What anime got you into anime?

[144_v1legacy]

It's hard to say. DBZ and such didn't get me into anime, it just got me into afternoon cartoons as a kid.
Cowboy Bebop didn't get me into anime, but it made me wonder if there were other Japanese animations that were deeper and "better" than the average show on TV while still operating on a different premise.
This lead me to Bleach, which had just started. I'm ashamed now that it's Bleach that got me into anime, since it's failed me, but that was the gateway. One Piece and Lucky Star would be the killing blows that kept me in anime.

 

[Casual Shinji]

In one of these shows, the villain has a horribly violent death, in another the hero commits suicide.

Ah, someone else who grew up on World Masterpiece Theater.

This was good stuff. It never shied away from showing some pretty dark things, like Pinocchio contemplating killing a boy for his heart. And the Wizard of Oz anime was the shit! We had the best dub of that show over here in Holland.

It's these shows that I can proudly say I'm glad I grew up with.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I suppose my first animes were the stuff I'd occasionally catch in the mornings before I went to school, like Dragonball Z and Samurai Pizza Cats. Then I got into shows like Pokemon and Cardcaptors on Saturdays mornings and weekday afternoons. *Sigh*... I miss those days...

 

[happyninja42]

Sadly, Inuyasha. This was because a friend was showing off anime at our highschool's Game Club. The concepts of mythological feudal Japan was extremely cool and new to me, because almost all of our American mythology is based off of christian and Greek myths. I tried watching some of the show last year or so, and it was unbearable.

Ugh, my sympathies xD

Inuyasha really got on my nerves, as it was HEAVILY infected with what I call the NO SHIT Syndrome for anime.


When the show spends several seconds/minutes of animation time SHOWING us something...and then the characters witnessing it pull a Captain Obvious on us and tell us exactly what we just saw happen. God it drives me nuts.

My favorite being an episode where the monk guy, I forget his name, encountered a female priestess, who turned into a giant Naga right in front of him. And we see the transformation too. I mean, it wasn't subtle, she was all "TAKE A LOOK AT ME NOW!! I'M COMIN OUT!! I WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW!! GOT TO LET IT SHOOOOW!" kind of attitude about the transformation, into a 20 foot long serpent woman. So what does the monk guy say in reaction?

*gasp* "The priestess!!....she turned into a giant serpent!!" @_@

.........NO SHIT!!!! xD

It's sadly a common problem in anime, but thankfully the ones that I actually like, don't seem to have much of it.

 

[AceTrilby]

Well, my first animes were probably Pokemon and Dragonball Z, which makes it even weirder that what got me 'into' anime was High School of the Dead. Not a great series by any means, but it was the first I bought and watched on a whim and everything spiralled from me.

However, I'd say what really influenced me to check out more anime was Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne, an (in my opinion) underrated series.

Also Studio Ghibli films, because who doesn't love them?

 

[Majinash]

Early Saturday morning on Sci-Fi they used to show an anime movie, around 7 AM (this might be '92-'94). The first one I saw I can't even remember the name of (robots take over the world, enslave humanity, hero in robot suit shows up ect ect), but after that, Tank police and Demon City Tokyo I actively sought out Anime. Then when we finally got Cartoon Network I was finally able to start watching a lot, early Toonami into adult swim later on.

For those of you who only watched Outlaw Star on Cartoon Network, you missed out on an entire episode!

 

[Signa]

Sadly, Inuyasha. This was because a friend was showing off anime at our highschool's Game Club. The concepts of mythological feudal Japan was extremely cool and new to me, because almost all of our American mythology is based off of christian and Greek myths. I tried watching some of the show last year or so, and it was unbearable.

Ugh, my sympathies xD

Inuyasha really got on my nerves, as it was HEAVILY infected with what I call the NO SHIT Syndrome for anime.


When the show spends several seconds/minutes of animation time SHOWING us something...and then the characters witnessing it pull a Captain Obvious on us and tell us exactly what we just saw happen. God it drives me nuts.

My favorite being an episode where the monk guy, I forget his name, encountered a female priestess, who turned into a giant Naga right in front of him. And we see the transformation too. I mean, it wasn't subtle, she was all "TAKE A LOOK AT ME NOW!! I'M COMIN OUT!! I WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW!! GOT TO LET IT SHOOOOW!" kind of attitude about the transformation, into a 20 foot long serpent woman. So what does the monk guy say in reaction?

*gasp* "The priestess!!....she turned into a giant serpent!!" @_@

.........NO SHIT!!!! xD

It's sadly a common problem in anime, but thankfully the ones that I actually like, don't seem to have much of it.

Thankfully, I only watched the subs, and there was a lot of likable aspects to the show. I remember one of the final arcs getting really good with the little brother of that giant boomerang chick, but the whole show was constantly about catching up to the bad guy, and then having him run away. If that wasn't happening, it was the main chick getting frustrated with Inuyasha for being lovable but not into her or some shit. It never developed or went beyond that. Then that non-ending was terrible too. "Oh, we are tired of making the show, but here's a movie coming up! No, it doesn't have anything to do with finishing the series, but watch it anyway!"

 

[Matey]

Was working night shifts and one of the other guys got us all to watch Trigun during our breaks... We've been friends ever since and I've been huge into anime ever since.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Outlanders and Project A-ko.

 

[wooty]

Aside from the obvious (Pokemon), the first one I watched was Seitokai No Ichizon. Just so weird and funny, and the obsession hasn't stopped since.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I watched a bunch of anime as a kid, Rurouni Kenshin, DBZ, Pokemon, Ranma, Mikami... the one show that "got me" into anime though was Cowboy Bebop.

 

[Rad Party God]

I honestly don't know, I was too little and anime has always been pretty much big and popular here in Mexico, I remember watching Sailor Moon casually in saturday mornings, also my cousins were into Saint Saiya (Knights of The Zodiac), I liked that anime, but I got into it until high school.

Specifically the very first one I truly enjoyed and I followed from beginning to end and I STILL enjoy it to this day is Dragon Ball, the very first one. I dread re-watching DBZ/GT, but the first one I always enjoy each re-watch, because of that adventurous feeling it had, that innocence, it's hard not to have a big grin in my face whenever I watch it

Spoiler: I still LOVE that intro.

In high school, Ghost in The Shell, Rirouni Kenshin, Saint Seiya, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop cemented in stone my unconditional love for anime. I recently watched Fullmetal Alchemist for the first time in Netflix and I loved it, also Attack on Titan, so yeah, I'm still a pretty big fan of anime

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Well, back when I was a kid, there were a number of dubbed anime shows I saw on TV, like Voltron and Saber Rider. But what actually "got me into" anime was Urusei Yatsura [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urusei_Yatsura], and I only noticed that because of this Matthew Sweet video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gQqR8x8dR4].

It's a pity that it's been many, many years since I fell off the anime wagon. One of these days I've got to sell or get rid of all those VHS tapes; it's not like I have a VCR anymore....

 

[Nubrain]

For me there are two answers to this question there is the show that got me into anime and the one that made me realize i was into anime. the first one I ever saw was the 80s version of Astro boy. it was something me and my sister loved and we would seek out anything that looked like it even though we didn't really know what it was. Pokemon, digimon, sailor moon, cardcaptors, speed racer random movies and ovas that were on vhs at local video stores. this was all well before the internet was really much of a thing so just looking up information on these shows was a no go.

Then I was a teenage and a little conflicted over still liking some cartoons when YTV showed the first four episodes of Gundam Wing and I first heard the word anime. you had to go online to their website a vote to see if they would continue the show. We had a computer with a dial up modem that was mainly being used for school work but i got on there pretty fast and in the comments on the site I learned just how deep the rabbit hole went. I've been a fan every sense though I probably became an otaku somewhere around the time that i discovered crunchyroll and had the income to actually by some of my favorites though I know my collection is still pretty small mainly due to limited space in my apartment and the ease at which I can watch most stuff online.

 

[Rad Party God]

In one of these shows, the villain has a horribly violent death, in another the hero commits suicide.

Ah, someone else who grew up on World Masterpiece Theater.

This was good stuff. It never shied away from showing some pretty dark things, like Pinocchio contemplating killing a boy for his heart. And the Wizard of Oz anime was the shit! We had the best dub of that show over here in Holland.

It's these shows that I can proudly say I'm glad I grew up with.

HOLY CRAP!, I remember that Swan Lake anime!, also that Pinocchio one and that Wizard of Oz one!, I REMEMBER ALL THESE!

When I was a kid, my second favorite hobby besides videogames was renting movies each weekend, I pretty much rented anything that cought my eye (I usually avoided the horror, drama and adult sections), I remember renting LOTS of anime knockoffs of Disney films (or so I thought they were) and I liked them a LOT.

Swan Lake is especially the one I remember the most, pretty badass for a classic fairy tale

 

[Alcamonic]

I think I was around the age of 8 years old when I saw the Swedish dubbed (apparently also one of the most faithful ones to the Japanese original in terms of censor and script) Sailor Moon and of course Akira (eng dub with swe sub if I remember correctly).
Of course a few years later I saw Pokemon (honestly, who didn't at the age of 10-13), when the craze completely flooded the schools.

But I was not completely aware of the concept of Japanese animation until circa year 16 when I saw an episode of the first Fullmetal Alchemist saga. I knew there was something about it that made it "different" from the western animation that we usually have. Obviously the Japanese speech was a dead giveaway, but also the art-style and the mixture of emotions that the characters actually show. This had escaped me when younger, mainly because of the dub.

TD;DR First Fullmetal Alchemist saga.

 

[Oly J]

my first one was Pokemon, but at the time I had no idea what anime was as I was very young, Dragon Ball Z was my next obsession (and one that I still indulge in to this day) and it was around then I learned what anime was, so yeah, Dragon Ball Z

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Code Geass, Steins Gate and Claymore were my first ones.

 

[kasperbbs]

I started watching anime before i even knew what it was, a bunch of shows aired on TV right after school, but i only liked DBZ from that lot, stuff like digimon, pokemon, sailor moon didn't interest me at all. Then one day i cought a glimpse of Hellsing airing late at night and i thought that it was the most bad ass cartoon i have seen in my short life so the next day i went to my friend with an internet connection and downloaded the whole show, then we found a couple of other great shows in the same category and we were hooked.

 

[Seracen]

I suppose I SAW anime well before I became conscious of it (Saber Riders and Robotech/Gundam/etc), but it never really caught my fancy until high school.

I remember seeing "Armitage III." I can't even recall what prompted me to buy it, probably the cool artwork (very "Blade Runner" feel). Still, after seeing that movie, the flood gates opened.

After that, the next big anime nostalgia for me was Toonami's Midnight Run. My fave lineup consisted of Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, and Tenchi. Barring Bebop, all these titles still remain in my top 10 (Bebop is somewhere in the teens for me...blasphemy I know).