I've always liked cartoons and my dad and I shared an interest in comic books; when we went to a comic book show, a few of the dealers had some bootlegged tapes (the flyers advertised "Japanimation") for sale and I watched some of the toons a dealer was playing at their booth. I didn't walk away with any tapes but I knew I wanted to see more. The shows happened every few months so every show we went to, I was sure to see what all was playing and for sale. Not too long after, dubbed versions of Sailormoon and Yoroiden Samurai Troopers aired in my market and I was hooked.BadMediaKarma wrote:For those of you who became anime fans before it was mainstream, how did you discover the medium?
Initially, the draw was stylistic - it simply looked different than most of the cartoons I was familiar with - then it was the content. The types of story and quality of world building were very unique than what I was used to. Then come to find out that shows like Voltron that I really liked when I was even younger were actually Japanese blew my mind and I just became ravenous for it.BadMediaKarma wrote:What drew you to anime and how did you connect with other fans?
As far as connecting with other fans, in a way it was lonely. There were friends I had who were watching stuff on TV I was, and some other neighborhood kids who were into a show here or there but it wasn't until I got on the Internet and met other fans.
Haha, aslo loved Jem as a kid but didn't really draw comparisons to Japanese animation and researching who did Jem (and Transformers and G.I. Joe) until much later.Akage wrote:Lots of US cartoons were outsourced to Japan in the 1980s, including one of my favorites as a kiddo - Jem. I was a little tyke when I saw these, so it didn't register to me that they were made in Japan.
My parents were cool with it as long as I didn't get into trouble at school or made bad grades because of it. The kind of encouraged it when I started learning Japanese. But growing up in the Rust Belt, I'm not really sure they were really thrilled about it.BadMediaKarma wrote:And finally, what did family and friends think of the community?