How did you get into anime?

What made you start watching anime? What was the first anime you watched?

I actually started watching anime because of this Harry Potter forum. There is a thread on villains and someone was talking about Orochimaru. He sounded like an interesting villain so I decided to check out Naruto. I fell in love with from the very beginning! Then I decided to check out other animes and I have been an addict ever since.

We have a gaming magazine in South Africa that at one time featured an anime section on its cover DVD. I watched the video clips of the different anime, liked what I saw of Gunslinger Girl, and the rest is history...

I always like them, they were the things I watched every day after school when I was younger and on weekends. Can't say when it started, but it's a long long long fanish love.

I used to sit in Borders for hours and read every day after school and eventually I decided to have a look at the manga section. Read a few short series and then I started reading Death Note which lead to me watching the anime for it and the anime for other series.

I can't remember o_O But the first anime I saw was Hellsing and Kino no tabi and after that I just continued watching more but now I've replaced anime with dramas.

We used to get a fair few dubbed anime shows on TV when I was little, so I guess it really began there...that, and Sailor Moon on VHS. Manga came a little later for me, and even after I'd gotten into it, the lack of availability in bookshops was frustrating- I've learned not to depend on retail channels in India to find out what's going on wth my favourite mangas :). Though even now, I wouldn't call myself a manga nut, since I only follow a few series..

My first anime show was Pokemon. When I was nine, I was literally ADDICTED to it. After that, I started watching Beyblade, and I thought the anime toons were awesome! :drool:

Actually it was my little brother! I always watched pokemon and digimon when i was younger i was hooked on those shows i remeber running home from school because Pokemon started at 3:00 and Digimon at 3:30, I still watch the re-runs, I also used to love SailorMoon but that was only on,on Saturdays, i would wake up at 7 so i could watch all the episodes! :lol: But My little brother is really into Manga, i know this because ive fed his addiction with my wallet, but its cool that hes into that stuff, so im glad to do it! its the only reading he does, and he got me into. after all if im gonna be buying them for him all the time, i wanna read it too! The library in our hometown didnt carry alot of the books, But we recently moved and theres a whole store here dedicated to Manga and Anime things! Its his world, he lives in that shop!lol So i guess through him i cant help but like it! Our favorite is Naruto,( he follows so many i cant keep up with all of them) which i watch with him every week,or when ever its on.( i gave him the Dvd collection for christmas last year, his face was priceless!) :p

I just always loved it. I didn't watch it much due to not having cable at the time, but Sailor Moon would once in a while come on tv...I was too young then to really get into it, but i did like the art...But I have to give all the credit to the beloved Pokemon. :lol: I saw it one morning and I just loved the style from then on.

Pokemon? Like everyone my age. Once I got into Pokemon there was DBZ and Gundam. Oh man! Those were some fun times.

Anime is just in me now.

<3, Tigga.

I was channel surfing as usual when I happend upon Carttoon Network. I saw a bit of Gundam Wing and was hooked.

i used to watch the original transformers when i was really little, and then a few years ago i would watch the ones that came on Adult Swim at like 3 in the morning and i got really into Fullmetal Alchemist. I stopped watching for a couple years and then on New Years my best friend literally forced me to watch Bleach to the point where i couldnt stop. After that it was just one anime after another. then i started reading the accompanying mangas...

Hmmm... way back when the BBC actually had some variety. BBC2 used to have a sort of Manga/anime night on Friday nights... probably about 10 years ago now. Well, I should say morning, since they'd usually play them after midnight (often after Space Above and Beyond, but that only ran for one season I think) but that gave me my first introduction to the likes of Space Battleship Yamato, Gundam and a few other well known anime shows. I eventually discovered Akira and Studio Ghibli and that's that. I still consider myself a relative newby to anime though... there are a lot of famous titles I've yet to get around to watching.

I got into anime when my older sister let me watch Inu-Yasha. It was a few years ago and it came on AdultSwim.

My first were Pokemon and Digimon! Then, I really got into shoujo manga and watched a few anime series. Unfortunately, I have more access to manga and anime DVDs are sooo expensive so I don't watch it enough!

The first anime I ever saw was Speed Racer, which I was addicted to as a child, but I wasn't aware that it was Japanese at the time, and I had never even heard of anime. After that I watched Pokemon, Digimon, and DBZ, but I was only vaguely aware that they were Japanese, and I still hadn't heard of anime. The first time I actually knew I was watching anime was probably either Inuyasha or Gundam Wing, but I can't remember clearly.
BTW, thanks for starting this thread, Artemis. It's brought back some fond memories that I haven't thought of for years.

The first time I remember seeing a real anime, was when my mum brought home Fruits Basket on DVD from our local library.

As I got older my mum told me when I was little I use to watch Sailor Moon. Then I realized I spent half my life watching Pokémon and Digimon.

So I guess I've been watching anime all my life.

My boyfriend was watching Bleach and Nauruto at the time. I was bored over the summer holiday, and missing him, so I thought I'd try one of them, I was talking to Tenshi on MSN and she said to try Bleach, so I started that. I started watching Deathnote later the same year. I've seen a couple of episodes of Nauruto too but Nauruto himself really annoys me so I only ever see it when my boyfriend is watching an episode

Inuyasha :D I never watched Pokemon or Digimon 'cause when that was the big thing, my parents were mean about how much TV they'd let us watch, and they definitely wouldn't let me buy Pokemon cards and stuff, so I kinda got left out of that craze. Couple of years ago, I started reading manga, and then Lunara got me into Fruits Basket and Inuyasha, and 'cause I couldn't find any early Inuyasha chapters (bookshops around me only started stocking non-Tokyopop manga like, six months ago, and Inuyasha's translated by Viz, and back then I didn't know where to get scanlations, or even that you could) I started watching the anime on YouTube instead.
And then I watched Bleach and got involved in that fandom, and it sort of spiralled out of control...it's been less than two years, and I'm a complete otaku :p

While I first watched Pokemon, I wouldn't count it because it was definitely part of the fad. That was in about, let's see, fifth grade I think. By the time I got to Middle School, I didn't have many friends but my brother and I were really close, so I hung out with him a lot. He watches a lot of anime. I don't know why, but I sat down with him one afternoon and I watched DBZ. It was a late episode in the series, the one where Gohan is teaching Goten to fly...From then on, it came a momentary obsession between the two of us and we own about a couple dozen DBZ/GT tapes, Yu Yu Hakusho DVDs, and Inuyasha manga books. And though its not longer an obsession, we both still watch it and its definitely still "our thing" to do together.

In college, I had an Asian roommate, who loved anime. I was a casual watcher of Dragonball Z, Trigun, and Lupin the 3rd before that, but he got me hooked on Rurouni Kenshin in particular, as well as Samurai Champloo and One Piece. The next year, I discovered Naruto.

I'm just bumping all kinds of threads in this subforum. :D

I have to say it was Sailor Moon when I was younger. :lol: Maybe about ten years ago now? My sister and I were hooked. We used to watch it every day after school until my mom got fed up, after which point we would be sneaky and set the timer on her VCR to record it in her bedroom while we did our chores with her downstairs.
After that I watched a bit of Dragonball and Dragonball Z, but then kind of went away from the for a while. When I was nineteen my husband had me watch Cowboy BeBop, and since then if I can get a hold of a series, I'll watch it.

Funny how many of us had Sailor Moon as our first intro to anime :lol:. That was more or less it for me, too- and then later in life I discovered IRC and haven't looked back since.

:lol: I was so in love with that show! I used to watch the tapes, and I've still got some. I have been wanting to get the series so I can watch it in the original Japanese with no stuff cut out from it.

Ooh, the original Japanese series is fantastic- I could never get used to the English voices after I'd heard the Japanese voice cast :lol:.
I think Amazon should have what you're looking for, so good luck!
http://www.amazon.com/Bishoujo-Senshi-Sera-Complete-Movies/lm/R28IIKDOVEC7SL

Ack! It's on my list. :lol: I've actually got a couple of things I really really liked in line in front of it as far as purchasing goes. I found that I really absolutely fell in love with Elfen Lied when I watched it recently.
But it is true for most animes for me that once I hear it in Japanese I don't want a dubbed version.

I got into anime because of Pokemon. First I got into the TV show then I got all the games on the GameBoy.

I was 11 when the Pokemon fad was at it's peak.

After that I got into other japanese RPG games which were similar to anime and also DBZ.

Didn't really watch much anime until Naruto came out a bit later on.

It was Spirited Away that got me into Anime, after that I just tried to get my hands on anything anime. It was great. I love that stuff, and even now I'm always searching for something new. Plus I'm getting my friends into as well.

I'm not really sure about the exact time...
I mean come on, Cartoon Network has a bunch of anime
and we don't even know it's anime until we really get stuck into a show.
I remember watching Toonami when I was six and I had no idea what was the difference between American and Japanese cartoons!! (until later:lol:)

So, I got into anime when I became a huge fan of Digimon...
I still wasn't a friki until I got stuck with Sailor Moon and then Naruto
followed by Kaleido Star.
After that I easily got freaked out by an anime:whistle:
That's why I'm one of the main members of the Friki Maidens Club:lol:

Yeah I started with 4Kids and Pokémon in my younger days then came Yu-Gi-Oh until i got onto the hard stuff which started when a friend suggested Ruruoni Kenshin which I absolutely loved. Then another friend suggested Bleach and got to Naruto from there, both I love immensely.

I was never "into anime" getting right down to it. I grew up with it without even knowing it. Thinking back, I watched a lot of Japanese animated stuff. Quite a few shows that Nickelodeon used to show back in the 80s were imported, dubbed over shows and I enjoyed them. I didn't even realize what anime (Japanimation, rather), until maybe the early 2000s.

Well I watched Pokémon and Tenchi In Tokyo as a kid, without knowing it was anime. But I started to really get in to it when I was around 13.
I was bored one day and seen an advert at the site of a website I was on for Naruto. I said I'd look it up and see what it was like, cause I had heard it being mentioned. Once I seen the first 10 episodes, I was hooked and I watched Naruto from when I woke up untill I went to sleep most days untill I caught up with where it was. Then when I had to wait for the new episdoes (this was before I discovered manga lol), I looked up different anime to keep me going and started watching Bleach, Death Note, FMA.. etc. And it led to the anime obsession I have today :P

My sister had gotten a box set of one of the Sailor Moon disks. It came with one disk and one of the books. When she moved out of the house she left it to me and I watched it and was like, "Omg! This is so cool!" I was about 7-8 at the time. And then I found that someone was dropping off copies of it to the old used bookstore my dad always went to, and it was a gold mine! 8D So I ended up with maybe 14 of the books(about half which my friend said she "lost"). Then I bought the entire series on dvd off of eBay! That took forever for me to earn, but I did! And then I started looking for more and more! And here I am today! Anime lover to the core and cosplayer to the world! ♥♥♥

Almost all of my friends at school were Asian and very much into anime/manga. I dismissed it as 'lame' for about three years :lol: Then I started hanging out in Boarders and thought I'd try reading something. The first manga I picked up was Death Note and I was hooked. Now about 6 years later I own hundreds of manga and about 100 anime DVDs :D

My older sister--she heard about this Manga (japanese picture novel) from her friends called Fruits Basket... then she told me about it, and we started reading it together--and I fell in LOVE with it!! I'm still not finished the series, I'm waiting for the next translated volume to come out and I'm so excited!!
after reading that I found out it was made into an anime, but the anime sucks and Natsume Takaya-san made them cancel it XD disgraaace.... anyways then I started getting into InuYasha, FullMetal Alchemist (gwa!), Yami No Matsui (aka Descendents of Darkness), Code Geass (um yes the epicness threw me out of my chair a few times) Book of Friends (X3) Ouran High School Host Club---holy **** sorry i'm seriously not going to name everything I've seen that'll take forever...
anywyas, FRUITS BASKET
is still by far the most epic manga I have ever read, the creativity and story line is pure artistic genious and as you go further into the story you experience the transition through her artwork and how it evolves seriously its so amazing no one should go through life without reading it...
and anime--is my lover.
oh hills no, what would be epic is if Harry Potter was morphed into anime!!!
....i'd watch it.... *glances about*

Oooooh theres so many that got me hooked

Some of them would have to be-
Dragon ball
Pokemon
Yigioh
Princsess monoke
Card captors
and the list goes on...

Sailor Moon definitely got me interested as a little kid. Then along came Pokemon, and then Dragonball Z. I wasn't really as big a fan when I was younger, then I watched Princess Mononoke and I've been hooked ever since.

Doraemon & Yaiba for me when I was five. When I turned eight my uncle got me into CLAMP titles, manga translated into Mandarin which I did not understand at all and just stared at the 'pretty pictures' and the rest has all just been a big hazy blur. I'm still (very much) in love with BLEACH at the current moment and I really, really want everyone to read Dr. Slump (Akira Toriyama's masterpiece before Dragonball Z)! It's such a fantastic series, you're crazy enough to not read it. :)

First anime: Pokemon
First anime that got me into anime: Karin (Chibi Vampire)

My sister had gotten a box set of one of the Sailor Moon disks. It came with one disk and one of the books. When she moved out of the house she left it to me and I watched it and was like, "Omg! This is so cool!" I was about 7-8 at the time. And then I found that someone was dropping off copies of it to the old used bookstore my dad always went to, and it was a gold mine! 8D So I ended up with maybe 14 of the books(about half which my friend said she "lost"). Then I bought the entire series on dvd off of eBay! That took forever for me to earn, but I did! And then I started looking for more and more! And here I am today! Anime lover to the core and cosplayer to the world! ♥♥♥

I want the the Sailormoon magna so bad. By the time I realized what Magna was it weas out of print. I was able to get a a couple of E-bay.

Well back to the topic like many it was Sailormoon. I was up one night and surfing the channel's and came across it on Cartoon network or toonami. Don't know which one it was at that time, I think I was catching it at midnight or something. I caught it when they find out who each other are and when Mina first comes.

Didn't know what it was at that time and then I watched the Sunday line-up of Pokemon and CardCaptor Sakura(forgot the dubbed name). Still didn't know what I watching.

Then I came across Dragonball Z one day and did more research and finally I knew what I was watching and been hooked ever since.

Oooh! It was Sakura Card Captor which caught me, but after watching Pokemon and Dragon Ball I just knew anime was my thing! Of course I didn't knew it was anime until I was older, but when I was little all I knew was I liked 'the pretty drawn ones'. the only normal cartoon that I actually liked was Ginger. Arnold, Rocket POwer and all that were good, but I never liked them because of the drawings.

Anybody into anime and feels like being a bit creative head over here (http://cosforums.com/showthread.php?p=5414284#post5414284). Should be a lot of fun.

oooh....Digimon and Sakura Card Captors;pUsed to wacth so much when I was a child, I was ADDICTED!!!! Even though I didn't know it was anime back then, due to my curiosity, two years ago i remembered card captor due to me and my friend playing a digimon vs. battle game (went searching in the forgotten play station 1 games), so when i went on youtube to search for card captor , an anime called Tsubasa Chronicles popped up. I used to think cartoons was for children.....i was a real steriotype.....and yet i clicked on the video;p When I saw the Tsubasa op, Sakura and Syaoran were all grown up, and episode one just happened to be right there. Once again, I'm a very curious person and someday that will be the death of me, so I clicked on episode one, and it was like magic;p So awesome, just had to have more!!!! So Tsubasa led to the Prince of Tennis, which led to D. Gray Man, which led to many others and currently to Katekyo Hitman Reborn;p Sugoine, huh?

I got into anime because of Toonami.

I use to watch DragonBallz all the time.
As well as Outlaw Star and the first animes that were shown on that program.

Definitely in 1995 after reading an article on anime in Newsweek, i was 14 back then i rented Akira and Vampire Hunter D, i loved them very much.

My sister was into anime and then she got me into it. My first (or one of the firsts) was Dragonball Z. :D

I was always (and still am) an animation nut so anime was just a natural progression for me. To start with, I didn't really have much idea where to start so I randomly bought the Oh My Goddess! OVAs on VHS (ahhh, VHS- £12.99 for half an our, dub only- those were the [rubbish] days! Hurrah for DVD boxsets!) and some other stuff- Gunsmith Cats, Dragon Half, Tenchi Muyo, Catgirl Nuku Nuku etc. I never had cable so I wasn't able to see much on TV, although I later found out that 2 of my very favourite kids shows- Sherlock Hound and Mysterious Cities of Gold, were anime.

I actually got into manga first when my friend at summer camp introduced me to Fruits Basket. I started watching the anime version soon after and got hooked to both manga and anime

I grew up in Thailand, so I was a mad pokemon fan when I was little. But really, I started actually watching anime after I stumbled across Naruto (as so many others have), haha! I came across a Sasuke/Sakura shipping video on youtube and it hooked me immediately. Eventually, this led to anime like InuYasha and Rurouni Kenshin...:)

I don't like to watch anime too much. But my friend said me to watch a new series named as Naruto Shippuden . It was such a great show. It was quite good experience to see this anime series. I am also waiting for the Avatar the last airbender season 4 premiere. Hope it airs soon.

What made me first start watching anime. Well nothing really I just found a few anime shows then it grew from there. My first anime I guess would of been Loveless.

My friend make me addict to watch anime shows and I just start watching a new anime series called Naruto Shippuden

I had always liked anything from Studio Ghibli growing up, but then I did an anime course as a part of my film degree and became addicted

What caught and hooked me to anime was Adult Swim. I think it hilarious that that kind of programming occurs on late-night on Cartoon Network, which has an entirely child viewer-base. Now that's just awesome decision-making. :) Anyway, the very first anime that I ever saw was probably InuYasha. I loved it immensely and immediately searched for more.

I watched loads of it when I was younger, like Kiki's Delivery Service and other wonderfully enchanting animes, and then recently I got hooked on it as a teenager last year. Since March 2009 I've been watching Asian dramas. Last year I watched the Death Note live-action movie, and this past November I just decided to watch the anime and it was awesome! I've always had a fondness for anime though; it's great.

It was my boyfriend at the time, now my husband, who introduced me to anime. He showed me Haibane Renmei, which is still one of my favorites. Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro were some of my first Miyazaki films.

Now I'd say that Miyazaki's films are my favorites, including Ponyo, Castle in the Sky, Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service. I also enjoyed other Studio Ghibli films like Whispers of the Heart and Only Yesterday.

I had to read a Graphic novel for English so I chose the first book of Bleach. Fell in love with it of course. After that I started to read about 2 a day. It was so hard to do my report because I was constantly changing books, having finished the first one. :P unfortunatly I didnt get very far. My school library doesnt have many. So I started watching the anime. :D

The first anime I ever watched was Pokemon and I became addicted. I still am. So, Pokemon started it for me. But it was around 1999/2000 when I started to get into more anime. I began watching Toonami on Cartoon network and that is when I got into other anime like Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon and Tenchi Muyo! After that I started watching as much anime as I could. Too bad Toonami is gone. I wish it were still around because no other channel plays Sailor Moon, the old DBZ, or Tenchi Muyo! anymore.

I was 9 years old when they played Saint Seiya on TV, that changed my life, I have been a fan since then.

The earliest anime I can remember watching regularly and knowing it was anime was Sailor Moon. What got me into Anime was the Robotech dub and, later on, the old Dragonball Z dub (The fact that they both aired alongside Sailor Moon during Classic Toonami was just a perk). I also watched Pokemon whenever I could in the mornings; I think it was those four together that really got me into Anime.

I got into anime from these forums years ago.
Several cos members kept using Spirted Away graphics as their signatures and Jessica and lanifiel recommended Fruits Basket.

One words: Pokemon. When I was little :p Also a friend lend me Vampire Knight the manga and I loved it :) Then I watched the anime. After that, it was really hard to find a good anime, until another friend introduced me to Maid-sama :)

My first anime was Sailor Moon. I saw it when I was REALLY little and just kept watching anime from then on. It helped that Toonami was the coolest thing ever.

*plooka plooka*

Interesting to think back to when I got interested into anime and manga. I read manga first. I was studying up Japan (to learn about my ancesters culture) and found out that they have their own art (Eastern Style). I soon found myself curious, and googled "Anime". The first thing I read was Code: Breaker. I didn't read all of it, just the first chapter. As a lover of books, the cartoons made me wonder why not words. So I tried reading some more, and I instantly got hooked. Then I saw Vampire Knight. Not really a fan of the show, but I saw some shirts in Florida when I visited the state. I also saw some YouTube videos. Ever since, I just loved watching and reading the interesting art!

I got into anime through Sailor Moon. One morning I woke up early and turned the TV on and flipped onto USA Network who was premiering some new animated show called Sailor Moon that I had never heard of before. It looked interesting so I watched the first episode and was immediately hooked. Later on I went online and looked Sailor Moon up and I learned it was an anime and I learned about all the changes that the English dub made to the series. I've been a diehard anime fan ever since and I haven't looked back.

Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura were probably my first anime's, but they weren't what got me into anime itself. My best friend was introduced to anime by her brother, and got really into the anime that they showed on Cartoon Network, Adult Swim. So when I went over to her house I would watch it with her and really came to love the show Full Metal Alchemist. I think it was the first time that I really got invested in a anime, which led to me wanting to find more anime to watch. I watch next to none anime anymore, but from time to time I'll pop in a favorite.

I grew interested in anime when I was 19 and decided to watch some random series. So I picked Death Note as it was really popular that time. It's now one of my favorite anime:)
I've watched a lot of various series since then and I guess I'm now a regular anime fan.

I’m sure what age am I when I first started but the only thing I remember was my cousin ask me to join her watched the new released anime during that time (if my memory serves me right it was the anime with Gokuo as the lead character). I’ve no interest but my cousin is so annoying I decided to come and as I see those costumes and super power I didn’t notice that I was enjoying it. The next thing I knew all I wanted to watch now was anime; I got hooked to manga too. Lol

While I was in secondary school, my best friend was a mad fan of ben 10. We had a pal who would come over to our room(it's a boarding house) and then argue that this 'naruto' anime beats ben 10, and my friend would argue it out.
Anyways, a few yearz later, I travelled, came back, and my frnd was ranting off about how cool Itachi(from Naruto) was, so you can imagine my shock knowing he found something that beat the urge of ben 10 out. I got curious, watched a two episodes of the chunnin test of naruto. And now, I am a more intense fan of it than he ever would be:D, finishing it to d weekly manga updatez, and starting and finishing bleach also in 2 monthz. I dabbled in one piece too, so now, anime holds a special spot for me.

Just grew into watching it. When I was a child, almost everything that my parents found suitable for my age was actually from Japan. Heidi, Pinnochio, Alice, Puschel or Kickers for example. Don't even know the Japanese names of those series. And then it just continued as I never really got in touch with most American stuff. There are some exceptions, but that's not really the matter.