How Were You Introduced To Anime?

My mom turned on the TV when I was a kid.

@Kwanthemaster That's interesting I never thought someone could get into an anime through gaming, but we now have SAO online and gaming has now become a genre within anime lol

The library is where I have some of my happy memories when I was in Jr High, me and some friends we'd all go down to the library and watch anime, read manga, play some smash bros melee, or even play magic the gathering. Sadly, this was almost 20 years ago, and growing has taught me that being an adult is whack.

And I agree, libraries would be an excellent choice for manga, if they had a wider and more meta selection.

I'd watched Anime here and there as a kid and teen, stuff like Pokémon, Digimon, Sailor Moon and before those Ox Tales, Thunderbirds 2086, The Adventures of T-rex and even a bit of Moomins, but i didn't know they were Anime, and I don't think i ever watched all episodes of any of them.

But how I got into Anime proper was through some wrestling game streamers I used to watch called newLEGACYinc.
One of their members called duel was big into Anime, and he would play Anime games in a solo stream, or some they'd all play one.
duel also shared his MAL account on twitter one time that I saw and checked out MAL for the first time.

I guess it's a bit embarrassed why I watched the first Anime that I did...
I found the complete season of Needless on DVD in a thrift shop, flipped over the case and saw...
This

I've always had a strange fascination with panties (and you never see pantyshots like this in everyday media) so was quite excited to check it out...
I was not at all disappointed with the Anime, and even now it's still one of my favourites. But yeah, a lot of my first Anime were ecchis for the same seedy reason.

i was somehow into like every weeb-ass interest before getting into anime. like, i knew it was there, but it was also this giant-ass list of shows going back to the 1960s and trying to catch up seemed intimidating. kept playing around with JRPGs, rhythm games, VNs, etc, before I finally decided, ehh, why not, and watched Sarazanmai after a friend recommended it.

I watched Pokemon most of my childhood and then around the age of 12 I ranted out Sailor Moon from the library.
But around the same age, I think what introduced me to anime more was when I started reading manga like Yotsuba&!, X, and A Certain Scientific Railgun.
And then it just went from there.

"How Were You Introduced To Anime?"
Tv and when I was older brainwashed by other people to watch anime

Anime was practically everywhere on TV back then, with shows like Doraemon and Shinchan. Also, two of my sisters used to be complete weebs.

I enjoyed a lot of old VHS tapes of children's anime series dubbed in Taiwanese Mandarin before the age of 10.

Once I figured out the Tales game series had anime adaptations. I did watch Pokémon as a child but never cared for anime until watching Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike and Tales of Zestiria the Cross in 2019 and pretty much dove into it after that.

@TheAnimeLogician yup yup, now I am a die hard SAO fan and have watched EVERY adaption of it

When I saw and purchased Bible Black Gaiden on DVD back in the early 2000s, I guess.

I watched Pokemon and Hoshi No Kirby on youtube when I was like 3 or 4 but I just thought they were cartoons.

When I was like 6 I started listening to a bunch of nightcore, vocaloid and touhou music because idk I just really liked that kinda music, and I ended up watching my first "Non-kiddie" anime which ended up being the first episode of Deen Fate/Stay Night because I saw a background of it while I was watching a nightcore video and some random commentor started talking about the show so I searched it up.

And when I was around 7-8 my friends started talking about anime to me, so by that point I already knew what anime was,

I discovered the Kirby anime when I was 8. Then the Pokemon anime, then fairy tail, and it all went downhill from there. I also vividly remember watching the 80s Superbook at my old Christian school, though it was after I got into kirby

@TheAnimeLogician yep anime is common here in asia i say

@TheAnimeLogician
I still heavily utilize my library, though I tend to read more single-volume/omnibus series. However, I have read some longer works (e.g. Bakuman) - you just need to request books to your branch from the network you're in. I'd say the selection is honestly pretty good, though your mileage may vary depending on where you're based.

People at school my class had lot of anime fans!

Seeing Naruto being aired on TV. I've seen Pokemon before, but at the time I considered it "cartoons" in the most generic sense.

@Exhumatika Yo! Bible Black I've heard great things from my friend, as she has seen the anime lol Would you call the anime great?

Mid to later seasons are better, but over-all, I'd give it a solid 8.5/10.

@Exhumatika Alright, I'll check it out. Thanks, usually on average I rate animes anywhere from 6-7, but doesn't mean I won't call an anime trash or perfect, just means I've seen over 400+ titles of anime and on average they end up being above average or good.

@FZREMAKE Elfen Lied was good but I never got to finish it and I've seen all the original Fate Stay Night pathing's for the anime, the only things I haven't seen from FSN are the non-canon stuff. Fruit Baskets is also good too.

@Kisaragi_Toka Dude, double dragon is one of my favorites games when I was growing up. Also, that's cool that your parents shared a great hobby with you.

@minmi_pen My friend has recommended A Certain Scientific Railgun, is it good? I don't mind people recommending me stuff either, as I tend to be openminded and to be an anime reviewer I need to look into every crevice that holds anime within!

@The-Demiurge Death Note is an old school anime, it was being talked about when I was still in high school, which was 13-14 years ago. Glad to know family was what got you into anime.

@Drumbottle Nice! Shin-Chan, Pokemon, Keroro, Zatch Bell, Dinosaur King, are some shows I watched within my younger years as well. Good stuff.

@yandereu Wow! So, you were lucky to be introduced to anime through your own environment and your family, that must have been nice.

Try to watch Bible Black the entire series in one go with your hands tied behind your back.

Pokemon, though I didn't really think of it as different than any other cartoon. My friends at school were the ones that really introduced me to anime, through stuff like Yugioh, Dragon Ball, Inuyasha, and Naruto, in Grade 4 (this was during the mid/late 2000s). Local libraries used to have a lot of manga on hand and my friends would check them out and distribute them to us on days we could read comics. So I mainly got into anime/manga out of peer pressure.

I became more of a fan on my own. I burnt out around 2014. I got back into the hobby around when I made this account. After that I became a way more hardcore fan. Up to that point, I just had kept to battle shonen, rom coms and like one mecha anime. I hadn't seen much older stuff either outside of Dragon Ball.

Nowadays, I kinda still am going through a minor burnout, though I have just become interested in other things, I have less time, feel more burned out with life. All that really contributes, rather than being disinterested in anime. While I am going to be kinda busy to start the year, I want to vow to watch more anime this year, once I do get free time. Lots of stuff I need to get around to or re-watch.

@TheAnimeLogician You need to watch Fate zero though. It's canon and it's the best fate.

As a kid, Pokemon and Studio Ghibli films were part of going over to my Grandad's but I didn't really think they were anime, my Grandad was just into all things animation.

I think I properly started anime casually when I started watching Toradora! with my sister at 13/14. Then got into Haikyuu and boom, a hobby was born! However, I watch less now than I did in my teens which is really sad but I guess that's life!

I hate those threads because I'm from the boring group of people that was introduced to it via TV, instead of the new generation that was introduced to it via internet.
It feels like SUCH A BORING ANSWER.

I much prefer the answer of ignoring that part and just saying that I admired people with anime avatars and signatures on internet forums and that aesthetic caught my attention.
The first anime I watched that's on my MAL (Therefore ignoring everything I watched on the TV) was Strawberry Panic because it's aesthetic and romance gave me "fuzzy feelings".

@TheAnimeLogician yep my family were also nerds in video games and anime. That's watching anime on living room was common thing for us (even ecchi anime)

@TheAnimeLogician
Yeh, I enjoyed it when I was watching it back then but it's been a really long time and I can't remember much.
A Certain Scientific Railgun takes place following the life of "Level 5" Esper Mikoto Misaka.
There's also A Certain Magical Index which follows Touma Kamijou that is a supporting character from A Certain Scientific Railgun who has the lowest psychic rank of zero but has a mysterious power called "Imagine Breaker".
You can watch both in episode order but it's just a lot more easier to watch by release date.
Here's a forum you can read about the watch order. (Link)
Overall I recommended it.
It's a classic early 2000s series that people overlook sometimes.

via mi padre... he was stationed with the navy in japan for a few years. lived in tokyo during the late 80's early 90's, found anime, raised me on studio ghibli ghost in the shell akira etc...