When did you first start watching anime?

I'm in my 40s. I've been watching anime off-and-on for as long as I can remember. I've probably been watching anime of some sort since the late '70s - probably starting with 'Speed Racer' and 'Lupin III' as my earliest recollections. My first real instance of being entranced/hooked as a kid was with 'Robotech' and a collection series called 'Force Five' in the U.S. These were on after-school, and a bunch of friends and I would all go over one person's house so we could watch them together.

The first anime movie that really struck me was probably 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'. Anime was really hard to come by back in the day, and you had to find circles of people that could get their hands on VHS bootlegs out of Japan. There were even some stores in my area that would 'sell' bootlegs.

Not anime, but my first chosen Halloween outfit back in the '70s was 'Ultraman'. I still can't believe it when I look back at photos of it. I looked ridiculous :-D

I’m also in my 30’s but started in my late teens with the likes of Dragon Ball Z, FLCL, Hikaru no Go, Bleach and Naruto. Somewhere in there I discovered the Shonen Jump magazine which introduced me to some of these.

Nowadays I like to use MAL’s advanced search to check the previous season’s best for my preferred genres and usually just watch one episode a day with my breakfast. I stick to completed seasons just in case I end up with idle time to binge a bit.

I'm in my mid-30s and probably watched my first anime, Serial Experiments: Lain (yes, I know, I started on hard mode) either in my very late 20s or early 30s. My exposure to anime before that was Dragonball Z in high school and what little I'd seen of it at the time rather put me off; it seemed to live up to the childish cartoon stereotype with over-the-top silliness. I didn't learn that Pokemon actually has an anime until relatively recently; I thought it was just the games.

Lain, of course, has left an impact on me, but what's really changed for me is seeing just how much depth there is in good anime (Death Note is basically an entire anime based around that conversation Gandalf has with Frodo about who deserves death), how it's not just pointlessly silly cartoons for children. I respect it as an art form now, whereas before it just seemed like cartoons to me. Of course, this is deeply ironic, because the western entertainment I enjoy is also commonly perceived as overly silly cartoons for children (Futurama, F is for Family, Bojack Horseman, Archer, Big Mouth, even Rick and Morty has a lot of depth and gravitas in between the stupid jokes).

As a kid, I had only really watched Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon. It wasn't until I got to high school that I really got into anime, as my friends were all into it as well. I think started with Cowboy Bebop as my first show, which was fucking amazing. After I finished that, I was hooked. Started watching more anime than american TV on a daily basis.

I started seriously getting into anime in the 90s after a family friend, who was like a big brother to me and also a huge otaku, visited our house occasionally and brought anime tapes with him. He introduced me to Kiki's Delivery Service, Record of Lodoss War, and Bubblegum Crisis. Plus some of the best SNES JRPGs. I always looked forward to picking his brain about the newest games and anime. Prior to that I was only exposed to whatever was on TV: DBZ, Ronin Warriors, Sailor Moon.

He was great at analyzing the animation styles and details, his college brain pointing out things that were way over my grade school head. And he was a great storyteller (he probably played a lot of D&D) and turned these games and anime I'd never seen into vivid living worlds in my imagination. It was years later I realized that one story he told me about a boy, a girl, a fairy, and a magical sword, were a ripoff of Secret of Mana; but the story he told me made it so real, way more than the videogame by itself could be.

He died young, some years back, leaving a wife and baby. He would have been a good dad. These days I do my best to carry on his legacy of being a huge anime and videogame nerd.

In mid 2005, started with Pokemon, card captor sakura, Digimon etc. The one I like the most is Gin tama.

If we don't include KTLA cartoon block or w/e it was a kid with pokemon ect because I didn't know that was even Japanese at the time it would be when I was in High School.

The way that I got into anime was a bit weird as I first played katawa shoujo after my brother suggested that I played it. I then played Muv Luv extra/unlimited/alt and then Steins;gate and finally a bit of Clannad.

It was not until after all of these VNs that I finally watched my first anime as an anime viewer and I believe that it was Cowboy Bebop with my brother. But yes I played eroges before I ever got into anime. 👀

Daring to assume I watch anime

But in all seriousness I started with animes like Dragon Ball and Naruto pretty young, and I started watching death note when I was around 14

So what about you? When did you start watching? And which have left a lasting impression on you?

Well, it depends on what counts as anime? There were Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Dragonball and many others on TV when I was in elementary-middle school, but I don't think I even knew what anime was back then. They were just "cartoons".

I started watching it back again when I was 19-20. I think I started by watching the first episodes of Naruto? Then came Kino's Journey, but I never finished it, and much later, Fate/Zero, Fate/UBW, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

My first anime was in 2nd grade with Pokemon, then Digimon, but then I quickly moved onto anime like Dragonball (and DBZ), Tenchi Muyo, and Yu-Yu Hakusho as I got a bit older and I'm still watching anime today.

Technically when I watched the original Naruto in around 2008 on TV.

But my weebdom really began with Gurren Lagann in 2013, followed by Code Geass and Soul Eater.

I'm in my mid 30's, and I started watching anime in the late 80's. I could say I started being into anime a few years earlier than other kids at that time. Most kids my age at that time only started watching anime for the first time in the early 90's with shounen series like Dragon Ball or Saint Seiya. I was like the only one who started with Tom Sawyer no Bouken, and followed the series through to the end. Even the ending theme song was memorable, I'd hum to it for years to come even though I didn't know what it was called until 20 years later. (The song was "Boku no Mississippi" sung by Maron Kusaka).

I started watching anime when I was 6. My firat anime was Black Jack and really loved it. Then I continued with shows like Black Cat and Law of Ueki.

One of the first animes I remember seeing as a kid was Sailor Moon. I wanna say it was part of the Saturday morning cartoons in the mid/late 90s. I didn't watch it regularly, but I watched it enough to understand the basic storyline. Oh and I think in middle school, some friends showed me some Hentai on VHS! WTF...

Toonami (and then Adult Swim) definitely exposed me to a lot more. Cowboy Bebop was what got me hooked. And by the time I got to 8th/9th grade, several of my friends and I watched DBZ.

These days, I actually don't watch all that much anime. I probably binge 2-4 shows/season of a show per year. I'm really into the more philosophical dystopian future shows like Ghost in the Shell (prob 2nd favorite series after Bebop) and Psychopass. I also like "political" shows like Code Geass, Aldnoah.Zero, and Last Exile. Though that doesn't mean I haven't seen - and enjoyed - shows like Attack on Titan, Ah My Goddess, and Ouran High School Host Club.

I'm on my late 20's and I think I started watching anime when I was 6 years old with the good old Dragon Ball. Actually, my childhood was awesome regarding to cartoons. Most of the cartoons on the national TV of my home country were mainly from Japan and some from France and Spain (France and Spain used to make cool cartoons also!).

As with most kids at the time, the Japanese cartoons were the best, everyone loved them. Samurai X, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, Doraemon, Beyblade, etc etc etc. So many good stuff at the time, really.

I think I watched cartoons until I was a pre-teen, but always limited to what went on TV, of course. Then you start enjoying other types of shows, mostly, tv shows from the US and then cartoons were a thing of the past. You are not a kid anymore, right? :)

I think I stopped watching anime until I started again with Naruto, I think I was 14 at the time. I was about to start secondary school. People were saying it was the "new Dragon Ball" and so I started watching and I have to say I got hooked again on anime. Nevertheless, it was only Naruto because we still didn't have internet to find other anime shows and so I would rely on that one person that had internet to download the episodes :)

Eventually, I discovered Bleach. Also, I got internet around this time (I was 16) and I could download the stuff myself. Bleach was cancelled and Naruto was the only anime I was watching until University, I think. In between this time, a friend of mine gave me Death Note and I started getting more interested on more adult animes also.

Then, I started getting more and more sick of American tv shows. US tv shows were still my main source of entertainment (Naruto was still the only anime that I watched). I could see that all of the US shows had mostly the same pattern: the first three of four seasons were great and then went downhill. Always dragging on and on. I think Lost was one of the shows that really pushed me over the edge. I invested so much of my time to watch everything and discover the mysteries and then the show ended with a lot to explain. Walking Dead was also one of the shows that really pushed me to start watching anime almost exclusively.

I have the feeling that Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex was really the anime that started my adulthood anime watching. For then on (early 20's), anime is my main source of entertainment. Luckily, my wife also watched some anime before. She had some Ghibli movies (she's the one that introduced me to them) at her mom's house and he also watched Naruto in the past. With that in common, we both watch a bunch of anime together now :)

Of course we still watch some US shows, but really nothing special. Game of Thrones (of course) and some comedy shows. I still think that, in terms of comedy genre, the anime world is not so much for us. I think only Great Teacher Onizuka and Gintama were really funny. Well, okay, One Punch Man is also very funny.

Well, I guess that's my story :)

As a small child I remember watching the usual shows such as Pokémon. I really liked Ghibli movies back then such as My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky.

I really started watching Anime actively when I was around 14. My first show at that time was Angel Beats and it got me immediately hooked. After that I've increasingly started watching Anime and that continues up to this day.

I think the first anime I watched was Captain Future. Positively ancient but my father had VHS copies.

The first modern anime (and the second anime) I watched was Avatar (not the movie), it's quite an enjoyable ride. I think I was around 12 at the time (to think that this series is that old now and I haven't even seen all episodes yet).

And the first japanese anime was likely either Gurren Lagan or "Shinji get in the robot".

I'm not sure if it counts but I did also watch the "Once upon a time..." series, which was to my knowledge animated in Japan so it might count as well. It was quite educational (for the time and my age).

I was in the Dragon Ball Z/Sailor Moon group in the mid-late 90s as well, but what really drew me in was TechTV's Anime Unleashed block. The only two I remember seeing from there are Crest of the Stars and Serial Experiments Lain, but for me they opened up anime as a medium that can be a lot deeper and more complex than afternoon cartoons.

Ummm...gotta think back.
I know there was Transzor Z and Robotech but the first anime I watched harcore was DBZ.
My friends older brother, who was in the army, would bring him stuff back that was always subtitled from where ever he was stationed. So we got DBZ with Korean subtitles.
We watched the shit out of the cell through majin buu saga not knowing a damn thing they were saying.

I watched anime since I was 5, since Sonic X is technically anime

Is Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind worth watching? Did it age well?

I think so. I enjoy it as a yearly rewatch, but that might be because I have nostalgia for it. The Bluray is very good quality. The English dub is pretty well done, although I prefer original dialogue with subtitles.