Who here is into Anime!

[Summer-blade]

What was your first anime purchase?

I think my first anime I bought for myself was Hoshin Engi (aka Soul Hunter)
I only have the first three DVDs

What is your Favorites?

Hummmm well
Slayers ( all the series even the newest one)
Trigun
Cowboy bebop (need to watch more of this one)
FMA ( both brotherhood and the original)
Wild Arms TV ( need to find the other DVDs for this one)
Hoshin Engi ( of course still a great)

How did you find out about anime/manga and why do you like them?

I stumbled onto Princess Manaoka one day while Chanel surfing and then in high school we had an Anime club I was the club secretary I still have the notebook with the club's minutes. I've always loved classic 2-d animation guess that's why I was drawn to it at first that and I'm big into fantasy and sci-fi.


I just started watching Sword Art Online today I'm into it big time. I kinda liked Dot Hack but I /love/ this show. It's the little details that make it great like how the charters get newer better gear as they level up, how the menus look in game, how the players plan battles and organize attacks and the way the mechanics of the virtual world are displayed and even tweaked in each episode.     
 

[Tenar]

If anyone can recommend some really good horror Anime or Manga that would be wonderful!

Higurashi, Jack Frost, HighSchool of the Dead, Doubt, Judge, and Battle Royale come to mind.
But those are just ones I know.
Higurashi is my favorite of the group.

Don't forget Berserk

Thank you both 

If you want just horror manga, the most famous are Uzumaki and Gyo both by Junji Ito.  Gyo I found a little silly because the whole fish with mechanical leggs was more funny than scary.  Uzumaki on the other hand is spectacularly scary.  Lots of supernatural scares and the artwork is amazing.  Stay away if you don't like scares.

Junji Ito also did a "cat diary" which is pretty funny.  He uses his horror art style to tell the story of he and his wife adopting cats.  Comes out as both creepy and funny.

[Sumire]

What was your first anime purchase?

I think it was a Ranma 1/2 VHS... It may have been an El Hazard OVA though or possibly one of the Tenchi Muyo OVA...

While I was living abroad my mom saved everything I had ever created on her (and by extension the family's) computer for me as she upgraded computers.  So when I returned in 2006 I could look at the database I created showing all the fansubbed titles I wanted and the fansubbers who I could get them from and the quality they were as well as a price comparison.  I swear, it was really useful in 1999!

Recently my sister was having a chat with a teenaged intern and the topic of anime came up. My sister started talking about my collection of fansubs and watched as the girl looked more and more puzzled.  Thinking perhaps she wasn't understanding the idea of video tapes my sister started sketching one in the air with her hands when the girl pushed past her confusion and asked, "Why didn't she just watch them on YouTube?"

Yeah, that made my sister feel old, and she's my younger sister. 

As for manga, which I do as a general rule prefer, it might be Ranma 1/2 again or Oh! My Goddess or it could even be Sailor Moon.  I bought it through a Japanese import shop.  I paid some astronomical price like $18 a volume but I got the last few volumes not significantly after they were published in Japan.  Of course the following year I studied abroad in Japan and bought them all again because they were sometimes less than 100 yen at the used manga shops and I finally was able to read whole sentences (my university had two meager Japanese classes that involved textbooks in romaji).

How did you find out about anime/manga and why do you like them?

My sister caught an episode of Sailor Moon while she was home sick from school so Thanksgiving break my freshman year, she showed it to me.  I'd always liked the stylized look of anime/manga art so she thought I would like it.  I did.  I got up at 5 am to watch it over summer break at home.  At school it was broadcast at 3 pm and I would bolt from my workstudy job to the nearest dorm with a TV in the lounge to watch it every day.  My poor sweet boss, as I spent long nights researching Sailor Moon on Geocity and Tripod as well as Hitoshi Doi's sites I would talk her ear off about each new thing I learned.

I guess the biggest reason I liked them was their storyline.  I had always loved animated shows and movies but it frustrated me that TV shows never seemed to resolve anything.  Kidd Video never made it home.  Aimee and Doyle never got together on Galaxy High.  Link and Zelda never defeated Ganon (or got together either...).  And no one ever changed clothes! 

Sailor Moon defeated enemies.  Permanently.  They didn't shake their fist and swear to be back next week, they were gone.  Maybe she reformed them, maybe she battled them for an entire season, but she won -- definitively and definitely won.  She also changed her clothes, sometimes several times in an episode!  Plus she got together with her true love.  The story progressed.  It was thrilling!

What is your genre preference and what do you like best about it?

Mahou shoujo (magical girl).  I like romances.  I do not like weepy, drama-laden, "for goodness sake communicate people!" romances that drag on and on until you just wish the main characters would die and the funny/sassy/insightful/mature supporting cast could take center stage. 

Mahou shoujo gives our heroine something to do besides sabotage her love life.  It can take a while for our romantic couple to see eye to eye, I like the Will They or Won't They? trope as much as anyone, but if the only way to make your episode quota is to throw fifteen romantic rivals in the mix plus so much misunderstanding and jumping to conclusions that a game of Telephone looks like masterful communication skills... count me out.

[Katika]

I'm apparently one of a dying breed of people who are *still* hardcore DBZ fans (subbed, not dubbed, thank you ).  It's the first anime that I really followed and I own the series in three different forms now, lol.  I can't explain it, but it just never gets old to me.  And as far as favorite characters go?  I'd probably marry Piccolo if I could 

Anyway, my husband's (real life husband, not Piccolo ) much more well-versed in anime than I am and gets me to watch new things every once in a while. I've since become a fan of FMA (strangely enough, no real favorite character there, but I do love tragedy), Full Metal Panic (I love Kurz Weber so much that I named one of my dogs after him), Bleach (my favorite character changes from episode to episode, and I personally find it interesting how the characters' personalities are actually different between the subbed and the dubbed - it makes the story tell a little bit differently between the two) and most recently Fairy Tail (whatever the "MEAT!" chicken is has got to be my favorite character.  Seriously.).  I've also made my way through Record of the Lodoss War, Berserk and a few others that I just don't really recall right now.  I really don't care for most mech-based anime (FMP is the exception, apparently, but I started with the Fumofu series, so that might be how I got hooked on the characters), but my husband has a LOT of those in the house, lol.

[Tenar]

I'm apparently one of a dying breed of people who are *still* hardcore DBZ fans (subbed, not dubbed, thank you ).  It's the first anime that I really followed and I own the series in three different forms now, lol.  I can't explain it, but it just never gets old to me.  And as far as favorite characters go?  I'd probably marry Piccolo if I could 

I met my husband over dragon ball z, true story.

[SeashellnBubbles]

I'm just re-watching a lovely "Christmas" anime called Tokyo Godfathers. I absolutely adore it, because it shows a side of Japan that most people never think of or even imagine exists. The characters remind me oof people I've known in real life and i laugh and get a little choked up at many different parts of the show. I think that's what I love about anime the most...the fact that it's so easy to fall in love with the characters!

[Bekuno]

I'm just re-watching a lovely "Christmas" anime called Tokyo Godfathers. I absolutely adore it, because it shows a side of Japan that most people never think of or even imagine exists. The characters remind me oof people I've known in real life and i laugh and get a little choked up at many different parts of the show. I think that's what I love about anime the most...the fact that it's so easy to fall in love with the characters!

Now THAT is a good film! I believe it's still on Netflix instant for anyone who hasn't seen it you should give it a try!

[tinyblondie]

If anyone can recommend some really good horror Anime or Manga that would be wonderful!

Higurashi, Jack Frost, HighSchool of the Dead, Doubt, Judge, and Battle Royale come to mind.
But those are just ones I know.
Higurashi is my favorite of the group.

Don't forget Berserk

Thank you both 

If you want just horror manga, the most famous are Uzumaki and Gyo both by Junji Ito.  Gyo I found a little silly because the whole fish with mechanical leggs was more funny than scary.  Uzumaki on the other hand is spectacularly scary.  Lots of supernatural scares and the artwork is amazing.  Stay away if you don't like scares.

Junji Ito also did a "cat diary" which is pretty funny.  He uses his horror art style to tell the story of he and his wife adopting cats.  Comes out as both creepy and funny.

I'm a huge fan of Junji, the Uzumaki gave me nightmares for at least a year! I have read msot of his works bar the Tomie series and the Souichi series, I thought both were really 'meh' compared to what he normally thrills us with.