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·
    2 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.

  • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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    2 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.

  • kibiz0r@midwest.socialEnglish
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    2 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.

  • asymmetric@lemmy.ca
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    2 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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    2 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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    2 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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    2 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).

  • Lycist@lemmy.world
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    2 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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        2 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.

  • Daze@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    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 😘

    • Lycist@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Outlaw star was an early watch for me too, was amazing. Really solidified my love of everything space related.

    • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today
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      2 months ago

      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.