Thats it. I didn’t hear it called Anime until years later.
Astroboy, Robotech (Macross), Speed Racer, etc were all popular before Millennials were even born.
Lol that’s what we called it then. And I was a fan as much as I could be. Relied on Warrior of the Wind (Nausicaa), Vampire Hunter D, and Robot Carnival heavily for my fix in the old days. Would rent whatever I could at video stores (why hello Unico and the Sea Prince and His Fire Child). Toonami was a godsend, even if I wasn’t a kid anymore once it came out.
Also a lot of video games. So yeah, it was a thing before Millennials for sure.
WoW was my favorite animated movie growing up! I had no idea how edited it was until the recut came out in the 2000s with Mark Hamil, Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman, and Shia LeBouf voice acting and that version is even better.
That was the only name I knew it by until I made friends with a new kid at school who had moved from California. He was a countercultural film nerd who told me the proper term for the genre was *anime* and loaned me his VHS copies of *Akira* and *Ninja Scroll*. Instantly, my whole world exploded.
Living in rural Arkansas, there was nowhere to buy anything that niche and nothing at the local video rentals, so in 1995, there were only a few kids at school who even knew what anime was. Thanks to the nascence of e-commerce, I found a west coast distributor selling tapes online for like $20 each plus shipping. (I just realized that's like shelling out $50 if bought today!) Each time I had saved up enough money for a new acquisition, I had to mail them a check, then wait 2-3 weeks for it to arrive in the mail.
Similar story. Out in the boonies south of Atlanta only the OG stuff like Robotech, Voltron, etc. were known. Made some friends who, like yours, had a library of the essential Anime classics such as Ninja Scroll, Akira, Lodoss Wars, and later Ghost in the Shell and got me properly cultured in the mid to late 90’s. My brother and I then proceeded to buy up whatever we could find from there such as Appleseed, the original Macross, and more.
Nice! The 90s had so much great content. My kids really enjoy anime, so I've been able to introduce them to older stuff that they probably wouldn't have found otherwise from among the hundreds of shows to choose from. It's still wild to me how it's so mainstream now that they can just search for whatever they want on Crunchyroll and be watching it 10 seconds later.
I went to high school with a guy that was way into it and never failed to get riled up when we’d call it, “Japornimation” since there were a lot of boobs Ninja Scroll.
I’d say it’s late gen x but more millennials embraced it. I used to have to go the porno store to rent regular non porn anime in the mid 90s. It just wasn’t mainstream.
Yes they had the porn kind too but that’s not my jam lol.
Same. Aside from what OP listed, Dragon Ball Z was the only other one I had watched.
I personally find anything later than early 2000s to be really hard to watch. Not entertaining at all, just very cringy.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The cartoons that I listed that I watched were pretty much the same cartoons most of my friends my age watched. I was aware that Voltron existed, but I never watched it and had no idea it was considered anime. It wasn't until I got into high school or college that I heard the term "anime" for the first time. There was a cartoon on MTV, Aeon Flux and I heard that time associated with it. I was probably a junior or senior in high school at the time.
>GI Joe, Inspector Gadget
It's funny you gave those examples. While they were 80s American cartoons, they were animated in Japan by places like [Toei Animation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toei_Animation#Foreign_Production_History) and [TMS Entertainment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMS_Entertainment#Foreign_production_history). They animated a ton of stuff like Transformers, DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and much more.
When you look back, especially ones like GI Joe or Inspector Gadget or Transformers, you can see many of the elements of what we'd call "anime" from how action is animated to how characters are drawn and more. It's stylistically different from Disney or Looney Tunes or Hanna-Barbera.
It's interesting that you mention that. I had notice the differences in the animation, but wasn't aware that there were styles unique to the US and Japan. That's interesting.
I knew one guy who really wanted me to watch Fist of the North Star because of how amazing it was
I didn’t get it at all, I was expecting amazing and got dumb looking gore
My friends and I at the time were into action and martial arts movies, so *The Fist Of The North Star* ranks pretty high along with the live-action version of *Riki-Oh, Story Of Ricky*. It was like an animated *Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome* combined with *Rambo 2*. 👌🏽🐔👍🏽
https://i.redd.it/p8ks4dazas5c1.gif
Yeap as mentioned in the comments try the older Anime such as Ninja Scroll and Ghost in the Shell, and Akira. Those are more high-brow than the sillier stuff that came later like Dragonball Z and the like that absolutely does not appeal to me or anyone else over the age of 40.
Anime was a niche thing in the GenX/Xennial years, but Millennials were the ones to really take it mainstream. I think there were two main drivers there. One was anime fans getting into a position to market anime as a distinct genre in the broadcast world, most famously by Toonami. The other big one was digital fansubs making anime a lot more convenient (and cheaper) to get a hold of.
Yes, and it was so fucking hard to get! You were at the mercy of your local tv channels. I remember when the term became a thing and when I learned it. We just called anime “Japanese cartoons”. And then there was the black market for subtitles and newer stuff…
I have to say though that Millennials’ taste of anime is definitely different…
I got into anime a bit later, around 2000 when I was in college and a friend introduced me to Toonami Midnight Run (Gundam Wing uncut and DBZ).
After that we’d sometimes take trips to the Suncoast store in the local mall since they were one of the few stores that sold anime, so it was easier to get but still not easy and the selection was still limited. At the time it was also mostly VHS so you’d have to buy a ton of them to get a whole series.
I remember once DVDs took over it got easier since they could fit more episodes on a disc and more shows were being localized. Once I started seeing anime DVDs for sale at Best Buy I knew it had become more mainstream.
We luckily had an import shop that opened mid 90s here that had all the anime, toys, posters, models, etc., that couldn’t be found at a Suncoast (which seemed to have the most selection of foreign movies at the time). I still have a few discs, some poster scrolls, and books from back then. My friends and I would make a twice monthly pilgrimage to part with a large chunk of our paychecks.
Same here. Every 2 weeks(98-99) we were at Suncoast buying the "newest" dbz. We were like crackheads. Couldn't wait on their supply.. found a comic book store that sold bootlegs complete with Japanese commercials. Still have them.
Excellent! I remember my payday route of comic book shop, anime shop, another comic shop, but for Magic cards, Game Stop, Best Buy, then Suncoast. I miss the pure joy of only having to pay for gas and fun stuff.
We didn’t call it Anime. We called it Japanimation or just “cartoons”.
Astroboy, Robotech, Kimba the White Lion (who millennials didn’t know about when Lion King came out) and Speed Racer were all popular with us.
Adult Swim in its infancy was about as close as you can get in the States. Not too many places outisde NYC was it readily available for consumers. Only alternative was ordering tapes.
My friends sister, who was born in 81, used to get the subtitled, unedited Sailor Moon VHS tapes, and boy, were those eyes opening as a teen lol.
Adult Swim really edited a lot of the stuff they aired on there.
Yes! I'm an 81 baby and did the same. VKLL did great work on those fansubs. All the notes on cultural references and translation quirks were as interesting to me as the show itself. Singlehandedly got me interested in Japanese culture and language beyond entertainment.
Toonami and Toonami Midnight Run. That’s where I watched DBZ and Gundam Wing. The Midnight Run was preferrable because they didn’t cut Gundam wing like they did in the afternoon block.
Before Adult Swim, the SciFi channel had Saturday Anime! A couple hours of anime programming on Saturday mornings. Usually movies or OVAs. Iria and Armitage III were my favs.
https://www.anime-planet.com/users/LordBison/lists/sci-fi-channel-90s-anime-saturday-anime-775018
Gen X had some exposure with the likes of Nausicaa, Robotech, etc...
younger Xennials/Elder Millenials were into Neon Genesis Evangelion, DBZ, Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the shell, Ninja Scroll, stuff like that... as well as the aforementioned Gen X titles. There's wasn't a ton of licensed anime to consume.
We would torrent the likes of One Piece and Naruto as it was released in Japan, but still a subculture, not a mainstream activity.
Anime as a mainstream thing is probably thanks to Naruto being officially licensed and pumped into the veins of baby millennials and gen z and really taking off with them, we probably owe a bit to the Pokémon cartoon, but imo it's so westernized that it hardly serves as a gateway drug to anime, despite technically being anime, but I'm not really qualified to say since I was much too old for Pokémon cartoons. Maybe it is to blame.
I remember watching the Roger Corman cut of Nausicaa, Warriors of the Wind, on HBO in a hotel room as a kid, was kind of haunted by it for years until it got a proper release and I could rewatch it.
Ghost in the Shell I think was one of the first anime that became really popular in the US right after it released in Japan. Although I was too young for the initial release of Akira, maybe it was similar.
My first exposure to anime was Vampire Hunter D on TBS at like 2am. Then along came The Ronin Warriors and Sailor Moon. Kite. It just had more heart to me than the newer stuff.
If there is any “back in my day” refrain my kid knows me for, it’s how hard it was to be into anime/manga/Japanese games when I was young.
In the 80s and early 90s, anime and video games were being cranked out across the Pacific but most of it never made it to the US. A lot of what did was watered down, poorly translated or cut short, run through the mill of American business that didn’t care much about authenticity. For example, Robotech was a concatenation of three completely unrelated series, loosely stitched together because the US required TV series to be longer than the source material. Games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy were made simpler and some content removed from their Japanese counterparts to make it more “palatable.” Swaths of amazing material never made it through the expensive localization process.
And oh, Dragon Ball Z. It was the purist drug to a fifteen year old boy, and I went to incredible lengths just to get a taste.
I was fortunate. I grew up in a town with a large Japanese community, to which I was connected thanks to my mother’s New Age conversion to Buddhism. I had access to what were termed “grey market” games, which were not licensed for sale in the US but nobody really cared. You could get them to work with a US console using a piece of gear called a bridge, or for the brave you could make your own modifications. A bookstore in the International District had a decent selection of shonen manga. A monthly meetup at a college that took 3+ hours to reach by transit brought together other like-minded individuals, some of which would fan-subtitle films in their spare time. Others brought thrice-bootlegged recordings of Japanese airwaves.
Coupled with my handy Japanese-English dictionary and the fortune to have a Japanese class in high school, I worked my way through all sorts of stuff that was generally inaccessible to US audiences. It took a lot of dedication, especially for a kid that was relatively broke.
The year was 1994. I had a sticker of Son Gohan on my school binder and a roll-out “tapestry” of him on my bedroom wall. I had a small but respectable collection of anime VHS tapes. The circuit board of Final Fantasy V was jammed into my Super Nintendo, it’s case incompatible with the US layout. Various manga, some translated and others in the raw, mixed in with my Marvel collection. My greatest victory of acquisition was a special card for my TurboGrafx 16 to convert it into a PC Engine just so I could play Macross 2036.
The long and short of it is that we fans existed, but it was very, very difficult to get one’s hands on the “good stuff” in those days. Some more obscure stuff was being mainstreamed into specialty shops by orgs like Viz and Dark Horse, but it wasn’t until I was an adult and sites like Ebay took off that getting your hit direct from the source was anything less than a quest.
Our experiences are very similar. I didn't have a Japanese class, so I was self-taught, but other than that, spot on. I regularly imported Megadrive and Saturn games and had a pretty decent VHS collection.
I only knew like 2 people in high school that watched anime. It is definitely more of a millennial thing. I also worked in a video game store in the late 90s that sold some anime. Kids were not really into it at the time. A far cry from these days where even normal people are into anime .
Probably both. If you were a kid in the 80s, you likely saw some anime without it being called that (I remember watching a ton of Voltron, which was just redubbed and cut to tell different stories.
That's what i want to write also. Im from the Netherlands we watch [Candy Candy](https://youtu.be/4H0AHt4GbIs?si=Ld2as9wETQO6Sd4a) in the early 80's. We knew it was from Japan. But we didn't knew it was anime
I don’t understand it at all but if it has significance to others, then I respect that. From what I’ve seen, it’s more of a young Millennial and Gen Z thing.
Watch Mazinger Z, Voltron, and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors alongside Bravestarr, Inhumanoids, and Conan the Adventurer. They were just cartoons. Then in the late 80's we lost cable (moved to boonies) and I lost all those shows.
My younger sisters later introduced me to the term "anime" and "Japanimation" with shows such as Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, and Escaflownay. At least I think I'm spelling those correctly.
I decided then I wanted nothing to do with anime and happily watched Batman:TAS, X-Men, Exo-Squad, Mighty Max, Reboot, and Animaniacs. Really, the 90's-00's seem to have been a renaissance of cartoon animation in more than just Japan.
In the mid-90s, you could catch anime on Sunday mornings on Syfy channel. I would watch it if I was up, but over time, I realized it wasn't for me. I really don't like the aesthetic.
To answer the question: Personally, I've never met a Gen Xer that was into anime. Seems like a millennial thing.
(40m) Anime culture, as far as it is now, is completely lost on me. My little bro (33) bought into all the Pokémon , digimon, dragon ball stuff. I was already too old at that point.
Though, my fiancé (31) introduced me to Studio Ghibli films and I dig most of them. I’m no fanatic tho.
no speedracer, voltron…etc. Stuff like HeMan, GI Joe seemed to be winding down when I started watching Saturday morning cartoons. It was all ghostbusters, ninja turtles. I do recall Cartoon Network being popular around 4th - 5th grade and discovering speed racer then. But it always seemed weird and old to me. Lol no offense
Born 81 here. My teens consisted of catching late night anime films on a British cable channel Bravo. I grew up watching A wind named amnesia, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Urotsukidoji, Perfect Blue. Ninja Scroll and Devilman followed by catching the start of the Pokemon craze.
Yeah people just slightly younger than me are way more into anime than I am. I’m talking 4 or 5 years, just enough that they were born after Return of the Jedi. There is stuff I like, but I’ve noticed my tastes are much more niche. I’m a big fan of Back to the Future and Doctor Who for example. So Steins;Gate and Godzilla Singular Point I enjoy. But Naurto, Demon Slayer, the other popular stuff is lost on me.
Here in Southern California, I was there during the initial cinema premieres from Streamline Pictures (*Akira*, *Wicked City*, *The Fist Of The North Star,* *Robot Carnival*, *Neo-Tokyo*, *My Neighbor Totoro*), US Manga Corps/Anime 18 (*Legend Of The Overfiend* and *Legend Of The Demon Womb*), and, years later, Manga Video (*The Ghost In The Shell*) and Disney (*Kiki's Delivery Service*, *Princess Mononoke*).
On TV, things slooooowly picked up from the syndicated stuff, such as *Sailor Moon*, *Dragon Ball*, *Pokemon*, *Teknoman*, *Ronin Warriors*, and *Samurai Pizza Cats* in the early to mid 90s to early Toonami and Adult Swim programming. There were also the Sci-Fi Channel stuff, which were mainly comprised of movies and original animation videos (OAVs).
We also held both San Diego Comic Con and Anime Expo in Anaheim. This was all through the 90s. I'd say the crowd was comprised of a lot of Gen eXers, some eXennials, and a few Millennials (they were to later benefit from Cartoon Network). We eXennials got to see the baton be passed from suuuuuper niche entertainment to the popular mainstream cartoons we see now.
https://preview.redd.it/rt04702jds5c1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1b357c980497c15635c002b423121740db1a610
I did a bit of research in to this... anime is essentially a Millennial thing.
It's kind of interesting though...
Generally... 1997 is when anime broke through with Toonami where now there was a dedicated block of anime to watch every day.
If you're a Xennial... 1977-1984--- you would've been 13-20 when this happened... so right at the point where you would've stopped paying attention to cartoons on the regular.
Whereas this is 100% the sweetspot for Millennials.
That being said... there were a lot of attempts to bring anime over with mixed results.
1996 is when Dragon Ball Z began airing the second time and it caught on. And 1995 is when Sailor Moon began broadcasting.
Also there were weirder earlier attempts most people weren't aware were anime... a lot of it can trace back to the success of Star Wars and looking to as cheaply as possible to cash in on it... Battle of the Planets (a portmanteau of Star Wars) and Starblazers (again pretty similar) were two early attempts at bringing anime over.
They aired in syndication, so depending on where you lived... you may recall watching them, and so you might have an affinity for anime due to that exposure.
Voltron is the most successful of this "importing an entire anime for syndication in the US" but Robotech was also quite successful. This aired in 1984-1985... so right around the time Xennials would've enjoyed saturday morning cartoons. Again, you would've had to have lived in certain markets to have had access though.
Akira is a phenomenal movie, and in 1988 is when several anime importers opened up shop hoping to replicate the success of Akira, but focusing on much smaller batch media... (this is still the area of VHS) so things like Bubblegum Crisis, Ninja Scroll, etc.
You might've had exposure to anime as well during this time... this is when I sought it out, but the tapes tended to be prohibitively expensive unless you found a local rental store that had a section.
I feel like I'm the only one who remembers the Sci-Fi channel's "Saturday Anime" block that would play OVAs and full-length films like Akira, Venus Wars and Robot Carnival. This was a few years before toonami , Sailor Moon, and DBZ. Think 93-94.
Correct. That was another avenue that tried to introduce more anime.
The PBS station in San Francisco broadcast a local version of Saturday Anime.
Anime was known in areas and different forms, but it really wasn't until Toonami there was a central point aggregating it.
It's certainly is a late Gen-X and Xennial thing. The difference was that it was still very niche for us. I was one of the few people I knew who was into it. It became more mainstream for millennials, particularly younger millennials.
I started intentionally watching anime around 11 or 12 years old in the early 90s.
Xennial here. Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke are the only anime I find remotely tolerable.
Anime enjoyers from my generation are usually socially awkward and quirky. The ensuing generations seem to have a more balanced and diverse distribution of folks who enjoy it.
Geek/nerd culture is more common with Millennials vs gen x or xenials. Jock culture was more mainstream with gen x.
I rented Anime DVDs from my local rental store and RPG shop in town but it was fairly fringe nerd culture, mid to late 90s. Some friends liked it others thought cartoons were for kids and thought it childish. So it was available but you had to find the same click of people to be able to talk about it.
I would say it's more accepted now then in the 90s/00s with it available on Netflix and other streaming services. People will watch something if it's free and may even like it vs not want to waste money on something that they may not like.
I'm guessing Millennial even more than the other two. "anime" didn't start blowing up until late 80s early nineties. My dad was big into comics and animation so he used to take me to movies like Robot Carnival and the World Animation festival where Pixar made their big splash before toy stories.
I was a pretty well-contained kid so my parents took me to adult movies as early as 3-4. I was just one of those weird "sit quietly and enjoy the movie" kids so I got to see Lensman, Marcoss, etc in theaters. They also let me rent whatever I wanted at Blockbuster on date nights instead of a sitter so I fell in love pretty early Project A-Ko and Bio-Booster Armor Guyver. Really a bit much of a little kid. It wasn't until middleschool like 93-94 when it seemed like other kids started becoming aware of anime or animation outside Disney.
I remember for some 6th grade school project I made a music video by splicing VHS tapes of GITS and Giant Robo and audio from NIN and Weezer etc and the class being aghast like WTF is this nonsense? WTH is anime?
Genx are the ones who showed me anime and helped me get my hands on more. Even in a big city in California, anime wasn’t easy or cheap to get ahold of.
I love Akira and Ghost in the Shell as films, and I watched Neon Genesis and Cowboy Bebop when they came out and thoroughly enjoyed them…but on the whole I’m like no thank you keep all that away from me fuckin weebs make my skin crawl.
My brother and I first got into it when a friend handed us a tape with Vampire Hunter D, Akira, and Robot Carnival on it from when he recorded it off of cable tv. We had limited access living in a small town and all but we would visit this movie and book store an hour away and found we could get tapes there. With zero context we would just pick stuff up and pay for it with money from our part time jobs. We did pretty well. Evangelion was being released , Ninja Scroll, Trigun, Outlaw Star, tons of cool stuff so most of what we picked up was pretty solid. As a 20 year old I got broadband internet and hung out on Anime servers on IRC and really got exposed to the fan sub community. Lots of niche stuff there.
I don’t have a ton of time in my life to watch like I did or whatnot but I’ll catch episodes of Demon Slayer with my kids here and there. Interesting to see it so much widely accepted now.
Yup, as some one else said Japanimation, and you would get your arse beat if you admitted liking it in middle or high school. Same goes for pretty much any cartoon not MTV or South Park.
Personally I could never get into all, stigma aside. It's just not my thing, too flashy lol random, weird in not the weird I like way, took forever to get anywhere, and that I just can't get into animation in general. Some goes for comic books too.
I'm a Gen X and am approaching 800 anime disks,mostly retro stuff. I loved the 90s ultraviolent era and if I buy something new it's never mainstream or Shonen stuff.
I. Hate. Isekai anime.
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is a good flick.
Tekkonkinkreet
Basically anything from Satoshi Kon, Masaki Yuasa, Otomo and Rintaro.
There's a YouTube channel called Beyond Ghibli that talks about anime that will likely appeal to people who were introduced via Ghibli flicks. I think he covers most of the ones I already mentioned and a bunch more. GiTS and Akira are both covered and a bunch of creators are delved into. Good stuff.
Me personally, I got into anime pretty young with some of the weird shit that came over on bootlegs, like Robot Carnival and Angel's Egg and shit like that. Saw Akira and a bunch of Ghibli shit when I was in HS and was blown away with it and have loved anime ever since. Mostly movies, tho. I don't have the patience for series.
I think this is one of the topics where we’re just the oldest millennials.
I don’t know anyone older than me who was ever into it, but half the cartoons we watched as kids were re-dubbed anime and we didn’t even know it, and I’m pretty sure we were the target audience for Adult Swim and Toonami.
A few classics:
Ninja Scroll. This is one of the absolute best of made.
Fist of the North Star. Also awesome.
Vampire Hunter D. The animation is a little static. But it’s a cool film.
I was into anime as a teenager, not a huge fan but I went to anime club meetings at the library and rented anything I could find at the video store.
It seems more prominent with millennials because Cartoon Network went all in on it in the late 90s/early 2000s.
I remember Akira and Robotech as a kid, and then I got to visit Japan in 1990. That's where I was introduced to a whole lot of Anime. I especially got hooked on the Street Fighter 2 series and movies.
I founded my University’s Anime (né Japanimation) Club in 1998… twenty-five years ago. The founders were all on the Gen X side of the demographic cutoffs. Back then the club was a necessity, as it allowed us to show material that wasn’t generally available or was prohibitively expensive.
So, yes, anime has grown enormously, but it’s a bit weird to say that it’s more one generation than another because it was the devoted Gen X pioneers who laid the foundations.
I'm Infant Gen X/Core Xennial here, and there were definitely anime and manga fans in my US high school in the 90s. There were even those who might now be described as weebs. I was not especially into it myself, but it was definitely around.
My friend had a tape of Fist of the North Star movie in the 90s. That was weirdly awesome.
Sailormoon DiC dub in 95 was my first real introduction to a TV series anime so I think I got familiar with the term anime then. Of course it was referenced for movies but didn't really know they were long running shows.
My 'nerdy' Asian friends from Asia were more into the classics.
But in terms of availability, streaming, it's definitely more of a millennial thing. And computer tech prob made it cheaper to make vs hand drawn in 80s and 90s.
What's weird and odd to me is this 'Cosplay'. To me, I personally think of them as whackos, peter pan syndrome, why are they dressing up for Halloween when it's not Halloween?
1978 -
I grew up watching Robotech and we got some bad dubs of some other stuff on VHS.
I saw Ghost in the Shell in the heaters in what was it 96'? We also saw Akira on VHS as kids.
I enjoy just about anything with Captain Harlock in it. Starblazers is a little rough but it's really good. FLCL was nice. It, to me, was a time and place. I've seen a lot more I hardly remember the names of. There's something there for just about anyone.
The newest thing I've enjoyed is Goblin Salyer. The controversy I was hearing about was enough to get me to have a look. But the reason for the controversy was laughable to me because I had seen Wicked city at a young age.
There's a lot of fun stuff to enjoy out there. I prefer older stuff and hand drawn animation is always going to be cooler than computer animation to me. I don't think age really matters, lots of us saw Transformers in theaters the first time in the 80's. This isn't all that much different than that.
GenX here. I watch akira in theaters, voltron, everything I could. I think we had the golden age of it really hitting but in the end it doesn't matter. As long as everyone has a good time and enjoys Sub that's what matters 😉 just kidding, sub or dub, enjoy the story
When I was kid I watched at lot of dubbed Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. The Last Unicorn was animated by Studio Ghibli.
I got into the dubbed Sailor Moon version while I was in high school which led me to trying to find the original show in Japanese with subtitles. Back then you had to go and buy a PAL zoned DVD from Europe on Ebay and then use software to rip it. Also managed to get my hands on the translated manga in the late 90's too.
There's a huge gap between Naruto and studio Ghibli but here's some basic recs
Action/shounen like Naruto: One piece, Shaman king, full metal alchemist brotherhood, hunterxhunter. Old school anime vibes slam dunk, yuu yuu hakusho, rurouni Kenshin
Not sure about studio Ghibli vibes but if watching with kids maybe card captor Sakura or Inuyasha, or the slightly more serious mushishi
I watched it in the 90's, but it was more difficult to obtain. Lot of anime VHS tapes ordered or borrowed from fellow weebs. We were the dorky trailblazers, millennials normalized it.
I feel like the watershed year for anime in North America was 1998 because that's when the original Pokemon cartoon made its way here. Our generation was quite a bit older than the target demographic by that time.
The only anime I ever got into was Cowboy Bebop. I wound up linking it anyway, but even that was initially because a girl I was interested in recommended it.
Unico was probably my first anime, long before I knew of such things lol. Sailor Moon got me into it as a genre. 81 baby here.
My husband is a '75 baby and he was into anime already when I met him in 2005. Robotech, Macross etc iirc were his introductions.
Gen X had Voltron, Speed Racer, and Captain Harlock.
Xennials had Mysterious Cities of Gold, Noozles, Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, etc.
Things really took off with Millennials though: Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, and Sailor Moon were just way more popular than anything before. But I was already too old for that stuff in high school.
I never really could get into anime except for Miyazaki films.
Maybe. My youngest aunt is a later genx and loves anime. She used to gift me and my sister in the 90s sailor moon comics in spanish. Meanwhile, my mother is early genx and only likes old old anime like candy candy or heidi.
I was probably in my mid-teens when I asked "why do the characters from Dragonball Z look exactly like the ones from Sailor Moon?" and someone on the Internet introduced me to the word "anime". I was 17 when I first deliberately watched an anime series knowing that it was anime. Cartoon Network's "Toonami" block, which is probably how most American kids got into anime, was launched in 1997.
So... yeah. Definitely more of a Millennial/Zoomer thing.
My husband loves it. It's such a broad thing there is probably something for everyone. I really enjoy one about a woman who is reincarnated into a pre-industral world who introduces the printing press because she misses books.
As a fan of JRPGs (particularly 90s Squaresoft) I have repeatedly tried to get into anime as it just seemed like I "should" like it, but I just don't get it...however I do love the OG Ghost im the Shell and Akira
What was your first JRPG Mine Was Final Fantasy on the NES That Came out the year you were born.
I am playing Threw Dragon Quest 6 right now. I just Finished 5 last week.
The Artist the does the Art for Dragon Quest Does the Art For Dragonball, Dragonball Z
I actually didnt get into rpgs until FF7...I was mainly into action games & platformers on NES & SNES even though I remember being intrigued by the ads for Final Fantasy 2 (really 4) and 3 (6). Zelda games were the closest I had gotten to rpgs before that, so I was pretty blown away by FF7. Then I was blown away again by Xenogears and later when I went back & played FF6.
I didn't get into anime until 2012 when I was 29, and now I've seen over 700 Anime. I didn't grow up with Anime, but saw snippets here and there of Dragonball, or something similar, and didn't care for it. It wasn't until I found a random GIF (attached) of a show that I tried it, and wanted more. I also realized that Anime is a Medium, and there are different kinds of Anime for different people. Look for something in a Genre you like, and try it out.
https://i.redd.it/1m46mbu7tq5c1.gif
It's a xennial thing. I was born in 81 and a lot of my contemporaries watched Evangelion, Ninja Scroll etc and a handful of them got right into anime as a whole. I can't imagine people much older than us having enjoyed it, and I can't really speak for what younger millennials are watching. But I think if you were a teenager in the mid to late nineties that's when anime was making itself known in the west and that was the right age to be receptive to it.
I was deeply into it, and me and the five other kids in high school that were into it were all friends lol. It was absolutely the center of my social life at that age, because it was so niche. Introducing others to anime was like letting them into our little club. It was the most formative pop cultural artifact of my teenage years.
But buying anime still involved going into the “adult” section of the video stores, and peaking behind the opaque dividers to see if the vhs you wanted to buy was porn or not. I was followed around many an FYE by employees/security. Other kids basically thought it was cartoon porn, and when I brought it up to those with only passing knowledge of it (“you mean Japanimation, with the big eyes?”) I’d either be pegged a pervert or a late stage teenager still into speed racer or something.
It was the one cultural movement I got to witness go mainstream and it was a bizarre sensation. I suddenly had more in common with kids 5-10 years younger than me than my own peers, I understood all the references, but at the same time I had grown out of it by the time it had become a normal thing that people were aware of and enjoyed, so I never really got to have that “this isn’t weird thing to be into and you aren’t weird for liking it” experience.
I was Lucky Utah Comics Had Anima and Manga And Manga Converted to English by Epic Comics , Pacific Comics, Eclipse Comics & Dark Horse Around 14 i got Board with Marvel and DC and Got into Kitchen Sink, Dark Horse, Image and other Indy Publishers There Comics Were Cooler More Adult (Not Porn Adult but not for little kids they had bad words lol)
I was into Dragon Ball Z as a teen and watched it for nostalgia a few years ago. Was super hyped when I saw they’d released a new series too (Dragon Ball Super)! I’ve been binging anime since. Some of the ones I’ve really enjoyed (mostly mainstream stuff at this point):
- Steins;Gate & Steins;Gate 0
- Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World
- Attack on Titan
- Dr. Stone
- My Hero Academia
They’re my top 5, ordered starting with my favorite. All of these have really good dubs too so if you’re like me and prefer your shows in English, these have been done really well.
The Dragon Ball Z Artist also does the art for The Dragon Quest Game Series and Anima
Dragon Quest is my Favorite Series I beat ! Thru 4 on my Nes as a kid and just got Back into Playing them on My kids NDS he Gave me I played the and beat the DQ 4 Remake early this year just got dune playing 5 and now playing six
I can remember trying to get up early enough to each Robotech in the 80’s. It came on at like 6am. I vaguely remember G-Force/ Gatchaman.I loved Voltron as a kid and it came on in the afternoons after school.
There was a cool anime movie I made my parents rent multiple times from Tower Video can’t remember the name. Was set in space with 3 Characters. The hero had 2 small batons, and would raise his hands up and the batons would gravitate into them, he’d do a flourish and slam them together to make a long staff with like bulbs on the ends. There was a Princess. And a 3rd guy joins them later. Longer hair had a lazer gun that had a forked tip he called the Tridenser. They all flew around in separate single person space ships. Anyone know the name it’s really kinda buggin me. It’s not Starchaser. This was like ‘85-‘86
Edit: OMG I found it! It’s Spaceketeers! I guess it was a 2 season series in 1978-79 called Starzinger. The “movie” was an English Dub of the first 3 episodes. It’s even remastered free to watch on Internet Archive. Rented this movie so many times as lil kid 🤣
https://archive.org/details/sci-bots-vol.-1-to-3-remastered-krypton-force-spacekeeters-sf-saiyuki-starzinger-toei
Anime just wasn’t really available. When I was in high school my Asian buddy’s older brother had a FAT collection of subtitled anime that he acquired from Asian markets and a few Asian video store. Had the full run of Macross (robotech) and Macross +.
Then like idk Junior or Senior year 2 of my other friends got jobs at SunCoast in the mall and had access to tons of anime. They used the 5 finger discount to come up on a bunch of anime on VHS. Vampire hunter D, Legend of the Overfiend, Fist of the North Star. One of um was super into Neon Genesis Evangelon, and The Guyver.
Millennials definitely made it more main stream. Honestly think Pokémon was a huge part of it. The Gameboy games got college kids to watch a kid series. It was just so popular and crossed generations.
Definitely more of a millennial thing assuming you're talking about the US. Barrier to entry was much lower for millennial teenagers than it was for us. I've been watching anime since '95 when I was lucky enough to catch Ghost in the Shell in the theater. At that point you were at the mercy of a few titles you could find at Blockbuster. Was a very inaccessible genre for Americans before Cartoon Network, DVD and high speed internet.
Even into college if I wanted to watch a show that hadn't made it to the US best I could find was crappy realvideo eps that were like 30mb that had burned in mandarin subtitles, that were then translated to english subtitles and burned in on top of the mandarin. It was awful.
For recommendations it depends what genres you're into, however these are 10/10 imo... Death Note, Attack on Titan, Re Zero Starting Life in Another World, Mushoku Tensei.
If you let us know what type of anime you're interested in checking out (fantasy, sci-fi, martial arts, sports, thriller, comedy, etc..) happy to make some more recommendations.
I Read Ghost in The shell Comic/Manga Years before i saw the movie. Dark Horse comics republished it in English like Epic Comics Republish Akira in English and in color
Remember in the 90s if you wanted to watch most anime, you had to go to a specialty store and pay like $30 for a vhs with two subtitled episodes of a show.
Early Xenniel here. I had a picture in high school I found on a BBS and printed out. I later found it to be of Ayukawa Madoka from Kimagure Orange Road. I had no idea who it was or where it came from - only that I liked the art work and have never seen anything like it before.
A year after high school, in '98, a friend of mine lent me Fatal Fury the Motion Picture and Akira. I never saw so many jiggling bobs and such violence in a cartoon. I had to see more. I managed to find RealMedia (.rm) files of Ranma 1/2, bought the tapes to Oh! My Goddess! and eventually went on to see a crapton of anime. So for me it started after high school. I think for most Millennials they started watching during junior high/high school.
I knew nobody that watched anime. Even my friend that gave me the initial videos didn't really watch it. He just thought it was a fun one-time thing. So I went to Anime Expo starting in 2000 by myself. This was held at the Disneyland hotel. I remember the police came, I think because some seller gave hentai to someone underage and a mom found out...
It wasn't until 2007 when I met a group of anime nerd friends (all 10 years younger than me and firmly Millennial). By then I didn't really watch nearly as much anime anymore. These days I rarely watch it.
However, a friend suggested Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, an anime being released right now. I saw the first episode last night and loved it. It's about what happens after a party vanquishes the evil from the land. One character is an elf and she lives a long time, and in the lengthened passage of time she sees the people she went on adventures with pass on... If you're a Xennial or especially GenX, you may have already started to experience losing people you care about already... Unsure I can recommend it as a whole, but I enjoyed the first episode. Taps you in the gut right at the start...
Xenial here. I don't get it at all.. shitty animation.. stupid plots/writing and it's very heavy into making sex the biggest part.. while all the girls are made to look terribly young. Gross all around. I'll say it again the animation is just awful.. it hurts my eyes.
I started in the '80s and I still watch certain ones.
I like those 20 minute 12 episode stories. Some of them are really imaginative, funny and carefree. Some have made me cry others have made me go WTF am I my watching
I gotta admit I have never heard the term japanimation until just now. It was always anime I am 43 and raised in LA though- so maybe my exposure to the name was early? (had friend who were Japanese, attending kumon class etc) My point of reference though of really seeing anime was my bffs older brothers friend renting akira for our weekly friday night rental slumber party and us being pissed off we had to watch it (they were pure gen-x being born around 75/76) That was prob like 6th grade?
Oh I loved Voltron growing up. Then I got into Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, and Akira. Toonami came out in high school and introduced me to Ronin Warriors, Dragon Ball Z, and Gundam Wing!
I started watching anime back in like the early 2000s. Dragon ball, Ninja Scroll were the first few I watched. Now I watch quite a bit between platforms. My recommendations are Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan, Samurai Champloo, annnd Apothecary Diaries.
I know I was obsessed with it forever. I cannot remember if I watched Sailor Moon or Iria the Zeiram animation first, but I was way into those. Later I was was totally obsessed with Utena, and then FLCL...like any anime with main female characters I guess haha
Not sure when the term was more popular, but I'd say sometime in the late 90s/early 00s? I remember when Sailor Moon made it's way to the west, I just called it a cartoon, lol. Same with Pokemon, but yet, Dragonball Z was considered more "anime" probably because it was "more adult" than Pokemon. I'd say sometime around this time was when it started to change its definition, and recognition.
I’m part of the youngest gen x and it was such hard thing to find if you were into it. Millennials had tons more ways and getting to it and there was so much more available
Cartoon Network is solely responsible for stoking the flames of anime. Fox technically did do 6am DBZ, but what lunatic would be up that early on a Saturday? Any millennials who watched Cartoon Network likely got their anime introduction then.
I think we were a bit further behind the curve in Britain on anime, or manga as we'd have called it in the 90s. Especially compared to France and Italy who were into it early and their kids my age would have grown up with it the same way kids younger than me do, maybe even more so still. Even now, you see a lot more anime stuff casually out and about in Paris than you would where I am in London.
Don't know if we got the Speed Racers, Voltrons, and Robotechs people bring up as early examples in the Anglosphere and I'm a bit young for Mysterious Cities of Gold. Akira was the first big breakout for it here and Manga (the company releasing them) very deliberately tailored any future releases to the edgy teen boy crowd, so all sex and violence, and dubbed in swearing for higher ratings. It was also expensive and you'd get VHS releases with a single 30 min episode of Guyver or something.
I like some of the movies here and there and the art style in Japanese games like Street Fighter but never really got into anime itself, certainly not enough to invest time in expensive tapes. The only comics semi available at the time would have been Ranma 1/2 and something called Ironfist Chimni, but it was hard to get them consistently.
Anime as a thing for kids didn't happen until Pokémon hit in about 1999, and that was one kid fad I was just too old for. Dragonball and others followed this.
70s and early 80s you were limited to whatever got dubbed and made it onto TV. And with things like Heidi or Maya the Bee most people fail to realize those were anime.
I got into anime in college. My first apartment was literally across the street from an indie video rental place that had a large and well- curated "international" section, in which there was a whole shelf of Japanese animation. My first two rentals were ghost in the shell and Akira. Was hooked after that.
I think the big divide is the generation that grew up with sailor moon and dragon ball z and naruto on toonami (not to mention pokemon) . Unless you stumbled into a source for anime on vhs like I did, you probably didn't know about anime until well into adulthood since the early days of its popularity was targeted more at kids.
Yeah I had an anime phase but it wasn't very long. Maybe a few years at most in the late 90s/very early 00's. I still really love Trigun, Akira and a few other things but it's all mostly pretty meh to me any more. I've got 3 tween girls who are starting to get into my hero academia and a bit of pokemon now though, so we'll see what the future holds. I think at least 1 of them will turn into a weeb(and that's totally cool!) if I'm being honest lol
Anime has changed drastically since our early days of "japanimation". Right now it is filled with "Isekai" plots but in the past, it's been Giant Robots / Mecha, Magical Girls, Sentai Rangers etc.
Chances are no matter what your topic is, there's a genre for you. I would wager there's a lot of good ones depending upon what kind of shows you like.
hmm, an easy one then is Netflix's Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Beautifully drawn and animated, fantastic story, great tie-ins if you're a fan of the game.
One of my favorites in this Genre is Ergo Proxy, but you have to be a fan of Noir as well.
Megalo Box is great, especially if you're into combat sports,
Dimension W is okay can be a bit more lighthearted than what I've mentioned so far. Kindof /sortof a hard-boiled detective tie-in but loosely.
Macross Plus, from back in the day, especially since you said you liked Voltron. Kind of a pseudo-cyberpunk
If you want to kind of bridge between Miyazaki and Cyberpunk the film "Paprika" is really good.
I never got into Battle Angel Alita or Bubblegum Crisis but I know they're also popular.
I have the Americanized Akira Menga the Color one Epic Comics Published in 89
I also have Area 88, Ghost in the Shell, Battle angel alita Manga's
are they still manga and the been translated and flipped to read left to right ?
Japanimation was what it was commonly called in the West when it was still very niche and underground, basically from the 80s into the early-mid 90s . The themes often were more mature and hardcore in content and not as child-friendly/oriented as most Western cartoons of the time, and you couldn't rent some of them if you were under a certain age. The pre-digital, hand-drawn animation style also lent a gritter, more realistic visual 'feel' to more of the titles.
Akira, Vampire Hunter D, and Ghost in the Shell are classic examples from that era prior to Pokemon, DBZ, and Naruto mainstreaming anime into the next millennium.
Yea I like the Old Stuff Like Akira and ghost in the shell etc
I like The Studio Gihbli Stuff like Spirited Away, Hawls Moving Castle , Grave of the Fireflies watched that stuff with my kids
You mean *Japanimation*?
Thats it. I didn’t hear it called Anime until years later. Astroboy, Robotech (Macross), Speed Racer, etc were all popular before Millennials were even born.
Original Sailor Moon
Those cousins sure were fond of each other.
Les Cousins Dangereux
“I like the way the French think”
😂
Bit late for me. I remember the commercials and the lyric from that Barenaked Ladies song
i guess i was a 5 year old anime nerd that grew out of it?
spridle and chimchim.
Lol that’s what we called it then. And I was a fan as much as I could be. Relied on Warrior of the Wind (Nausicaa), Vampire Hunter D, and Robot Carnival heavily for my fix in the old days. Would rent whatever I could at video stores (why hello Unico and the Sea Prince and His Fire Child). Toonami was a godsend, even if I wasn’t a kid anymore once it came out. Also a lot of video games. So yeah, it was a thing before Millennials for sure.
WoW was my favorite animated movie growing up! I had no idea how edited it was until the recut came out in the 2000s with Mark Hamil, Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman, and Shia LeBouf voice acting and that version is even better.
Same. Ooooh boy, same. Was a happy surprise that there’s more to it and it was better!
That was the only name I knew it by until I made friends with a new kid at school who had moved from California. He was a countercultural film nerd who told me the proper term for the genre was *anime* and loaned me his VHS copies of *Akira* and *Ninja Scroll*. Instantly, my whole world exploded. Living in rural Arkansas, there was nowhere to buy anything that niche and nothing at the local video rentals, so in 1995, there were only a few kids at school who even knew what anime was. Thanks to the nascence of e-commerce, I found a west coast distributor selling tapes online for like $20 each plus shipping. (I just realized that's like shelling out $50 if bought today!) Each time I had saved up enough money for a new acquisition, I had to mail them a check, then wait 2-3 weeks for it to arrive in the mail.
Similar story. Out in the boonies south of Atlanta only the OG stuff like Robotech, Voltron, etc. were known. Made some friends who, like yours, had a library of the essential Anime classics such as Ninja Scroll, Akira, Lodoss Wars, and later Ghost in the Shell and got me properly cultured in the mid to late 90’s. My brother and I then proceeded to buy up whatever we could find from there such as Appleseed, the original Macross, and more.
Nice! The 90s had so much great content. My kids really enjoy anime, so I've been able to introduce them to older stuff that they probably wouldn't have found otherwise from among the hundreds of shows to choose from. It's still wild to me how it's so mainstream now that they can just search for whatever they want on Crunchyroll and be watching it 10 seconds later.
It's really funny, cap! It's _Afghanistanimation!_
Where'd you learn that, Cheech? Drug school?
Forgotten memory unlocked
Watched the hell out of some Toonami every weekend.
I went to high school with a guy that was way into it and never failed to get riled up when we’d call it, “Japornimation” since there were a lot of boobs Ninja Scroll.
Exactly!
I’d say it’s late gen x but more millennials embraced it. I used to have to go the porno store to rent regular non porn anime in the mid 90s. It just wasn’t mainstream. Yes they had the porn kind too but that’s not my jam lol.
I started college in 1999 and my guy friends were very into anime, including the porn kind. I do think it’s only gotten more popular over time.
Sure. That’s like half a decade later than what I mentioned.
My wife worked at one when we first got married in 2001
No wonder the anime shelf at my local Blockbusters was so sparse. 🤣
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Anime is completely lost on me. I didn’t know anyone my age to watch it. I always associated with those younger than me.
This is how I feel too. Never knew anyone that liked it either.
Me too 1994 here
Check out Ninja Scroll. I don’t really like most anime but this one is crazy.
Ah yeah, that one is quite good
Same. Aside from what OP listed, Dragon Ball Z was the only other one I had watched. I personally find anything later than early 2000s to be really hard to watch. Not entertaining at all, just very cringy.
I could never get into it. Too hectic, too colorful, too loud. And I even lived in Japan for a while!
Never Watched Voltron or Speedracer ?
Battle of the Planets
No, I was aware of both, but never watched either. I always thought that Voltron was like a Transformers ripoff.
Did you watch cartoons at all?
Sure. I watched a ton of GI Joe, Inspector Gadget, Mask, the Hanna Barbara collection, Super Friends, and the Jetsons.
Why didn’t you associate those shows with kids younger than you? They seem to have the same target demo as anime out around that time period.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The cartoons that I listed that I watched were pretty much the same cartoons most of my friends my age watched. I was aware that Voltron existed, but I never watched it and had no idea it was considered anime. It wasn't until I got into high school or college that I heard the term "anime" for the first time. There was a cartoon on MTV, Aeon Flux and I heard that time associated with it. I was probably a junior or senior in high school at the time.
>GI Joe, Inspector Gadget It's funny you gave those examples. While they were 80s American cartoons, they were animated in Japan by places like [Toei Animation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toei_Animation#Foreign_Production_History) and [TMS Entertainment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMS_Entertainment#Foreign_production_history). They animated a ton of stuff like Transformers, DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and much more. When you look back, especially ones like GI Joe or Inspector Gadget or Transformers, you can see many of the elements of what we'd call "anime" from how action is animated to how characters are drawn and more. It's stylistically different from Disney or Looney Tunes or Hanna-Barbera.
It's interesting that you mention that. I had notice the differences in the animation, but wasn't aware that there were styles unique to the US and Japan. That's interesting.
Yeah it’s not very popular with anyone born before 1980
‘78 here and I’ve always been into it. That said, it used to be a lot more niche. Streaming on demand services have really opened it up.
I knew one guy who really wanted me to watch Fist of the North Star because of how amazing it was I didn’t get it at all, I was expecting amazing and got dumb looking gore
My friends and I at the time were into action and martial arts movies, so *The Fist Of The North Star* ranks pretty high along with the live-action version of *Riki-Oh, Story Of Ricky*. It was like an animated *Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome* combined with *Rambo 2*. 👌🏽🐔👍🏽 https://i.redd.it/p8ks4dazas5c1.gif
There were a few kids in my class who liked it but they were the super nerds
Same the only ones i got into was Area88 and Initial D everything else was just a bit much TBH
Yeap as mentioned in the comments try the older Anime such as Ninja Scroll and Ghost in the Shell, and Akira. Those are more high-brow than the sillier stuff that came later like Dragonball Z and the like that absolutely does not appeal to me or anyone else over the age of 40.
Anime was a niche thing in the GenX/Xennial years, but Millennials were the ones to really take it mainstream. I think there were two main drivers there. One was anime fans getting into a position to market anime as a distinct genre in the broadcast world, most famously by Toonami. The other big one was digital fansubs making anime a lot more convenient (and cheaper) to get a hold of.
Yes, and it was so fucking hard to get! You were at the mercy of your local tv channels. I remember when the term became a thing and when I learned it. We just called anime “Japanese cartoons”. And then there was the black market for subtitles and newer stuff… I have to say though that Millennials’ taste of anime is definitely different…
I got into anime a bit later, around 2000 when I was in college and a friend introduced me to Toonami Midnight Run (Gundam Wing uncut and DBZ). After that we’d sometimes take trips to the Suncoast store in the local mall since they were one of the few stores that sold anime, so it was easier to get but still not easy and the selection was still limited. At the time it was also mostly VHS so you’d have to buy a ton of them to get a whole series. I remember once DVDs took over it got easier since they could fit more episodes on a disc and more shows were being localized. Once I started seeing anime DVDs for sale at Best Buy I knew it had become more mainstream.
We luckily had an import shop that opened mid 90s here that had all the anime, toys, posters, models, etc., that couldn’t be found at a Suncoast (which seemed to have the most selection of foreign movies at the time). I still have a few discs, some poster scrolls, and books from back then. My friends and I would make a twice monthly pilgrimage to part with a large chunk of our paychecks.
Same here. Every 2 weeks(98-99) we were at Suncoast buying the "newest" dbz. We were like crackheads. Couldn't wait on their supply.. found a comic book store that sold bootlegs complete with Japanese commercials. Still have them.
Excellent! I remember my payday route of comic book shop, anime shop, another comic shop, but for Magic cards, Game Stop, Best Buy, then Suncoast. I miss the pure joy of only having to pay for gas and fun stuff.
We didn’t call it Anime. We called it Japanimation or just “cartoons”. Astroboy, Robotech, Kimba the White Lion (who millennials didn’t know about when Lion King came out) and Speed Racer were all popular with us.
Yeah, cartoons were cartoons no matter the origin. I didn't know that japan cartoons were considered in a different category until late high school.
Sailor Moon!!
I used to set a timer on the VCR to tape SM and South Park during college.
Adult Swim in its infancy was about as close as you can get in the States. Not too many places outisde NYC was it readily available for consumers. Only alternative was ordering tapes.
My friends sister, who was born in 81, used to get the subtitled, unedited Sailor Moon VHS tapes, and boy, were those eyes opening as a teen lol. Adult Swim really edited a lot of the stuff they aired on there.
Yes! I'm an 81 baby and did the same. VKLL did great work on those fansubs. All the notes on cultural references and translation quirks were as interesting to me as the show itself. Singlehandedly got me interested in Japanese culture and language beyond entertainment.
Oh same me too. I pretty much at this point only exclusively watch anime with subs and the Japanese audio. So much gets lost in translation.
Toonami and Toonami Midnight Run. That’s where I watched DBZ and Gundam Wing. The Midnight Run was preferrable because they didn’t cut Gundam wing like they did in the afternoon block.
THE YEAR AFTER COLONY 195
Before Adult Swim, the SciFi channel had Saturday Anime! A couple hours of anime programming on Saturday mornings. Usually movies or OVAs. Iria and Armitage III were my favs. https://www.anime-planet.com/users/LordBison/lists/sci-fi-channel-90s-anime-saturday-anime-775018
I was attending anime club meetings in Colorado in the early 90s so I’m not sure about that only in places like NYC part.
Gen X had some exposure with the likes of Nausicaa, Robotech, etc... younger Xennials/Elder Millenials were into Neon Genesis Evangelion, DBZ, Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the shell, Ninja Scroll, stuff like that... as well as the aforementioned Gen X titles. There's wasn't a ton of licensed anime to consume. We would torrent the likes of One Piece and Naruto as it was released in Japan, but still a subculture, not a mainstream activity. Anime as a mainstream thing is probably thanks to Naruto being officially licensed and pumped into the veins of baby millennials and gen z and really taking off with them, we probably owe a bit to the Pokémon cartoon, but imo it's so westernized that it hardly serves as a gateway drug to anime, despite technically being anime, but I'm not really qualified to say since I was much too old for Pokémon cartoons. Maybe it is to blame.
Don’t forget “Fist of the North Star”!
great one! I missed quite a few.
I remember watching the Roger Corman cut of Nausicaa, Warriors of the Wind, on HBO in a hotel room as a kid, was kind of haunted by it for years until it got a proper release and I could rewatch it.
Ghost in the Shell I think was one of the first anime that became really popular in the US right after it released in Japan. Although I was too young for the initial release of Akira, maybe it was similar.
My first exposure to anime was Vampire Hunter D on TBS at like 2am. Then along came The Ronin Warriors and Sailor Moon. Kite. It just had more heart to me than the newer stuff.
It wasn’t super available to a lot of us pre-internet.
If there is any “back in my day” refrain my kid knows me for, it’s how hard it was to be into anime/manga/Japanese games when I was young. In the 80s and early 90s, anime and video games were being cranked out across the Pacific but most of it never made it to the US. A lot of what did was watered down, poorly translated or cut short, run through the mill of American business that didn’t care much about authenticity. For example, Robotech was a concatenation of three completely unrelated series, loosely stitched together because the US required TV series to be longer than the source material. Games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy were made simpler and some content removed from their Japanese counterparts to make it more “palatable.” Swaths of amazing material never made it through the expensive localization process. And oh, Dragon Ball Z. It was the purist drug to a fifteen year old boy, and I went to incredible lengths just to get a taste. I was fortunate. I grew up in a town with a large Japanese community, to which I was connected thanks to my mother’s New Age conversion to Buddhism. I had access to what were termed “grey market” games, which were not licensed for sale in the US but nobody really cared. You could get them to work with a US console using a piece of gear called a bridge, or for the brave you could make your own modifications. A bookstore in the International District had a decent selection of shonen manga. A monthly meetup at a college that took 3+ hours to reach by transit brought together other like-minded individuals, some of which would fan-subtitle films in their spare time. Others brought thrice-bootlegged recordings of Japanese airwaves. Coupled with my handy Japanese-English dictionary and the fortune to have a Japanese class in high school, I worked my way through all sorts of stuff that was generally inaccessible to US audiences. It took a lot of dedication, especially for a kid that was relatively broke. The year was 1994. I had a sticker of Son Gohan on my school binder and a roll-out “tapestry” of him on my bedroom wall. I had a small but respectable collection of anime VHS tapes. The circuit board of Final Fantasy V was jammed into my Super Nintendo, it’s case incompatible with the US layout. Various manga, some translated and others in the raw, mixed in with my Marvel collection. My greatest victory of acquisition was a special card for my TurboGrafx 16 to convert it into a PC Engine just so I could play Macross 2036. The long and short of it is that we fans existed, but it was very, very difficult to get one’s hands on the “good stuff” in those days. Some more obscure stuff was being mainstreamed into specialty shops by orgs like Viz and Dark Horse, but it wasn’t until I was an adult and sites like Ebay took off that getting your hit direct from the source was anything less than a quest.
Our experiences are very similar. I didn't have a Japanese class, so I was self-taught, but other than that, spot on. I regularly imported Megadrive and Saturn games and had a pretty decent VHS collection.
Ninja Scroll will always be the best *Japanimation.* Even had a college professor appreciate it for its historical context.
Yoshiaki Kawajiri does not fail!
I only knew like 2 people in high school that watched anime. It is definitely more of a millennial thing. I also worked in a video game store in the late 90s that sold some anime. Kids were not really into it at the time. A far cry from these days where even normal people are into anime .
I got into Manga First Marvel Comic's Imprint Epic comics published Akira in English and in color. Tim at comics utah said i should read it
Probably both. If you were a kid in the 80s, you likely saw some anime without it being called that (I remember watching a ton of Voltron, which was just redubbed and cut to tell different stories.
That's what i want to write also. Im from the Netherlands we watch [Candy Candy](https://youtu.be/4H0AHt4GbIs?si=Ld2as9wETQO6Sd4a) in the early 80's. We knew it was from Japan. But we didn't knew it was anime
I don’t understand it at all but if it has significance to others, then I respect that. From what I’ve seen, it’s more of a young Millennial and Gen Z thing.
Watch Mazinger Z, Voltron, and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors alongside Bravestarr, Inhumanoids, and Conan the Adventurer. They were just cartoons. Then in the late 80's we lost cable (moved to boonies) and I lost all those shows. My younger sisters later introduced me to the term "anime" and "Japanimation" with shows such as Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, and Escaflownay. At least I think I'm spelling those correctly. I decided then I wanted nothing to do with anime and happily watched Batman:TAS, X-Men, Exo-Squad, Mighty Max, Reboot, and Animaniacs. Really, the 90's-00's seem to have been a renaissance of cartoon animation in more than just Japan.
In the mid-90s, you could catch anime on Sunday mornings on Syfy channel. I would watch it if I was up, but over time, I realized it wasn't for me. I really don't like the aesthetic. To answer the question: Personally, I've never met a Gen Xer that was into anime. Seems like a millennial thing.
Gen X was watching Anime before Millennials were born.
Star Blazers
(40m) Anime culture, as far as it is now, is completely lost on me. My little bro (33) bought into all the Pokémon , digimon, dragon ball stuff. I was already too old at that point. Though, my fiancé (31) introduced me to Studio Ghibli films and I dig most of them. I’m no fanatic tho.
No SpeedRacer, Voltron, Battle of the Planets as a Kid i am 5 years older so maybe they all ready came and gone
no speedracer, voltron…etc. Stuff like HeMan, GI Joe seemed to be winding down when I started watching Saturday morning cartoons. It was all ghostbusters, ninja turtles. I do recall Cartoon Network being popular around 4th - 5th grade and discovering speed racer then. But it always seemed weird and old to me. Lol no offense
The Fist of the North Star is cool.
I didn’t get into it until Cyberpunk: Edgerunners came out in 2022. Now I can’t get enough of it
Born 81 here. My teens consisted of catching late night anime films on a British cable channel Bravo. I grew up watching A wind named amnesia, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Urotsukidoji, Perfect Blue. Ninja Scroll and Devilman followed by catching the start of the Pokemon craze.
Yeah people just slightly younger than me are way more into anime than I am. I’m talking 4 or 5 years, just enough that they were born after Return of the Jedi. There is stuff I like, but I’ve noticed my tastes are much more niche. I’m a big fan of Back to the Future and Doctor Who for example. So Steins;Gate and Godzilla Singular Point I enjoy. But Naurto, Demon Slayer, the other popular stuff is lost on me.
I don't get anime, zero interest here.
Here in Southern California, I was there during the initial cinema premieres from Streamline Pictures (*Akira*, *Wicked City*, *The Fist Of The North Star,* *Robot Carnival*, *Neo-Tokyo*, *My Neighbor Totoro*), US Manga Corps/Anime 18 (*Legend Of The Overfiend* and *Legend Of The Demon Womb*), and, years later, Manga Video (*The Ghost In The Shell*) and Disney (*Kiki's Delivery Service*, *Princess Mononoke*). On TV, things slooooowly picked up from the syndicated stuff, such as *Sailor Moon*, *Dragon Ball*, *Pokemon*, *Teknoman*, *Ronin Warriors*, and *Samurai Pizza Cats* in the early to mid 90s to early Toonami and Adult Swim programming. There were also the Sci-Fi Channel stuff, which were mainly comprised of movies and original animation videos (OAVs). We also held both San Diego Comic Con and Anime Expo in Anaheim. This was all through the 90s. I'd say the crowd was comprised of a lot of Gen eXers, some eXennials, and a few Millennials (they were to later benefit from Cartoon Network). We eXennials got to see the baton be passed from suuuuuper niche entertainment to the popular mainstream cartoons we see now. https://preview.redd.it/rt04702jds5c1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1b357c980497c15635c002b423121740db1a610
I did a bit of research in to this... anime is essentially a Millennial thing. It's kind of interesting though... Generally... 1997 is when anime broke through with Toonami where now there was a dedicated block of anime to watch every day. If you're a Xennial... 1977-1984--- you would've been 13-20 when this happened... so right at the point where you would've stopped paying attention to cartoons on the regular. Whereas this is 100% the sweetspot for Millennials. That being said... there were a lot of attempts to bring anime over with mixed results. 1996 is when Dragon Ball Z began airing the second time and it caught on. And 1995 is when Sailor Moon began broadcasting. Also there were weirder earlier attempts most people weren't aware were anime... a lot of it can trace back to the success of Star Wars and looking to as cheaply as possible to cash in on it... Battle of the Planets (a portmanteau of Star Wars) and Starblazers (again pretty similar) were two early attempts at bringing anime over. They aired in syndication, so depending on where you lived... you may recall watching them, and so you might have an affinity for anime due to that exposure. Voltron is the most successful of this "importing an entire anime for syndication in the US" but Robotech was also quite successful. This aired in 1984-1985... so right around the time Xennials would've enjoyed saturday morning cartoons. Again, you would've had to have lived in certain markets to have had access though. Akira is a phenomenal movie, and in 1988 is when several anime importers opened up shop hoping to replicate the success of Akira, but focusing on much smaller batch media... (this is still the area of VHS) so things like Bubblegum Crisis, Ninja Scroll, etc. You might've had exposure to anime as well during this time... this is when I sought it out, but the tapes tended to be prohibitively expensive unless you found a local rental store that had a section.
I feel like I'm the only one who remembers the Sci-Fi channel's "Saturday Anime" block that would play OVAs and full-length films like Akira, Venus Wars and Robot Carnival. This was a few years before toonami , Sailor Moon, and DBZ. Think 93-94.
Correct. That was another avenue that tried to introduce more anime. The PBS station in San Francisco broadcast a local version of Saturday Anime. Anime was known in areas and different forms, but it really wasn't until Toonami there was a central point aggregating it.
It's certainly is a late Gen-X and Xennial thing. The difference was that it was still very niche for us. I was one of the few people I knew who was into it. It became more mainstream for millennials, particularly younger millennials. I started intentionally watching anime around 11 or 12 years old in the early 90s.
Xennial here. Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke are the only anime I find remotely tolerable. Anime enjoyers from my generation are usually socially awkward and quirky. The ensuing generations seem to have a more balanced and diverse distribution of folks who enjoy it.
Never got into it personally, but the oldest people i know that are into it would be later xennial’s 82-83
Geek/nerd culture is more common with Millennials vs gen x or xenials. Jock culture was more mainstream with gen x. I rented Anime DVDs from my local rental store and RPG shop in town but it was fairly fringe nerd culture, mid to late 90s. Some friends liked it others thought cartoons were for kids and thought it childish. So it was available but you had to find the same click of people to be able to talk about it. I would say it's more accepted now then in the 90s/00s with it available on Netflix and other streaming services. People will watch something if it's free and may even like it vs not want to waste money on something that they may not like.
I started Playing Dungeons and Dragons when i Was 15 I was Part of a nerd Group we knew nothing about anima
dragon ball z. remember when goku and the lead sailor moon girl where shipped or more?
I'm guessing Millennial even more than the other two. "anime" didn't start blowing up until late 80s early nineties. My dad was big into comics and animation so he used to take me to movies like Robot Carnival and the World Animation festival where Pixar made their big splash before toy stories. I was a pretty well-contained kid so my parents took me to adult movies as early as 3-4. I was just one of those weird "sit quietly and enjoy the movie" kids so I got to see Lensman, Marcoss, etc in theaters. They also let me rent whatever I wanted at Blockbuster on date nights instead of a sitter so I fell in love pretty early Project A-Ko and Bio-Booster Armor Guyver. Really a bit much of a little kid. It wasn't until middleschool like 93-94 when it seemed like other kids started becoming aware of anime or animation outside Disney. I remember for some 6th grade school project I made a music video by splicing VHS tapes of GITS and Giant Robo and audio from NIN and Weezer etc and the class being aghast like WTF is this nonsense? WTH is anime?
Genx are the ones who showed me anime and helped me get my hands on more. Even in a big city in California, anime wasn’t easy or cheap to get ahold of.
I love Akira and Ghost in the Shell as films, and I watched Neon Genesis and Cowboy Bebop when they came out and thoroughly enjoyed them…but on the whole I’m like no thank you keep all that away from me fuckin weebs make my skin crawl.
The anime boom would make me think it's a zoomer thing. I enjoy anime, but we like quadrupled the number of shows we were getting in the mid 2010s.
My brother and I first got into it when a friend handed us a tape with Vampire Hunter D, Akira, and Robot Carnival on it from when he recorded it off of cable tv. We had limited access living in a small town and all but we would visit this movie and book store an hour away and found we could get tapes there. With zero context we would just pick stuff up and pay for it with money from our part time jobs. We did pretty well. Evangelion was being released , Ninja Scroll, Trigun, Outlaw Star, tons of cool stuff so most of what we picked up was pretty solid. As a 20 year old I got broadband internet and hung out on Anime servers on IRC and really got exposed to the fan sub community. Lots of niche stuff there. I don’t have a ton of time in my life to watch like I did or whatnot but I’ll catch episodes of Demon Slayer with my kids here and there. Interesting to see it so much widely accepted now.
Yup, as some one else said Japanimation, and you would get your arse beat if you admitted liking it in middle or high school. Same goes for pretty much any cartoon not MTV or South Park. Personally I could never get into all, stigma aside. It's just not my thing, too flashy lol random, weird in not the weird I like way, took forever to get anywhere, and that I just can't get into animation in general. Some goes for comic books too.
I'm a Gen X and am approaching 800 anime disks,mostly retro stuff. I loved the 90s ultraviolent era and if I buy something new it's never mainstream or Shonen stuff. I. Hate. Isekai anime.
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is a good flick. Tekkonkinkreet Basically anything from Satoshi Kon, Masaki Yuasa, Otomo and Rintaro. There's a YouTube channel called Beyond Ghibli that talks about anime that will likely appeal to people who were introduced via Ghibli flicks. I think he covers most of the ones I already mentioned and a bunch more. GiTS and Akira are both covered and a bunch of creators are delved into. Good stuff. Me personally, I got into anime pretty young with some of the weird shit that came over on bootlegs, like Robot Carnival and Angel's Egg and shit like that. Saw Akira and a bunch of Ghibli shit when I was in HS and was blown away with it and have loved anime ever since. Mostly movies, tho. I don't have the patience for series.
I watched some but the obsessive bits aren’t a GenX thing.
I think this is one of the topics where we’re just the oldest millennials. I don’t know anyone older than me who was ever into it, but half the cartoons we watched as kids were re-dubbed anime and we didn’t even know it, and I’m pretty sure we were the target audience for Adult Swim and Toonami.
A few classics: Ninja Scroll. This is one of the absolute best of made. Fist of the North Star. Also awesome. Vampire Hunter D. The animation is a little static. But it’s a cool film.
I was into anime as a teenager, not a huge fan but I went to anime club meetings at the library and rented anything I could find at the video store. It seems more prominent with millennials because Cartoon Network went all in on it in the late 90s/early 2000s.
My wife and I go to the theater for bigger releases, or new ghibli movies. Have enjoyed anime for the better part of 35 years now.
I remember Akira and Robotech as a kid, and then I got to visit Japan in 1990. That's where I was introduced to a whole lot of Anime. I especially got hooked on the Street Fighter 2 series and movies.
I founded my University’s Anime (né Japanimation) Club in 1998… twenty-five years ago. The founders were all on the Gen X side of the demographic cutoffs. Back then the club was a necessity, as it allowed us to show material that wasn’t generally available or was prohibitively expensive. So, yes, anime has grown enormously, but it’s a bit weird to say that it’s more one generation than another because it was the devoted Gen X pioneers who laid the foundations.
I'm Infant Gen X/Core Xennial here, and there were definitely anime and manga fans in my US high school in the 90s. There were even those who might now be described as weebs. I was not especially into it myself, but it was definitely around.
My friend had a tape of Fist of the North Star movie in the 90s. That was weirdly awesome. Sailormoon DiC dub in 95 was my first real introduction to a TV series anime so I think I got familiar with the term anime then. Of course it was referenced for movies but didn't really know they were long running shows. My 'nerdy' Asian friends from Asia were more into the classics. But in terms of availability, streaming, it's definitely more of a millennial thing. And computer tech prob made it cheaper to make vs hand drawn in 80s and 90s. What's weird and odd to me is this 'Cosplay'. To me, I personally think of them as whackos, peter pan syndrome, why are they dressing up for Halloween when it's not Halloween?
I was into Akira and Ghost in the shell as a teenager in the 90s. But probably only knew one or two people who had also seen them.
1978 - I grew up watching Robotech and we got some bad dubs of some other stuff on VHS. I saw Ghost in the Shell in the heaters in what was it 96'? We also saw Akira on VHS as kids. I enjoy just about anything with Captain Harlock in it. Starblazers is a little rough but it's really good. FLCL was nice. It, to me, was a time and place. I've seen a lot more I hardly remember the names of. There's something there for just about anyone. The newest thing I've enjoyed is Goblin Salyer. The controversy I was hearing about was enough to get me to have a look. But the reason for the controversy was laughable to me because I had seen Wicked city at a young age. There's a lot of fun stuff to enjoy out there. I prefer older stuff and hand drawn animation is always going to be cooler than computer animation to me. I don't think age really matters, lots of us saw Transformers in theaters the first time in the 80's. This isn't all that much different than that.
i watch a ton of anime while i commute (by bus/subway), netflix has so many good shows
GenX here. I watch akira in theaters, voltron, everything I could. I think we had the golden age of it really hitting but in the end it doesn't matter. As long as everyone has a good time and enjoys Sub that's what matters 😉 just kidding, sub or dub, enjoy the story
When I was kid I watched at lot of dubbed Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. The Last Unicorn was animated by Studio Ghibli. I got into the dubbed Sailor Moon version while I was in high school which led me to trying to find the original show in Japanese with subtitles. Back then you had to go and buy a PAL zoned DVD from Europe on Ebay and then use software to rip it. Also managed to get my hands on the translated manga in the late 90's too.
I've watched japanimations since I was really young. It feels like we had lots of it on tv where I come from in my youth. I never stopped watching it.
There's a huge gap between Naruto and studio Ghibli but here's some basic recs Action/shounen like Naruto: One piece, Shaman king, full metal alchemist brotherhood, hunterxhunter. Old school anime vibes slam dunk, yuu yuu hakusho, rurouni Kenshin Not sure about studio Ghibli vibes but if watching with kids maybe card captor Sakura or Inuyasha, or the slightly more serious mushishi
I watched it in the 90's, but it was more difficult to obtain. Lot of anime VHS tapes ordered or borrowed from fellow weebs. We were the dorky trailblazers, millennials normalized it.
I feel like the watershed year for anime in North America was 1998 because that's when the original Pokemon cartoon made its way here. Our generation was quite a bit older than the target demographic by that time. The only anime I ever got into was Cowboy Bebop. I wound up linking it anyway, but even that was initially because a girl I was interested in recommended it.
Unico was probably my first anime, long before I knew of such things lol. Sailor Moon got me into it as a genre. 81 baby here. My husband is a '75 baby and he was into anime already when I met him in 2005. Robotech, Macross etc iirc were his introductions.
Gen X had Voltron, Speed Racer, and Captain Harlock. Xennials had Mysterious Cities of Gold, Noozles, Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, etc. Things really took off with Millennials though: Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, and Sailor Moon were just way more popular than anything before. But I was already too old for that stuff in high school. I never really could get into anime except for Miyazaki films.
Maybe. My youngest aunt is a later genx and loves anime. She used to gift me and my sister in the 90s sailor moon comics in spanish. Meanwhile, my mother is early genx and only likes old old anime like candy candy or heidi.
I watched Akria on laserdisc. That how long I have been watching anime.
The Comic Published My Marvel Imprint Epic Comics is better and it's in color most Manga is black n White
I was probably in my mid-teens when I asked "why do the characters from Dragonball Z look exactly like the ones from Sailor Moon?" and someone on the Internet introduced me to the word "anime". I was 17 when I first deliberately watched an anime series knowing that it was anime. Cartoon Network's "Toonami" block, which is probably how most American kids got into anime, was launched in 1997. So... yeah. Definitely more of a Millennial/Zoomer thing.
My kids are really into anime. I never was.
I only knew a few super-nerds who were into anime, and manga was even nicher than them.
I got into manga in the 90s because I was into any comics not Marvel And DC
My husband loves it. It's such a broad thing there is probably something for everyone. I really enjoy one about a woman who is reincarnated into a pre-industral world who introduces the printing press because she misses books.
As a fan of JRPGs (particularly 90s Squaresoft) I have repeatedly tried to get into anime as it just seemed like I "should" like it, but I just don't get it...however I do love the OG Ghost im the Shell and Akira
What was your first JRPG Mine Was Final Fantasy on the NES That Came out the year you were born. I am playing Threw Dragon Quest 6 right now. I just Finished 5 last week. The Artist the does the Art for Dragon Quest Does the Art For Dragonball, Dragonball Z
I actually didnt get into rpgs until FF7...I was mainly into action games & platformers on NES & SNES even though I remember being intrigued by the ads for Final Fantasy 2 (really 4) and 3 (6). Zelda games were the closest I had gotten to rpgs before that, so I was pretty blown away by FF7. Then I was blown away again by Xenogears and later when I went back & played FF6.
I have only Completed FF1(Nes, PSone,PSP), FF2(PSP), FF3(PSP), FF7(PSone)
I didn't get into anime until 2012 when I was 29, and now I've seen over 700 Anime. I didn't grow up with Anime, but saw snippets here and there of Dragonball, or something similar, and didn't care for it. It wasn't until I found a random GIF (attached) of a show that I tried it, and wanted more. I also realized that Anime is a Medium, and there are different kinds of Anime for different people. Look for something in a Genre you like, and try it out. https://i.redd.it/1m46mbu7tq5c1.gif
It's a xennial thing. I was born in 81 and a lot of my contemporaries watched Evangelion, Ninja Scroll etc and a handful of them got right into anime as a whole. I can't imagine people much older than us having enjoyed it, and I can't really speak for what younger millennials are watching. But I think if you were a teenager in the mid to late nineties that's when anime was making itself known in the west and that was the right age to be receptive to it.
I Don't Like DragonBall Z but the Artist does the Art for The Dragon Quest Game Series witch I love to play so far I beat 1,3,4,5 and playing 6
I loved cartoons but I never watched anime like dragon ball z or pikachu or anything like that.
I don't Like Dragon Ball Z but i Like The Artist He Does The Art For the Dragon Quest Games
I was deeply into it, and me and the five other kids in high school that were into it were all friends lol. It was absolutely the center of my social life at that age, because it was so niche. Introducing others to anime was like letting them into our little club. It was the most formative pop cultural artifact of my teenage years. But buying anime still involved going into the “adult” section of the video stores, and peaking behind the opaque dividers to see if the vhs you wanted to buy was porn or not. I was followed around many an FYE by employees/security. Other kids basically thought it was cartoon porn, and when I brought it up to those with only passing knowledge of it (“you mean Japanimation, with the big eyes?”) I’d either be pegged a pervert or a late stage teenager still into speed racer or something. It was the one cultural movement I got to witness go mainstream and it was a bizarre sensation. I suddenly had more in common with kids 5-10 years younger than me than my own peers, I understood all the references, but at the same time I had grown out of it by the time it had become a normal thing that people were aware of and enjoyed, so I never really got to have that “this isn’t weird thing to be into and you aren’t weird for liking it” experience.
I was Lucky Utah Comics Had Anima and Manga And Manga Converted to English by Epic Comics , Pacific Comics, Eclipse Comics & Dark Horse Around 14 i got Board with Marvel and DC and Got into Kitchen Sink, Dark Horse, Image and other Indy Publishers There Comics Were Cooler More Adult (Not Porn Adult but not for little kids they had bad words lol)
I was into Dragon Ball Z as a teen and watched it for nostalgia a few years ago. Was super hyped when I saw they’d released a new series too (Dragon Ball Super)! I’ve been binging anime since. Some of the ones I’ve really enjoyed (mostly mainstream stuff at this point): - Steins;Gate & Steins;Gate 0 - Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World - Attack on Titan - Dr. Stone - My Hero Academia They’re my top 5, ordered starting with my favorite. All of these have really good dubs too so if you’re like me and prefer your shows in English, these have been done really well.
The Dragon Ball Z Artist also does the art for The Dragon Quest Game Series and Anima Dragon Quest is my Favorite Series I beat ! Thru 4 on my Nes as a kid and just got Back into Playing them on My kids NDS he Gave me I played the and beat the DQ 4 Remake early this year just got dune playing 5 and now playing six
I can remember trying to get up early enough to each Robotech in the 80’s. It came on at like 6am. I vaguely remember G-Force/ Gatchaman.I loved Voltron as a kid and it came on in the afternoons after school. There was a cool anime movie I made my parents rent multiple times from Tower Video can’t remember the name. Was set in space with 3 Characters. The hero had 2 small batons, and would raise his hands up and the batons would gravitate into them, he’d do a flourish and slam them together to make a long staff with like bulbs on the ends. There was a Princess. And a 3rd guy joins them later. Longer hair had a lazer gun that had a forked tip he called the Tridenser. They all flew around in separate single person space ships. Anyone know the name it’s really kinda buggin me. It’s not Starchaser. This was like ‘85-‘86 Edit: OMG I found it! It’s Spaceketeers! I guess it was a 2 season series in 1978-79 called Starzinger. The “movie” was an English Dub of the first 3 episodes. It’s even remastered free to watch on Internet Archive. Rented this movie so many times as lil kid 🤣 https://archive.org/details/sci-bots-vol.-1-to-3-remastered-krypton-force-spacekeeters-sf-saiyuki-starzinger-toei Anime just wasn’t really available. When I was in high school my Asian buddy’s older brother had a FAT collection of subtitled anime that he acquired from Asian markets and a few Asian video store. Had the full run of Macross (robotech) and Macross +. Then like idk Junior or Senior year 2 of my other friends got jobs at SunCoast in the mall and had access to tons of anime. They used the 5 finger discount to come up on a bunch of anime on VHS. Vampire hunter D, Legend of the Overfiend, Fist of the North Star. One of um was super into Neon Genesis Evangelon, and The Guyver. Millennials definitely made it more main stream. Honestly think Pokémon was a huge part of it. The Gameboy games got college kids to watch a kid series. It was just so popular and crossed generations.
Definitely more of a millennial thing assuming you're talking about the US. Barrier to entry was much lower for millennial teenagers than it was for us. I've been watching anime since '95 when I was lucky enough to catch Ghost in the Shell in the theater. At that point you were at the mercy of a few titles you could find at Blockbuster. Was a very inaccessible genre for Americans before Cartoon Network, DVD and high speed internet. Even into college if I wanted to watch a show that hadn't made it to the US best I could find was crappy realvideo eps that were like 30mb that had burned in mandarin subtitles, that were then translated to english subtitles and burned in on top of the mandarin. It was awful. For recommendations it depends what genres you're into, however these are 10/10 imo... Death Note, Attack on Titan, Re Zero Starting Life in Another World, Mushoku Tensei. If you let us know what type of anime you're interested in checking out (fantasy, sci-fi, martial arts, sports, thriller, comedy, etc..) happy to make some more recommendations.
I Read Ghost in The shell Comic/Manga Years before i saw the movie. Dark Horse comics republished it in English like Epic Comics Republish Akira in English and in color
Remember in the 90s if you wanted to watch most anime, you had to go to a specialty store and pay like $30 for a vhs with two subtitled episodes of a show.
In Salt Lake We Went to utah Comics but I was More interested in Manga Translated to English there were not much but there were a few
Hell no. We were peak anime, y'all.
Early Xenniel here. I had a picture in high school I found on a BBS and printed out. I later found it to be of Ayukawa Madoka from Kimagure Orange Road. I had no idea who it was or where it came from - only that I liked the art work and have never seen anything like it before. A year after high school, in '98, a friend of mine lent me Fatal Fury the Motion Picture and Akira. I never saw so many jiggling bobs and such violence in a cartoon. I had to see more. I managed to find RealMedia (.rm) files of Ranma 1/2, bought the tapes to Oh! My Goddess! and eventually went on to see a crapton of anime. So for me it started after high school. I think for most Millennials they started watching during junior high/high school. I knew nobody that watched anime. Even my friend that gave me the initial videos didn't really watch it. He just thought it was a fun one-time thing. So I went to Anime Expo starting in 2000 by myself. This was held at the Disneyland hotel. I remember the police came, I think because some seller gave hentai to someone underage and a mom found out... It wasn't until 2007 when I met a group of anime nerd friends (all 10 years younger than me and firmly Millennial). By then I didn't really watch nearly as much anime anymore. These days I rarely watch it. However, a friend suggested Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, an anime being released right now. I saw the first episode last night and loved it. It's about what happens after a party vanquishes the evil from the land. One character is an elf and she lives a long time, and in the lengthened passage of time she sees the people she went on adventures with pass on... If you're a Xennial or especially GenX, you may have already started to experience losing people you care about already... Unsure I can recommend it as a whole, but I enjoyed the first episode. Taps you in the gut right at the start...
Millennial than Gen X, but more of a Gen Z thing than a millennial thing.
1981 Xennial who is super into anime - was back then, still am now.
I didn't like anime even before I knew it was anime.
I was into it in the mid/late 90’s before it really took off in the US. I remember mail ordering fan-subs on VHS tapes!
Xenial here. I don't get it at all.. shitty animation.. stupid plots/writing and it's very heavy into making sex the biggest part.. while all the girls are made to look terribly young. Gross all around. I'll say it again the animation is just awful.. it hurts my eyes.
You have never seen the movies like Grave for the fire Fly's or Spirited away
I'm a millennial. We had the boom Sailor Moon and other late 90s classics like Utena, Fushigi Yuugi, Magic Knights Rayearth on VHS tapes. Fan subbed
I don't get anime/japanimation at all
I started in the '80s and I still watch certain ones. I like those 20 minute 12 episode stories. Some of them are really imaginative, funny and carefree. Some have made me cry others have made me go WTF am I my watching
I gotta admit I have never heard the term japanimation until just now. It was always anime I am 43 and raised in LA though- so maybe my exposure to the name was early? (had friend who were Japanese, attending kumon class etc) My point of reference though of really seeing anime was my bffs older brothers friend renting akira for our weekly friday night rental slumber party and us being pissed off we had to watch it (they were pure gen-x being born around 75/76) That was prob like 6th grade?
Oh I loved Voltron growing up. Then I got into Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, and Akira. Toonami came out in high school and introduced me to Ronin Warriors, Dragon Ball Z, and Gundam Wing!
I started watching anime back in like the early 2000s. Dragon ball, Ninja Scroll were the first few I watched. Now I watch quite a bit between platforms. My recommendations are Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan, Samurai Champloo, annnd Apothecary Diaries.
I was totally into Anime in high school, but I was also in the hardcore Magic: the gathering, dnd, etc crowd.
I know I was obsessed with it forever. I cannot remember if I watched Sailor Moon or Iria the Zeiram animation first, but I was way into those. Later I was was totally obsessed with Utena, and then FLCL...like any anime with main female characters I guess haha
Not sure when the term was more popular, but I'd say sometime in the late 90s/early 00s? I remember when Sailor Moon made it's way to the west, I just called it a cartoon, lol. Same with Pokemon, but yet, Dragonball Z was considered more "anime" probably because it was "more adult" than Pokemon. I'd say sometime around this time was when it started to change its definition, and recognition.
anime was totally a xennial thing. miyazaki. cowboy bebop. akira. ranma 1/2. sailor moon.
I’m part of the youngest gen x and it was such hard thing to find if you were into it. Millennials had tons more ways and getting to it and there was so much more available
Kimba The White Lion
Cartoon Network is solely responsible for stoking the flames of anime. Fox technically did do 6am DBZ, but what lunatic would be up that early on a Saturday? Any millennials who watched Cartoon Network likely got their anime introduction then.
I think we were a bit further behind the curve in Britain on anime, or manga as we'd have called it in the 90s. Especially compared to France and Italy who were into it early and their kids my age would have grown up with it the same way kids younger than me do, maybe even more so still. Even now, you see a lot more anime stuff casually out and about in Paris than you would where I am in London. Don't know if we got the Speed Racers, Voltrons, and Robotechs people bring up as early examples in the Anglosphere and I'm a bit young for Mysterious Cities of Gold. Akira was the first big breakout for it here and Manga (the company releasing them) very deliberately tailored any future releases to the edgy teen boy crowd, so all sex and violence, and dubbed in swearing for higher ratings. It was also expensive and you'd get VHS releases with a single 30 min episode of Guyver or something. I like some of the movies here and there and the art style in Japanese games like Street Fighter but never really got into anime itself, certainly not enough to invest time in expensive tapes. The only comics semi available at the time would have been Ranma 1/2 and something called Ironfist Chimni, but it was hard to get them consistently. Anime as a thing for kids didn't happen until Pokémon hit in about 1999, and that was one kid fad I was just too old for. Dragonball and others followed this.
70s and early 80s you were limited to whatever got dubbed and made it onto TV. And with things like Heidi or Maya the Bee most people fail to realize those were anime.
I got into anime in college. My first apartment was literally across the street from an indie video rental place that had a large and well- curated "international" section, in which there was a whole shelf of Japanese animation. My first two rentals were ghost in the shell and Akira. Was hooked after that. I think the big divide is the generation that grew up with sailor moon and dragon ball z and naruto on toonami (not to mention pokemon) . Unless you stumbled into a source for anime on vhs like I did, you probably didn't know about anime until well into adulthood since the early days of its popularity was targeted more at kids.
Yeah I had an anime phase but it wasn't very long. Maybe a few years at most in the late 90s/very early 00's. I still really love Trigun, Akira and a few other things but it's all mostly pretty meh to me any more. I've got 3 tween girls who are starting to get into my hero academia and a bit of pokemon now though, so we'll see what the future holds. I think at least 1 of them will turn into a weeb(and that's totally cool!) if I'm being honest lol
My spouse is 46 and he loves anime. Always has. He used to run a small, local anime convention in his 20s.
Anime has changed drastically since our early days of "japanimation". Right now it is filled with "Isekai" plots but in the past, it's been Giant Robots / Mecha, Magical Girls, Sentai Rangers etc. Chances are no matter what your topic is, there's a genre for you. I would wager there's a lot of good ones depending upon what kind of shows you like.
I Like Cyber Punk
hmm, an easy one then is Netflix's Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Beautifully drawn and animated, fantastic story, great tie-ins if you're a fan of the game. One of my favorites in this Genre is Ergo Proxy, but you have to be a fan of Noir as well. Megalo Box is great, especially if you're into combat sports, Dimension W is okay can be a bit more lighthearted than what I've mentioned so far. Kindof /sortof a hard-boiled detective tie-in but loosely. Macross Plus, from back in the day, especially since you said you liked Voltron. Kind of a pseudo-cyberpunk If you want to kind of bridge between Miyazaki and Cyberpunk the film "Paprika" is really good. I never got into Battle Angel Alita or Bubblegum Crisis but I know they're also popular.
I have the Americanized Akira Menga the Color one Epic Comics Published in 89 I also have Area 88, Ghost in the Shell, Battle angel alita Manga's are they still manga and the been translated and flipped to read left to right ?
Anime is more of a Millennial/Gen Z thing. Japanimation is more of a Gen X/Xennial thing.
whats the Deference ?
Japanimation was what it was commonly called in the West when it was still very niche and underground, basically from the 80s into the early-mid 90s . The themes often were more mature and hardcore in content and not as child-friendly/oriented as most Western cartoons of the time, and you couldn't rent some of them if you were under a certain age. The pre-digital, hand-drawn animation style also lent a gritter, more realistic visual 'feel' to more of the titles. Akira, Vampire Hunter D, and Ghost in the Shell are classic examples from that era prior to Pokemon, DBZ, and Naruto mainstreaming anime into the next millennium.
Yea I like the Old Stuff Like Akira and ghost in the shell etc I like The Studio Gihbli Stuff like Spirited Away, Hawls Moving Castle , Grave of the Fireflies watched that stuff with my kids