I always love to see how different people came into there fandom for anime. Plus I like to see the different age gap in what brought people in. In other places that I would notice a thread like this many older folks would mention Battle of the Planets/G-force or Star Blazers. Where as the younger generation would mention DragonBall Z, or Sailor Moon. Then i've even seen the newest group to join anime fandom by using Inuyasha and Cowboy Bebop as there first titles.

So what was your first anime, or how did you end up becoming a fan of anime in general?

As I can't post a question without giving an answer, i suppose i'll go first.

I've only been into anime for about 12 years, maybe abit less, maybe abit more. Yet when I was younger I recall waking up really early in the morning to watch Robotech on Fox 28, at 5:30am.

But I really started to learn about anime in general when I was looking around at a blockbuster video store for some old robotech videos in the kids section. When asking the counter clerk if they had any in the kids section he redirected me to the Animation section and it was then that I saw cartoons that were not in the kids section. *chuckles* Save to say that I did find robotech that night, but I left with..*thinks*

-Outlanders
-Fist of the North Star
-Akira
-Project A-ko

After that night my eyes were open to different anime titles and put me where I am today. First title I ever bought though was the Ranma 1/2 movie 1. And that was after playing the Ranma 1/2 SNES Hard Battle game. *chuckles*

On that note I just noticed they released Outlanders on DVD today for a special edition or something like that. Guess i'll have to pick it up. ^^

Note: I didn't notice a thread like this anywhere else, if there is feel free to delete it. ^^

As a kid I used to watch Transformers.

Later, I saw a bit of Dragonball Z, but it didn't really draw me in at all.

The first show I saw knowing it was anime was Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, and the first series I saw to completion was Evangelion.

Starblazers/ Robotech were my firsts, followed shortly by the toonami stuff. The first ones I bought (besides Starblazers) were MKR and Lain, which I bought in tandom.

Dragonball Z started me off I frist saw it in Japenese :lolguy:

Before I knew it was anime, I used to watch the dub of Digimon all the time. The first series that I really started watching (and completed as well) was Angelic Layer.

I first got into anime while I was attending college. I believe that Ninja Scroll was the first anime that I watched, if you don't count the random stuff that I saw as a kid or in high school (like Voltron, etc.). The first anime that I bought were the OVAs for Oh My Goddess on VHS. I believe that Oh My Goddess was also my first manga series, too.

Most of what was shown on Nick Jr./Nickelodeon in the 80s started me off with anime, I just didn't know it.

I think that Sailor Moon officially started me, though. In April, it will have been a whole 10 years since I first saw Sailor Moon.

When I was younger I watched Voltron, but Dragon Ball was the show that really got me into anime.

My very first anime was probably "Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland". I also had the Speed Racer movie when I was a kid. Way back before I had a clue what anime was. Later, I was a Power Rangers-obsessed child who also occasionally watched DBZ with my Dad back when it was on, like, UPN or something. But I didn't care for it too much until much later.

Enter BKN. Weekday mornings on Fox. My favorite shows from that were Sailor Moon and Pokémon. Yeah, Pokémon was airing on Fox long before Kids' WB ever got the rights to it. Interesting, ne? At the same time, Toonami appeared on Cartoon Network, showing DragonBall Z and Ronin Warriors (I think anyway, they were wedged among Reboot, classic Godzilla, and Johnny Quest). I discover I really like the style of what I consider simply "new cartoons". I continue to watch things on Cartoon Network, Fox, and WB. Pokémon, Digimon, Monster Rancher, Escaflowne, Cardcaptors, Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, DragonBall Z, Sailor Moon, and Tenchi Muyo all ranked up in the beginnings of my anime fandom. I discovered what "anime" itself was when becoming active in the Tenchi Muyo FanFiction Archive. Soon, I meet up with some friends at Clark State who are into anime as well. With the subsequent watching of Akira, Ninja Scroll, Bastard!!, Generator Gawl, and Perfect Blue, I'm hooked. Adult Swim shows up on Cartoon Network, and my quest into otakudom begins. The rest, as they say, is history.

Which I guess is my cue.

Ok, so I watch a Voltron movie(and owned a bunch of story books about the series), saw an episode of Speed Racer, some episodes of Gigantor (not the orginal) on Sci-fi Channel, G-Fore on CN back in the day, and loved Grimm Fairy Tales when it was on Nickelodeon. I don't know if I really saw anything else before I really learned about anime.
I all I know is somewhere along the line I figured out Japan had a bunch of weird shows (with skantly clad women) and I wanted to learn more about it. I have hazy memories of what I think are mangas I read. I knew of two shows in this catagory that I wanted to see or read, A-ko and Dirty Pair. Interesting fact Dirty Pair made an apperance in the Marvel comic Excailbur one.
Eventually I ended seeing Sailor Moon and then Toonami. And somewhere there I learned that all of this was anime and that in America it got gutted for the most part.
Well I went on to take the Toonami and the basic channels (knowing that those ones were usely cutting a lot of stuff out) as my route to watch and learn more about anime. Now I too watch what's left of Toonami when I can (work Saturday nights, Adult Swim, and should soon be getting Netflixs and there's a lot of anime there.
I consider myself a Mid Level Otaku (high in passion for it but still kind of low in actual shows I've seen) just so you know.

I'd say it was Dragon Ball Z, my friends all liked it, but since I didnt have cable, I would read the manga, and that just got me into more manga, and as I got older I was able to afford anime, so I pretty much stopped reading manga at that point. (although I still do a little bit)

well mine were sailormoon and dragonballz, digimon, pokemon i had alot of anime at first

If you started seeing a lot of anime around the same time, you should list the one that really drew you into anime. Like, I had seen plenty of Speed Racer, Megaman, and Sonic before I got into anime, but it was really Star Blazers that drew me in and got me interested.
What was the show that made you start seeking out more anime?

Without a doubt it would have been Robotech on US airwaves for me. Without watching that and the desire to see more of it, i would of never ran across the anime section at blockbuster and would of never became the fan I am today.

The bigger question is what if you were not exposed to your first anime, how would you of become a fan? Would you of become a fan still?

If not for Robotech, odds are it would of been the introduction of Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle for the SNES. Playing that game with no understanding of the series and a lackluster instruction book intro to the series would of caused me to look into the series abit more deep. *chuckles*

My very first anime has to be.... Dragonball or Sailor Moon.

yeah, those are the ones that really got me into anime

Akira,Ghost in the shell,and Arimtage

then a few years later go hit by the dbz virus which i cured myself of about two years ago but now am in love with naruto.ohh sasuke XD but Akira was my first one I do believe

Ahh, this question...

My seeking of anime was caused in part by Robotech and furthured when I realized that there was something horribly wrong with Drag-onball Z. I was past the point of no return by the time I saw Galaxy Express 999. Video games also played a significant role in this.

Going back to the late 60's / Early 70's, I started with Kimba and Speedracer on local TV stations. (Pretty sure that was Channel 4 in Columbus back then.)

Progressed through the Star Blazers, Galaxy Express and Battle of the Planets late 70s.

Voltron, Thundercats, Shadowhawks '80s (Some of the crappiest anime of my life, although the 'US' stuff wasn't much better.)

1990s spent with 'Yatsura, Outlanders, Ranma. Not to mention my first hentai (Wicked City) and my first exposure to AMVs.

After a short time out of the otaku scene, back with a vengance in 2000 with Love Hina, Dragon Half and making my own AMVs.

Currently own about 30 different titles on DVD, about 10 old timers on video, 400+ fansub episodes of assorted shows on CD/VCD, and nearly 200 VCDs/DVDs of AMVs.

My first anime.. hm....


Well, It started off with the whole Pokemon rage. Then Digimon. Then Hamtaro. Then Tenchi Muyo and Sailor Moon...


That's pretty much how I got into. Then I found [adult swim] XD

the first anime I saw was probally robotech or lupin the 3rd.

Oddly enough, the series that really got me into anime/manga was the fourth series of that type I had seen. I enjoyed watching Megaman, saw Sailor Moon a couple of times, decided I didn't like DBZ. But one summer camp one of the other girls in my group had brought the first two books of Magic Knight Rayearth, and I've been hooked ever since. (Too bad that series was only six books long. ^_^)

My first anime was Speed Racer, after that i was hooked on anime and other cartoons. Then much later on (after watching non anime cartoons) i watched shows like DBZ, Ronin Warriors, X, Trigun and more <<<< good shows ^^

Mine was probably Vampire Hunter D. I was up really late one night years ago and they aired it on TBS. I really didn't like it much at the time, but I'm getting more and more into anime as the days go by.

And kudos to the user that posted saying they used to watch Transformers. That's just awesome. :)

I started with Voltron. XD Then I was OBSESSED with Thundercats. Like, scary Sailor Moon Fanboy, but with Thundercats. After that, anything on Toonami. XD

My first FIRST anime was Yu-gi-oh since Cartoon Network has a habit of grabbing the attention of anyone. I used to be fanatic of the show. When I look back at it, I realize how stupid that was and how much I was missing.

It was funny how I really got into hardcore anime, actually. It had been about a year after I had become a YGOtard, and I was reading SetoXJoey fanfics on FF.net, of all things. I had heard about Gravitation, and when the fanfic I had been reading mentioned it like a 100 other things had in that past week I was like, "I've got to find out what this Gravitation show is!" I went to the Hastings in my area and was amazed with the deluge of anime they had.

And that's how I got into anime. Kind of a long story, really. ^^()

I used to watch Sailor moon RELIGIOUSLY. I never really knew it was anime, until after I had seen Ghost in the Shell, and I felt I needed more "dark, comicbook-style cartoons", as my cousin called them for so long. When I moved back to Ohio, I really started to get into Cardcaptors, and then... We stumbled across a few volumes of The Wanderers and Record of Lodoss War at the local video store. I still have them, and I still love them, even though it took forever to DL the rest of Lodoss... TT-TT

I cry sad tears... But, I think Ghost in the Shell was my first serious anime. I've never gotten to see Sailor Moon subbed, but I'm working that out as we speak. =^^=

Now look at me... I'm a GDed pirate.... Chrno Crusade and Evangelion are the ones that did it for me though. I didn't realize how nerdy I was until I sat through EVA in one full sitting. No breaks. (I wanted to die... it warped my brain...)

And now anime is my life... Ah, it's like a crack addiction. You know it's not good to do it so much, but you just can't help yourself, because it makes you feel sooooo good.

lol, Quincy, I'm not sure if that's cool or not. I guess you won't know until 10 years from now when you're graduating college and you tell people "oh, I got into anime by reading gay porn when I was a little girl" ^_^

Princess Mononoke when it first came out, and outlaw star, i seriously could never follow the DBZ stuff

My first anime was Gundam Wing, I thought it was the shit for like 3 years. Then after i watched it all the way through a half dozen times, I found Ruroni Kenshin, and the japanese Naruto, along with One Piece. :domo:


Althought Princess Mononoke in theaters was kick ass aswell.

Inuyasha, digi mon, pokemon, and Sailor Moon were my first Animes I watched. I've been an anime freak for about 6 years now and proud!

My first anime would have to be Beast Wars(Transformers), Robotech, and Gundam Wing loved them all, and still watching Beast Wars again on G4 TV.

Nevermind the fact that all the Beast Wars that's available here was actually made by Mainframe Entertainment in Canada .... there were a couple Japanese-made seasons of Beast Wars (known as Beast Wars Second and Beast Wars Neo), but as far as I can tell, they've never been released here ...

Thundercats isn't anime either, but no one seems to care.

Yeah, it doesn't matter if it turns out later it wasn't anime. What matters is that it turned you onto it.

when I was a little kid, like, three or four, I watched Totoro for the first time 8D still one of my favorite movies, when I was around six I used to watch reruns of Gatchiman (G-force) on cartoon network, and Speed Racer, all of that old stuff, then later I was drawn to Tenchi Muyo and Sailor Moon, then there was Zoids and Outlaw star, but, all of these I watched without knowing they were anime! ^^; it wasn't until a few years ago I started watching Trigun on adult swim, and having my friend say "yeah, same stuff as all the other things you like, anime." I was like "whosawhat now? anime?" end of story xD; so I've always considered Trigun to have been my first anime, seeing as how I watched it knowing what it was. ^.^