What was your first anime show or film?
For me? The first anime related thing I saw as a kid was Spirited Away on VHS, I was awestruck from the animation and quality of the film.
For shows it would’ve been the usual Pokemon and DBZ. As I grew older I suppose my first proper anime show was watching streams of Neon Genesis Evangelion due to people talking about it at school.
So what about you? What did you see first?
Chobits
Oh man, I haven’t heard that word in awhile. Chobits was a fun one.
It was the year of our lord 1990, I was 5 years old, and the time was somewhere after midnight. I had snuck out of my room and into my grandparents basement to sneak some late night tv.
The original Vampire Hunter D was playing and I had no idea what it was, but it was amazing. The guy had a hand that ATE things!!!
I didn’t realize what it was until around 8th grade when I started getting into the standards of DBZ and Sailor Moon… I expanded drastically from there once I realized I could, spent around $4000 on manga throughout highschool and found a little hole in the wall DVD rental shop on the local college campus with a wall of anime DVDs and VHS tapes.
I think my first late night tv adventure was seeing Akira and having absolutely no idea what was going on.
Dude, you could relive that, watch it TODAY, and still have no idea what was going on.
Almost like watching it for the first time again.
Pokemon for TV, movie would probably be Laputa.
dbz and pokemon as well but only when id catch it between other activities. Didn’t actually sit through an entire anime until high school where my friend borrowed me Cromartie High.
First film was probably the first Pokémon film in theaters.
My parents bought me My Neighbor Totoro when I was a kid. I absolutely loved every second of it. Then I came across Ranma 1/2. Next came Kiki’s Delivery Service. It kind of snowballed after that.
Akira. I saw it playing on a TV behind a table at a pop culture market and got my own copy (on VHS. Yes, I’m so old that bits are starting to drop off) to find out how it ended.
Edit: Now I come to think about it, I used to watch Science Ninja Team Gatchaman on TV as a preteen. Can’t remember the english title.
First show was probably Voltron. First film was probably Vampire Hunter D.
Toonami became a big part of my life, and there was a small theater downtown that did showings of Miyazaki and such. I remember seeing Metropolis there, too.
I owe a lot to those scrappy little enterprises, taking a gamble that there would be an audience for this stuff.
Akira, as was common at the time. Not counting stuff like Robotech or Speed Racer that I wouldn’t have known was anime.
I remember watching Totoro as a child not knowing it was an anime. Later I watched The Guyver (1989 OVA) on VHS at my cousin’s. Evangelion and Lodoss War were the first fansubs I watched knowing they were Japanese.
Evangelion was pretty early on my list too, stuck with me though to this day as my all-time favorite anime.
Yu Yu Hakushou. I didn’t even realize the name is Yu Yu Hakushou until years later. I only remember thinking the delinquent guy with a laser sword and a guy shooting energy balls from the finger tip’s pretty cool.
Akira
I also watched Pokemon and DBZ when I was young, not even knowing about anime.
In highschool I thought “What is anime? Let’s give it a shot”. I opened up Hulu and somehow picked out Non Non Biyori. Looking back, it was a banger choice.
I’m surprised only a handful of people have mentioned Ghibli movies. For me it was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, it’s probably one of the first movies I remember watching in general. Still my favorite Ghibli movie and I must have watched it dozens of times as a kid.
The source material for it is a manga by Miyazaki himself and it’s much longer and deeper (the movie only covers about 1.5 out of 7 volumes, and changes a lot of details). Highly recommended.I think it was Bleach on adult swim at night as a kid after all the other stuff like robot chicken and aqua teen hunger force ended. Could also be DBZ though
Not sure if everyone would consider it “anime” as it’s more a hybrid of US and Japanese, but “Flight of Dragons.” It felt very stylistic and deep to a young me, and showed me animation could be serious.
As to specifically watching anime as a known thing, Toonami shows pulled me in. I caught DBZ flipping through the channels and I started watching that and Outlaw Star.
Met a friend that was into it and he lent me Iria: The Zeiram, Armitage 3, Ghost in the Shell, Vampire Hunter D, and eventually a few others.
