Anime Fan for 25 years (since 1995)

[Tasuke]

 

actually, technically, a good while longer, since i vaguely recall sitting through an episode of ROBOTECH  as a very young boy around what must have been sometime in 1986 or so.

a nephew gave me his old 1985 REVELL ROBOTECH CHANGERS VEXAR transformable model (U.S. market reboxing of 1983 IMAI MACROSS VF-1S Focker 1/72 VARIABLE TYPE)

around 1988/1989 or so, and then i got a taste of Mecha Anime tropes at a more readily-impressionable age around 1991,

thanks to the Mecha action-platfomer game "ASSAULT SUIT LEYNOS" (TARGET EARTH in the U.S.) on the SEGA GENESIS games console.

my Anime fandom truly began to consciously coalesce around 1995, when my dad bought me an old IMAI MACROSS 1/100 VF-1J Ichijo GERWALK mode model kit,

and PLAYMATES toy company reissued the old original MATCHBOX-made ROBOTECH Mecha toys under their "EXO-SQUAD" line.

around that time, i discovered SUNCOAST VIDEO at the mall, and their Anime selection. first i concentrated on ROBOTECH, -via the dual-episode FHE VHS cassette volumes-

found VIZ MEDIA's ANIMERICA Anime magazine, and began picking up issues often as i could,

and then i discovered MANGA VIDEO's MACROSS II and MACROSS PLUS movie compilation releases, Pure, uncut MACROSS, for the first time.

from there, i began to branch out from Mecha-themed anime, with series such as Galaxy Fraulein Yuna and Tenchi Muyo!

and then the early-21st-century and the DVD Anime boom hit, and i was well and truly off to the Anime Races.

 

i'm about as hardcore today as i've ever been, and, thanks to the internet, i now have the kind of Mecha and Character-themed merchandise

that i would have killed for as a young teen, two-plus decades ago...

 

[Ohayotaku]

Welcome to the forums, hope you enjoy it here

Yeah, discovering Suncoast in the 90s was when I really started getting hardcore about anime. Though my first experience was Star Blazers in the late 70s/early 80s

[efaardvark]

6 hours ago, Tasuke said:

 

actually, technically, a good while longer, since i vaguely recall sitting through an episode of ROBOTECH  as a very young boy around what must have been sometime in 1986 or so.

a nephew gave me his old 1985 REVELL ROBOTECH CHANGERS VEXAR transformable model (U.S. market reboxing of 1983 IMAI MACROSS VF-1S Focker 1/72 VARIABLE TYPE)

around 1988/1989 or so, and then i got a taste of Mecha Anime tropes at a more readily-impressionable age around 1991,

thanks to the Mecha action-platfomer game "ASSAULT SUIT LEYNOS" (TARGET EARTH in the U.S.) on the SEGA GENESIS games console.

my Anime fandom truly began to consciously coalesce around 1995, when my dad bought me an old IMAI MACROSS 1/100 VF-1J Ichijo GERWALK mode model kit,

and PLAYMATES toy company reissued the old original MATCHBOX-made ROBOTECH Mecha toys under their "EXO-SQUAD" line.

around that time, i discovered SUNCOAST VIDEO at the mall, and their Anime selection. first i concentrated on ROBOTECH, -via the dual-episode FHE VHS cassette volumes-

found VIZ MEDIA's ANIMERICA Anime magazine, and began picking up issues often as i could,

and then i discovered MANGA VIDEO's MACROSS II and MACROSS PLUS movie compilation releases, Pure, uncut MACROSS, for the first time.

from there, i began to branch out from Mecha-themed anime, with series such as Galaxy Fraulein Yuna and Tenchi Muyo!

and then the early-21st-century and the DVD Anime boom hit, and i was well and truly off to the Anime Races.

 

i'm about as hardcore today as i've ever been, and, thanks to the internet, i now have the kind of Mecha and Character-themed merchandise

that i would have killed for as a young teen, two-plus decades ago...

 

 

 

I've also been into anime for quite a while.  I really got into it in HS due to a friend who got into voice-acting (and eventually went pro) but seeing titles like Chobits, Mahoromatic, Robotech, and Clannad on your shelf brings back memories.  I was actually into anime even before HS, though at the time I was young and didn't really make the distinction between "cartoons" and anime.  I graduated HS in '82 so... yeah, it's been a while for me as well. 

[Tasuke]

 an updated video collection shot;