| When I was little, I watched anime unknowingly, used to watch Pokemon, Yugioh and Bakugan but I didn't know they were anime at the time. Told my friend I was bored when I was 15 and he was like, try watching some anime. Watched Bebop, hated it at the time, watched Samurai Champloo and I fucking loved it. Just kinda went from there. |
LoknirMar 5, 2020 7:16 AM
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| It was my eternal guilty pleasure, Gundam Seed, that I thank for getting me into this media. Who knew giant robots and nudity would get a young boy into something like this... and then follow by Naruto, then watching To-Love Ru online, and then completely blowing those doors away to some actual good anime. What a fresh time that was. EDIT: OH RIGHT, and Grave of the Fireflies yanked feels outta me during 7th grade. |
| "You know you've reached peak quality when a doujin is better than the actual source series." (Eg. To LOVE-Ru) Just to list a couple of biases. Likes: A good story, characters, writing, romance, a good plot twist or something that breaks expectations (In a good way), 'backstory' and justice. Dislikes: Bad romance, too much fanservice, the harem genre, yuri, yaoi, and bad writing. |
| A friend had started watching anime but I didn’t really want to get into it. Randomly one day while browsing YouTube, an episode of that same anime that my friend was talking about popped up in my suggested feed. I was bored so I gave it a watch and now I’m here. |
| Meow meow meow meow and meow shogi, meow meow meow meow and meow shogi. Taking one step a time, I work and try my best. Though I'm the weakest of the bunch, Expect from me a good paw punch! Meow meow pawn, meow shogi. |
| Don't know tbh. I've been watching it ever since I was a kid. It's just one of my hobbies even tho I don't really watch it anymore besides a few shows I still enjoy it. |
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| I started watching anime, because it was a new entertainment for me. Simple as that......, bro. |
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| My 6 year old self just wanted something fun to watch, so I found yugioh. |
| because it's all my internet friend would post about so i was intrigued. |
    SPRING |
| Because I found out Kissan*me exists, and I didn't have Netflix ;-; |
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| I'm pretty old, so I got into anime very gradually via 90s JRPGs like Breath of Fire, Phantasy Star and Shining Force. The stories were great but not only that, there was a certain something about those big-eyed girls in games like Valis III that adolescent me found irresistible. Still do, after all these years. |
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| I used to be a pretty big Pokemon fan as a really young lad. Then one day when I got sent to this Church Camp by my parents I noticed this dude had a Snorlax and Pikachu wallpaper by chance and ended up talking to him. He ended up expanding Pokemon out into Anime for me by showing me Sword Art Online. Ever since then I've really only branched out and continued watching. |
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| because i was a kid and it's a common thing for kids to watch cartoons. cartoon network (american tv channel) started broadcasting some anime during that time and i liked what i saw. been watching ever since for 15 years. |
| I don't even know why. I always watched animations as a kid like Pokemon and Yugioh but I started watching seriously in grade eight when I rewatched Attack on Titan and watched Yuri on Ice. But now, I just watch because it gives me joy |
| I broke my leg, asked a friend a show to watch on Netflix while I was in bed, he told me that i should watch HOTD, and yeah now I'm a filthy weeb ffs |
| Jojo's Bizarre Adventure made me curious. After finishing the series, I started venturing deeper. |
Daft Punk is love, Daft Punk is life  |
| I was like 7 when I saw naruto on tv and everything started with that day... Naruto started everything XD After naruto I was like 11 and saw one piece opening 13 on youtube, I liked song, characters, but was confused ofc XD then I started watching one piece and was amazed really, but couldn't understand it's style for a while.... So Basically Naruto and One Piece was my first animes tho haha, But worst day in my life was the day I decided to watch SAO (13 yo)... XD DBZ changed my taste of anime tho.... cos of dbz I started "OLD SCHOOL" animes like yu yu hakusho, hokuto no ken, Saint Seiya and etc. oh and manga I started cos of Naruto, I saw on facebook that Tobi was obito so I checked that chapter, was hard to understand at first time, but really liked it.... |
BrawlerJoeMar 5, 2020 1:29 PM
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| My evil evil evil friend one day said "HEY! You gotta check out this dark horror manga called Tokyo Ghoul. Just read it then watch it, and trust me." And now I'm a weeb. |
| I was honestly hooked on Suigintou's (Rozen Maiden) character and fell in love with the anime. After that I wanted to watch more and thats how my addiction began |
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| All my friends liked anime and they tried to get me into it, plus osu! back in the day got me to watch some things, while during 2014-2017 I didn't really find many of the recommendations from them that great and or some of the things I watched because of osu! I didn't care for it wasn't until about 2018 I actually started watching more than like 3 anime a year. |
| My cousins were watching anime and I thought it could be interesting, I was more into games on this time. Watching anime was fun so I continued seeking for other titles. |
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| I was watching tv, and samurai pizza cats was on. how I started watching anime consciously? I have no clue, probably a friend recommended it. how I got REALLY into anime? I watched eva and got hooked. |
| 馬鹿げた倫理 全部ガラクタで |
| Why did I start watching anime? Because it was there... on TV. |
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| I kept hearing how good it was. So I watched Fate/Zero. I got very interested and watched Sao and got hooked. |
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| Because the toaster wouldn't toadt my bread until I agreed to watch anime. 😳 In all seriousness, my journey to the dork side began when Cartoon Network aired Akira at midnight. This was pre-toonami, in '95 or '96. It's worth noting I'd watched anime before, such as Speed Racer, Voltron, Transformers, and so forth. Akira, however, was the first 'japanimation' I went into knowing what it was. Not long after, The Sci-Fi Channel starting airing anime like Green Legend Ran and Ghost in the Shell. Then I found several anime at Blockbuster; namely Venus Wars and Demon City Shinjuku. Of course, Toonami happened, giving us DBZ, Sailor Moon, Ronin Warriors, Yu Yu Hakusho, and so forth. I also saw Pokemon for the first time in March of '99. I know this because I remember watching it for the first time in the hospital waiting room as my nephew was being born. But it wasn't until Adult Swim premiered Cowboy Bebop that I truly became more than a 'filthy casual'. After that, I managed to acquire the means to watch the original Dragon Ball and Slayers. I was pretty much hooked after that point. 😁 |
THE-Black-MageMar 5, 2020 7:01 PM
| If you disagree with any thoughts or opinions expressed in the above post, you're wrong and I hate you forever! |
| I was mesmerized by Original Pokemon when I was a growing up, after that I started to find and watch more and more. But for some reason watching anime impacts me like nothing else can. |
| mid 2018, but i slowed down a lot since 2020 |
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| I started watching anime because of my best friend . He said to me "Bro look what I've found," and i liked it so much, then started. |
| My friend got me into anime. I watched anime before but I wasn't into it as I'd watch whatever I ran into on TV or online. He gave me a list of anime to watch and if I told him I hadn't watched them, then he'd force me to watch at his place. Out of all the anime he showed me, Hunter x Hunter, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Attack on Titan were the ones that I liked the most. After I saw those I knew I needed to keep looking for good stories. |
| When I was maybe 10 and REALLY into Invader Zim (yeah, I was that kinda kid), my older sister stopped my episode, that I was pirating on the family Windows XP computer, to show me this cool show her friend introduced her to. The best part? It was all free on Youtube! The episodes were just uploaded into 3 parts each, but I was hooked after the first part. Since then, Death Note has held a special place in my heart. I think the thing that REALLY kept me going and interested in anime, though, was when my sister introduced me to my second anime. Bit of backstory. Growing up, I had a super toxic, masculine mindset. I always thought I couldn't cry or be feminine in any way. I had to be strong!! I couldn't be compared to my sister, who loved pink and cute things, which happened a lot when I was younger. Back on track, my sister pulls me aside when I'm maybe half way through Death Note (which I stopped around episode 27-30. Didn't finish it until 6 years later lmao). She takes me into her room and says she wants to show me this anime that was streaming on Netflix, which we just got. She skips the opening and tells me that I'm not allowed to walk away until I finish the first episode, because she knows I'll like it. Her iPod Touch's screen is filled with roses and pretty boys dressed in lavender suits, and at this point I'm not sure why she thought I'd like this girly show? I keep watching, because what other choice do I have, and man oh man, was my entire world view challenged. Haruhi Fujioka single-handedly helped me accept my more feminine side, helped me realize that gender was stupid, and, while not Haruhi herself, Ouran as a whole helped me form my desired gender expression of "Mid-2000s Bishie Who Also Wore Dresses And Could Get Away With It". Ouran's one of those shows that was the perfect thing for me at the time, and it's still one of my favorite shows. After watching that, I sunk DEEEEP into anime for a solid three years. Fell out of it for a couple years (got really into video game youtubers and video games in general), watched a couple shows weekly (Erased, One Punch Man, Tokyo Ghoul, Dangan Ronpa), and eventually fell back into it in like late 2015 when ramalam99 started showing me shows that were big (NGNL and Fate/Zero are the ones that come to mind). Now, I'm out here like "OH NO!! this is my life". |
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eekeen said: back then, before i became a "weeb", i only watch dragon ball z and naruto then watch anime again when super came out ( i took large break watching naruto) and over a while, when Super reached it's finale and boruto fucking sucks ass, i decided to enter the anime scene, y'know watch more anime and as for manga well... i read it because why notAs the title suggests, why did you start watching anime / start reading manga? |
Pullman said: Wow, everyone has some kind of specific origin story. Am I the only one who just grew up loving anime and animation and kinda naturally started watching it more and more as I got older? I can't remember a time when I was not in love with comics and animation and anime is just one (big) subset of that interest that I was always gonna end up watching. The only thing that changed over time was that I went from not knowing that there are different types of animation as a kid and watching european, american and japanese animated series alongside each other to a young teen who knew what anime meant and watched as much of it as I could find on TV to an older teen who discovered the internet and learned about torrenting and MAL and started to amp up the anime consumption even more. No you're not the only one. I fall into that category as well. I grew up watching Canadian and American Cartoons. Then when Anime got big in the West around the late 90s I got more and more into it, I found myself then renting Anime Vhs/dvd's and watching them on T.V quite a bit. Then around 2005-2006 when I was a teen I started to find out more about downloading Anime on the internet. Those were the days.. Downloading those Avi and RMVB files ( I doubt a lot of people on MAL even know what RMVB is, it's been long dead lol). Then around 2008 when HD codecs started getting more popular Ohh man, what a game changer. Couldn't go back to those super compressed video files again after that. Younger Anime fans got it so good and easy now days. Everything that comes out is now subbed. When back in the day if it wasn't fan subbed or legally licensed you weren't seein that shit. But yet again the guys growing up in the VHS fan sub era probably think I had it super easy so oh well. |
ZeroflamezMar 5, 2020 9:25 PM
| When I was like 9 I thought anime was COOL and people would think I’m AWESOME and TASTEFUL for liking anime. Note that my definition of cool at the time was like. Shiny Pokémon-having kid with a Zelda tshirt. I was a fuckin dweeb Now I’m a sad weeb who enriches his life with animated women. At least it’s a nice way to escape the world and be a part of an interesting story. I’ve always been into consuming art, films, music etc and analyzing it and finding what it means to me, and anime is no exception. |
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| when I was little, I only watch pokemon, naruto, dragonball,..I didn't know they were "anime". Then I saw an AMV of Chuu2byou called "A symphony of justice" and really liked it, I searched for the show and watched it. After that I started watching other anime |
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| I grew up in Japan, and when all the channels were in Japanese where I understood nothing, I would watch what most kids were attracted to on TV: Animation. |
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| Back in 2012 I got expelled from my highschool. Took me 2 weeks to get all situated into the local delinquent school so I had alot of free time. |
  ♡ Harder Daddy ♡ |
| Wanted to see some anime-titties and fan-service. |
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| I was REALY bored of games back then and my friends were talking about naruto in class and told me to watch it, I finished it in a few days and i loved it |
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| I saw a trailer of "Shaman King" on TV in 2005. It looked interesting, so I started watching it and liked it a lot. |
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| because SAO i was bored and i was just searching here and there then SAO suddenly appeared and i was like dam this shit is fire after that i start looking for things like SAO and found out its called anime etc... |
AskaaMar 6, 2020 4:37 AM
 ”A fight isn't won once a victor is decided, it's won when someone loses.” – Izayoi SakamakiI don’t even know the real names of the two… no, three that I killed back then. I just closed my eyes, put my hands over my ears and tried to forget it all.” – Kirito MY ANIME LIST |
| Because I've always liked animation, but western cartoons and CGI movies, with their "animation is kids stuff" mindset and the lack of any overarching plot (with the exception of a rare few), weren't working for me anymore. I wanted to watch animation that actually took advantage of the freedom the medium offered to tell a wider variety of stories and not just children's comedies. |
| Because it looked far better than the fight scenes I see from action shows/movies back when I was a kid? |
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