Anime

The Earliest Anime I Watched

Pokemon

One of the earliest anime I recalled watching is the first 3 seasons of Pokemon (the anime that was based on the video game) back when it aired reruns on Cartoon Network in the mid 2000s'. I only watch bit and pieces of it and never bother paid attention to the series. Funny thing is that I never got attached to the franchise until a decade later.

Hamtaro

The second earliest anime I watched was Hamtaro. Unlike Pokemon, Hamtaro became one of the first anime I got hooked. I watched around in 2002/03 on Toonami (the famous anime block that showed action anime and cartoon series) back when it used to air in the afternoon. It wasn't until years later I found out that people actually got upset that they aired Hamtaro because the show's target was supposed to be for children, (which is called Kodomomuke in Japan)! But in reality, it was the network that forced Toonami to air since it's anime and that what they mostly aired (at least the writers have fun on the matter). Despite that, Cartoon Network later on have to make another anime block called Miguzi, which it's a lighter-toned version of Toonami (which moved to Saturday nights).

And did you know it's was based on the children's books? And that only 104 episodes were localized in English before getting canned in the States? So many things I later learned thanks to TV Tropes! Anyways, I loved the show due to the cute hamsters in the show, who go on adventures while their owners are away! I don't remember how many episodes I saw but it was enough for it to become a speical interest for a bit. My parents used to tease me on like the series by calling the characters, "Ham-Ham SANDWICHES"! Yeah my parents have humor...

I played some of their the video games on the GameBoy Color and GameBoy Advance SP (that I mention in my Gaming Concoles Page). I even got the minature figures that I used to owned. Used to, is the key word, because my mom made me give it away when we were about to move back to the States in 2014, which made me sad!

Digimon

The next earliest anime I recalled watching was the Digimon series (another anime that is based on the video game), back in 2005/06 when they were airing reruns on Jetix on Toon Disney (before it became Disney XD in 2009). I remember it for being similar to Pokemon (expect it wasn't as I later found it, as it was because their first game was released around the same time as Pokemon Red/Blue). I can even recall watching a few series of the show. I remember one series I watched where the main characters transform into Digimon (which was "Digimon Frontier", the fourth series of the Digimon franchise).

Inazuma Eleven

The last earliest anime series that watched was Inazuma Eleven (another anime that is based on the video game). It's about a near-disbanded Junior High soccer team, which the one member of the soccer team, a goalkeeper named Mamoru Endou (or Mark Evans as I saw the English dub), actually care about the sport. But it changes when a legendary ace striker transfers to the school and Endou convince him to join the team. Then the reigning champion team challenge the team. Things gets crazy later on.

I recalled watching the show back in the summer of 2011 when my family was living in Germany. We have Sky Satellite and had the card that connected to the British version. So for the next 3 years that we lived there, we watched anything that aired from the United Kingdom (and since we were an hour ahead of them, we have to be careful on what time it is so we don't miss the any show we wanted to watch). Anyways for the show, I watched only the first 20 episode before abandoning it was I didn't like the show that much. But I liked some of the character designs on the show, thought.

Random Anime I Recalled Watching

While the 4 animes I rememebered watching the most, there were other bits and pieces of anime I watched between then and 2014 which include Dragon Ball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Zatch Bell!, Bobobo-bo Bo-bob, YuYu Hakusho, Naruto, One Piece, Magical DoReMi and even Cowboy Bebop. I also watched of some of Studio Ghibli's movies which include Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo and a bit of Spirted Away.

Modern Anime that I Got Into

Attack of Titan

Around late 2014, I was home from University for winter break when I went on Netflix (back when people didn't hate them that much) and watched my first modern and first mature anime series. One month prior to that, I accidently watched episode 23 on the revived Toonami block, which now aired on Adult Swim on Saturday nights! Despite watching that episode, the fact the setting is inspired by the walled city in Germany (where me and my family lived for 5 years) and its beautiful animation made me interested in watching the series. I binged the 1st season in a few days and when I later went to my first anime con (which took place on campus surprisly enough), I bought a jacket that I paided at least $70/80 and wore it all the time.

As for the overall series itself, I liked it due to the animation, the action scenes and its' dark theme. It's about 3 childhood friends who join the Survey Crops in order to fight the man-eating giants known as Titans, who smashed and invaded their walled kingdom when they were younger. It's was based on a manga, that was first published in 2009 and it wasn't until 2013 when the first season of the anime came out. The series became very popular and I think it what cause Western mainsteam to see that anime is cool and not just full of porn or just for "nerds".

The magna ended in 2021 and the ending was bad. Like, Games of Thrones bad! So bad, I think that the mangaka had to apologize to the fans at New York Con, a year later! It was because of that, I think the anime is going tweak the ending to not make it not as bad as the manga did. Only if we can get to the ending that is!

That's because the anime producers decided it was a "great idea" to split the final season into 3 parts! Not only that, they decide to split Part 3 into 2 full-length movies! I get it as they want to keep the suspense long. But for those who haven't read the manga and doesn't want to (like me), we're getting sick and tired of waiting! At least now they announced the release date for Part 3- Part 2, which is on November 4th, 2023. So, when the day it finally airs, I'm going to delete all of social media on my iPhone and not read any forums until I watch the ending!

First Retro Anime I Watched

Sailor Moon

A few months later after watching season 1 of Attack of the Titan, I was bored on a Sunday afternoon in my dorm. So, I decided one day that browse on YouTube. And for some reason, my mind was like, "Why not watch Sailor Moon? And on the original English dub for some reason too?!?" Please note, I never watched the series when it was on Toomani, despite seeing bits of Dragon Ball Z, the other anime series that got big in the States back in the 90s'!

So, I end up watching it on YouTube (also don't ask me why either and also this was before I found out that you can watch it on Funmation and later Hulu) and took me almost a month to finish it. While I watched the original English dub there (where the Sailor Scouts have western names instead of their original names), I watched it in order number the episodes and relased that the original English dub skipped some of the episode due to being not "appropriate" to the American audience (this was the 90s' of course...), so I end up watching the oringal Japanese dub on Funmation.

As for the series itself, I like the artstyle as it feels so retro as this was made in the early 90s'. I also like the character designs as it makes them looks magical and beautiful. I also like the theme of never giving up and the power of love and friendship. Even thought I watched the first season, I think I got either burnout or lost interest in watching season 2, so I took a break from the series for a bit.

Then 3 years later, I finally watched Sailor R on Hulu. This time, I watched it with the update English dub from Viz where the main characters use their original names and doesn't censor things that would "upset" the American audience. Such as Minako's "I have the most talent" bit when explaining to her friends why she should be in the main role in a school play in one episode the original English dub. Where in both the Japanese dub and updated English dub, she said that it was because she has bigger boobs than them! While I think season 2 is an improvement, my main gripe is that the Hulu ads keeps ruining the moment. And for a person with short attention span, it sucks! After completing season 2, I took yet another break from the series.

As of right now, I have yet to see Sailor Moon S, Super S and Sailor Stars. Since completing season 2, my mom upgraded the family Hulu account that get rid of ads, which solve that problem. One day, I'll get around watching S. If I do, I'll watch with the updated English dub since I found out that some of the voice actresses who voiced some of the antagonists of S, voiced some of the characters from my favorite visual novel series, Danganronpa.

Overall

By 2017, I transfered universities and joined the anime club and that's when I really got into watching anime. One of the anime that the club watched during my first semester there, was season 1 of My Hero Academia, which I later binged all 13 episodes in one night because I liked it! As for the genre, I pefer fantasy, crime, mystery, history, comedy and silce of life. I also mostly watched shōnen, shōjo and josei series. But this summer, I watched my first ecchi series, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, which is a love letter to western cartoons that aired in the late 90s'-early 2000s'. And it was made by Studio Gainax!

Anime List