Did you know it was anime?

Absolutely not. I watched the usual Voltron and Battle of the Planets when I was a kid, and loved them, but had no idea they were Japanese. Then, when I was 12 or 13 I discovered Robotech, and became obsessed with it. I did learn that it was Japanese, but I didn't know there was an entire industry in Japan putting out high quality, well written animation. I guess I assumed it was some kind of fluke. It wasn't until one day at lunch in high school when a friend of mine slapped a VHS tape of Bubblegum Crisis on the table in front of me and told me to take it home and watch it that I really learned what anime was. I was probably about five or ten minutes into it, astounded by the visuals and music, that I realized that the characters weren't speaking English! It was 1988, and Bubblegum Crisis was brand new in Japan, and years away from being imported and subbed (much less dubbed, which was a mistake and should never have been done). It was that day when anime became my lifelong addiction.

And for those of you who "grew up watching Toonami," you should feel privileged to have grown up in the Golden Age of Anime. Still, collecting anime before there was an internet was a much more personal experience, where networks of fans traded movies in clubs. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I bet Funkgun knows exactly what I'm talking about.
 
Trading? clubs? Say what? There tweren't no sucha thing where I grew up (or if there was, it was 1,000% underground). My only access to anime back in the 80s & 90s was what little was aired in syndication/nickelodeon and the even littler that was available in local rental stores.
I do remember renting bubblegum crisis (I think only the first 2 or 3 eps, whatever they had jammed onto 1 tape, since the store didn't have any more in the series) dubbed version, and tank police dubbed, and a macross one subbed.
 
I recently read an article about a guy watching stuff in the 90s on VHS fansubs, it was pretty interesting, I'll see if I can find it again.
 
vhs fansubs ...now that does take me back....and anime trading did take place mostly at colleges and such ..i knew several people who were students and they did my trading for me ..it was informal ..you know i have this what you got ..?? then we got some video rental stores not much selection but some...it really changed when dvds and dling came about...now it is idl ...so easy and there is so much...
 
i had no idea my precious moomin and sailor moon which i watched since i was maybe 4 years old was anime. same some years later with pokémon. i learned what it was when i was like maybe 13 or even 14 when hack//sign aired and it wasn't dubbed and around the same time a guy at school introduced me to naruto and manga and my mind was blown because there was SO MUCH.

funny thing is this bookstore i used to go to, i always thought this almost like back room was for porn or something so i never went in there. but around this time i found out it was in fact where they kept the manga. for a long time i always felt dodgy for going in there T^T
 
The answer to that absolutely has to be no, but then I'd say at least half if not more of the cartoons I remember watching when I was a kid on French TV in the 80's were of Japanese origin, or at least a co-production. I did watch them all dubbed... I'm not going to name them all 'cos there were so many. In fact the only cartoon theme tune I could remember that wasn't an anime one was probably Inspector Gadget, and that was also partly animated in Japan...

I didn't watch anything knowing it was anime until Spirited Away, I think.
 
Dragonball Z, Pokemon, Cardcaptor Sakura (Or Cardaptors), Shaman King, Yu-gi-Oh... I had no idea at the time. :P

And yes I had toonami. It was my favourite channel and got me through sick days.
 
just found out that vicky the little viking is anime
so i guess thats the first anime i ever saw
and in rewatching the first ep even today id nvr have guessed it was anime
 
with me, I didn't know it was Japanese anime, I am a big time animation freak, I prefer animation over live action most times. so it was no surprise. been watching it all my life, but when I started researching Japanese culture and learned of Japanese animation and the likes, I got curious. I've always known of foreign films (live action) but when I learned of Japanese animation I just had to get and watch more and I have no regrets that I did.
 
Drahken said:
When you saw your first anime, did you KNOW it was anime, or did you just think it was an ordinary cartoon at the time?

When I first saw my first anime, I knew nothing of anime & thought it was just an ordinary cartoon. Later I gradually learned what anime was (though I was still unclear for a while, I thought it was the more mature/higher quality toons aimed at older kids, instead of the kiddie stuff, it was some time later that I learned of it's japanese origins & the fact that much anime is actually everybit as kiddie as so many western toons).
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Pokemon. No I didn't know at first.
 
My first anime was Transformers (1985-87) and no I was 3, I didn't know "anime" existed. I just knew that Tranformers: The Movie was one of the most amazing movies I'd ever seen, and I must have rented it like 2o times. It's still one of my favorite movies.
 
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Nope, my first anime was Hamtaro, and that was when I had no idea what "anime" was. I really only found out when my friend got me into Detective Conan/Case Closed and my dad got me into Kimba the White Lion around the same time in 2007.

All I remember before 2007 in regards to most anime (the stuff that was on Toonami anyway), I wasn't a fan of because I initially didn't like the look and the loudness annoyed me.
Guess my tastes changed severely :laugh:
 
I did, due to seeing early Ghibli stuff. Japan was way ahead of most American animation at the time and some were grittier. ex: Akira. I guess it was because I was animation freak since I was 6 or so. In the early days, it was not called anime but Japanimation.
 
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Kruszer said:
My first anime was Transformers (1985-87) and no I was 3, I didn't know "anime" existed. I just knew that Tranformers: The Movie was one of the most amazing movies I'd ever seen, and I must have rented it like 2o times. It's still one of my favorite movies.
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G1 transformers wasn't anime, though most of the later series have been (or at least simulrelease coproduction type stuff).
I quite agree about tf:tm being awesome though. I watched it in the theater for my 11th Bday party, right after it came out, I was blown away. Seeing transformers on the big screen, seeing a non-kiddie animated movie, seeing a movie with a rock suondtrack, it was pure awesome.
 
I only knew that it was anime because of my mother. She would always read manga & later on she would watch the Anime version of it so one day I kind of went on her iPad ( loool this was a long time ago I think it was the first iPad to ever come out) but she brought an episode of NANA on ITunes Store and I watched it and fell in love . ( that was about 10 years ago) , Without my mother or me sneaking on her iPad I would have never known what an anime was
 
We had no kids channel when I was little, but they aired Maya the Bee, 80 Days Around the World With Willy Fog, and Moomin along with Czech and American cartoons in the morning on regular channels, so I had no idea. I actually found out it's anime about a year ago, and I'm still in denial (especially with Maya).
Pokemon I knew, because all the adults were making fun of it for being Japanese. And I also watched Mononoke Hime with my family when it aired on TV, and then a few years later I watched Spirited Away on my own, and those I knew were anime.
 
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