My Anime Roots

[puppetmaker]

There is a live action version of Battleship Yamato aka Starblazers that is showing in Japan. There is rumor that it might come to the US next year. I’d buy a ticket to it in a heartbeat. Starblazers is my early Anime. Also there is a CGI version of Harlock that there has been a teaser trailer to that I so want to see.

It was TBS I think before it was TBS and I was in high school. TBS starting showing Battle of the Planets/G-Force (Gatchaman), Star Blazers (Battleship Yamato), later that horrible mash-up of Queen of 1000 years and Captain Harlock (Captain Harlock and the Queen of 1000 years), and Robotech (which is a mish-mash of a couple of series). Those were my first shows. I liked the animation but loved the sweeping story lines which wasn’t really done in American cartoons which tended to be done in one.

Through conventions, Bill Ritch, and my college anime club I was introduced to Vampire Hunter D, Project Ako, Akira, Moblesuit Gundam, and My Youth in Arcadia among many other series. I found that I preferred the series with the convoluted storylines rather than the robot battles. I loved Vampire Hunter D and all the lovely artwork that came out of it. (Remember kids this is before the age of the Internet so finding things was difficult and expensive.)

Since then I have drifted in and out of anime. I have enjoyed Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist, Witch Hunter Robin, and any Miyazaki had a hand in. Ariel grew up with Sailor Moon and Pokemon. Caroline enjoys those and Bakugan (which she learned to play in New Zealand), Sugar, and other anime that Ariel enjoys.

I am still on the look out for a copy of Arcadia of my youth: Endless Orbit SSX but no luck so far. I am also on the look out for things I might not have seen yet that people think are good.

So what do you like in animeland? Or even good US series (Symbiotic Titan rules!) with an anima twist?

I am grateful that I found Anime when I did.

Comments

[dulcinbradbury.livejournal.com]

Oh dear... I admit that I started with Sailor Moon. Also liked Vampire Hunter D, Miyazaki's work, and Kenshin. Kenshin was really my favorite for a long time.

[zessa]

Cowboy Beebop.

It was on Adult Swim at the right time for me and I fell in love with not only the story line, but the excellent english dub.

Probably makes me a 'bad' anime fan but I like the Beebop dub far better than the original voices.

That and the bastardized version of Sailor Moon cartoon network used to play. I keep meaning to watch the real Sailor Moon but I look at just the sheer amount of Sailor Moon out there and get freaked out because I have NO idea where to start.

And there was a Robotech, at least I think it was a robotech I got into too, had a woman in a pink suit and she had like, total 70's/80's hair. Liked that too.

[dulcinbradbury.livejournal.com]

I also watched the bastardized version of Sailor Moon to start out.

One of these days I need to see the rest of Cowboy Beebop.

[zessa]

I'll keep my mouth shut, since there are some major spoilers in the last few eps but damn do they pack a punch.

Then you go back and find the hints in other eps and it's like, "you evil evil people you."

[wide_worlds_joy]

Just recently pulled down all 26 eps of Bebop off Bittorrent. It's all up there in Dub, rather than sub.

They only sell the original version of SM here in the states in Seasons 1 and 2. The owner pulled the licenses since she was making a live action version in Japan and wanted to promote it there. They might come back one day...

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

I've still just skirted the edges of anime. Yep, saw Star Blazers in the early-to-mid 80s, but after that the only one I really got into was Voltron. I especially liked the space-bound season with that ship that was basically a space-borne aircraft carrier (my dad served on several aircraft carriers). Somehow never got into Robotech, despite being in the right audience for it and having friends who were into it.

Anime remains a little daunting to me. SO MUCH OF IT.

[kenakeri.livejournal.com]

I can't wait for Starblazers.

I grew up watching Robotech, Ronin Warriors & G-Force. Project Ako, Akira and Vampire Hunter D were early favorites as well. I saw all of the Unico movies, and Miyazaki's features.


I got into Samurai X, Ghost in the Shell, Witch Hunter Robin, Cowboy Bebop and others later on.

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

Some of my favorites are Vision of Escaflowne, the works of Miyazaki, X:1999 (even if it does get a bit overly bloody and angsty), Slayers (fun spoof on fantasy tropes), Millennium Actress, Card Captor Sakura, and most recently, Princess Tutu.

[dulcinbradbury.livejournal.com]

Awww... I loved Card Captor. It was really too young for me when I saw it, but, somehow it was just too cute to resist.

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

This icon is me cosplaying the Wood card. I was part of a group who all did card costumes.

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Project A-ko movies were my first animes, followed by Sailor Moon, Samurai Pizza Cats and the Dragon Ball series (I hate Z & GT with a passion though).

In middle school and high school Those Who Hunt Elves, Lost Universe, Sorcerer Hunters, Demon Hunter Yoko, His & Hers Circumstances, Gundam Wing, Digimon (yes Digimon, the first two seasons!), Magic Users Club, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun and Ah! My Goddess were my thing.

Now that I'm older, I've seen KaleidoStar (which actually MIGHT be cute for Caroline, my A_B Mod icon is a character from the series, Layla Hamilton), Glass Mask (very dramatic), The Wallflower (insanity I adore it), Paradise Kiss (pretty but I hated the end a bit), and well countless more. If I listed them all you'd really see me for the weeaboo I deny I am. :)

[wide_worlds_joy]

I too grew up on Battle of the Planets/Starblazers. It was channel 46 in Atlanta that showed them. I STARTED, however, on Speed Racer, the really original. That was when I was 8 or so, and BotP/S was when I was 12 on. Didn't get exposed to anything else until much MUCH later. Didn't know who the Dirty Pair was even though a friend from here and DW played one at a con, and moved with some of the same people I was with at the same time.

Now, Bleach, Witch Hunter Robin (a lot like La Femme Nakita, but in anime), Princess Princess, All the Girls love Elder Sister, Neon Genesis, Fullmetal, Angel Layer and many others are animes I come back to many times. I've seen other series that are "eh", but just as I don't like every show on TV, I'm not going to like every anime either.

Rhiannon grew up on Sailor Moon, Inuyasha and others, and she's trying to get into some of the cosplay at the cons. Love her to death.

[reddheart.livejournal.com]

I got only Starblazers and Voltron growing up.

D, however..got FAR more. In fact, he specifically told me he was watching Harlock when he was about 3 or so. Fists of the North Star (which we happen to be plodding through presently) he was watching when he was more in his teens.

It's what he got for being in Italy growing up. Practically all toons there were anime at times, it seems :)

[(Anonymous)]

Oh man I remember using my lunch money to buy fan-sub VHS of Utena and Sailor Moon StarS from the comic book store (who would also let us buy dojinshi even though we where under age, scandalous!). Or how all my friends would get together for Eva marathons and drawing parties. Waiting on new Trigun and Cowboy Bebop tapes. Toonami on cartoon network and suffering through horrible dubs. Finding out that yaoi was actually a genre and not just some horrible personal perversion.

Oh man, that all just took me right back.

[tardiscrash.livejournal.com]

oops. forgot to log in.

[queenanthai.livejournal.com]

I'm shockingly not much of an anime fan, but I did enjoy Slayers when I was in high school. Nowadays it's really just the entirety of Genshiken, Chi's Sweet Home (because KITTY) and the occasional Rosario + Vampire (yeah, I know).

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

I loved Battle of the Planets/G-Force. In my little town, the two classes of my grade combined were about 32 kids and of those 32, Jeff and I were the only two who watched it. I was so drawn to the animation style and how alive it was compared to the Hanna Barbara stuff that mostly comprised the rest of the cartoons we had at the time. Then there was the wee crush I developed on the lead. Mark, was it?

I don't have a current hand in anime but one of my now-college-aged fencers loaned me his Trigun and Hellsing DVDs a few years ago and I enjoyed the heck out of them. Caught a few episodes of Cowboy Bebop on Adult Swim several years ago and rather like them, too. Vampire Hunter D is on the list of 'what I'd like to see once of these days' along with a couple of others whose names are escaping me at the moment.