Drew_Sutton wrote:I think Steve's right - it's less about a 'generation' and more about an inflection point or catalyst anime. I grew up in the mid-80s watching GI Joe, Transformers, JEM, Thundercats and Silverhawks - all of these American shows that outsourced animation to Japan and contemporaries of Robotech that certainly inspired an enjoyment of Japanese animation. But growing up where I did, we were too enthralled with our parent's stories of rivers catching on fire to busy ourselves with Robotech; I didn't see it until the late 90s (after I watched Macross II!) I wouldn't count myself as an anime fan until the mid 90s when I saw fansubs at a comic book show, advertising 'Japanimation' as the tape played on a small TV at the booth. And even then, it was still another year before I really got sucked in with Sailor Moon and Yoroiden Samurai Troopers/Ronin Warriors.
I consider those mid-90s adventures my inflection point - I not only saw these cartoons as really different, I knew they were really different. I devoured as much as I could about them. Fortunately, I got on the Internet not too long after, which lead to a very deep spiral of a rabbit hole. In some ways, I can hardly imagine myself in Dave or Steve's shoes, trying to find this info having to go zine to zine, club to club. Hashtag blessed.
Likewise! The animation styles of many kids shows to me had traits that implied they were animated in a studio from abroad. The credits would show Asian names and that would help me define what was and was not anime.
The UK didn't get Robotech or Samurai Troopers. Our specific boom was Manga Video, which launched it's label in 1992ish - at the same time Super Nintendo magazines were reproducing brilliant video game cartridge artwork (as many games still had westernised game art made for western releases), and AnimeUK magazine launched.
Before that we had Star Fleet, Battle of the Planets and Samurai Pizza Cats, and many 80's co-productions like Mysterious Cities of Gold, Dogtanian, belle and Sebastian etc. We never got Kimba/Speed Racer on terrestrial either at the time. Our first UK anime was not Astro Boy, it was Marine Boy in the 60's (maybe very early 70's? Dad remembers this).
No oldskool anime in the UK (like all anime the West got in the 80's) was labelled Japan-specific. So our Oldskool title is given usually when "this is from Japan specifically" Manga Video was a thing and it was collected/traded among viewers.
To me Pokemon is still a bit Newskool, but can be classed as Middleskool now due to it's age 8D
It makes me a bit sad when people assume the UK got anime at the same time as France/Spain/Germany/Italy. These countries got DBZ/Sailormoon at the time. The UK was always 5-8 years behind in the 90's/2Ks. The UK aired 12 episodes of Sailor Moon around 2002 at 7am. That was it! More stuff was aired on cable/satellite TV but you had to be able to have access to these more expensive ways of viewing TV.
Now, streaming has calibrated everything. I am thankful for this for new anime fans
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)