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?

  • isyasad@lemmy.world
    0·
    5 months ago

    I’m surprised only a handful of people have mentioned Ghibli movies. For me it was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, it’s probably one of the first movies I remember watching in general. Still my favorite Ghibli movie and I must have watched it dozens of times as a kid.
    The source material for it is a manga by Miyazaki himself and it’s much longer and deeper (the movie only covers about 1.5 out of 7 volumes, and changes a lot of details). Highly recommended.

  • Lycist@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    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.

      • Lycist@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        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.

  • krdo@programming.dev
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    5 months ago

    I remember watching Totoro as a child not knowing it was an anime. Later I watched The Guyver (1989 OVA) on VHS at my cousin’s. Evangelion and Lodoss War were the first fansubs I watched knowing they were Japanese.

    • Lycist@lemmy.world
      0·
      5 months ago

      Evangelion was pretty early on my list too, stuck with me though to this day as my all-time favorite anime.

  • kibiz0r@midwest.socialEnglish
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    5 months ago

    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.

  • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    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.

  • asymmetric@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    Death Note, sometime in 2009 or 2010.

    I remember when it came out, people on forums kept talking about it nonstop. I had no idea what it was, so I just blindly torrented something called Death Note… it was the live action Japanese adaptation lol. I didn’t even know it was an anime until years later. Just for years I thought everyone on the internet was obsessed with that live action movie.

  • shastaxc@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Princess Mononoke. I randomly picked it up at Blockbuster and it was so different than anything else I’d ever watched. I instantly fell in love with it.

  • nayminlwin@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    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.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeEnglish
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    5 months ago

    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).