What was your first anime?

Dragonball Z for sure. The show intimidated me almost as a young child, the storyline seemed "too lofty" or something like that. Back then I liked self-contained, bite sized episodes. In 2011 or so though my interest was rekindled and I watched through all of DB and DBZ (lasting well into 2012). I love it so much that I started rewatching it again at the beginning of this year. Got all the way from Goku's childhood to the destruction of Namek but went through a shitty divorce and for some reason stopped watching and have barely thought about it in the last few months.. Time to get stuck back into it I think, this thread really reminded me how much I love DB and DBZ.

It's funny, I'm not a big anime fan overall, but the ones I do enjoy - Dragonball, Evangelion and One Punch Man - I'm totally crazy about. Could easily binge watch any of the above without hesitation! [/ramble]

Either Captain Tsubasa or Sailor Moon.. ^^"

The first animes i ever saw  were saint seiya, dragonball (before Z), sailor moon, and captain tsubasa, back in my childhood when they used to play them on open tv channels in my area

In absolute terms, probably Samurai Pizza Cats or Laputa: The Flying Island (as it was known in the UK in the late '80s/early '90s) or maybe The Mysterious Cities of Gold, if you consider the Japanese half of a Franco-Japanese co-production as sufficient for the show to count as anime.

That I knew was anime?  Probably Judge, which is a pretty obscure one-shot OVA from 1991 that the BBC aired in a late-night slot one time around the middle of the '90s.

14 minutes ago, TheOrganGrinder said:

In absolute terms, probably Samurai Pizza Cats or Laputa: The Flying Island (as it was known in the UK in the late '80s/early '90s) or maybe The Mysterious Cities of Gold, if you consider the Japanese half of a Franco-Japanese co-production as sufficient for the show to count as anime.

 

That I knew was anime?  Probably Judge, which is a pretty obscure one-shot OVA from 1991 that the BBC aired in a late-night slot one time around the middle of the '90s.

Judge is a banana sundae of frothing at the mouth insanity that has no modicum of self awareness. Everyone should watch Judge. It's an incredible thing to behold.

Akira when I was a little *hit.
Scared the hell out of me.

Dragon Ball Z. I probably haven't cared or thought about it in 10+ years now. The other day I watched one episode on some FB livestream and it was during the Garlic Jr saga which was familiar enough with me. It was fine, fairly enjoyable enough for a weekend afternoon, but people were complaining that it was a "filler" saga and blah. I know so many people get heated when you say that a fanbase turns you off, but come on...a fanbase CAN kind of ruin the fun. I loved Rick and Morty as soon as episode 1 aired because I was already familiar with Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, but by season 3...yeah I kind of wanted to distance myself from the other fans. I can still enjoy it for what it is, but DBZ is in the past for me. Tried Dragon Ball Super this year and it was the most cringiest thing I've ever seen. 

Dragon Ball (I thought I'd start with the lowest common denominator), followed by Ghibli films (based on recommendations) and Black Lagoon. (because I remember a Revy skin being used in Skulltag :P).

Pokemon and Dragonball Z on Toonami were the earliest glimpses of anime that I watched, but I remember so little about the shows I watched when I was little. It's like I never took an active interest in the story or knew what was going on but was just amused (and usually also frightened) by what I was seeing and hearing. I feel like I went through a lot of my childhood in a trance.

I didn't really get into anime until I watched One Piece (the terrible 4Kids dub) and a little bit of Naruto, but I got frustrated when they stopped airing new episodes, so I quit them. My interest for those shows definitely dropped off sharply after that and never really recovered. OP is still a really popular show but I just got super bored with it.

Doraemon, Dragon Ball, Let's & Go!, Captain Tsubasa, basically popular old-school anime in my home country aka. Indonesia.

Dragonball Z and when I mean Dragonball Z, I mean the original Ocean dub back in 96/97 back when it first broadcast after the Saturday morning Fox Kids block at 11AM...and the rest was history for me :) 

I remember when Teletoon first started showing episodes of the Ocean dub of DBZ. It was a little bit before America got the episodes, and for some inane reason there were zero advertisements for it, and it was on at (I think) 11:30 at night on weekdays. I already loved the original Dragonball, and had no idea what DBZ was until I just stumbled into it. I was pretty exhausted going into school for awhile, but it was worth it. I believe they only covered the first half of the Saiyan saga. It wasn't until YTV got the rights that the show really took off in Canada. I have no idea what Teletoon were thinking by not advertising it, and airing it at such a ridiculous time slot.

My brother was an "otaku" and I hated anime, we'd often argue and I'd call him a weaboo and tell him that anime sucks, he said "How do you know if you haven't watched anime ?" ( True, i only watched little bits here and there but the female voices annoyed me, too high pitch, fan service everywhere and I'd feel like i was watching something which target audience was fat sweaty neckbeards and japanese language sounds stupid overall to me ) So I agreed to watch one and tell him what I think of it. He told me to watch SAO, I liked the premise somewhat and I watched with english dubs because reasons mentioned b4 it KINDA got me hooked, but at first i'd pretend i don't like it, then I would watch all 3 seasons and tell him it's OK i guess. Doesn't mean I thought it's perfect, I had many problems with it, the idea was good but the execution kind of not. Some time later my online friend suggested me an anime ( you may not call it anime ) titled "Arashi no Yoru ni", "one stormy night" and I really enjoyed it though.

I don't hate anime as much as I used too, I guess i just don't like ecchi ( how's my spelling ? Call 1-800-BLOW-ME) anime and japanese language

Depends on if you mean first exposure or first thing I really watched.  I remember seeing a few minutes of the awful English dub of Sailor Moon on the TV once when I was around 11, during one of the transformation sequences, and basically thinking "what the hell is this, what a weird show" and changing the channel.

If I'm not mistaken the first anime I watched on purpose was Vampire Hunter D.

Ah, Sailor Moon. I've always had a particular nostalgic fondness for that anime, even though it's pretty silly and not particularly well written. 

Attack on Titan. Became a weeb afterwards, which made me stop watching anime altogether.

No Game No Life, because my friends wouldn't stop gushing about it when the first episode came out. But in the end, I actually enjoyed it.

My first anime was Pokemon. I saw it when I was a 3 years old. 

Also I've seen for 15 years ago one anime about soccer command. I don't remember it name, but I remember one scene where one man took off a T-shirt with number "3" or "13" (I don't remember) from a boy. I didn't understand what they said because I saw that anime on the french channel FRANCE 5. 

I have vivid memories of games and shows that I'm still not sure actually existed. Reading this thread just caused a flood of memories in me, and after some quick Googling, it turns out that it was a thing. 

Adventures of the Little Koala, as it was named on Nick Jr., was probably the first anime I had ever seen.

Its funny how a barrage of memories about something relatively trivial can make a person malfunction for a few minutes. 

Dragon Ball Z. It's funny because I loved this show, but never really got into anime until a decade later with Dragonball.