When or how did you discover anime?

[firedrops]

It's kinda hard to explain but I feel like the subbed VAs put a lot more feeling and emotion into their character whereas a lot of the English speaking VAs feel flat??? Does that make any sense at all?

[Emerchy]

I know I'm in the minority here but I have to pick dubbed! I miss things if I'm trying to watch anime (or anything for that matter) and read subtitles at the same time
I'm happy to watch things with subs if a dub isn't available but I prefer dub haha

@(you need an account to see links) I can't imagine watching Grave of the Fireflies at 8 years old! I only watched it a few years ago and I was like "what on earth did I just watch"

[firedrops]

It's a perfectly valid opinion. I used to watch only dubs as well but I got introduced into subbed because I was too impatient to wait for the dubbed to catch up hah. And I ended up sticking with subbed after that.

I also went through a pretty cringe part of my life where I repeated random phrases from anime in public *sweats profusely*

[Charmander]

Good think I read this as I was going to make a similar thread lol! I am by no means an Anime connesiuer. When I was younger I used to stay up late Fridays and I always enjoyed watching Gungdam Wing. Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z was always on after school so that was my first exposure to Anime. As I got older I was more hooked to Pokémon and Digimon as anime even though to me they were just cartoons lol. I also remember watching Yugi Oh alot as well! I also recall a show called I think Disc Monsters? It had a little character called Mochi...anyone know what I am talking about? Anyways now in writing this I now realize how much Anime I did watch as a child 😄! As an adult now I don't really watch much anime except for Pokemon with my mini me. I did watch the Sailor Moon movie when it came
out recently and that was nice and nostalgic. I'll need to try and give some of the anime that is on Netflix a shot and see what happens when I have some down time. For now it's making our way through the Pokemon series on multiple platforms!

[Ariealle]

I remember when I was about 3, before ballet, I would sit and watch Sailor Moon. then it turned to the mornings before school started. I would have my bowl of cereal at the table on the other side of the room, and have to practically stand in my chair to see the tv over my couch in order to watch it. If I didn't get a chance to watch it in the morning, I'd have a "bad day" that would warrant my teacher asking me what was wrong, and then letting her know I didn't have time to watch SM that morning and she'd just laugh. It was a sad time. my mom would always laugh as well when I tried to transform...
The next one that caught my attention was DBZ, and being young (and dumb apparently), I was convinced that was the start of the series. My friend..? made fun of me and called me stupid because he was like, "what do you think the Z means? it means that there was a Dragon Ball first." ok but, it wasn't on tv when I knew about it. sorry dude.. gosh. Anyway, absolutely in love and have watched the whole series countless times (different times in life) and movies. same goes for SM too (duh). Just, pure beauty. I love when you can actually feel the emotions in shows, get goosebumps when shit's about to go down, or pissed the hell off when they threw, "on the next episode.." at you. (PJ Phil anyone??)
we'd always play DBZ at school and everyone would say I was Chi-Chi because I was "so strong" but it's only because, one time, someone was sitting in my seat at my desk and started drawing in my notebook, and I didn't like drawings in my writing book. so I took the chair from right under them.. oops. I'd prefer Android 18 tho. badass b.

There was lots of pokemon and digimon, cardcaptors (loved Melin), some monster rancher, yugioh, beyblade. OH AND HAMTARO!! (what about Hello Kitty?? still remember the theme song.) little bit of Cowboy Bebop and Chobits in the later years.

I usually stick to what I know best, but I'm also open to some suggestions (and reading through there has been plenty). I wanna see Kakegurui bc.. Momo from Twice said she liked it. what's the fuss lol.

Also, just gotta say, the worst dub they could've ever done was voicing Sugar as Mini Moon (Chibi Moon). I wasn't allowed to watch those episodes when my mom was in the room because she hated her voice.

Thinking back too, there wasn't many shows I watched that weren't anime. if my siblings had control of the tv, that was a different story. This is mostly all I watched through childhood though.

[kittyray]

Keep in mind that I say this as a person who is kind of No Longer An Anime Person. I honestly don't totally remember the order of events. I know there were some shows we casually watched, not necessarily in any sort of order (Ranma ½, Fushigi Yugi, Inuyasha, probably 1-2 others that I'm forgetting). I don't remember exactly when this all happened, but probably over the course of 99-04? At some point somebody got their hands and a couple bootleg Card Captor Sakura tapes,from somewhere in the middle, and we were all stoked for the English dub. We enjoyed it well enough until somebody managed to get the earlier episodes and we realized how many weird details were changed and general were mini-person outraged at some of the sanitation that occurred. That also led to the discovery of Magic Knight Rayearth, also by CLAMP, which we all loved. During that time a few of us got DVD players, which made a difference in our collecting and swapping of things. But as much as it got really cool, the friend group dissipated during that time because people moved, took extracurriculars more seriously, et cetera. At one point I remember some gag in a class skit being "kitty has her anime dvds", and that "anime" was the butt of a joke, and it suddenly felt like something to be embarrassed about. I remember when we actually performed it, instead of saying "I love anime" I said "I love DVDs", lmfaooooo. Then another time, when I was visiting a friend who moved who I saw 2-3 times a year, I was returning a DVD to her and she basically said "you can keep it, anime is gross now". Without anybody left to share in my interested, I kind of just fizzled out.

Funnily enough, I was really into the Ghibli films, but in my head I didn't categorize as something to be embarrassed about.

Then to be honest it mostly stayed out of my head for like a decade and then I got to college and realized there's a lot of anime to get into, but head was always Too Full to watch an episode here and there and only when I was with people already watching it, except for a couple things that got very popular.

[Nattiee]

Keep in mind that I say this as a person who is kind of No Longer An Anime Person. I honestly don't totally remember the order of events. I know there were some shows we casually watched, not necessarily in any sort of order (Ranma ½, Fushigi Yugi, Inuyasha, probably 1-2 others that I'm forgetting). I don't remember exactly when this all happened, but probably over the course of 99-04? At some point somebody got their hands and a couple bootleg Card Captor Sakura tapes,from somewhere in the middle, and we were all stoked for the English dub. We enjoyed it well enough until somebody managed to get the earlier episodes and we realized how many weird details were changed and general were mini-person outraged at some of the sanitation that occurred. That also led to the discovery of Magic Knight Rayearth, also by CLAMP, which we all loved. During that time a few of us got DVD players, which made a difference in our collecting and swapping of things. But as much as it got really cool, the friend group dissipated during that time because people moved, took extracurriculars more seriously, et cetera. At one point I remember some gag in a class skit being "kitty has her anime dvds", and that "anime" was the butt of a joke, and it suddenly felt like something to be embarrassed about. I remember when we actually performed it, instead of saying "I love anime" I said "I love DVDs", lmfaooooo. Then another time, when I was visiting a friend who moved who I saw 2-3 times a year, I was returning a DVD to her and she basically said "you can keep it, anime is gross now". Without anybody left to share in my interested, I kind of just fizzled out.

Funnily enough, I was really into the Ghibli films, but in my head I didn't categorize as something to be embarrassed about.

Then to be honest it mostly stayed out of my head for like a decade and then I got to college and realized there's a lot of anime to get into, but head was always Too Full to watch an episode here and there and only when I was with people already watching it, except for a couple things that got very popular.

Pretty much similar story with me. I dont ever remember "discovering" anime per se. Sailor Moon, DBZ & Card Captor was on after school on I think YTV and so it just became a routine. I never considered it anime, though. I thought anything not with real people was considered cartoons, similar to like Simpsons.
Last anime I watched was the skateboarding one with a bunch of people from the community and I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I enjoyed it more because of the content or the company/commentary.

[Alcremie]

I have a pretty similar story to @(you need an account to see links) When I was very little I would watch Sailor Moon before school. I remember being in awe regarding the animation style. It was just so beautiful. I continued watching and became very invested into Sailor Moon for a long time. I was super upset knowing there was another season (Stars) that I couldn't find a way to watch it. I would draw SM styled portraits of my classmates that asked me to for $1 each. I eventually got caught making bank and had to stop lol. I feel that I've outgrown most of the SM storylines, but I'll always appreciate the art that motivated me to learn how to draw!

[Ariealle]

I have a pretty similar story to @(you need an account to see links) When I was very little I would watch Sailor Moon before school. I remember being in awe regarding the animation style. It was just so beautiful. I continued watching and became very invested into Sailor Moon for a long time. I was super upset knowing there was another season (Stars) that I couldn't find a way to watch it. I would draw SM styled portraits of my classmates that asked me to for $1 each. I eventually got caught making bank and had to stop lol. I feel that I've outgrown most of the SM storylines, but I'll always appreciate the art that motivated me to learn how to draw!

Schools really cracks down on that stuff eh? Slightly off topic but still on due to the nature, I had these wicked gel-pens and a black paper notepad, and me and a few friends would sell tattoos on recess for cents. We had a whole catalogue filled with whatever you want, including the planet symbols (straight from SM as I/we didn't know they were the actual symbols), and the dragon balls. teachers were snitches.
Please tell me also you were able to watch sailor stars at some point.

[Alcremie]

Schools really cracks down on that stuff eh? Slightly off topic but still on due to the nature, I had these wicked gel-pens and a black paper notepad, and me and a few friends would sell tattoos on recess for cents. We had a whole catalogue filled with whatever you want, including the planet symbols (straight from SM as I/we didn't know they were the actual symbols), and the dragon balls. teachers were snitches.
Please tell me also you were able to watch sailor stars at some point.

Ah yes I remember gel pens. 90's anime, gel pens, and Lisa Frank really made our childhoods colorful it's funny cuz now I have 2 friends that have actual dragon ball tattoos lol

I did end up watching Stars subbed on Crunchyroll in my early 20's. The new dubbed SM seasons are pretty good too. Chibi-Usa's voice is much less annoying now!