What got you into Anime?

Whether your tastes lean towards playing Halo or watching DVDs all day, this is the place to chat about anime, video games, TV shows, movies, toys, and more.

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Tenjen
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Tenjen »

It was the same with me. A lot of the newer anime shows at the time didn't cut it for me. But Good ones have come out since then .
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Raistlinsama »

UFO Robot Grendizer. I think I was 5 years old. Which means that I've been watching anime for thirty years without interruption :-o
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Milnoc
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Milnoc »

Goldorak (in French) and Battle of the Planets exposed me to the existence of Anime.

Then I saw Akira during its original North American theatrical release.

When DVDs came out, that's when I started watching anime on a regular basis, which eventually led me to my favourite anime of all time: Cowboy Bebop.

It still took me a few years after DVDs were released to learn of the existence of Hayao Miyazaki via Mononoke Hime.

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HammerZ2008
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by HammerZ2008 »

Would rushing home from school to watch Battle Of The Planets mean anything? Yea, I am kinda old school. The 90's was a rebirth for me so to speak.

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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by JTheCreator »

God, I think the first one ever was sadly Sailor Moon. One day I found out they were really naked, not all glittery, and my pre-pubescent self got all up in that. Then came Pokemon, then DBZ, then Yu-Yu-Hakusho. After awhile, I grew up a bit and leaned towards Trigun and Fullmetal Alchemist. Those two are my top favorites of all time.
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Tenjen »

have you checked out fullmetal alchemist brotherhood?
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Gotoh »

Robotech was my first taste of anime.

All I had known, prior to that, was G.I. Joe and Thundercats, where no one died and things like plot progression and character development was virtually nonexistent. Then I accidentally stumbled across Robotech, which pretty much changed how I looked at television, insofar as anything animated.

I actually cared about the characters because they actually had lives outside of endlessly shooting at stuff, and shouting cheesy war cries. Rick had issues with adjusting to life in the RDF, while trying to sort out his issues with Minmei and how her sudden rise to stardom was causing them to drift apart. Lisa struggled between wanting to be seen as a respectable member of the SDF-1's bridge crew, her hidden feelings of inadequacy, and her growing attraction to Rick. Captain Gloval warred between being the pillar of strength for the men and women who served under him, and his own moments of frustration, fear, and uncertainty. And that was just three of the main cast.

In short, the characters felt like real people. They weren't just the heroes you saw looking brave and fearless, who's only existence was fighting the badguys.

Moreover, Robotech presented a war that was exactly that, and it didn't shy away from showing you the harsher sides of it, and I'm not simply talking about characters dying. It showed you just how much war can effect people, not just the ones fighting it. Seeing families learning about friends and loved ones who had been lost, the near total devastation of the planet Earth, and the way it ofttimes brought out the petty uglier sides of humanity, both among it's the citizens and the military. Yet, it also showed humanity's will to endure and persevere, in the face of adversity; giving the series a feel that was somewhere between a wartime chronicle, and a period piece.

Prior to that series, I had never cried at a character's death, because that sort of thing didn't happen in cartoons, at that time. The good guys always lived to fight another day. Robotech didn't play that. It didn't matter which side they were on, or whether they were military or civilian. It was a war, in war there's bound to be casualties. People died. There were no do-overs, or 'it was just a dream'. And when it happened, it hit you.

To this day, I still remember tearing up when Roy Fokker died. I mean, the guy was a main character. More importantly, he was the man, the RDF's very own Red Baron. The decision to kill him off was one of the gutsiest, resulting in one of the most emotional moments in the show.

It went further by showing the badguys really weren't all that bad. They were genetically bred to fight, but not so much that they were without redeeming qualities. Many even came to denounce their old way of life to embrace the ways of the Micronians, their former enemy. Yet, it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, since old habits die hard, and a fair number of converts grew disenchanted with living in peace and joined Kyron's renegade faction.

And the conclusion, when Kyron rams his ship into the bridge of the SDF-1, killing Captain Gloval, and the entire bridge crew, along with himself. Leaving Lisa as the lone survivor, since Claudia and the others had forced her into the bridge's lone escape pod., dayum. I doubt anyone saw that coming; much less, in the final episode.

I honestly didn't mean for this post to be this long but, suffice to say, Robotech really made an impression on me. After that, I was basically sold on anime.

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Harroe
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Harroe »

I'll try to trace back the roots, but it's been a while since that beginning.

I think my first exposure was Sailor Moon, but I wasn't into the magical girls saving their boyfriends and stuff, so I only watched it when I was desperate to watch something. The first anime with the biggest impact came in a few years later. I had a friend give me a pokemon card one day, and so I became interested in the craze. That led to the tv series, and I believe that was my first true step into the world of anime. Although if we want to get technical, I've always loved anime because any cartoon would fall into that category.

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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Collarnorcrown »

Has to be Outlaw Star, Tenchi Muyo, heck Toonami. Sailor Moon was pretty cool too, but going back to it now I /cannot/ watch the dub. So. Much. 90s.

*ahem*

I really liked the stories, that's what kept me coming back, the themes were so much more interesting then what Western animation was offering me at the time... I took a break for a few years after that, then I was hanging out with a buddy and he popped in Neon Gensis Evangelion. EVA was the blow that finished it, I was lost to anime. It didn't really pick up till I got to my base in Yuma, Arizona though. Spend enough time in the desert and you collect some serious DVDs. Not counting my anime I have roughly 400 disks in my movie collection. So now a couple years later I'm up to roughly 60 days of anime watched ^^;

...I think I might have problem XD
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Tenjen »

amen to that
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MuchachoNL
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by MuchachoNL »

For me it would've been a rogue game I bought... Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space.
I think it was that one.
Don't know for sure.
First I saw DragonBall Z on TV, but downloading and streaming wasn't a thing back then.
So I didn't really know much about anime's until I grew older.
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Weertangel »

I don't really know when i watched anime the first time, but i think it happend somewhere in the 90's when Akira was on dutch television and later when i saw Cowboy Bebop on Mtv, the different styles and cool stories that were't about superheroes fighting the whole time but also about other themes really spoke to me :)
But i think it rekindled a little when i started reading manga ( Vampire Kisses:blood relations and Rosario+vampire where the first series i ever bought) and discovered u could also watch the for free online(since anime are so damn expensive and not easy to use when don't have a region-free dvd player) as well as read lots of manga online(before i only read lots of webcomics,still do) even if it was't legal :(

Altrough, now that i think about it, it might have restarted when i got into reading english manga since that was when the doors of the internet really opened to for stuff besides online gaming.

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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Titan »

A while ago when I was a kid I stayed up past my bedtime and caught my first look at Adult Swim. They were playing Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It had been the first Anime I ever watched and it intrigued me greatly. I was fascinated by its surreal environment and breathtaking animation. The political intrigue, action, and philosophical mystery concepts kept me glued to the screen the rest of the night. However, I was not familiar with the animation style and it confused me. After looking around on the internet, which I was also new to, I found out what it was and became interested in the concept all together.

Naruto was the first anime I continuously watched for a long period of time. All though my current view of Naruto is that of disdain, I was a fan of the anime itself and it would eventually kick start my love of anime. However, that was the only anime I started watching at the time as I felt no reason to go looking at others feeling Naruto was all I needed (Kids...).

After my friend recommended to me the anime Negima! I began to look further into anime itself, wondering what other animes lied in store for me. It became apparent of the differences between Negima!'s manga and anime and so I began to read the manga. This caused me to become interested in Manga and I soon began to look into other animes as well. I never thought that in the end I would have seen over 100 animes.
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Tenjen »

theres a gateway drugs joke in this.
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Re: What got you into Anime?

Post by Lokitsu »

@Gotoh: Robotech was kind of the final straw for me (in a good way). It was after watching it that I began actively looking for Japanese comics and cartoons. I didn't even know the terms anime or manga back then.
BUT, the anime that actually ruined American cartoons for me though was much earlier.

Star Blazers.

I was already growing tired of cartoons by then. All you had were Scooby Doo, Superfriends, and the Flintstones. Three of the most relentlessly repetitive series to ever bore a child to tears. Then one afternoon, a show airs which is nothing like I'd ever seen. There are no jokes for starters, in fact the premise is deadly serious. Earth is dying, an alien race has attacked and we've already lost. A ship is sent on a mission, not to stop the war, but to find a cure for the radiation from the bombs that have already devastated the planet's surface. If the crew of the Argo fails to retrieve a cure in less than one year, humanity DIES.

You couldn't have pried me away from the tv set with a crowbar. Especially when I found that each episode led directly into the next one. The first time I missed an episode, I think I cried. There were no VCRs back then and stations didn't usually replay series. For five days a week, for the next six months, Star Blazers was my raison d'être and (luckily for me) by the time it ended shows like Force Five (a collection of Go Nagai anime) and Battle of the Planets were taking its place. Although none of them replaced the crew of the Argo in my heart, at least until the SDF Macross arrived in the 80's.

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