What was it like when you first became an anime fan?

Like how did it affect your life?

I was filled with this strange and new, but fantastic feeling. That was thanks largely to DBZ and Pokemon which were my first two animes that I really loved. From the moment I got that feeling, I knew life was never going to be the same again, and it wasn't! I wish I could experience that feeling again! I was very young, about 11 years old, when anime started properly making its way down here. I think my younger mind was more easily warped and stuff back then.

When I was first introduced to anime, or should I say when I first discovered anime, it was like this big new thing for me, I'd never seen anything like it before.

I'll post more on my thoughts and feelings towards the matter when I figure out how to properly word them.

I was probably about 4 or 5, my first shows were Dragon Ball, Pokemon, and Sailor Moon. I didn't know it was called anime, and I'm not sure if I knew it was from japan at that point, but I just knew it was different from other cartoons, and special. I was...obsessed, there's no better way to put it.

I don't know if I could pinpoint the moment where I actually became a fan. The first thing I remember watching was an anime my parents would rent on VHS. I was very young, but I could read the subtitles. I didn't know who made it, the only thing I knew back then is that it was a cartoon unlike any other I've seen before. It was so much different and I just liked the way it was drawn and how the plot evolved. Later on, with the Toriton, Dragon Ball and Digimon I discovered that it was something big.

My first anime was Dragon Ball. Then Z, then the movies, then GT which was... well full of plot holes, but still had a few good fights. So yeah.

I watched both Inuyasha (well, most of it) and FMA a few years ago when anime was still on YTV.

I'm slowly making my way through Bleach, watch a dozen or so episodes in one night every... now and then.

I've partly seen Elfen Lied, Black Lagoon, and Hellsing (watched only until the English dubs cut off then stopped.)

7th grade...so when I was 12 I think...in 2003...around that time

Started with Naruto, then jumped right into Neon Genesis Evangelion, haven't looked back since

I had a shitty social life during 7th to 9th grade, literally no friends.
Things picked up in my 10th grade, now it's normal I suppose

I do hate it when people don't get this medium though

Also, the following don't count as well...I thought they were cartoons so they don't count:

Dragon Ball
Saint Seya
Digimon
Sailor Moon
Pokemon
Shaman King
YYH
Slayers

jessicaraine wrote:I was probably about 4 or 5, my first shows were Dragon Ball, Pokemon...

Same here But i think i was 8 or 9... but i watched dragon ball and pokemon when it first premiered in portugal!
But like lol91 i did not knew that they were animes... i thought they were typicall cartoons too different from the other ones, but still cartoons

So the anime that introduced me to other animes was Naruto. My life was never the same

I knew about DBZ and Sailor Moon in the mid-late 90s and watched them some, but didn't know they were anime. I wasn't really into them because I was only about 10 at the time and was more into Power Rangers.

I started watching Pokemon and Cardcaptors in about 2000 or whenever it came out - still didn't know it was called anime.

I started getting really DBZ-curious at around 12-13 years old but couldn't watch it because I still had crappy cable and no Cartoon Network. I finally got the chance when I upgraded to satellite. It was around 2004-2005 when they were airing Yu Yu Hakusho, DBZ. then DB four days a week. That's when I really got into it. All I can say is good times. Good times...

I wasn't familiar with the term "anime" as a kid either. In fact, I was around 16-17 years old when I started to pay more attention to that phenomenon.
Maybe I'll sound like some hardcore, unreasonable fanboy, but I really think that if you only watch dubbed anime you can't call yourself an anime fan.

i have the same feeling... anime must be spoken in japanese..lol

I disagree, I watch everything in English.

4Neodemon wrote:i have the same feeling... anime must be spoken in japanese..lol

Exactly. I mean there is not even room for a "must". Anime is spoken in Japanese. Everything else is just a deviation of the original.

for the last year, I've only watched stuff in Japanese now. But now I'm watching Full Metal Alchemist dubbed (I had to watch the dub because I LOVE al and Ed's voices) and I remember how nice it is not having to read everything that is said X D It feels weird watching a really Japanese-y anime in English (espically if it takes place in a japanese highschool, for some reason) but if it's in a more western sort of setting like Full Metal Alchemist, it doesn't bother me.

anyway, I guess when I really started using the term "anime" and seeking out specifically anime shows was probably when I was 11 or 12. That was when I started watching Zatch Bell and all of the Hayao Miyazaki movies (before that I had only seen Kiki, spirited away, and castle in the sky)

ningen wrote:I wasn't familiar with the term "anime" as a kid either. In fact, I was around 16-17 years old when I started to pay more attention to that phenomenon.
Maybe I'll sound like some hardcore, unreasonable fanboy, but I really think that if you only watch dubbed anime you can't call yourself an anime fan.

4Neodemon wrote:i have the same feeling... anime must be spoken in japanese..lol

ningen wrote:

4Neodemon wrote:i have the same feeling... anime must be spoken in japanese..lol

Exactly. I mean there is not even room for a "must". Anime is spoken in Japanese. Everything else is just a deviation of the original.

Baccano!, Ghost in the Shell: Stan Alone Complex, Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragon Ball, Black Jack, Big O, Outlaw Star, Trigun and many others would like a word with you gents

justinlynch3 wrote:I disagree, I watch everything in English.

This is also wrong. There are some REALLY shit dubs, that can't even pass as something watchable.
Bleach passes barely, but things like Higurashi for example shouldn't be dubbed

lol-kun speaks the truth with his silver tongue.

lol1991 wrote:

ningen wrote:I wasn't familiar with the term "anime" as a kid either. In fact, I was around 16-17 years old when I started to pay more attention to that phenomenon.
Maybe I'll sound like some hardcore, unreasonable fanboy, but I really think that if you only watch dubbed anime you can't call yourself an anime fan.

4Neodemon wrote:i have the same feeling... anime must be spoken in japanese..lol

ningen wrote:

4Neodemon wrote:i have the same feeling... anime must be spoken in japanese..lol

Exactly. I mean there is not even room for a "must". Anime is spoken in Japanese. Everything else is just a deviation of the original.

Baccano!, Ghost in the Shell: Stan Alone Complex, Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragon Ball, Black Jack, Big O, Outlaw Star, Trigun and many others would like a word with you gents

Erm...yea, we can set an appointment. I watched half of the anime you listed here and I would always choose the original over dub in those cases. (That especially goes for Samurai Champloo and FMA.) I haven't said that there are no good dubs out there. For instance I love Serbian Dragon Ball dub and English dub of GITS, that first movie, was also OK. But that's not the point of what 4Neodemon and me were trying to say.

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAHYEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH! yeah yeah yeah!!!!!!!!!

>>> << >>

So..I was like WOAH MAN DBZ IS LIKE COOL! I watched the original Dragon ball series, Yu Yu Hakusho, and some older anime's yall probably won't know lol.

Yeah some dubs where the BEST like DBZ, I'm loving DBZ, anyway yall...yeah anime is awesome. I got into the neweer anime like Bleach, Naruto, and One piece later. I'm an all out fan, and I WANT LOL1991 to WATCH YU YU HAKUSHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gundam, Dragon Ball/Z, Digimon, Pokemon, Voltron, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Slayers

I gotta say, after I watched Eva, I watched at least 5 more works from GAINAX

So, I forgot to add, GAINAX is for me the greatest bunch of motherfuckers ever

They started out as a small time group and as thus are really connected to their fans

Fan arts and doujins are a lot of times endorsed by them
Yes, they are awesome.

When I watched TTGL (around a year ago) recently, I finally got around to watching their other mecha shows

I love them so fucking much

The first Anime I ever seen were probably Voltron and Bosco Adventures, they are among the first memories of mine in general, it was probably something like 3-5 years old(although people claim that you cannot remember things below 3 years old I, from my own experience, claim that it is possible) I didn't know it was Japanese nor I ever heard of the term Anime, but I really really liked to watch them as well as cartoons in general.

But the first Anime I've watched while I knew it was a "Japanese Cartoon" would probably be the Street Fighter II The Animated Movie rented on VHS not much after it came out, I'd say somewhere 1995-1996, man it was soooooo impressive to me back than and still is and will always be.

And then after that I'd say Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball and then very quickly DBZ started along them(although I never watched Sailor Moon too much, but since it was scheduled very close to DB, I sometimes watched entire episodes cause I was impatiently waiting DB/Z and didn't want to miss even the DB/Z opening ). I don't really need to talk much about how much I was impressed with the DB/Z.
I was watching all that both on German RTL II and Cartoon Network, via satellite TV. Of course not too long after that more and more anime's were aired and I was simultaneously watching many other great anime's such as Gundam and many other Mecha Anime, Pokemons, Digimons etc...

Few years after that I've heard of Manga/Anime term and I stopped calling them "Japanese cartoons", and as time passed by and as internet was more available and affordable I was slowly finding clips and videos of all my favorite Anime's that I've watched in childhood(it was way more difficult to find them back then, youtube didn't exist), of course DBZ was unquestionably the first one in line, the same second I turned on the internet I entered Dragon Ball Z in the Google search bar

Today while I definitely can call myself an Anime/Manga fan because I like so many of them, I must say that there are much more of those that I'm simply not interested in.

^ Yeah, you're one of the rare people I know who either have a very specific taste or are very random about the things they like.
Lulz, so yesterday I finally found out the name of another anime of my childhood with the help of an acquaintance- the guy knows everything! o0
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=760
^^ yay!
It was translated as "Star troop" here, so I searched it by that name and, of course, there was no chance to find it like that.
There is an OVA too, damn I have to download that now. XD
I recommend for the lulz. ^^