Forum - View topicWho was your anime mentor?
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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Is there a friend or relative you can credit with being the person who got you into anime?
I'm particularly interested in some of the longtime anime fans like abunai, Zac and dormcat to see if there was someone you guys actually looked up to in the anime world. Or did you happen to come across it with the syndicated classics now but long forgotten? Or maybe there is someone who you would refer to as your anime Shishou. My introduction to it was something that I entirely sought out on my own, but I did get an early start by being exposed to shows from the 70's and early 80's like Battle of the Planets and Star Blazers. They were very influential to me and while I was too young to consider myself a fan and didn't know it was identified as anime, I knew it was foreign. But the time came later in my college days when I remembered all those childhood sci-fi "cartoons" and started seeking out anime, and the rest is history... |
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2Real
 Posts: 249 |
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Like you, I had noone intorduce me to anime.
I used to watch Transforers as a child in the late 80's, but i dont think that realy influenced my decsion to start watching it. I do recall a time when I was maybe 10 or so and was up "late", which was probly like 10pm in reality, and stumbled across Dragon Ball Z, to I didn't know that is what it was at the time. Years later when comeing home from high school I discover that was the show i was watching at the time and started to watch Tunami on CTN. I eventuly went to the closest movie rental store and started to pick up the few anime movies they did have in stock, which if i rember correctly was Ninja Scroll (the movie) and Ghost in the Shell ( the orignl movie) and those realy got me into looking for more. |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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I never really had a "mentor" as such. My first encounter with anime was as a young child, when my family moved to the Orient. There, I saw anime classics on TV (Kimba the White Lion, Mazinger Z and the like), as well as all other kinds of related stuff (Ultraman, for instance).
So it just came naturally. That was over 30 years ago.... Hm. The first anime that I actually went out and bought (on VHS) was Akira. This must have been around 1990. - abunai |
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Kelly
Posts: 868 Location: New York City |
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Completely self-made. I looked into anime after reading over and over again that animation-friendly adults should look into it because it sometimes had excellent stories as well as animation. This was the main site I used to decide what to start with aside from the handful of kid's series I'd watched from my childhood to mid-teens.
Ironically, my grandmother was the person I would have been most likely to convince to give anime a try, but she's no longer with us. I'd love to get my niece into it when she gets older, but unfortunately that probably won't happen since I don't live close enough to her to have tv nights with her (cries a sad cry). |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16974 |
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I had a mentor of sorts. I had watched anime but until my friend actively told me what anime was I had no idea. He introduced me to stuff like Macross Plus, Tenchi Muyo, and Dirty Pair. Of course, then my friend got real heavy into hentai and traveled down to the furry road. After that he swore he had a Wolf Spirit inside him and moved up with some Wiccan otaku, or something like that, he met at Otakon one year. Yea....fun times.
Last edited by Redbeard 101 on Thu Jul 12, 2007 1:25 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Kyuriko
Posts: 152 |
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I had been introduced in anime long before I knew what it actually was (I watched Pokémon when I was five and was into Sailor Moon when I was about seven or eight, and sometimes watched things like Transformers and Digimon), and I wouldn't discover that it was animation from Japan until the third or fourth grade. A friend of mine, who I am no longer friends with, told me that it was called anime and started introducing me to other titles besides Pokémon, which is what we were into at the time. Evangelion was the first non-television title she had shown me. It's also the title that got me interested in the Japanese culture and language because she would usually watch it in Japanese, and I became used to and liked the sound of the language.
Even when we broke off our friendship, I'm still grateful that she introduced me to anime and I continued to look into more titles when I entered junior high. That's also when manga started becoming really popular here in the States, so I guess you could say I was introduced to manga on my own not only because of that, but because thanks to my dad, I'm used to being around comic books. |
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epixeltwin
 Posts: 325 Location: Montreal, Qc, Canada |
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I'd say both yes and no.
I watched The Mysterious Cities of Gold and Pokémon when I was little and thoroughly enjoyed both. I knew these cartoons were Japanese, and I also knew a bit about manga, and read a few of them. I was very aware that I had interest in anime and manga, but never really go into it because I was so young. Then my cousin showed me a part of Akira and made me curious about anime. Afterwards, my interest in anime faded. Then, I'd say about two years later, a friend of mine from high school traded his Magic The Gathering cards against the Neon Genesis Evangelion boxset. Him, another buddy and me started to gather at his place to watch the show, and then I continued being interested in anime....and the rest is history. So you could say my first contacts were made without a mentor, but both my cousin and friend really helped me get into it. |
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daxomni
 Posts: 2650 Location: Somewhere else. |
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Anime was something I sought out completely on my own. Nobody ever served as any mentor to me, nor have I served as any mentor to anyone else. I mean, can you even imagine me as any sort of mentor? Yeah, right. Forget about it.
It would be nice to watch anime with a mentor who could explain some of the details that get lost in translation and so on, but so far the closest I've come to that is right here at ANN. Lots of people here are a bit like surrogate mentors to me, even if they may not realize it. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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This old post pretty much explained how I got into anime. The only two persons I could barely call "mentors" were two classmates of mine in 2003, when they taught me about fansubs and bittorrent, respectively. |
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NGE1113
 Posts: 1081 Location: Alexandria, VA. |
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Another yes and no vote here. From about 1995-2003, I was very much in the casual viewer camp, watching various episodes of Cowboy Bebop and Trigun on [adult swim] when possible, as well as buying the occasional DVD here and there and all the DBZ tapes that were released. I had already seen Perfect Blue by that point, and while I found it to be very well done (as well as very confusing that first watching...), it served to deepen my interest in anime as a whole compared to eliminating any chance of anime simply being a passing fad for me. In this sense, I already was on the road to fandom, but hadn't yet found the title that sealed the deal for me.
In '03 however, I found that an anime watching coworker had joined on, and she began pestering me to watch two series nonstop: Eva and Hellsing TV. She didn't train me in the ways of anime per se, but her insistence was so great that I took her advice on Eva, and when I was through with it, I slipped from casual viewer to hardcore fandom (though recently, I've found myself slipping back into a not-so-hardcore fandom). Anyways, the exposure to Eva slammed the door shut on a possible fad status. However, without the recommendation from my coworker, it might have taken me years longer to find that seal-the-deal title, so here I'd have to say that she was a little bit of a mentor. |
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Truered
 Posts: 515 Location: Uni |
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The internet?
My first major incursion was with Pokemon. I forget whether I got involved just before or when it became a fad. After that i was on my own. From 2001-2005 I had no interest at all. Then I had nostalgic yearnings over my 'Pokemon years' (1999-2000 is what I consider the happiest period of my life- friends, family, interests etc). From there I somehow came across AMV Hell, and really enjoyed them. I started learning about anime by looking up sources- such as EoE- spoiler[Why the hell are people turning into orange goo?] Then came the Film4 summer where I discovered Studio Ghibli. January 2007 and with my Christmas money I buy some Ghibli films and battle royale. The latter would lead to me trying the manga, enjoying the format, and spending large sums of money. This in turn led to me purchasing more then Ghibli- Evangelion and Excel Saga for a start. Now I can safely say I've probably spent over a $1000 since January on manga/anime. No one else seems to have an interest around me. |
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banas
 Posts: 116 Location: In a house in a country in Southeast Asia.. |
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Ever since I was a child, I've been watching anime. My family watched all the series of Dragonball. We watched Voltes V and Daimos. We watched Ghost Fighter. We watched Blue Blink. I've been watching these animes since I was a kid. So I guess it was my family, particularly my mother and older brother, who exposed me into this addiction, and I don't blame them one bit.
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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Although I have been a fan all my life i didn't know any other fans until the mid 80s. So while I didn't really have any mentors, I was around when lots of exiting things began.
Ann Schubert hosted what might be one of the first anime clubs (C/FO was aroiund back then too) at her house. For those who don't know she also started rec.arts.anime (you can find a few Gundam FAQs that I helped on compiled in 1994 on google) back in 1987, where I was a regular poster back in the 2400 days. Her house would be packed with a good 100+ people who brought their VCRs and collections to trade. Most of the Animag (pre-Animerica) staff was from this club. This is where I met James Christiansen who was a friend of Ron Gross who I met through the Boy Scouts. http://members.iimetro.com.au/~mwhitley/animag.htm So I managed to meet many of these cool people and eventually ran the club (as well as the anime programming at Wondercon) when it finally left Ann's house and moved to Foothill. The above mentioned Matt Anacleto is a neat person who did a lot of work for the Baycon anime programming during the 80s and had hair as long as mine is currently. I also met Mark Simmons (you can find his name during all the US Gundam releases) when we were going to High School. He ran a Triple Zeta RPG and designed many cool MS. Many people might know him by his expertise in Gundam trivia, but he is also a talented artist. He got me interested in Gundam Sentinel, and help clarify the plot of The Five Star Stories to me. Like the link stated a good number of this group ended up joining Animerica, but those left behind (Maiko, Ken, and Chris) decided to form the magazine V-Max. Maiko along with Bryan Wilkinson got me interested in the animation program at our college, and I believe Ken Nakata is working for Square now. Bryan is designing action figures for Invader Zim and Micronauts. If anything these folks are my "mentors" since I ended up taking over the club and cons from them. http://members.iimetro.com.au/~mwhitley/vmax.htm What the above link fails to mention was that the first few issues were nothing more than a compilation of our club's newsletter with a fancy cover. Alas the core group of my club and Cal Animage Alpha (the other big club from the 80s) with the help of the Baycon staff went on to create Animecon 91. This later became anime Expo 92 to present. The first Expo had 1,750 people compared to the current 44,000+. Back then the entire staff could fit in one large room (I was part of the dealers room staff) as we often did, or go out for dinner together. At the end of Anime Expo (I believe it was the Oakland 93 one) my buddy Aaron Pilgrim (who was crashing at our various houses since his parents were in the process of moving) along with his friends Dennis and Jay decided to create a free anime convention with the name Fanimecon. I believe Aaron was only 18 at the time! I remember we all volunteered to answer phones at KTEH to get free publicity for the first year. According to Wiki there was a whopping 200 people who showed up. I remember being amazed at how many people were there. The Wiki link fails to mention it was free! The staff members all had really fancy custom (mine was from RG Veda) color badges at 1994. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanimecon Since then I have become a hermit, even though I still live in San Francisco spending most of my time watching DVDs and making films with my roommates. It is fun to see a bunch of my old friends have Wiki entries or even a couple have IMDB entries, although sadly enough I have fallen out of touch with most of them. I have only seen Mark Simmons a couple of times since he finished Berkeley, and have not spoken to most of the others, I did however run into ANN staff member Egan Loo (who was there for most of the above excitement) at Wondercon, Sakura Matsuri and a few other events over the last couple of years. San Francisco after all is a small and magical city, Is there anyone else here who was part of the tightly knitted San Francisco anime fandom back in the late 80s? |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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I too am a self introduced fan starting with Star Blazers in the late 70's. But I didn't become as dedicated to anime and manga as I am now until 2000 when I happened across the Sci-Fi UK channel showing Tenchi Muyo, Ryo-Ohki uncut. I haven't looked back since. It's intreguing how some great discoveries were done by accident.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6903 Location: Kazune City |
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Most of the time when we think of "mentors," we think of people older than ourselves, but for me, it was the opposite.
Like many others, I saw stuff like Voltron, Transformers, and Speed Racer back in the 80s (yes Speed Racer was played before then, but there were still reruns), and I also saw a few others like Taro the Dragon Boy and Sherlock Hound. But like I've retold on other posts, Sailor Moon in the late 90s was the first thing that I knew as "anime," and it was my younger brother and sister who knew the deal and explained to me that this crazy show was based on comics from Japan. So then a few years later in 2003 I saw that my sister had VHS tapes of the Sailor Moon movies, so I borrowed those and was soon "off to the races" collecting Sailor Moon and other series. Along the way sometime in 2001-2002, my brother was taping stuff off TV like Cowboy Bebop, so I got exposed to that as well. So in a way, I can say that my younger siblings were my anime mentors, though I've far surpassed them in experience and knowledge. Like Darth Vader said, "Now I am the master." |
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