What really got you into anime?

[ZekeSulastin]

Mecha, to be honest.  Back when I was quite young, I watched bits and pieces of Robotech. Much later, I found information about the Phoenix Hawk LAM on some Battletech website and wondered why LAMs weren't in any of the Mechwarrior games.  This lead me to the Macross franchise and a couple key torrents (Macross and Macross Zero) on BxT and the rest is history.  Of course, my mother randomly buying my sister and me Akira ("I liked this, you might enjoy it." @_@) and Spirited Away helped too ...

[Nazaraki]

It was my first year of highschool that i got into anime, i had watched it when i where a child but didnt realize that it was anime untill i met this guy in highschool who started giving me series over USB harddrives in school, series that i saw when i was a child was Sailor Moon, Galaxy Rangers, star singer and Robot Tech.

Didn't realize that they where anime untill i met the concept in highschool though ^^

[pode777]

Heh, people have some pretty funny stories as to their entry into the anime world. In my country there was nothing anime-related airing in the TV, there was only a bad pokemon dub running at like 5am in the morning together with digimon. That's not real anime.

No what really got me into anime, it's pretty funny actually, I like the german band Rammstein and one evening I was visiting a friend and we watched some Rammstein music videos, one of them featured an anime with robots, and the other one that really sparked my interest had some girls with guns running around. I had to research right away when I got home and it turned out to be Evangelion and Noir featured in those music videos. And then a new Otaku was born.

[gonaners16]

I watched DBZ when I was about 7. My mom hated it and tried to tell me to stop watching "That Japanese bullsh*t'. Which of course just made me want to watch it more.    I also saw Spirited Away and Sailor Moon.  And I saw some anime with animal-like robot-ish things in it. Kind of like gundams (were they?) and they were shot out of a huge tank-like vehicle. They fought other animal-robot-like things. The 'good' ones had a person inside to control it, but I don't know if the 'bad' side did. I really wish I could remember the name, because I can't find it now! Any help?  :'(

[pode777]

Blue Gender is my closest bet but that's a pretty dramatic series, doubt many kids watch that.

[Nanonanol]

Neon Genesis Evangelion and Princess Mononoke

[Natheria]

The first anime that really got me rolling was Rozen Maiden and later Code Geass. I was curious as to the origin of the Desu meme and ended up watching both seasons within a week.   I'm still not sure whether the root source of my watching anime coming from an internet meme is good or bad, but the results sure were good.  

[huntley]

it all started with dragonball z for me :p

[Asuka Jr.]

(T_T) ~sob~ I'm SO old...

What really got me into anime were three shows I watched as a child, and actually discovered pretty quickly that they were from Japan:
Marine Boy, Kimba the White Lion, and the ever-present Speed Racer.  ...you have to keep in mind that I was watching Speed in maybe the first or second re-broadcast of Speed Racer(you do the math, I'm not sayin any dates), and loved both Speed and Marine Boy (Kimba was ok, but not as good)... There was a long dry stretch where you only saw what was on tv, then rarely a vhs tape, or imported book (Macross movie book, man it was gorgeous!), then finally started seeing anime at Sci-fi conventions, and finally the world became a good place, and the interwebs gave me my first full downloaded series: Bokusetsu Tenchi Dokuro-chan! (Thank you fansub.tv)... finally torrents... and HERE! (YAY!) I guess that about covers it... heh. (^_^)

[Isil]

The ones that prolly got me into anime were Princess Mononoke, and Last Exile.  Miyazaki is just a master at his craft.  As for Last Exile, it was brimming with such quiet energy and free flowing story line that just captured my attention and held it in a death grip until the last episode.  Last Exile still has the most gratifying and epic kill I have ever come across in anime, the death of Maestro Delphine.

[Bloodfox]

When I was a kid I saw "Anime Sanjushi", It aired as "D'Artagnan and The Three Musketeers" in Portugal: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=1962
I loved this series and I didnt even know what anime was back then. I must have been 8 or 9 years old.
Later on, In my teens, We got Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT allong with Evangelion. Later followed by Rurouni Kenshin which is still one of my favorite animes to date. But even though I loved these anime, It didnt spark an interest on other anime from my part, I just loved those anime for themselves.
Later on We got a Portuguese cable channel called "Sic Radical", it was a new version of the mainstream portuguese channel "Sic" but aimed at younger audiences. That channel showed anime everyday in the morning and later in the afternoon. I got to watch Trigun, Cowboy Beebop, Excel saga, Escaflowne, Last Exile and Golden Boy And thats where the spark grew and I started wanting more Anime.

[shadowbolter]

Back in ye olde days of yore when I was a tiny lad, I watched DragonBall Z and the original Macross, it wasn't until later that I found out it was called Robotech. Like most though the parents didn't like it at all, but I was never one to listen anyway so it didn't matter to me at all really.