Well like most Americans born before the 90's, "real" and unadulterated Anime was something that was hard to come by in the United States until about 17 years ago, and when I was a young boy it was realtively unheard of. However I was always aware of subtle differences in cartoons of my childhood, since some American companies outsourced animation to Japanese companies. Even as a kid I knew there was something different about how shows like Thundercats, Voltron, Transformers, even Speed Racer, etc... looked as opposed to the classic style almost all American children of that era grew up with, namely Disney, Warner Brothers (Looney Tunes), The Fleichers (Popeye), and Hanna-Barbara. Not to mention the poorly made series from the 80's like He-Man. Of course I didn't know it was Anime or even "Japanimation" as they used to say. However I knew I liked it but didn't really think about it beyond that. And really, I started outgrowing American "cartoons", or at least the saturday morning pap variety ones by the age of 13-14, because those shows truly are made for little kids. So besides the occasional Disney film and stuff like The Simpsons or Ren & Stempy I started loosing interest in Animation (and I was getting old enough I could watch those movies with higher MPAA ratings without getting screamed at by the parents).

But that was not the end. Later by the early 90's after I got a suprise Super Nintendo for christmas I had become enthralled with Japanese video role-playing games, namely the ever continually final ones put out by Square. I always thought it would be cool if someone would make a movie based on those kind of games or a television show, and then along came the Sci-Fi channel. I've never been a fan of most of what the Sci-Fi (or SyFy now I guess) Channel marketed but they did do one thing back in the 90's that was unique; on Saturday mornings they'd air subtitled Anime in a time slot called "Saturday Anime". After seeing a quick advert for this and being intrigued by the animation I saw, I figured I should try watching whatever "Anime" was. Well along came the next Saturday and Sci-Fi just happened to air Akira (of course!) and that was my first cognicent exposure to "Anime". And to this day I still love reminiscing on how horrified I was by the creepy toys and giant milk-dripping bear in the hospital scene and, of course, the whole ending sequence (LMAO). In any case, although I was intrigued, I didn't religiously watch all the shows they aired, though I do recall seeing parts some stuff during that time frame like The Wings of Honnemise (I think) and Big Wars (I think), but don't recollect much about them. Mainly because they were subbed and I was like 13 or 14 and found the reading daunting and further, I didn't really understand much of it anyway (gee a lot of Anime really isn't kids stuff, I'm living proof!).

However I didn't give up. I found some VHS Anime movies in a mall music and movies store, and on a whim (based mainly on a dude holding a sword on the front) bought my first ever Anime movie, and that was X/1999, and oops, confused again (in retrospect not surprisingly) but was wowed by the animation. Undaunted I continued to believe I would find a good gateway into Anime and part of that was my belief that since the best RPG's came from Japan there must be Anime like it out there.

Then, one day in 2001 while browsing the minimal Anime DVD selection at my local Best Buy it was then that I spied a complete DVD collection of Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight and based on the package art and synopsis on the back alone bought it (for a whopping $100!!!). Those of you familiar with J-RPG's and Lodoss can clearly figure that yes, I had found what I was looking for (moreso when I later discovered the OVA). Therefore, after enjoying that series it wasn't long after that Cartoon Network started airing dubbed Anime during their "Toonami" block and I caught the likes of Outlaw Star, Big-O, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Dragon Ball Z, and as they say... the rest is history.

Somehow once you start you either love it and get sucked in or you hate it and leave it. Well I am clearly in the former camp. Currently I own dozens of series, movies, and OVA on DVD and continue to buy more each year. There is so much diversity in Anime, far more than the typical American live-action television offerings that it's hard to sift through everything to find what you like, even going back many years through back catalouges and old reviews of stuff so obscure you can't get unless you torrent it.

So yes, I love Anime and if you do too or are just getting into it, hopefully my reviews on this site will help you dig through the treasure trove it is.