well this involves a rather confusing and complicated story.
PART 1
anime was always in my life, whether it was family, friends, or outside of them (the world) and i'd always had a very lukewarm interest in it. so i can't really literally nail down my "first" anime. the first time i heard of this "anime" was by the prince of tennis that aired on TV. my older brother was the only one allowed to look at it (he was what, 13-14?) so he'd go into my mom's room and they'd watch it together every friday or whatever day it was. i excepted that and paid no mind to it.
then he came into the naruto disease that all boys had caught from each other at the time, but to my memory it wasn't that long. if naruto happened to be on TV at a friend's house i'd watch it, but that's all i know. i don't even remember the episodes i watched. i do remember reading some early manga volumes, though.
then there was the SMBZ explosion on the internet but
even with the obvious influence of anime, it still didn't stick to me, even though i still have memories of loving the crap out that show.
for some reason, anime had always been like dirty tape on the sticky part, it stuck, but pathetically so, and quickly fell off.
PART 2
everyone in my family was bored to tears with TV by 2010-11 and my dad canceled it and it's stayed that way to this day. we had a buttload of cartoon DVDs no-one had really seen, so that was basically the only "TV" anyone got, and no-one complained.
but after watching re-runs for literal years, i had gotten tired of cartoons and wanted something new. (i won't be talking about this for a while, but it'll get around.)
i had started watching FMA with my brothers like 2-3yrs back and it's thanks to them that i had a bigger interest in anime, but not by much until last year.
after touching a little on FMA, i started and finished DBZ and fell (REALLY) hard for it, but that was the end of me and my brothers' dive into anime.
last year i was thinking about how much i had delcared i had such a great interest and respect for anime when i realized that i hardly looked at any.
after thinking how bored i was with cartoons, i decided to give this "anime" - something that had always had appearances in my life - a try. a huge burden of guilt over years of time for not finishing FMA had built inside me (more like it was ON me) for some reason, so i decided to not start any new anime until i finished it.
so technically, since FMA and myself had a history, it's not like it was a 100% new anime for me, so, after thinking really hard about the time in between i'd seen them, the "first" anime i had seen was last exile and kuroshitsuji. last exile planted my interest, but the one that got me into it is the latter.
PART 3
while watching last exile, there was one moment in one of the episodes - it was so small, but it's those things that get my attention in anime.
the scene was this: a crew of men were teasing a couple of kids, and one them defended theirselves. while the child was talking, one of the crew member did a small smirk and made a small laugh.
this just blew me away. i literally thought, "Wow, he actually laughed! He's not a character, he's a person with real reactions!"
he wasn't doing the "har har har" laugh that i'd seen so many people do in cartoons, but a small "heh" - snicker, if you please. maybe you don't understand, and i hardly understand myself, but that's what got my interest.
characters are actual people in anime, and there was just that value the characters were given that i hadn't seen at all in cartoons.
PART 4
as for kuroshitsuji, i came to it by the manga but had no time to see what it was about other than the title and front cover of the first volume, because i had to leave barnes and noble JUST when i picked it up. back home the name still stuck to me, so i - not knowing you could read manga online - figured i had no chance to know any more about it unless there was an anime about it, since i HAD known most anime are based off of manga. i took that guess and that's my story to it.
kuroshitsuji taught me about the realism of the pain and darkness of humans, and that's what really made me love it and get a thirst for more anime.
FINAL PART
i have my brothers to thank for everything to do with myself in the animeverse, but the irony is that when they fell off the anime track and i picked it back up, now they're motivated to start their own anime tastes as well.
now, i've learned there is much more to anime than the pretty art and even great plot, and that is why i continue watching. |