I was introduced to anime unknowingly by way of Battle of the Planets in 79/80, and was further indoctrinated by Voltron but especially Robotech, which led to many days of missing the bus to school (or almost) trying to catch the last few minutes of the 6:30am airtime.
I realized where these all came from after reading the Robotech Art books, but wasn't introduced to 'original' anime until I went to Purdue in 1989. a few of us met 'that guy' in the science fiction club who always carried around a few VHS tapes with him, and watching Dirty Pair OVA 1 and Macross: DYRL in the basement library of the student center that day, I was hooked. Within a few weeks, I and a couple others founded the Purdue Animation Club, and I also discovered the amazing wonders of Usenet and r.a.a.
Through starting PAC and involvement on r.a.a., got the first flyer for the 'upcoming' AnimeCon '91, which led to a decidedly un-epic 40 hour minivan road trip to my first anime con. Show itself was decidedly very-epic to me. After the amazing panels, jaw-dropping dealers room (General Products blowout sale was mythical), room parties and anime on film, I was probably a lifer by then.
After purdue days, was a user on the infamous venice.mps.ohio-state.edu site, run by the kind admin to all the poor college fans who lost accounts, marijan adam.
Wrote a handful of reviews for early Animerica and Manga Newswatch, my only official anime contributions in the written word put down on actual paper. Except for the early homemade anime card game Anime War.
Also through r.a.a. and irc chat legendary channel #anime! , met fans from all over including a large cadre in Chicago that would ultimately form the core of Anime Central. (including one of the most legendary presences in all of anime fandom lore, E. Conty
. Ended up chair or co-chair of ACen from 2000-03.Also a collector of many items of random detritus of early anime fandom, including fanzines, convention newsletters, convention room party flyers (many of Carl Horn's are amazing), etc.
Random Factoid: Got mis-identified as Ryan Mathews in a picture in Animerica issue. At the time it seemed on the internet we were 'the two anime Ryans'.
Ryan Gavigan
gavv
Gaver-san (pretentious early 20s r.a.a. handle)
Gaver-sensei (even more pretentious early 20s r.a.a. handle)
Still hosting friday night anime shows at my house, been a regular since 1999. Keeps the anime chops fresh
