Back when I first started up The Fandom Post, coming from previous sites and relaunching things in a way, I did the 30 Day Anime Challenge as a good way to re-introduce myself a bit. It’s been a decade since I did the challenge and while I suspect some of my answers will be the same I’m also curious to see where I’ve diverged in the years since. The first-day challenge is a bit more conversational than a lot of the other questions because we want to know what your first anime was and through that your first anime experience. Was it a late-night show? A VHS someone slipped you when you were a teenager? The discovery of a streaming site? Or a high-profile film in theaters?

For myself, my anime introduction came in a couple of stages. I mostly missed the late 70’s and early 80’s stage of Starblazers, though my next-door neighbor was hooked, and I had watched Battle of the Planets at like 6 AM every day because nothing else was on before school and the like. But where I became aware of what anime was came in the form of Robotech. That was the show that I raced home from school every day to catch and one that my mother watched with me since, considering the times with what else was on, show a far more mature approach to war, relationships, and more and she heartily approved. My direct anime exposure resulted from that with the acquisition of the Macross movie bootleg at a local science fiction convention back in the mid-’80s. I ended up seeing a few other things over the years from that scene (and a whole lot of hentai for this impressionable lad), but it was when the comic book store I used to go to, Bop City Comics, started offering licensed VHS tapes from Streamline and AnimEigo. I had things like Lensman, Akira, and Wicked City. But it was the arrival of Bubblegum Crash, yes, Crash, that cemented me as a fan who wanted the authentic experience. While I adored the Macross movie and how it diverged so heavily and was so stunningly beautiful, Crash was where I really got a good dose of translated, subtitled, and annotated anime that showed me there was so much more. What made me the long time fan that I am now though? The double whammy combination of Kimagure Orange Road and Urusei Yatsura. These are the foundations of my anime fandom and they continue to all be shows that I can go back and adore – and overlook their faults!