How and why did you get into anime?

[Flibble]

I'd caught a few bits of anime in youth without realising, the art style was something i kinda latched onto...
things like battle of the planets and other 70s/80s anime which in one form or another snuck onto UK television

Then shows like Transformers helped as did things like opening to the original Turtles... Which if i remember rightly, Turtles ghostbusters and some other 80s/90s cartoons actually hired japanese animators
Watch this with anime in mind lol...

Spoiler for Heroes in a Half Shell:

But the 1st times i knowing went out of my way to watch anime and knew full well what it was, was probably when Armitage 3, (the original) Guyver anime, and a few other random shows were being shown on the Sci fi channel at like 2-3am every thursday or friday around 13 or so years ago...

[Pakxenon]

Aside from my childhood, Pokemon and related time period, and Cardcaptor Sakura:

First downloaded anime: Love Hina. I got intrigued by the simdate game on newgrounds.com.

A year later, people at a forum I visit were talking about Naruto and Bleach non-stop. I tried them out and boom I'm hooked. Since this was September, my grades dropped quite a bit (for a person like me anyways )

Then I got into FMA, DearS, NGE, and Haibane Renmei ('ve been wanting to watch it since I read Megatokyo).

I fully evolved into a seasonal anime fan with a catch up of Suzuka, SHUFFLE!, Shana, BLOOD+, Canvas 2, and the likes.

And I've been watching and following ever since.

[DarkBlood]

Well as a five to seven year old I loved Ginga Nagareboshi Gin aka Silver Fang in Sweden.
I also watched Sailor Moon, but that was because it was before Spiderman on saturday mornings..
For about seven years I forgot all about anime until I moved and got reminded om Ginga Nagareboshi Gin, then I got drawn into it again, with Naruto and Bleach in the beginning then the more blood-and-gore animes started.
Why I watch? I like how anime is animated, looks nice and then I like many of the storylines.

[Archideas]

When I was in 8th grade or something like that, a few of my friends usually talked about Naruto. I usually thought like "Fuck that kids cartoon.", then three years later I figured, what the hell and watched Naruto and I got hooked.

[mcruz1014]

When I was in the third grade, I watched the same channels kids watched, namely Nickolodeon and Cartoon Network. Around that time, Cartoon Network began to air Robotech, Sailor Moon and of course Dragon Ball Z. I had never seen cartoons like that, especially Robotech, it gave me a whole new view of cartoons. Two years later, Toonami aired Gundam Wing and Tenchi Muyo, two of my favorite shows to this day, and I guess it was at that point that I realized that these were Japanese anime and totally different from normal cartoons. I continued to watch the shows that Toonami aired, and as time passed and the internet video phenomenon grew, I was able to watch shows like Naruto and Bleach through fansub downloads and with sites like youtube and veoh, I can watch shows that I had only heard and read about for free and at my own leisure. Thank god for them too, because in the past year I've been able to see all different kinds of shows. And of course, I realize how much better anime is in its original Japanese format now.

[Black_Rose]

I really dont know to be exact. I started watching sailor moon then i went off of cartoon network onto Ones that wernt brodcasted on normal telivision(LoveHina)

[Dkong1026]

I used to watch Pokemon and Yugioh as a kid. I knew that it was anime by the time I was about 11 or 12. Then in 7th grade, I realized that Adult Swim was loaded with anime...so I started to watch stuff like Inu and FMA.

Then after 8th grade ended, some of my friends told me about bittorrent and sites to get anime from, and I've been a big fan ever since.

[Aijou]

I don't know if such thread is already made, I searched and didn't find.

How did you all get into anime ? How did you found out about anime ? What was your first anime you saw ? What anime made you an anime-addict ?...

I used to think anime is boring when I was a kid, I didn't like how it was drawn and stuff, I liked everything whit actions and heroes, like marvel ( Spider-man, X-men and stuff like that ).

Untill I turned the opposite at the age around 7-8 ( 1996-1997 ). My sister presented me a anime that was aired at the TV, it was called Sailor Moon ( dubbed version unfortunally ), it was my first anime. I watched just out of boredom, but hey... it was quite fun to watch. Later watching it... it started become addicting and wanted to know the ending and how the story will go on ( saw all 200 eps).

Then school life become very busy and I didn't have time to watch things like cartoon or anime ( after finishing SM ). I had a new interest that time, video games.

After many years when I reached highschool I dumped video games ( I wonder even now, how did I get over that addiction all the sudden ??? ). Then I meet this guy who was addicted to Sailor Moon, I was like ( Hey! thats my childhood show! ), he insisted to give me the episodes to share ( download ) it was subbed version. I was like ( Ohhh subs are so much better, also very nostalgic to watch a childhood show you liked ).
After watching the all 200 episodes again, I decided out of curiosity if other animes are as good. I got more than I wished , I started Yu-gi-oh but dropped it ( but that didn't stopped me ), then I had Naruto ( it was good ), after that Bleach ( even better ), Haruhi Suzumiya ( MASTERPIECE ), Death Note ( GENIUS ) and so on..... I'm now an anime fan.

[yezhanquan]

Started with Eva. The rest.... as the Saiyuki Reload Gunlock OP says it, "Don't Look Back Again".

[2H-Dragon]

Well I always follewed anime series without caring where it came from, but fansubs started with Dragonbal Z. I started with the movies. I found out that most people who like DBZ also liked Gundam wing and that led me to buy that series. After that I wanted more and Gundam SEED became the first series I would follow with fansubs.

[tripperazn]

I grew up watching classics like Dragonball, Saint Seiya, You're Under Arrest, Slam Dunk, Doraemon, Sailor Moon, etc. dubbed in Chinese on TV.

I took a bit of time off of school recently, so I got caught up on anime after a uh...10 year hiatus.

[KholdStare]

Well it was Naruto, but that's not really the question for me. I completely forgot how or why I started watching Naruto in the first place, since no one in my high school talked about anime. I highly doubt that it was something I saw on the Internet either, so I guess that will always remain a mystery.

[Espiecakes]

The Guyver.

[infornographer254]

the Ninja Scroll movie. It was so amazing. I may have been 11 at the time, as the movie was released in 1993. I saw it via a blockbuster rental, and it really opened the anime floodgates for me.

Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Ghost in the Shell. That did me in. <3

[DragoonKain3]

I grew up watching Macross. Actually, Robotech to be precise, as I was impressed by how much more complex it was than your average kid cartoon.

After that, I basically was a sponge to whatever anime I would see on TV. Dragon Ball, Yuu Yuu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, and Escaflowne would be some that would seal the deal in the end.

[Sinestra]

Started with Robotech and sailor moon when i was kid. I have been an anime fanatic ever since and wouldnt have it any other way.

[Lanner Falcon]

It's a long, long story…

But the answer probably lies in Kannazuki no Miko

[Solais]

Well, most of the cartoons what I saw in my childhood was actually an anime, disguised as french cartoons. Then when I was in elementary school, there was the Dragon Ball craze (everybody whatched DBZ), then when it got banned (yes, they banned the french version DBZ in our country, along with Sailor Moon), then two years later there was the Pokemon Craze what went over fast, because my brother found something better when we got cable TV: Digimon on the RTL2 ( a german channel). I watched the first 3 seasons, and I loved it. Then, on a quiet autumn day of October, 2003, again my brother showed me the first fansubbed anime I saw: Slayers. Then Love Hina. These were my starting series. Then after that... is history.

[geckleon91]

yea for me it was cartoon network: sailor moon, gundam wing, dragonball, dragonball z and outlaw star. Then i didnt start watching again until the summer of my freshman year in high school. I started watching naruto during the summer and pretty much watched all the eps that i could find. Then the next summer i watched all of bleach that was out. Finally in my junior year a friend of mine was talking with his brother in halo about some anime. I remembered what outlaw star was about but couldnt remember the name so i asked them. They didn't know. I became very curious about the title and set out on a quest to find it. Once i found it i watched, out law star rocks.

[yezhanquan]

Who here had experience with anime dubbed in other languages first before listening in to the original? I have some experience with that kind of situation. (Chinese dubs were still ok, I guess.)

Eva launched me into the scene because of its cast. Man, now that I looked back, the Eva crew was the reason why I often checked the cast of an anime before deciding to give it a try.