The first Anime and Manga you ever loved?

[AnthonyO'Brien]

I'm old school. I grew up with Kimba, Marine boy, Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman), 1980 Astroboy , starblazers (yamato) and Robotech.

Manga wasn't really a thing until the early 90's. I did work experience at a public library that had Barefoot Gen, later a shopping centre had a Japanese Culture display featuring the AKira books from Epic comics. Frederik Schodt's book Manga, Manga opened my eyes to manga history. A con I went to in 95 put me onto the Ranma 1/2 anime and I would read the manga version at a library.

What was the first Manga and Anime YOU loved?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

The first manga I read was One Piece so I'd go with that.

The first anime I loved was DBZ

[Alan2099]

The first anime I loved? Well, for that you have to go back, back before it was even called anime, back before we even started calling things Japanimation. It was just another cartoon at the time, but even back then something stuck out to me about Voltron.

Now manga? It was decades later before I touched any of that, but I think the first one that I found that I really enjoyed was Video Girl Ai.

[j9ac9k]

I'm going with "Battle of the Planets." At the time I wondered why the 7-Zark-7 stuff seemed so different.... then I found out. It killed me that the last episode I watched left on a cliffhanger where it seemed like Princess died and I never saw it resolved.

I also loved "Sailor Moon" ... maybe a bit more than I should have. (although, if there had been a "Project A-ko" tv show...)

[useridgoeshere]

Battle of the Planets for me, too. Loved that show.

[Celgress]

Anime - Classic Voltron and Classic Sailor Moon. I first watched both around the same time as a kid in the 1990s and early 2000s (I'm in my early soon-to-be mid-thirties for reference).

Manga - Let's see, Yugioh. After learning the English anime dub heavily censored aspects of the Yugioh manga, I went out of my way to read it.

[Angilasman]

I was raised by Cartoon Network. Sure, I'd seen and enjoyed the occasional import as a kid in the '90s (like Speed Racer, Voltron, and Samurai Pizza Cats), but it was around age 10 to 11 that I hopped on-board the newly revamped Toonami and became devoted at first to DBZ, then a year or so after that to Gundam, Tenchi, Outlaw Star, and The Big O, and then a year or so after that adult swim started and Cowboy Bebop just blew me away.

All this happened within my three years of middle school. I went in with DBZ being my favorite show and went out with Bebop being my favorite show. I was exactly the perfect age to pick up what Cartoon Network was throwing down!

As for manga? Was less into manga at the time. I followed more American comics (books and strips) as a kid, and manga just wasn't as convenient as just watching whatever came on TV.

I suppose it was the Nausucaä manga. Became a big Ghibli fan my last year of high school, which lined up with Disney finally making (most) of the Ghibli catalog avaliable and you had the marathons on TCM and Toonami. I believe the manga of Nausicaä was one of the first things I ordered off Amazon. Read it my first year of college.

[j9ac9k]

In terms of manga, I fell in love with books like Akira, Appleseed, Bao, Xenon and Grey.

[James Cameron]

Berserk...had never read anything like it. Blew my little mind. I never fully caught up sadly, maybe I will one day

[CliffHanger2]

Probably a tie between G-Force (botp) and Voltron.

[Kirby101]

Macross was the first I loved. Though I understand that was a Frankenstein show for American TV. First Manga was Akira.

[Gaastra]

Voltron and robotech. Got issue 3 of the 80s voltron comic later as a kid also.

Still have my voltron and robotech coloring books I had as a kid!

[DanMad1977]

Before it was called Anime, I suppose. Bee Maja and Heidi.

Later it was Captain Future, then Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs.

[ChrisIII]

Voltron, like others, before I 'knew' it was anime.

Bubblegum Crisis mainly (Cyberpunk anime about four women who become vigilantes against an evil corporation weaponizing robots; inspired by Blade Runner and Streets of Fire with a bit of Terminator thrown in) rented from a video store, although I started to get more interested in the artform after seeing it crop up in Final Fantasy 7 and other Nintendo and Playstation games which used anime art styles since they originated in Japan.

Funny thing is a lot of American 80's cartoons were influenced by anime although probably not to the extent there was after the medium/genre/whatever started to really get there in the late 90s/early 00s. There was of course a lot of outsourcing which sometimes gave stuff an anime look, or American cartoons (Which of course were also outsourced) which were based on Japanese toys, some of which came from anime or had an anime tie-in (Some Transformers and Go-bots for example-Jetfire, Whirl, Roadbuster etc were from Macross and Dorvack, Go-Bots had machine robo etc ).

Lupin III, it's film Castle of Cagliostro and other Miyazaki/Ghibli productions were a heavy influence on Inspector Gadget, TMNT's cartoon version, some of Batman TAS and even Disney/Pixar.

Galaxy High was intended to be an in-verse of Uresei Yatsura/Lum.

[JBatmanFan05]

Voltron, like others, before I 'knew' it was anime.

This. I was very young. Had a Voltron zipper on my winter coat. I wouldn't even know the term anime for another 7-10 years.