Mine’s Violet Evergarden in 2021. I’ve seen others before that, but I thought of them as “cartoons” or movies in the generic sense.
Inititially Code Geass in like 2013, but I stopped after the 1st episode. I think the style put me off. Haven’t given it a try since (but I should). Then to give anime another shot: SAO. It’s a cliché 1st anime but after that I was hooked.
The wild thing is, I believe my 2nd anime (I guess technically 3rd) was High School DxD. Or at least I dove into ecchi anime pretty soon after beginning to watch anime.
My first anime / cartoon is probably Pokemon or Digimon.
But excluding those, it’s The Familiar of Zero or Infinite Stratos. These are the ones that my friends were watching / recommended back then.
I started with SAO, but I didn’t really get into it until the original run of Full Metal Alchemist, then the rest is history
First “anime” was Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Second one I think was Death Note, then Attack on Titan. Haven’t watched much outside of those, ngl. Not a big anime guy.
Dragon ball, because they streamed it on the open channels on the tv. After that it was Naruto, Pokemon, Hunter vs Hunter and One piece
First anime that I downloaded and watched on computer was Mirai Nikki circa 2014. I YOLO watched the full series from 21h to 7h next morning.
Totally wasted at the end, like being drunk without alcohol.Somehow I found doing this funny and redid it (less harcore) a few times with other animes.
I’m semi convinced that I saw some part on TV before, not really sure.
Gonna feel old here but:
“Voltron: Defender of the Universe”
Evangelion. One might imagine that it was a bit of a wake up call that anime ain’t kids cartoons, and I then became a self-respecting anime watcher until the Age of No Time arrived and I just rewatch Toradora! Or Clannad so I can sweat manly tears.
I am not 100% sure but it most likely was “The Promised Neverland”.
Of course if I wanted to count the ones I watched as a kid, then one of the Ghibli studio ones would be it, I guess “Howl’s Moving Castle” or “Totoro”?
Furthest back that I can remember are Doraemon both films and series from around 80s 90s and some other tokusatsu. All on VHS. Can not remember which one exactly is “the first”. I start early ;)
Then some series that I never watched from start to finish on cable network. Like Ranma, Sailor Moon, Oh! My Goddess, You’re Under Arrest!, Houshin Engi, El Hazard, CC Sakura, Galaxy Angel. I always try to be in time for Sakura and Galaxy Angel airing, because cute girls. Never did, because school.
edit to include Utena… it became a source of running joke between me and a girl next door.
Some certainty with title that marks the moment I start actively seeking out and watching more anime. Probably Sister Princess, fan-subbed, burned on CD-R. Good times.
Born in the 70’s so technically battle for the planets or astroboy. But first conscious choice was Eva on SBS
I watched a lot growing up, probably my first one ever was Sailor Moon or My Neighbour Totoro when I was around 5, then as I aged my anime choices slowly evolved (and I was also limited to what was on the TV until around 2003/2004 and started watching streams on whatever site I could find. My first ones that I guess I thought of differently than as an after school cartoon would’ve been Escaflowne in 2002 and Inuyasha in 2003.
The first anime I ever saw was Samurai Pizza Cats since my mum LOVED that show and had a DVD of one of the seasons. I can’t figure out the first anime I conciously watched though, it was either Initial D or Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.
Initial D Stage 1-3 is awesome but I do kinda regret watching Dragon Maid in full due to the Kanna scenes
- Spirited Away and various other studio Ghibli Movies - first anime movies i watched and first type of anime content I ever saw, as a young child.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion. First anime series i watched, and first I chose to watch independently. ~ 16 years old.
Urotsukidoji, after seeing it on laserdisk at the first ever Hellraiser rave party (Netherlands). I was mesmerized more by that giant screen than the actual rave, so I looked for it, which back then was very very difficult. People didn’t know what anime was and I didn’t even know that word anime. I was lucky enough to have the Videoland (video rental place) help me out because after me telling him what I had seen, he was interested. First I actually managed to get Akira, and watched that, then eventually I found Urotsukidoji, which back then was imported via a label called “Manga entertainment” and dubbed, from great britain. Later on I would also find (very expensive) Manga dubbed tapes in the brand new Virgin megastore in Amsterdam. And thats how I got started with anime, this was in 1992. Been in to anime ever since, first thinking it was actually called manga, but then learning about it. even joined a mailing list fanclub (there was no internet yet, just BBS’s which were dial-in) where I learned a lot about it over the phone from the guy running that mailing list. they would send out a news letter it was a lot of fun reading those.








