Anime What was your introduction to anime?

[NobodyHere]

Pokemon, Inuyasha, and Ranma ½

For Ranma ½ pretty sure Shampoo was my first waifu. As I kid I really wanted her to get with Ranma; Looking back that was probably because I couldn’t marry her myself, I really wanted her to be happy.

Digimon was probably the first I founds and started watching by myself, leading me into my period of just watching anything and everything on ‘KissAnime’

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

Technically Pokemon, but I was too young to know it was anime specifically and not just a cartoon.

The first thing I saw that I knew was anime was the Street Fighter 2 movie

I loved Street Fighter and consumed anything remotely related to it, and this sent me down a rabbit hole to stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Rurouni Kenshin.

 

[Antilocal123]

Porn.

 

[Aisf]

Asides from Pokemon, my first introduction to anime was Card Captor Sakura and Sonic X. And some of the first adult anime I watched was ghost stories and Case closed.

 

[Vetusomaru]

My first anime I ever remember watching as a kid and still my favorite (also the first animated show I remember watching as a kid) is Igano Kabamaru.

As a kid I obviously didn't knew the existence of the term anime and I didn't knew the country origin of the animated shows/movies I was watching. Still I subconsciously preferred anime over American cartoon for being much more interesting, more violent, more mature, funnier, with better action, better animation/visuals, better soundtrack etc.

Besides the various anime that were aired on Greek tv, I grew up with anime VHS I was renting (and later copying) from video rental stores, with them having lots of anime they weren't aired in Greek TV. Especially ones that were much more mature for older audiences like Locke the Superman and Gall Force that SOMEHOW they were released and dubbed uncensored in Greece and even been found at the "for kids stuff" section since boomers had the philosophy "it's cartoon, therefore it's for kids". They kept doing that even till late '90s - early 2000s when boomers finally realized that not all cartoon are for kids.

 

[coleboo]

Other than perhaps Pokemon. My introduction came to anime in the form of Toonami. T.O.M. was the man giving us great shows like Rurouni Kenshin, Prince of Tennis, Naruto, DBZ, etc. I truly don't remember which iteration of Toonami I started with but I will always remember the MVP below. How were you introduced to anime? Whether dub or sub. I like both.
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Well we had a lot of anime on a Chanel called spacetoon and it aired a lot of old anime (action, slice of life, comedy you name it) but the first time I found anime as anime was death note on YouTube it was called something like death note anime ep4 and I didn't know what anime was so I watched it and liked it so I looked for more but I didn't know what to look for and I didn't know english at the time so I was just searching the words in the title until I searched anime and that's how I became aware of anime

 

[SolarSpectre]

Sailor Moon!

 

[mini pancake]

It's was with pokemon or saint seiya, one of these two

Post automatically merged: Mar 24, 2025

 

[RebelofDaNeonGod]

Like Most Americans my age, I first saw anime from Toonami. What anime was it? Was it Naruto? DBZ? IGPX? Gundam? Cowboy Bebop?

No

No it wasn't

 

[FlameSpice]

Serial Experiments Lain That me and My Dad used to watch.

 

[RageBurner]

Serial Experiments Lain That me and My Dad used to watch.

That's really cool.

 

[GardeniaSky's icon GardeniaSky GardeniaSky]

I was maybe 6 or 7 and a friend of mine showed me Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon.

A little bit later I saw Pokémon and got really into it.

 

[GuyZero32k4]

Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman) when it would air Saturday mornings in the US. As a wee child, I wondered what was up with the art style at the time. For it looking so different (in a good way) from the other cartoons being shown at the time. The different art style struck me as a child.
Didn't know what it was till I was older. Then in 1989, a public access show here would show anime on Saturday nights. It was here when they showed clips of Hokuto No Ken movie, and it blew my mind. "Anime it's called?" 2 weeks later, this show showed the movie Akira broken up to air multiple episodes. Timing couldn't have been more perfect, as Marvel began to publish the Akira manga during that time period. Hit the ground running watching anime ever since then.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Maybe Saint Seiya? Or Ulysses 31? Or even The Golden City?

I cannot properly remember which was my very first.

 

[Aeriththeflowergirl]

I think Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon were my first experience with anime before I even knew it was called anime. I don't think I ever heard of that term in the late 90s/early 2000s. Back then I wasn't interested in anime until around last year I wanted to start watching anime and I couldn't think of one until I remembered one... Sailor Moon!

 

[micheI]

Tokyo Ghoul.

 

[PKT]

My dad liked anime so I watched stuff like the original Dragon Ball when I was younger. Not an avid anime watcher now but I do dabble from time to time

 

[Jambhala]

Sword Art Online back when that came out, I loved the first season but fell off around the second.

 

[longestseason]

Doraemon (1979) was a classic for me growing up. I also watched Yaiba (1993), Hamtaro, Captain Tsubasa, Medabots, Rurouni Kenshin, Zatch Bell, Inuyasha, Naruto and Bucky: The Incredible Kid.

There's plenty more anime that were not mentioned, but these are enough examples. Back then I wasn't aware of the concept of anime, so for me these were simple and ordinary cartoons. Good times.

 

[MasterChiefX]

I had watched a few anime episodes beforehand, y'know Naruto, Pokemon, Digimon and all that good stuff. But what made me fall in love was Ninja Scroll. I rewatched that movie a lot as a kid. I still rewatch it every couple of years now.

 

[DanCalibur]

I had watched a few anime episodes beforehand, y'know Naruto, Pokemon, Digimon and all that good stuff. But what made me fall in love was Ninja Scroll. I rewatched that movie a lot as a kid. I still rewatch it every couple of years now.

Ninja Scroll always reminds me of this masterpiece from the 240p days of Youtube.

 

[MadzombieBane]

Before it was either pokemon or yugioh that brought the idea to me but my first true intro to anime was the anime D-Greyman. An anime rmbr nothing abt but i do rmbr watching it lol

 

[rugal]

anime that did get me to be a otaku later in life
when i did first watch these anime i was just a small kid so i did not know att the time it was anime


silver fang was the first real anime i did watch at the time we did not have the whole series just the first 8 ep
first time i watch it i was 5 years old
had horrible nightmares after watching
still to this day one of my most favorit anime

call of the wild
i did watch it alot with my family when i was a kid
the first time i did watch it
i thought it was so sad and brutal. the story really did touch my heart
i remeber crying most of the time when i watch it

saber rider and the star sheriff
we did only have a few episode on vhs it was all a kid could dream of it was space ships old west and giant robots
the storie was fun and dynamic

sailor moon
me and my sisters did watch season 1 and 2 when it did air on tv
it was fun and the hero was different from all the other heroes at the time because she was so clumsy many times she was so afraid
sailor moon was a crybaby


sandy bell
rose of versailess
we did not have the whole series at the time just 4 episode
did watch it alot

 

[JusaikiJusaiki's icon]

I guess I can speak on behalf of the middle eastern my age since it was kinda similar experience to yours
where you all got toonami and got introduced to anime in early 2000s that way, we also had a channel that showed anime and dubbed it in Arabic called SPACETOON
What spacetoon did was special they put care and love in bringing these shows and dubbing them in Arabic and make it sound beautiful and iconic at the same time, not only the shows were good but also the music to this day get billions of views on YouTube because the way they made the format of the anime openings where basically turned them into rhythmic poetic songs
the shows they were showing include:
-HUNTERXHUNTER 1999
-DBZ
-THUNDER JET
-CONAN
-NARUTO
-ONE PIECE
-SLAM DUNK
-BEYBLADE
-KAMENRIDER
-FIST OF THE NORTH STAR
-Digimon
-Monster rancher
- bakugan
-gundam
and a lot more