Anime Fan for 25 years (since 1995)

[Tasuke]

actually, technically, a good while longer, since i vaguely recall sitting through an episode of ROBOTECH as a very young boy around what must have been sometime in 1986 or so.

a nephew gave me his old 1985 REVELL ROBOTECH CHANGERS VEXAR transformable model (U.S. market reboxing of 1983 IMAI MACROSS VF-1S Focker 1/72 VARIABLE TYPE)

around 1988/1989 or so, and then i got a taste of Mecha Anime tropes at a more readily-impressionable age around 1991,

thanks to the Mecha action-platfomer game "ASSAULT SUIT LEYNOS" (TARGET EARTH in the U.S.) on the SEGA GENESIS games console.

my Anime fandom truly began to consciously coalesce around 1995, when my dad bought me an old IMAI MACROSS 1/100 VF-1J Ichijo GERWALK mode model kit,

and PLAYMATES toy company reissued the old original MATCHBOX-made ROBOTECH Mecha toys under their "EXO-SQUAD" line.

around that time, i discovered SUNCOAST VIDEO at the mall, and their Anime selection. first i concentrated on ROBOTECH, -via the dual-episode FHE VHS cassette volumes-

found VIZ MEDIA's ANIMERICA Anime magazine, and began picking up issues often as i could,

and then i discovered MANGA VIDEO's MACROSS II and MACROSS PLUS movie compilation releases, Pure, uncut MACROSS, for the first time.

from there, i began to branch out from Mecha-themed anime, with series such as Galaxy Fraulein Yuna and Tenchi Muyo!

and then the early-21st-century and the DVD Anime boom hit, and i was well and truly off to the Anime Races.


i'm about as hardcore today as i've ever been, and, thanks to the internet, i now have the kind of Mecha and Character-themed merchandise

that i would have killed for as a young teen, two-plus decades ago...

[Stormlight]

That’s about the time I started getting into anime, too. Fresh out of high school at that point but I watched a couple episodes of Sailor Moon one day and realized that the storyline was actually quite interesting, so I started doing more research into anime.

I’ve always been more into the fantasy series, though, instead of the sci-fi. Fushigi Yuugi remains one of my faves to this day, although I don’t have nearly as much merchandise. An Artbook and a couple packs of playing cards. The DVD boxed sets of course, and the manga series. Come to think of it, that series is the entire reason why I bought a DVD player, because I liked the dubbed version (which I’d bought first on VHS) but I also wanted to watch it subbed. lol

My fascination with anime is also what got me into BJDs. I’ve always loved the aesthetics of anime and now there are DOLLS? Sign me up!