30 Day Anime Challenge - Very First Anime I've Watched

I think that a lot of otakus started off with some Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z.

I know that I should be writing about the very first anime that I've ever watched, but to be honest, I am not sure which anime was my first, but I do know that it was either Pokémon or Dragon Ball Z. I think that a lot of otaku here in the good ol' US of A started watching anime with either of these two series, and I was no different

Well...I was a little bit different since neither of those series turned me away from western cartoons and towards Japanese anime. To be honest, cartoons like Spongebob Squarepants, The Fairly Odd Parents, and Jimmy Neutron, were more interesting to me than the anime that was available to me at the time. I say "available to me at the time" because I didn't always have cable growing up, so I didn't really get hooked on a lot of cartoons in general.

But I do remember that I did enjoy watching Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z, even if my parents didn't want me to watch those kinds of shows. I really don't know why I was restricted from watching Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z, and I'm not even entirely sure if I was 100% forbidden from watching those shows, I just know that I would secretly watch Pokémon whenever I got the chance.

But more than watching Pokémon, I have more fond memories of playing Pokémon Stadium on the Nintendo 64 console. I don't think I was really good at it or even knew how to play the game, but as a kid I thought it was fun and I enjoyed playing it along with Star Wars: Episode I Racer. I never played any of the Pokémon card games, even though I knew a lot of kids who did, but Pokémon Stadium left enough of an impact on my childhood. (Y'know, maybe my parents didn't want me to watch Pokémon so I wouldn't ask them to buy me the cards).

Dragon Ball Z was a different story since it wasn't exactly directed towards kids like Pokémon. I didn't even seek out Dragon Ball Z when I was a kid. I started watching the adventures of Goku and his friends because my uncle used to watch Dragon Ball Z and he would let me watch it with him. I really don't think I knew what the series was about, besides being about a bunch of muscular guys fighting weird monster-alien creatures, but I still watched whenever it was on TV.

But like I said, neither of those shows left an impact on me like other cartoons, and I was never drawn to other mainstream anime like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Naruto as I grew up. I didn't go down the path of anime and manga until my freshman year of college with Fullmetal Alchemist. I started late, but I am now immersed in the world of Japanese cartoons and the otaku culture, and anime like Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z contributed to where I am right now.