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Old 2012-04-21, 03:58   Link #19
Sheba
I Miss NEET Life
 
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Formerly Iwakawa base and Chaldea. Now Teyvat, the Astral Express & the Outpost
Age: 44
I have grown up with watching french tv shows called "Vitamines" and "Récré A2". Most of the anime of that time period was aired on Récré A2, UFO Grendizer, Harlock, Candy Candy, Space Adventure Cobra, Rose of Versailles. then came La 5 with "Youpi l'Ecole est Finie", it aired King Arthur which made me a crazy about middle ages, Little Princess which introduced me to the earliest example of moé I can think of (so yeah, here you go anti-moé crowd), Macross, actually Robotech that was one of the few mecha anime I will still check out once in a while, because Macross merged three of the big things I have been digging when I was a kid, space, robots and cool plane. Youpi also aired my favorite magical girls shows, Magical Emi, Persia and Creamy Mami, and finally it aired Kimagure Orange Road. Also the all-time classic in sport anime for those as old as me, Captain Tsubasa.

However, La 5 was in concurrence with TF1, and its famous or infamous "Club Dorothée". Club Dorothée aired many of the classics for those in my age range, Maison Ikkoku, Urusei Yatsura, Saint Seiya, that was my favourite shounen, Dragon Ball, then Z, Samurai Troopers, Hokuto no Ken (butchered with a gag dub because it was targeted at the wrong audience). Also, Ranma 1/2, Shurato, Sailor Moon, City Hunter and many sentai shows. However, it was when I listened an anime themed radio show and heard Get Wild, the original opening of City Hunter (ours was awful) that I WANTED to know more about the actual japanese in my anime. Not the fail frenchized names they picked for Ranma 1/2 and Sailor Moon (funny enough, Saint Seiya was spared from this localization, which may explain why I can watch a rerun of its french version if they do it).

The VHS market, especially the OVA provided such opportunity. First with a english sub of Bubblegum Crisis. Then, THE anime that have ignited the flame of the anime fan inside me, Record of Lodoss War. It thanks to Bubblegum Crisis and Lodoss, also Akira that showed me that anime can mean SRS Business, that I sought MORE than what french mainstream TV offered. With them, I could watch Macross Plus, AD Police, Yoshiaki Kawajiri's OAVs and movies, Grave of the Fireflies, Totoro, at one time, a friend even lent me a VHS where there was a raw of the last OVA of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. I dismissed it as "gay". It's only in 2002 that I found out how much of a foolish judgement it was.
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