some of her games and I felt a kind of connection to the medium through her I guess. After Cowboy Bebop I started poking around on the internet and encountered fansubbing. I got into that for a while and became an anime addict from age 13 until now.

 

[The Sarcastic Dude]

Dragon Ball Z. That was my first taste of anime and then I venture deeper into the medium. Sailor Moon was also a big one.

 

[InfiniteBento]

 

[HolyBaikal]

Those 3:

I watched two of those three a lot. Though I didn't like Dragon Ball Z very much.

Pokemon Red was one of my maybe first twenty Japanese RPGs. I played it for hundreds of hours on my Game Boy. I remember playing in every vacation trip. And when I was on the swimming team, I would always play it when waiting for my mom to pick me up.

I got into Pokemon just maybe a year or two before it became a big fan. I was introduced to it by my cousin, who seemed to have almost every game ever. And he was really into it, so I got into it, too. And a couple years later, a couple of kids in my school were talking about about the TV show. I didn't even know a TV show existed. I didn't like it at first, because it seemed so different from the games. And because the other kids loved the show, but weren't interested in the games like me. I tried talking to them about the games, but they weren't interested.

But as I started being more open minded, and watching the show, I started to really love it. Even more than the games in some ways, because it was so realistic. It made me want to live in the Pokemon world.

And then a couple years later, Pokemon became this huge fad that was all over TV and magazines. I was so happy because so many people loved something I loved. I got into the cards and everything. Even some of my family members were into it. And almost nobody in my family loved video games other than me and my cousin.

It felt so great to be a part of something that felt bigger than myself. And loving something I could share with others and the whole world loved. I was so sad when the fad ended, I wish it was as popular as it ever was. Though I'm happy that Pokemon is still very popular.

After opening my mind to the show, I love it a lot and I've been keeping up with subbed version of the anime. And I always want the games to be more lifelike, like the anime, because I want to feel like I'm being taken to the Pokemon world. I love interacting with Pokemon with Amie, kind of like I'm in the show and can show affection to my Pokemon.

And to this day, Pokemon Yellow is my favourite Pokemon game, because I learned to love the anime so much.
And Magical Girl is still my favourite genre of anime, because of Sailor Moon.

 

[RedSwirl]

Alright tell the truth people. How old were you the first time you saw Ninja Scroll.

 

[Gattsu25]

Akira was the first anime I saw.

Still have a soft spot in my heart for it.

The thing that killed anime for me was Berserk. I love that show too much that every other anime that I see just doesn't scratch my itch. Berserk had a melancholy feel, and a measured level of characterization that I feel lacking in a lot of anime. The anime that do provide that tend to have settings that don't appeal to me.

I've come to accept that I, a person who's online moniker is based on an anime character, no longer like anime because my show is just too damned perfect

 

[NobleGundam]

Before Pokemon and Sailermoon when I was around 4 years old there was this gem.

 

[Chie Satonaka]

.hack//SIGN.

I had seen a few assorted series before then, but SIGN was the first one where I just got hooked. I'm sure playing through the .hack PS2 games and watching Liminality as well didn't help.

 

[-Horizon-]

The show that got me back into anime was The World God Only Knows. Previously, I had pushed away from manga and anime in my junior high and high school years because that wasn't the "cool thing". Now in my university years, screw that noise, I watch what I want.

 

[JordanN]

Hamtaro
Digimon
Gundam Wing
Mon Colle Knights
Beyblade

 

[RiderKairuu]

DB and DBZ like most folk, but it REALLY took off when my friend, his dad and I watched Tenchi Muyo Movie II. It touched me and I had to go home. From there it was Ranma 1/2 tapes from Blockbuster Video.

 

[Tomohawk]

I think the time I really got into anime was when I went a random 10 day vacation to india, while vacationing in srilanka. Every time we went outside the smell was so horrible we'd puke so we stayed inside and watched a channel called animax or something like that. Me, my brothers and 6 of my cousins binged watch all of .hack sign, cyborg 009, cyborg kurochan, dai gunder and dans detective school Q. They weren't the greatest in hindsight but I remember thinking .hack sign was super deep for some reason.

 

[RadioHeadAche]

Probably Outlaw Star as that got me really interested, then Cowboy Bebop came along.

 

[Mr Nash]

Original Star Blazers for me. I remember running downstairs at six in the morning as a kid to watch each episode. =p

 

[rpmurphy]

Tetsuwan Atom
Doraemon
Totoro

There are others, but these ones I think had the most impact for me.