Well, what do you know? Looks like I’m back, guest posting on Nabe!! once again. I-It’s not like I’m attempting to take over the world or anything like that!

In hindsight, this seems like a silly question. What should I classify as my first anime? I mean come on Justin, clearly you can’t be thinking about this! It has to be Pokemon! You watched it growing up as a kid. Yes, but there’s only one problem: in my History of Anime post that I wrote last year, I said that Betterman, a probably obscure TV series that just so happened to air on TV, was my first anime. Uh-oh. Where am I going with this? Simply, what anime is really the first you can say without a doubt you watched and was your first, and does it matter that you thought it was something different from what you originally thought it was?

When I was growing up, I basically lumped shows like Pokemon and Digimon into cartoons, and at the time, why wouldn’t I? They aired in the mornings on a kid friendly block for kids in America. It’s not like I had known what anime was…well, not until I believe it was in 2002, where I finally heard about anime and what it was: Japanese cartoons. Knowing all that, I then ended up watching Betterman because it aired on TV, knowing that it was anime. Of course nowadays my knowledge of anime has increased and all so I know a lot better than I did in the past. Still, I decided that I should clarify my firsts. And well, there are some firsts.

First Anime I Watched: Pokemon

Yes, I originally thought it was your typical American cartoon, back when I had insecurities and back when I was mostly a game nerd. But even despite the all too usual excuse of, “I didn’t realize it was anime!” It was definitely anime. And I ended up lasting I believe four seasons of the series before deciding I had grown up and grown out of the Pokemon fad. I used to think at times about jumping back in, but the only time I really got back into it is when Heartgold and SoulSilver came out. I decided that the remakes of the games were worth a stab (I got HeartGold). The only other Pokemon game I’m interested in is the Pokemon X Nobunaga crossover. The concept alone is wacky enough that the former gamer in me wants to try out. (BTW, awesome soundtrack founded first by Marow. I have looped this soundtrack since yesterday)

First Anime I Watched (Knowing It Was Anime): Betterman

I’m guessing this is the first anime I watched knowing it was anime because by then I was in 8th Grade and my knowledge of anime started to gain traction, especially since some of my classmates knew what it was too. I can only guess Betterman then became one of the first shows I watched on Anime Unleashed*, but as you can see, I put it as an asterisk because my memory sucks, choosing only to remember what it wants to. The safer thing to say is that despite my faulty memory, I know for sure Betterman could not have been an enjoyable anime. There was a lot of cool action and I liked the style, but the story was kind of confusing. If I watch it again, I can almost guarantee that I’ll understand the story was confusing because the staff wanted it to be that way, and for that, I can only give it two thumbs down. But fine, I won’t kick down a show I don’t remember all that much, even though I kind of already did!

First Anime I Watched Subbed: Slayers

Oh ho! I bet you thought it’d be something a bit more current, like Naruto right? Ok, actually that’s what I thought it’d be since I did remember attempting to marathon all of Naruto on Youtube because the TV adaptation was going really slow so I said screw it I’m catching up, but then I remembered the International Channel. I know you remember me briefly talking about it in my last post on Nabe!!, don’t act like you forgot. I really enjoyed the crap out of that channel, but it sucked that they showed all the good stuff around my bedtime on Sundays. Slayers was one of the shows that I liked watching as a kid, and it was mostly thanks to this channel. It seemed pretty funny, and I was pretty entertained. Of course, time supposedly kills everything, and I remember watching an episode again and was not overly impressed. But that was just one episode. I still want to sit down and watch it again sometime.

So yeah, I made a distinction of firsts, so if you readers have some anime firsts, please feel free to share. Or take to task why the heck I watched Betterman, your questions are fair game!

You can check out more of my writings and find other Japanese Pop Culture articles from various authors at Organization Anti-Social Geniuses.