Your Anime beginings

Man, mine was the infamous pokemon. And then it went to eva, and it jus went all over the place after that! Sadly to say, this is when i was small and rebellious, i was caught shop lifting when i was trying to take out the eva series on vhs. Nothing really happened though, they jus caught me taking off the metal detector dillys on them and decided to call security. Lol, those were the days...

Man, that's going back Bruno..I remember when Colonel Video was where Microplay used to be on Bay Area Blvd.On topic: I watched the old stuff (transformers,Voltron, etc...) on TV but my 1st anime was Hokuto No Ken.I went into Suncoast and said i wanted it(was 17 at the time).After that it was Akira,Wicked City,The Professional,Record of Lodoss War, and etc....I was thrilled when i picked up the Escaflowne boxset from Anime Vision a while back.
Don't watch it as much nowadays but i still i'm a fan and will stay one.

I started watching anime and live action imported Japanese televison back in the late 1960's/ early 1970's. I watched shows such as Astroboy, Kimba, Gigantor, Speed Racer, Ultraman, and Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot.

Throughout the 70's and 80's I collected Japanese toys (mecha/robot stuff) I had a great "Shogun Warriors" collection, my favorite being a 3 foot tall Mazinga that shot small, hard, painful missles from his fists!!! Good times. I was lucky enough to have a stepdad who was an importer that operated primarily in Asia.

I remember well the "Japanimation" craze that hit the nation after the release of Akira. I saw it in it's initial theatrical run. I also saw Totoro, Vampire Hunter D, Golgo 13, Robot Carnival, Neo Tokyo and others in their time in the theaters. My friends and I made a point to watch the limited number of VHS tapes available in the local video rental shops.

The internet really changed things for the American Otaku. No longer were we forced to scrounge and trade 3rd or 4th generation VHS copies of fansubs.(I belonged to sooo many tape trading circles). We said goodbye to snail mailed newsletters of tape offerings and wish lists as forums sprouted everywhere on the cyber landscape. I was receiving VCD fansubs of the current season of anime!!! Toonami began offering kids daily rations of anime (although heavily edited for the young ones). The mall movie stores were flooded with a multitude of titles. Adult Swim gave many their first taste of the realm of animation not geared toward children.

So, here I am having witnessed firsthand most of the history of the rise of anime here in the states. I went from watching black and white TV shows to cgi infused HDTV, portable video formats for watching on the go, and streaming internet content. I can't wait to see what the future holds.

Hey, Bruno, you went to UNC? I used to live in Loveland (my son still does) and Fort Collins. KUNC was one of the radio stations to which I regularly listened. My favorite all time author, Philip k Dick, is buried in Greeley.

Thats awesome About the manzinger. I have it somewhere but didnt know what it was till recently. i still have a 6 inch die cast voltron and the plastic black lion that goes with the other lions.

yup,

I went to UNC. during the Bronco years when they had thier training camp there I would work summers feeding them. went from around 86-93, had a year break inbetween. If I recall there was a dog track near loveland, Fort colling area I used to go to a lot. Also used to go the the Mall Crawl in Boulder, those were good times.

I had the Shogun warriors collection as well. I remember destory several Lego cities with them :)

First time I saw anime was renting a copy of Ninja Scroll and Ranma 1/2 from Blockbuster back when I was in High School. This was around 1993. After that I got hooked and moved on to whatever else that place had, I started invading all the Blockbusters in the area and Hollywood Video. It went from Ranma 1/2 to BGC, RG Veda, Appleseed, the Fatal Fury movies, and GITS. I got introduced to fansubs and Planet Anime by a friend and starting getting into Slayers, Tenchi Muyo, Ah! My Goddess, etc.

I remember watching Kimagure Orange Road, on crappy 18th gen VHS tapes where the tracking was so bad you had to either sacrifice the subs or their eyes. I remember watching Street Fighter V and cursing to the heavens above after finding out the series did not end at episode 16, "WHY OH WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE LICENSED AND NOW I'M STUCK WITH THAT CLIFF HANGER?!" I remember being happy to win a US version of the Street Fighter Animated movie, only to find out they cut out the awesome scenes from it! I used to buy Ranma mangas, stuffed animals, figures, posters, scrolls, etc from chinatown, PA, Panorama, Media Play, and Suncoast.

Starting college, meeting friends who were also into anime, missing classes cause I just HAD to finish watching Ronin Warriors. Skipping class to either watch anime in the computer lab, play Diablo, or goto the arcade and mash on X-men vs Street Fighter, Crazy Taxi, or D&D2. And of course going to my first Anime Convention, A-kon around 1998 I think. Gaming tournaments and conventions kinda started morphing into one another for me since then, but they're all just too much fun! Prob the reason why I'm still involved with them now is that I just refuse to grow up! ^_^

My first is pretty common... Sailor Moon on Cartoon Network. I was in the fifth or sixth grade. After that I started renting a lot and my brother signed me up to get a new movie each month... my first anime movie was Akira. And now I'm still addicted.

Lets see, I was in Chile when I watched my first anime show, but to some it was known as Robotech, but I've always known it as Macross. I didn't get the honor(?) of watching Southern Cross or Genesis Climber Mospedea until I was here back in the states(this is where I learned the mess that Harmony Gold had made states side, still disappointing that DYRL won't be licensed here in the states ever). I also grew up on Guyver OVA, GS Mikami, Tekkaman Blade, Saint Seiya, and Magic Knight Rayearth during the 90's (I forgot to mention Slayers also, which is still bad ass and I encourage people to watch the new Slayers series, Revolution). The one thing I miss about the old days, is trading tapes, which was something awesome to do every weekend.

When I moved back to the states I was finally able to get more regular internet access than just at my dad's work. Then one day while browsing anime shrines, I learned about a thing called mIRC and all the animu I started watching while I was in queue. I was limited to 5 gigs on my computer that I had back then, I also didn't have a CD burner yet, so I had to delete stuff as I watched it due to lack of storage space. The one good show from the IRC days was Nadesico, that shit was the bomb. Eventually in high school I met Cherry, and joined her forums (Candyhearts.net) which eventually kinda migrated over here.

The one thing that truly revolutionized my anime watching occurred to me back in '03, which was the discovery of BitTorrent. Once I learned of BT, I just began watching shows on top of shows (basically anything I ever wanted to watch). I never went thru the Kazaa phase, nor Limewire.

PS: btw my first convention was Ushicon I. I still see the Four Points Sheraton (I still keep the card key from the hotel as a lucky charm in my wallet) every time I go to Austin and have a small moment of nostalgia and think about how far I've gone with my dedication for the fandom (which I don't regret).

Not including anything they showed on Saturday morning in the 80's, I'd have to say my first anime was Ranma 1/2 back in the early 90's. I was in seventh or eighth grade and my good friend had a friend in Alaska who would send her the most terrible quality tapes. They must've been ninth generation tapes. We moved on to whatever we could get from Planet Anime, the local video stores, my uncle's laserdisc store (I still have all my laserdiscs, and two players!!) I think we watched Orguss, Bubblegum Crisis, Vampire Hunter D, Tenchi Muyo, Moldiver, etc.

Then Sailor Moon came out and it became my favorite. I woke up every morning to watch it at 5 am (or was it 5:30?) on UPN. My dad would get so angry at me for waking up early to watch cartoons on a school day! I still don't understand what the problem was XD

I think the first anime I watched was in,like, the very early 90's. I watched Samurai Pizza Cats and megaman when I was a wee one. I also had alot of old fairy tales that were anime too >.> like the little mermaid
Then when I was a little bit older my friend forced me to watch Tenchi Muyo and mi mum bought my sisters and I some manga.LoL, been hooked ever since I have ^___^
So I have been a fan since I was about 4, but just went to my first con last year XD