First exposure to Japanese animation

[Kiwi the Tortoise]

Tasunoko Taro (1979)
Shônen Sarutobi Sasuke (1959)
World Masterpiece Theatre-series (in particular: Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, Marco and many others)
Captain Future & Queen Millenia by Leji Matsumoto
Kimba - The White Lion (TV-series) by Osamu Tezuka
Mitsubachi Maya no boken
Sindbad (1975)

I don't remember which of them was the actual first since I was very young, I assume it might be Heidi but all of them are candidates.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Pokémon and Digimon as a kid, but only got to know more anime around 5th and 6th grade when my friend started getting into it. Escaflowne, Pita-Ten and Evangelion were among those.

 

[Terramax]

My sister bought a July 1994 magazine of Anime FX, and I immediately fell in love with the art style. She later gave the magazine to me, and it's been my most prized possession ever since.

Sure, I'd seen some morning anime on TV before that, but I couldn't tell how different they were from regular cartoons, because I was so small.

As for actual animes, I think Ninja Scroll, or Guyver: The Series were the first two animes I watched. I was all into the violent anime when I was 10 years old.

 

[Upbeat Zombie]

For me it was either Pokemon or Inuyasha both were around the same time. I got into pokemon because it had just came out and was what every kid was talking about at my age. And I started watching Inuyasha since a friend had just shown me adult swim for the first time. And that was back AS was 90% anime.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Probably shows like Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Cardcaptor Sakura, Dragonball Z... the shows that were on TV when I was a kid...

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I do remember being a snobby purist even at age nine when I first watched Akira in Japanese and then totally snubbed the English dub a week later for being awful. (The 1988 dub, not the 2001 dub. Have no idea of the quality of that.)

But then that dub really was pretty fucking awful, making Masaru sound like a midget and all.

I think Kai (think it was him) was my breaking point and the way he'd shout "Kaneeeeda! Kaneeeeeeeeeeeeeeda!" in that whiny way. Ugh.

The thing is, Akira was the first Japanese animation that I actually saw in Japanese. My older sister taped it off the BBC. For an 11-year old me this was kinda confusing and disconnecting, so I was looking forward to seeing the english dub. Then I heard the first few lines from Yamagata (the dude with the rising sun shirt), and I was like, "...Oh...no..." I stuck it out till I heard Masaru sound like a cartoon rat before I had to wash my ears out.

OT: Oh, I forgot Nobody's Boy.

That was one sad show. Japan has a knack for the "super tragedy".

The trouble is its still confusing and disconnected
================================

For me its Outlanders and some of the early carnival stuff(Cashern and others) on cartoon network.

 

[Hero of Lime]

It's Pokemon as far as I'm concerned, shortly after that it would've been Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon. Then when Gundam Wing first appeared I was into that for awhile. Gundam Wing is probably the only Anime I would still say I love to this day, although I enjoyed the newer Pokemon movies more than I should have. >.>

 

[Skrimmy]

For me it had to be a toss up between Pokemon and DBZ. It was probably Pokemon though.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The North American dub of Astro Boy was my first experience with anime, though the first series that grabbed me and made me watch it was actually the Sailor Moon dub that came along quite a bit later.

 

[Angelous Wang]

A few shows, such as:
Pokemon
Dragon Ball Z
Tenchi Muyo/Universe
Outlaw Star
Escaflowne (I wasn't a fan though)
Gundam Wing
Digimon

I can't remember the very first thing I watched though, it was one of the above.

This is my list exactly. I used to watch all of these from my pre-teens to early teens.

I don't exactly remember which was first but I'd go with Pokemon as a solid guess, ether that or Dragonball Z.

Have to admit though I always thought they sucked in comparison to the X-Men, Spiderman and Batman cartoons that were on regularly around the same time.

Ulysses 31

Oh I guess I did watch few episodes of that one, but it sucked so bad I stopped pretty quickly.

 

[DragonLordSerge]

Growing up in mexico the anime i remember watching as a kid was Heidi, Captain Tsubasa, Dr.Slump and Dragon ball

 

[drednoahl]

My first exposure to anime was called "marine boy" closely followed by "battle of the planets." I was about five years old when marine boy was on tv so I obviously didn't know that it was anime that had been "westernised." As I got older there were other shows (like starfleet) already mentioned in this thread that I really liked, but I always thought there was something missing/not quite right and so I kind of forgot about them. Many years later this happened:

The first anime I watched and knew what it was was Akira back when it was first broadcast on BBC2.

I still have it on tape as well as the Jonathan Ross documentary that aired a few hours before it. For me, watching Akira subtitled was quite a shock. What shocked me more was a few months later my first subtitled tapes of urusei yatsura turned up; I've not been able to tolerate watching English dubs ever since, and over the years I've gone to extreme lengths to get the anime I wanted (not unusual for the time - the author of substation alpha wrote the program just so he could watch his Dirty Pair laserdiscs with subtitles as he wanted them.)

 

[Elfgore]

Mine was the pokemon tv show. Can't recall why I watched it to begin with but man did I love it. But since I really only watched very western anime shows as a kid, pokemon, digimon, yugioh, and teen titans, as I child I say my first true exposure to Japanese animation is High School of the Dead, So I once again have to thank that random guy who posted the scene with the epic booby jiggling, you got me into anime good sir.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Ulysses 31

Oh I guess I did watch few episodes of that one, but it sucked so bad I stopped pretty quickly.

What the hell are you talking about, man! That show was awesome!

...

Well, the intro was anyway.

 

[Legion]

If we are counting when we were children and had no idea what "anime" was and just watched it as a cartoon on television then Pokemon. It was the latest trend and everybody collected the cards. Then the show started as well.

Assuming non-kids shows and with the understanding of what anime was then The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. A friend of mine had a video of it embedded on her Myspace page, I checked it out and watched the whole series. This would be the time when I'd say I "got into" anime.

After that I pretty much just browsed anime sites and had a look at ones with interesting titles, those that still seemed interesting I watched.

 

[Gatx]

Tekkaman Blade. On UPN 13. I didn't realize it at the time though but looking back I remembered there was a cartoon that was a lot more serious looking and dramatic than anything else at the time I realized it was an anime. The first one I actually knew was anime was Pokemon though. While watching an episode my dad was like "This show came from Japan you know" and yep.

 

[MasterMasamune]

The first anime I ever watched was Pokémon, but in that case, I only watched it occasionally and didn't keep up with the show. The first anime I ever cared about was Digimon Tamers, after I read the first volume of a manga based off of it in 3rd grade.

 

[Artina89]

Mine definitely was Astro boy (it used to be on the BBC before I went to school. Ah, memories.) Pokemon and Digimon. Shortly after that, I managed to acquire Virus: virus buster Serge, Blackjack, Dragonball Z and Vampire Hunter D. I still watch a lot of those shows on occasion. I don't really like the new series of Pokemon though, I overwhelmingly prefer the old series, especially when I hear the opening theme:


And the Astro boy opening also sticks in my head:


I loved my childhood.

 

[Fijiman]

I don't exactly remember, but I'm pretty sure it was either Pokemon or Dragonball.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I'm an old fart so my first official exposure was watching Speed Racer, Robotech, Voltron and Astro Boy on Saturday Mornings.

If you're talking about when I recognized it as a completely separate genre...probably when I was 11 or 12 and I bought a copy of Urusai Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer and Project A-Ko from my local comic book shop.