What was your first anime show or film?
For me? The first anime related thing I saw as a kid was Spirited Away on VHS, I was awestruck from the animation and quality of the film.
For shows it would’ve been the usual Pokemon and DBZ. As I grew older I suppose my first proper anime show was watching streams of Neon Genesis Evangelion due to people talking about it at school.
So what about you? What did you see first?
Probably Bee Maja, Wickie and the strong men or Heidi. Tons of classic German children’s shows are actually animes.
Same thing goes for the animated Moomin-series - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomin_(1990_TV_series)
A classic for kids in Sweden.
Chobits
Oh man, I haven’t heard that word in awhile. Chobits was a fun one.
Outlaw Star was my first, on early Toonami. I got into DBZ because outlaw star came on later in the night and I refused to miss any of it! It was so… different from everything else on TV.
Still one of my absolute favorites to this day, I prefer it over Cowboy Bebop 😘
Outlaw Star wars great. I feel obligated to inform as many people as possible that there is a “sequel” to the series called “Angel Links” that takes place in the same universe but follows different characters.
There you go. That’s all the information you need to know about it.
NEVER WATCH IT
It is entirely forgettable, not worth the time or effort, and definitely not worth what I had to pay to get a box set of DVD’s back in the day from Suncoast in the mall because Anime was still niche and streaming wasn’t a thing yet.
Outlaw star was an early watch for me too, was amazing. Really solidified my love of everything space related.
It was the year of our lord 1990, I was 5 years old, and the time was somewhere after midnight. I had snuck out of my room and into my grandparents basement to sneak some late night tv.
The original Vampire Hunter D was playing and I had no idea what it was, but it was amazing. The guy had a hand that ATE things!!!
I didn’t realize what it was until around 8th grade when I started getting into the standards of DBZ and Sailor Moon… I expanded drastically from there once I realized I could, spent around $4000 on manga throughout highschool and found a little hole in the wall DVD rental shop on the local college campus with a wall of anime DVDs and VHS tapes.
I think my first late night tv adventure was seeing Akira and having absolutely no idea what was going on.
Dude, you could relive that, watch it TODAY, and still have no idea what was going on.
Almost like watching it for the first time again.
It was either Cowboy Bebop or Princess Mononoke - I was first introduced in an after-school anime club.
dbz and pokemon as well but only when id catch it between other activities. Didn’t actually sit through an entire anime until high school where my friend borrowed me Cromartie High.
First film was probably the first Pokémon film in theaters.
Show - Robotech, it was on Sunday mornings on sci-fi channel for a while in the mid 90s. Film - Ninja Scroll, dad had a descrambler and saw it on PPV in the early 00s. Good times.
Robotech was my first as well. I remember the scifi channel having “Saturday Anime” - different movies every week on Saturday mornings that I used to record on VHS.
Akira. I saw it playing on a TV behind a table at a pop culture market and got my own copy (on VHS. Yes, I’m so old that bits are starting to drop off) to find out how it ended.
Edit: Now I come to think about it, I used to watch Science Ninja Team Gatchaman on TV as a preteen. Can’t remember the english title.
Yu Yu Hakushou. I didn’t even realize the name is Yu Yu Hakushou until years later. I only remember thinking the delinquent guy with a laser sword and a guy shooting energy balls from the finger tip’s pretty cool.
Pokemon for TV, movie would probably be Laputa.
I also watched Pokemon and DBZ when I was young, not even knowing about anime.
In highschool I thought “What is anime? Let’s give it a shot”. I opened up Hulu and somehow picked out Non Non Biyori. Looking back, it was a banger choice.
First show was probably Voltron. First film was probably Vampire Hunter D.
Toonami became a big part of my life, and there was a small theater downtown that did showings of Miyazaki and such. I remember seeing Metropolis there, too.
I owe a lot to those scrappy little enterprises, taking a gamble that there would be an audience for this stuff.
If we’re talking about just what you watched before you recognized it was anime, it’s between pokemon, Naruto, and One Piece. Couldn’t tell you which I watched first.
If we’re talking “Oh! I recognize this is anime!” then probably either Deathnote or Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) thanks to mid-2010s Netflix (back when it was still good).
It was the late 80’s, I saw Robotech which used to play after school on a local UHF channel, and also Speed Racer. Probably the first more typical Anime was renting the Super Space Force Macross movie on VHS
Heidi and Maya the Bee when I was about 4
