I'm from a small town in eastern Kentucky, so I get what you are saying. My first anime, I would have to say was DBZ, I watched 7 of the 9 seasons as they aired on tv. I was hooked with DBZ, i had a backpack, a binder, all sorts of stuff. Next was Last Exile that I recall, I was up late one night just flicking throw the channels and thought it was interesting. I stalled after that until about a year ago, and now I'm HOOKED for life. XD

I didn't really get into anime until my sophomore year in high school when my friend let me borrow her Evangellion and Rurouni Kenshin DVDs. Since then I loved it and my DVD collection is big. xD

first pokemon, then yugioh then wathing things like inuyasha to mew mew power to dot hack, then bam i was an anime fan soon as i found it it wasnt just a normal cartoon xD I have alot of boxets, and I'm planning on collecting more so, make sure you got plenty of boxsets for me! xD I'm excited this is gonna be the first year with my fiancee, too bad he isnt gonna cosplay with em ahh what the heck maybe next year. ^w^ but who knows. My next cosplay is gonna be a surprise, who knows i might post it within the next week. <3

@ ChibiTamako, you're welcome, i'm glad i got you into anime xD whooo for Rurouni Kenshin xD instead of DVD's i got the full complete boxset now! yay boxset of almost every anime I bought.. gosh my DVD pile is taller than me! xD

Shigure wrote:
I'm afraid what might happen if I stack all mine together. Dx

I figured this thread needed ressurected since it was so popular!

Methinks I was in highschool before I really understood what 'anime' was. (Small, small, small hometown....very sheltered upbringing. I wasn't even allowed to watch Ren & Stimpy, Beavis & Butthead, etc. >.>)

Anyway! Getting into highschool...I gained some new friends in Marching Band, and one of these kept saying something in another language that utterly confused me. When I finally asked, he told me that he was quoting Sailor Moon. XD Shh.

I had caught it on TV once or twice, but had never seen it from the beginning - so he let me borrow his VHS' of them. It all went downhill from there. Some of you may know him, and his best bud who also helped me get into anime!

J.T. Fields and April (Chibi) Childers?

The first show that really got me into anime was sailor moon in high school and I was hooked after that. I do remember watching dragonball when I was in elementary school though.

The first anime that got me hooked was DBZ. The first anime I watched was Ronin Warriors when I was 4 or 5.

Actually, it was in middle school. I REALLY hated it at first.
I thought it was just cartoons that were drawn poorly and making fun of
us American people....until

I got onto the site neopets (I know right? But, it had TONS of perks.) and talked
to people on there about it. The more I found out the more I got interested.
Now, I'm completely obsessed..and the best part,
you can always find new anime. IT NEVER GETS OLD.

My first three animes were: Ah! My Goddess, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Chobits.
This has expanded considerably though, especially genres.

Technically speaking the first anime programs I would have seen would have been Speed Racer and Astro Boy back in the early 1970's, but I wasn't really cognizant of them as anime in that time frame, they were simply low production value cartoons. Then several friends of mine were into StarBlazers/Macross Saga/Captain Herlock in my high school years in the early 1980's.

Where I first got personally hooked into anime started with my collecting Manga in the mid 1980's. I was reading titles like Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikoku, Baoh, Guyver, Mai the Psychic Girl, Fist of the North Star, Dirty Pair, Outlanders, Black Magic, Appleseed, and Crying Freeman. Then I saw the theatrical release of Akira in November 1988 and the theatrical release of Lupin the Third:Castle of Cagliostro around 1991 and I was hooked on anime as a medium of entertainment worth pursuing. I have watched most of the Rumiko Takahashi, and Hayo Miyazaki works since that time and numerous other mature themed (read non-pokemon and clones)anime since that time. My first VHS OVA series were probably the original Bubblegum Crisis, followed by Kimigure Orange Road. Me and my friends also watched Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind way too many times to count.

Currently I watch Naruto (yep genuine Narutard here) and about anything I have time to watch on Hulu. My anime DVD collection was somewhere over 600 at my last count with too many favorites to mention, and my old VHS collection was a couple hundred at least. I used to drop about $100 a week on anime in the early to late 1990s before American cable TV finally picked up on the trend with things like Adult Swim.