Just out of Curiosity... What was your 'Gateway' Anime/Manga?

Everyone that watches Anime or Reads manga has that 1 Gateway manga/anime that got them into the medium. I was just curious to see what you guy's gateway animes/mangas were. And to satiate my curiosity, I made this post (^w^).

So... What was my 'Gateway' anime/manga then? I would say it was Naruto... But all that series did was introducing me to the big three... Nothing more. I started reading the swedish translated version of Case Closed after I got the first 4 volumes as a birthday present. That was truly the manga which REALLY, and i do emphasize REALLY, got me into other manga and anime after I stopped reading it about 40+ volumes in (The same happened to Naruto and One Piece, there was simply no end in sight for those two.). After that i started reading One Piece and .Hack//Legend of the Twilight Bracelet (I think that's what it's called >.<)

Then, I started watching anime, the first one in form of Black Lagoon... On swedish television, un-dubbed. I kindof haphazardly jumped into it right in the beginning of the Second Barrage when the creeper twins story arc begins, so I didn't get much. I have rewatched the entire thing recently, and it's still one of my top 10 animes to this day. After that, fortunatley enough for me, I finished the Original Black Lagoon as Season three, Roberta's Blood Trail was released. Did I watch it? You can bet your ass I did...

Then I jumped on the Hype train that was Attack On Titan... NOW HERE'S WHERE THINGS GOT INTERESTING! Sure, I have watched other really good animes before rewatching Black Lagoon, Such as Angel Beats, Fate/Zero (Go watch that one now!), MM (Don't watch that one unless you really wanna get mind-fucked and go "WTF Japan?!" every 2 minutes), But Attack On Titan was definatley something else entirely. It was my first leap into something which can truly be described as Anime Horror, not that I really fancy the horror genre, but this one is different. I like how there's virtually no plot armor to speak of similar to that of Fate/Zero, and for reasons too complex to go into here and due to spoilers for anyone who happens to read this that haven't watched it yet, I see it just as good as my all time favorites; Fate/Zero and Angel Beats.

Then came Anohana - The flower we saw that day... Oh dear god, if there was any anime made me cry, this was the one to do it. If you liked Clannad and Clannad After Story for the characters, then this is something for you to watch as well.

I'm still relatively new to the Otaku Culture, and even though I have watched my fair share of the good, the great and the downright awesome animes, I still feel like I haven't watched enough to become an otaku proper just yet, As I have still yet to watch Clannad  .

But enough about me... Tell me what your Gateway Anime/Manga was. I'd love to hear your stories.

Have a good day, everybody.

I don't read manga though I only watch anime

Well when I was young I used to watch Dragon Ball Z!, I always watch it and I really love it! I can't stop watching it during the afternoon.DBZ made my childhood the best.

When I was 10, I used to watch Naruto every weekends at night but not anymore.

There I stopped watching anime until 2 years leter, I met an another girl which is also an otaku(my crush).She knows more anime more than me.Now that I knew that i am not alone.I continued watching anime and I discovered there "Corpse Party - Tortured Souls".Corpse Party is one of my favorite horror anime.I watched it all night without skipping any scenes but i didn't have any nightmares though.

After Corpse Party, I watched Another.Not much to say but it is the same as Corpse Party but not very gory then I watched Devil Survivor 2 The Animation.I love the anime very much that I downloaded a DS Emulator and downloaded the rom.I am currently on the last day though and discovered that anime is different from the game.

Now for the feels anime! I'll start Anohana.I didn't cry but my heart aches because of the feels but in the second time i watched it, I cried but only just a tear.I don't why I am so cold-hearted though and Angel Beats... same too.I know it's sad! but it didn't made me cry.Clannad, I didn't watched it yet but i'm gonna try.

my story is too long so i'm gonna continue tomorrow

Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon! Also Tenchi Muyo. Basically all of Toonami's starting line up, including Outlaw Star!

Fist of the North Star was my first anime with subtitles. Then my first manga was... i forgot...ooo wait i remember now... it was the law of unkei, turning trash into trees was awesome.

I think that question is a little harder for me to answer. I was watching anime and reading manga (the americanized kind that reads left to right) long before I knew what either of them was. The first anime I watched that I realized was an anime was probably Ranma 1/2, but before that I was watching things like Inuyasha, Sailor Moon, Yu-gi-oh (original and GX), pokemon, case closed, and basically anything you could get from 4kids, kidsWB, toonami, or adult swim. After that, I just started watching anime like crazy. Any tapes or DVDs I could get my hands on. When I discovered youtube for the first time, it was a miracle if I could be pulled away from the screen. However, I wouldn't really call any of them my "Gateway" anime, because, even though they were some of the first series I fell in love with as an anime, they were not my first actual anime. My "Gateway" was probably Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid (Anderusen Dōwa Ningyo hime). I owned the tape as long as I can remember and I would watch it all the time. If it wasn't for my love of that movie, I don't know if I would love anime as much as I do. My father claims to have shown me Ghost in a Shell (great show to show kids, by the way) when I was about one, but since I don't remember that it doesn't count.

My story for manga isn't as cool. I just started reading it at a sci-fi convention thinking it was a comic (sonce it was scattered in with the comic books) and my love of manga was born. Now I own so much that I need two bookshelves to hold it all. I would own more, but my favorite bookstore closed (T^T) and a lot of the series I like go on forever and are slightly a pain to keep up with (that and college steals all my money).

Haha, well this might end up being a bit long.

To be honest, I can't say for sure which was the first anime I watched, as I started quite early, when I didn't even know that it was anime I was looking at. But, a fair guess would be Pokemon. I know I had started with some simpler shows, because at around the age of 7 I wasn't good enough at english to understand either subbed or dubbed anime, therefore I was forced to watch the few that actually aired on our TV channels with a sub/dub in either my native, or the neighborhood country's language. Which was a pitfully small amount, to be honest. I think the only ones at that time were Pokemon and Shaman King. Then, a year or two later, I found out what anime was, and that there was a channel that aired only those in our country. That was when I got more into it, though still only the few I could get without having to give a try on understanding english ( I find it very funny, since nowadays I couldn't probably watch animes in my native language or I'd puke at the voice acting lmao).

I remember watching Full Metal Panic, Full Metal Alchemist (the older one) and Yu Yu Hakusho (with which I was obsessed for good 8 years after lol) the most, though after some time I got pissed cause many episodes were subbed horribly, either me having to guess half the words cause they weren't written right, or the subs didn't match with the time of their talking ( aka I had to read the speech a good while after it was actually said). Which was when I started looking up animes on the internet, as I could actually understand english perfectly at that point of time, woohoo. Since then, I had been watching randomly, whatever caught my attention lol Altho I'm rather slow at it now, and usually only watch one anime at a time, if even. I have the bad habit of choosing to rewatch my most favorite animes rather than going for a new one. For example, I'm pretty sure I've seen every episode of Devil Survivor 2 at least 10 times xD

As for manga, I don't read them much, simply because I tend to find fight scenes rather boring. In anime there's smooth movement and shit, but in manga, I often have problems understanding just what the fuck is going on at certain moments, no offense. I usually only read if I enjoyed the anime very much, or find out that the manga is actually different from the anime. D-Gray Man being a special case, since I read mostly because the manga itself went beyond the anime, and I wanted to know what happens lol I totally skipped a lot of ealier chapters there. In total, I believe I only finished about 5 mangas, in contrast to about 30 animes (maybe more).

So, that should be it I guess lol

Well, I was like Naomi-sempai. I had watched DBZ, One Piece and Pokemon but I assumed that they were made in America because ENG dubs. lol DBZ and OP was a gateway for my action/fantasy/sci-fi anime like  Blue Excorist and Gurren Lagann . And my god,


I was browsing Netflix, trying to determine what i should watch next. I saw GL as a 4-star so I didn't watch it. A few months past and I saw it being "Watch it before random date here" and I did to see if it really deserves the 4-star treatment.

I loved it. The music, the artistic visuals, the robot action and the GAR that spewed out from every scene was almost like my own imagination for any type of action scene.

For example, the signature/finishing move:

But enough about GL. Until that GL moment, I have been watching Angel Beats, and another slice-of-life anime so I like those too.

I like mystery, mainly from the Detective Conan series. And I also loved classics like Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away...

My manga was inspired by things like Death Note and Naruto and I knew those were Japanese. lol, It's wierd.

Wow. I really can't remember anything else before I watched GL. It's sad...

But hey, it just show how that anime bellowed in my mind and heart.

Oh, one more thing before I go:



Link for enlargement: http://x1.fjcdn.com/comments/4198561+_c4583a53353d8da77d9df8798ea848ce.png