Where do I begin, I am a old anime fan, old as in mid 90s, my first anime was Sailor Moon, the first episode of the Tree saga, it was on Fox at 6 am, saturday morning where Magic School Bus was suppose to be, yes I remember watching my first anime can you say the same?
I grew in a horizontal dirrection, watching DBZ when it was on UPN, the first day it was shown, pre Toonami, and from there it was quiet for a while.
Then I got cable and met Toonami, DBZ and Sailor Moon my old friends along with a new show Tenchi, oh I loved all three Tenchis, Tenchi Muyo, Tenchi Universe, and my personal fav Tenchi in Tokyo. I never really got into any other shows from Toonami for a long time.
This went on till 2003 when while watching a rain delay for The Winston, a Nextel Cup All Star race my brother peeped up that he was watching a show at midnight on Fridays on Encore Action, and he really liked it.
Luckily qualifying ended and I chose since I was not tired I would join him in watching, I turn it over and there is this strange show, Blue Seed(oh yes look at my favorite anime) a different show, like nothing I had ever seen before. The first episode was episode 7 and began with monsters eating someone, I was intriged, and I stuck with the first episdoe, then onto number 8, litearlly called "What, how strange, a rival appears" and in it a rival appears and the lead and the rival sing in a battle, I was sold. Needless to say I watched episdoe 9, and I would watch the show next week.
As you can tell, I remember very important stuff, like for example after Blue Seed and one run of Ani-Midnights on Encore Action(during which they did this really stupid transfer of logo that made me think there was going to be an Encore Action 2) and Bubblegum Crisis 2040 and Vandread, I was actually hitting a wall in anime, I had recently started getting Shonen Jump and Raijin Comics(oh why did Raijin die?), and it seemed I would fade into a manga fan and who knows what after that, luckily I had been getting Newtypes and while I saw alot of anime I liked nothing spoke to me, till the April 2004 issue came.
On it were Azu Manga Daioh, and Comic Party, never had I seen two funny shows like this back to back and I finally had an anime worthy of being bought again(I got the Blue Seed Perfect collection, my first anime DVD) I own all of Azu Manga Daioh and Comic Party, they helped me come out of my anime drought for good.
I went to cons in 2004, I started downloading Naruto manga, and it was great.
Fast forward to 2006, I watch almost all anime on Adult Swim and am actually starting to crave more, then we get DSL internet, suddenly it isn't just manga I can download, but also anime. To start I decide to watch a series so I go to my Newtype collection to find my favorite, ah yes Full Metal Panic, I found it dubbed and downloade it, and got through 22 episdoes, along the same time I find bittorent thanks to my brother who was starting to watch Kamen Rider and Super Sentai throug it and I decide to go back to my friend Naruto.
I must first tell you my first show in Japanese was DBZ on International Channel, it was not subbtitled and was in the middle of the Buu arc so I was quite confused and after that was Slayers, my first subbed show, I quickly jumped in and it was fun, I look to buy the Funimation DVD because I want to rewatch it, then get Next and Try.(QUICK NOTE I DID GET SLAYERS AND NEXT AND AM PLANNING TO GRAB TRY SOON)
Now my first fansubbed show was Naruto, from Dattebayo, already being caught up in the manga I decide to jump in at 90 and find I can follow it.
Now you may be wondering why I said 22 episodes of Full Metal Panic, it is because after getting 22, a storm knocked out of internet and when we got it back we switched to cable, which we still have, I quickly downloaded the last two episodes and it is still in my opinion the best final battle in an anime ever.
So I fall into the darkside of anime, fansubbing, I will never get out.
So that is my story, I left out parts like getting ADV's Anime On Demand, getting into Adult Swim, my first hatred of an anime(Ani-midnight's first movie was Akira, bleh), or joining alocal anime club.
So what did you think, enjoy the read, leave comments if you wish.
MY CLAIMS FROM THOSE CLUBS
