How I Got Into Anime – Ethereal Hearts

Like many kids, I loved watching cartoons when I was little. I watched them every weekday after school and on Saturday mornings. I also loved to draw, so I never grew out of my love for animation. My favorite cartoons were the Nintendo ones (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, with Zelda on Fridays, and Captain N). However, as I got older and my favorite shows stopped airing, I turned my full attention to video games.

Then one summer morning, my mom turned on the TV, and Ronin Warriors happened to be on. I was mesmerized by the drawing style and thought, “Wow! It looks like a video game!” My mom said, oh it must be one of those Japanese cartoons. At that point my only exposure to Japanese anime style was through games. We watched the rest of the episode, and I was hooked. I looked forward to watching the next episode every weekday morning. Not only did it look pretty, it also told a story. To me, it was like a cartoon version of an RPG.

Later that summer, during one of many trips with my mother to the fabric store, I saw a display advertising a pattern for “Sailor Moon” Halloween costumes. I pretty much stood there and stared at that display while my mother shopped. My first thought was “There’s more of this stuff?!” and my second was “I like the red one with the black hair!” (Sailor Mars, haha.) I went home and immediately searched every page of the TV guide, but could not find a show called Sailor Moon.

As it turns out, Sailor Moon didn’t start airing until that fall, and then it was on at a time when I was still at school. I didn’t let that stop me and asked my mom to tape it for me every day. I was so excited to come home and watch Sailor Moon, I was completely obsessed. Some of my friends at school started watching it too, and they had access to this magical new thing called “the Internet” (this was mid-90’s) where they were able to look up more information on this thing called “anime”. They would print whatever Sailor Moon pictures they could find and bring them to school. Another friend then reported being able to find Sailor Moon stickers, t-shirts, posters, CDs, and other goods in our local Chinatown. Thus Chinatown became my favorite place to visit.

I started wondering if there were more anime series on TV that I had missed, so I searched the TV guide for any show that sounded Japanese or like it could be a cool sci-fi/fantasy cartoon. I found Robotech on a local Sci-Fi channel, and later Urusei Yatsura, Tenchi Muyo! and Key the Metal Idol. I loved all of it. I then heard about a local video rental store that had anime, and I became a frequent customer. I discovered Animerica magazine, and through that started reading manga as well. Soon we had the Internet at my own house, and I spent countless hours on Anime Web Turnpike browsing random anime sites. I even learned HTML and put up my own Sailor Moon and Ronin Warrior mini fan sites.

By that time I was in high school, and I started an anime club there. It wasn’t long before I discovered anime conventions and started meeting even more anime fans. Luckily by the time I got into anime, it was already becoming more readily available to the U.S. market. I never mailed VHS tapes to fansubbers, although I have several friends who did that, and a couple friends who made copies for me.

Now anime is everywhere. There are multiple streaming options, and new series are translated so quickly. Some are even simultaneously released here and in Japan, which is still unbelievable to me. These days I am not the crazy anime fan I was in high school, but I still enjoy a good series. I actually have a hard time focusing for long periods on something that’s not interactive, which is why I prefer video games. My husband is a huge anime fan though, and watches just about everything as soon as it’s released, so I’m pretty familiar with what’s current. The great part is that he previews all the new series and passes along only the ones that he thinks I will like. The problem is that now my cosplay wish list is expanding again…

By the way, my favorite anime is probably “Aikatsu!” Sadly, it was never officially translated.

Check out some of my other favorite anime series on Amazon! (Affiliate Links):

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