How and why did you get into anime?

[Namusranger]

I'm 21 years old, so I saw anime before the days of endless runs of DBZ, Pokemon and stuff, as a kid I used to watch anything that came on tv, without knowing that it was anime I saw: Candy Candy, Reni, Saint Seya, Tekkoman Blade, Button Nose, Zenki, Noozles. etc. so as I grew I kept watching and Discovered they were called Animes and stuff

[Vexx]

I suppose my first anime was Speed Racer, Astroboy, and Gigantor back in the 1960s. They were terrible but you couldn't take your eyes off of them. Jonny Quest in the late 60s might as well have been anime because of its production values and plot (for the time). Then there was that odd live-action show called Ultraman that they canceled as soon as the heroes fell in love. After that was a long dry spell til I noticed my kids watching Pokemon... clever but why were they calling sushi "donuts"? I ignored the whole PokeDBZSailorMoon period....
then about 3 years ago, some guy who wrote this thing called Megatokyo kept pointing out this stuff where he got his inspiration .... amazing..... animated romantic comedies where people didn't spend all their time posing and shouting battle moves. I got hooked on the relationship anime... that awoke my interest in manga... then it all went downhill to my doom after that.

[mxg]

Me decent int othis wonderful world would have to be when i was like 4 years old and i remember my cousins renting and watching Fist of the North Star and seeing Kenshiro bust some heads got me into it so I have practically been a fan my entire life.

[Shinku]

i got addicted to anime because i love how they designed their eyes and how they designed their body and overall physiques. So u can say i fell in love wif anime because of affection. I also enjoy the combat from some anime and romance from others. Plus I love drawing anime!

[FireDetei]

I started watching Dragonball Z on TV, litturally watching the series time and time again because thats all that was on. Then I started to watch another series on TV called Megabots, and thought they were just normal cartoons for kids like looney toons or w/e, didn even know they were anime.

Didn wtach anything for a few years then, just downloading the odd Dragonball Z amv, untill I decided to download all of the Dragonball Z series. With that a m8 of mine who I met in highschool asked me if I had watched anything else anime related, didn have a clue wtf he was on about so he lent me some eps of FMA that he downloaded, then I started to get into Mainstream series like Naruto and Bleach, then I downloaded another series from the same torrent site called Tsubasa Chronicle. Which I found out wasnt anything like the anime I watched before, and so I started to look at anime review sites and found there was more to anime than just people kicking the shit out of others.

During the winter months the weather was really crap so going out was a no no, so I tended to stay in and watch anime instead, or m8s would come over and watch it, and got addicted

[Solecs]

From the other thread about what anime got you hooked:

ok well, this is a bit of a story for me so here goes. My first anime experience that I remember was seeing Vampire Hunter D and Speed Racer on TV here, no idea when that was though. Following that I had a stint of Ronin Warriors, and Samurai Pizza Cats (I think that was an anime....?). Of course, those were way back when I didn't know they were anime, but just thought of them as cartoons finding out later that they were anime. I think it was around this time that I started watching Toonami with Voltron and all that (not the new toonami with Tom and whatnot). After that, I started watching episodes of Ranma 1/2 that I got from my older cousin, and also around the same time I saw Vision of Escaflowne on tv as well. I guess I really didn't get into the anime scene untill I started high school in 2001 and we finally got Cartoon Network on tv at my house again, and also when I got a broadband internet connection. It was actually Adult Swim and Cowboy Bebop that put me full in with anime along with the other shows in the original line up. Finally, a friend at my school loaned me CD's of I My Me Strawberry Eggs which got me acquainted with the internet community, fansubs. and non-mainstream anime. Since then, it's all been downhill snowballing for me, heh. Erm, yeah, I guess that was a bit much, oh well, I was just a bit caught up in reminiscing.

and addendum though, in middle school I did in fact get caught up with all the monster shows (pokemon, digimon, monster rancher) and card game shows and the ilk, which for the time I enjoyed a lot, not so much though now. I'm not really sure I consider those shows anime in a sense these days, still good memories though. As to why I got into anime, like most people, the stories, the characters, the art, the entertainment, just everything. Also, I guess a big reason for me why I like anime is also character development. That is, being able to learn more about, relate to, and to an extent love and care for these fictional character. Ok, I'm going to stop now, since this could go on to endless lenghts, so yeah =Þ.

[C.A.]

I watched various super robot anime when I was 3 years old or something, I've been watching for 16 years since.

[Eclipze]

Well, it seems to be quite long, so I'll tag it.

Spoiler:

Growing up as a kid(Granted, I'm not much older), I wasn't exactly treated well by the people around, other than my family because of my looks and being fat etc. Particularly after being gang-bullied by a dozen toddlers and getting a sega saturn game stolen by someone that I befriended(?) at the playground, I started becoming a hermit.

At that time, I came across shows on the television such as Dragonball, Gundam wing, Ranma 1/2, Slam Dunk etc. They were all dubbed in chinese, so I had thought that, hey, these fantastic cartoons are from china!. It didnt occur to me that the OP and EDs were in japanese though. As time went on, I wasn't able to keep track of the time that these 'cartoons' air on the tv channel, hence lost track of them altogether.

After awhile, I got into online gaming. This kept up until about 2 years ago, when a local tv station showed a season worth (26 episodes or so) of english dubbed Prince of Tennis (now my favourite anime). That title was what really got me into anime, especially since I got interested as to how the series goes on after the ones that were shown on the local channel.

I got recommanded by a classmate at that time (now one of my best friends) to animesuki, where I found the torrent links to PoT. It was also during this year that One Piece (english dubbed) aired on the local kid's channel, and that my brother mentioned Naruto to me. This was where the anime fanatic in me started to show...I had completely stopped watching the tv, and only watched downloaded fansubs on the pc(yea I know, a leech).

However, it was after watching He is my master that I truely fell into the world of otaku-dom. I never knew anime could be so....naughty. (to justify myself though, I've since watched alot less of the ecchi genre, and got more interested in story-based animes...)

And thats it.

[ergoproxy]

I just downlowded some random series nd stareted to like it

[Orchunter226]

I became fed up with the crap that was always on television. I started thinking about the only thing I ever did watch on TV - which was Saturday Anime. So I began to find anime shows here and there and download a little bit. It was the only stuff I ever watched. Then [AS] came about a few years later and I started watching anime on that. I enjoyed it even more and started downloading even more. So now I watch tons of anime and nothing else.

So the reason I got into anime was because 99% of all television is crap. Oh and you can only play UO or WoW for so long....

[Kyuven]

many moons ago, there was an anime known as sailor moon.
I, a six year old boy, found myself fascinated by it. In my head I even 'wrote' my first fan fiction. Years later would come Pokemon, DBZ, all that kid stuff. And then the greatness of Toonami. AND GUNDAM!
The came adult swim and Kazaa! Sure Kazaa ate my computer for lunch before I found out about Oh Glorious Bit Torrent, but I found much anime in a time before I had money and a job.
Then came the glorious advent of HAVING A JOB AND BUYING ANIME ON MY OWN!
There's a great sense of ownership! Ranma 1/2, Steel Angel Kurumi, Saber Marionette J...it was all mine!

As to why I got into anime? It just kinda happened. Like video games, there's never REALLY been a point in my life where I didn't find myself drawn to one anime or video game.

[CLAMPshinobi]

Well i like most anime but... then i saw how perverted an anime can be *cough cough* puni puni poemi! *cough*

[Eidolon Sniper]

Me, I've watched Voltes V and those other weird super robot shows wherein their main leads look the same as the previous (or was it later?) incarnations (See Voltes V = Combattler V). Then there's Ultraman, Magmaman, Machine Man, Biomen, Shaider, Maskman (wow a LOT of men)...those live action series with all those awe-inspiring costumes when they fight (AKA the old school Power Rangers). It was only during Sailormoon that I REALLY got hooked, though.

[Lotiman]

I saw the babe in Vandread and hook me up.

[SilentBob]

I got into anime through television. I lived in Spain for a period of time back in the 80s, and there were some animes airing on TV there. First Candy Candy, then Dr.Slump. I also got to watch some anime on satellite TV, I think the channel in question was FilmNet (now discontinued), there I watched some movies, among them Windaria, which was what really hooked me on anime. Later on when we moved back to my home country (Norway), there was no anime on TV, so I had to rely on VHS cassettes from the local video store and such. In later times, GITS and Akira would occasionally air on TV, but it wasn't until I discovered fansubs on the net about 5+ years ago that things got really serious again.

[capture]

How..... when I'm at my elementary years the 1st one that I watched was DBZ, and at that time that kind of show is not an anime at first but it is knowned as cartoons in our country.... and as time goes on the tv network made a release of nice animes (consists of almost shounen anime HXH, Flame of Recca etc....) and because of that, the anime become popular in our country....

Why?....because I'm just bored in some shows in our local channels that's why I get in into anime...

[teachopvutru]

I already knew about anime from when I was young and liked it a long time ago, although I didn't get addicted before until last summer when I mass watch anime after quitting a game that I played.

I particularly love the anime character designs... Many people hate big eyes characters but those are what got me into anime in the first place. (along with those interesting stories, of course)

I'm not native to America and when I moved here, I was very disappointed by the American cartoons... they are completely uninteresting ._. ... Luckily I have computer to download animes

[Skyfall]

Ever since i was a kid i have been interested in various cartoons. I remember i wouldn't miss shows like Pokemon and Digimon for the world when they were airing on a local TV station Later when Cartoon Network came along i remember seeing Gundam Wing on it... which peaked my interest - it was really different from all the other stuff and cartoons. But i didn't take any action back then to pursue anime in any way.

A few years ago a friend of mine pulled all the series of DragonballZ out of somewhere (He is not watching anime, so i have no idea where he got that) - i have to say i was quite hooked on that ... the amount of episodes i watched each day was quite astronomical ...i guess this is where the root of my anime addiction lies

A while later (about a year and a half ago, following a prolonged period of "anime silence") i noticed something named "Elfen Lied" and "Fullmetal Alchemist" in our local FTP server ... without knowing what those things were i downloaded them simply because the name seemed interesting to me ...

Needless to say i was left quite shocked by these two titles. I had no idea where they came from, but i knew i wanted more of this stuff

Long story short - after stumbling around the net for a while i somehow landed here on AnimeSuki after a while i developed interest in other genres that didn't involve guys beating the living daylights out of each other, and after a good while of lurking around i decided to register on these forums And so -here i am. Pleased to meet you all

[Areguzanda]

my story
(a bit long )

Spoiler:

it all started when I was about 13 years old.
everyone on the school and stuff were Pokemon addicted.
even I.
cards, games, the show. everything.
but then Pokemon was forgotten and I didn't really have any show to watch at all.
(I didn't even know there were such a thing called Anime. I just tough Pokemon was a regular cartoon.

but then on a family vacation in Greece, I turned on the TV in our hotel room one morning and I saw a super cool guy, with bulky muscles and a orange fighting suit talking to a white and purple alien thing. (Freeza)
and then the fighting started!!
man something so cool!!
I followed the episodes the last 10 days i was there, and in day nr 5 (or so) the guy in orange clothes got yellow hear and greenish/bluish eyes!!
ooh man soo cool!!

needless to say, I found the whole Dragonball series on the net when I got home and downloaded it and watched the whole thing.
and I was hooked.

but still I did not know of anything like Anime.

then for about 2-3 years I never saw anything like Anime.
but suddenly one day a friend came to me and gave me a pack of 10 CD with Love Hina written on them.
(don't know why)

I went home and started watching.
it was the funniest thing ever!!
but still romantic

but even so. Anime what? never heard of it

so about 1.5 years ago,when I started working as a ICT-trainee the other trainee at where i worked asked me if I had ever seen any Anime series.
I was like.. Anime wtf?

you know like. Dragonball, Love Hina, pokemon, Naruto, Bleach....

err...yeah sure I've watched Dragonball and Love Hina and pokemon.....
but isn't that just cartoons?

no it's Anime. Japanese animation.
ooooh

and then she got me these DVD's full of Naruto and Bleach episodes
so I started watching and man oh man was I hooked.
but until about 7 months ago I had still just watched and followed Bleach and Naruto.
but then I got some more recommendations from that girl and watched Hunter_X_Hunter, Black Cat, Shaman King, Wolf's Rain and Tsubasa Chronicle.
then I started searching for other series and before I knew it I was addicted to Anime series.

Now I have seen god knows how many shows and movies.

Dragon Ball and Love Hina were the two first shows that made me love Anime.
I still watch them from time to time, but I have a hard time to have enough time to watch all the shows that are coming out.
should have been 30hours a day, not 24 ^^

(not to mention I have about 100 Manga books, and I love to read them. though Ai Yori Aoshi is my favorite Manga and one of my favorite Animes )

[tengis]

my mum bought me a book and i read all that serie and then my friend sent me a one piece episode