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Hello, fellow anime watchers & manga readers.
I'm an american anime watcher. Meaning I've been watching anime since I was like 5 years old, viewing american tv sydicated episodes of Astro Boy aka Tetsuwan Atom and Gigantor aka Tetsujin 28. Later in my younger years I found myself attracted to shows such as Speed Racer aka Mach Go Go Go, Voltron aka Go-lion, Tranzor Z aka Mazinger Z (robots firing breast missiles... classic), horribly dubbed videos of Captain Harlock, Space Battleship Yamato, Battle of the planets aka Gatchaman and the show I always ran home from school to watch hoping not to miss a single episode the soap opera-like Robotech aka Super dimensional fortress Macross. In my teen years, between high school, comic books, and girls I found myself watching less anime on television as I ended up watching american made or Japanese stolen (AHEM! I mean inspired) shows such as GI Joe, Transformers, Thundercats, Gargoyles, C.O.P.S, Exo-squad and the such. The actual anime shows I do remember watching was Ronin Warriors aka Yoroiden Samurai Troopers and Grimm Fairy Classics aka Shin Grimm Meisaku Gekijoo. It wasn't until I had gotten my hands on multi show taped vhs cassette that I really realized the full artistry and full bodied animation that Japanese animation had to offer as I watched the first 15 minutes (because it was taped over) of the 1985 Vampire Hunter D movie. Japanese animation was at least to me was a hard find back in the early 90's, but I continued on with the movie's opening sequence always on my mind. Until one day lo and behold as I was flipping through channels one lazy Saturday afternoon there it was on the Sci-fi channel Vampire Hunter D and from then week after week, movie after movie (Lily-Cat, Robot Carnival, Demon City Shinjuku, 8 man after, Fist of the Northstar and of course the anime bigboy Akira) I immersed myself in new fantastically animated worlds filled with cool visuals, mature and interesting storylines. Soon after discovering Sci-fi's animation station it was canceled and I was without anime again, until one day while working in my cousin's store and he had just gotten in a box of vhs tapes to sell. While there were many were mainstream movies in the box, There was around 10 offical Orion Streamline animes, upon seeing the excitement on my face, My cousin offered me two of the ten tapes and of course I picked Vampire Hunter D (a vhs I still covet until this day) and Akira. From that day I was an Ani-maniac buy and copping tapes where ever I could, hell at one point I even bought a laser disc player but the disc were extremly hard to come by, so I just stuck with vhs cassettes. At this point to get my friends and folks into anime I (AHEM !!) bootlegged my vhs tapes and started the Free Anime Exchange Program, in which I taped (at cost to me) those anime movies and episodes that I found to be truly great and filled those tapes to the brim, getting more people into a hobby that I enjoyed. As more companies followed Streamline & US Manga's suit and found that was anime profitable, anime became easier to find in America, but I chose to go the hard route and find old or new anime shows that could not be found on the shelves of video stores or retail chain. So began my obsession with New York's Chinatown (or the land of the rising bootlegs...as I've been known to call it) and through scurring through dark alleys and underground malls (not knowing the language), I found treasure troves for anime tapes, music, toys, and video games. So through the fall of vhs tapes and the rise of dvd discs and now the advent of blu-rays I still watch anime, even though much of it is very stale and repetitive hoping to find a series that will bring me back to those days of old where anime left me in a state of awe and wonder.
I personally own hundreds of official anime titles sitting on multiple bookcases in my "playroom" , I've collected and read many a manga through out the years, plenty of anime cd's, video games, toys, model kits plastic, resin or otherwise all over my home. You know what I think I'm an otaku, well at least it's nice to belong to a website where I'll always be welcomed and recognized for my addiction to the craft of Japanese Anime.
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