What anime or manga ( or both )....

[Mikado]

........got you into the manga/anime "hobby"? And, do you still read comics or watch American animation?

[LordEd1976]

Let's take your questions in order.

1. a trifeca composed of Dirty Pair: Prject Eden, Dragon Half, and Riding Bean.

2. Yep. In fact I just Tick vs Season 1, JSA: Return of Hawkman, and JSA: Princes of Darkness for Christmas.

[Yun Lao]

Ninja Scroll is what got me into anime. At the time, only Sailor Moon was shown on TV and until I saw Ninja Scroll I didn't even know that anime could be violent, so I was hooked.

As for if I still read American comics, I still do mainly because of Deadpool.

[Sanagi]

Ranma 1/2, then Tenchi Muyo.

I'm not as much into anime anymore. I don't dislike it, but I'm bored with the sameness of a lot of it. I've narrowed down my interests a bit lately. I still glance at anime websites and check out the occasional title that looks interesting.

[Eliseu Gouveia]

I used to watch anime in my childhood. Future Boy Conan, Tom Sawyer, even Candy Candy (- Quiet back there! :p ).

But it was only in my adulthood that the "fever" got to me.

It was a Tripple Whammy, actually.
Ghost in the Shell
Akira
Ninja Scroll

Instant hook.

By the time I rented the next titles Wings of Honeamise, Gogol 13 and Oedo something-something (didn´t quite like those last 2), the virus had already nested.

Next year or 2 years later Princess Mononke came out and needless to say there was no going back after that.

[Mikado]

Time to answer my own Q....... I got into anime indirectly thx to Sailor Moon, though, it was really Ranma that truly got me started....Where i live there arent any "comic stores" ( I used to buy Archie at the local corner store ), then, in 1992 my brother moved to a big city and while looking around the local downtown, i went into the first REAL comic store id ever seen; on the rack was a back issue of something really strange called "Protocuture Addicts" and on the cover were five girls with HUGE eyes and tiny skirts ( The article was about something called "Bishojo senshi Sailor Moon", of course ) well, i was curious, but went ahead and bought the "Lost in Space " comics i was looking for...however, the NEXT time I was in Hamilton, I bought that book, looked it through and later decided to buy a couple of back issues of Ranma1/2........and that was the start of it all!

I dont read ANY comic books ( I never liked superheroes and had LONG outgrown Archie ), but I do watch some of the prime time TV animation , like the Simpsons and South Park .......But, I never watch the "classic" animation anymore, I just cant get into "Anvil humour"< I need REAL storytelling and a coyote dropping an anvil on a roadrunner just doesnt do it for me anymore!

( Sorry that was so wordy....not TOO boring, I hope :o )

[OverMaster]

1. Sailor Moon. Then I went to Rurouni Kenshin, Slayers, Dragon Ball and Saber Marionette. Before Sailor Moon, I had got glimpses of a lot of anime shows, like Speed Racer, Candy Candy, Mazinger Z and Saint Seiya, but they never really caught my attention back then.

2. Yep. I'm a major Batman fan.

[T51R]

........got you into the manga/anime "hobby"? And, do you still read comics or watch American animation?

Well I'm a petrol-head, and when a friend of mine showed me Initial D I got hooked on it. After a while, I started reading Wangan Midnight and that led me into sports manga. Which didn't last long, and I started looking for story, story and more story. WHich led me to:

-Vampire Hunter D
-Armitage: The 3rd and Armitage: Dual Matrix

The first series I bought was Great Teacher Onizuka, ann that sealed the deal. I was hooked on anime.

No, I don't read US comics anymore because plenty of stuff is recurring; universal reboots, repeating character's origin stories and going back to "issue zero's" to re-explain them. Continuity restarts began to get the better of me and I put US comics down permenantly, and went to one-shots and limited series[like manga] I still go for highly recommended graphic novels though[Lucifer, Sandman, DKR, the last big in-continuity special I got was X-Men: Phalanx Covenant, if you remember that you've been in comics for a pretty long time.]

I hardly watch US animation either, unless it's movies. Because its also recurring, and hardly goes anywhere[Reboot was good however, as well as Beast Wars] all to end in "spectacular" finale's that could have wrapped up the storyline in a week if it weren't for the filler.

[Haruchai]

Rorouni Keshin got me hooked up. Though I did watch Dragon Ball, Slayers, Sailor Moon. Yu Yu Hakusho before that. Nowadays, I watch or read any manga I can get my hands on.

[Len Ikari145]

I started out with Sailor Moon, then followed up with Dragonball/Z. However, those aren't what turned me into the crazed, anime addict I am today(though they did play a small part in it).

Embarassingly, it was when I saw the first promo of Lunar: SSS and was awe-struck by the beautiful animation and music. It immediately prompted me for some unfathomable reason to watch more anime. (Ironically, I didn't buy and play the actual game until last year....making me into an bigger freak than I already am :D).

After that, I went into Slayers, and thus I was lost forever to the world of Anime. God, I'm such a freaking sentimentalist.:o

[T51R]

Anime PWNZ our souls...:D

[The Xenos]

A friend showed Evangelion at my high school's sci-fi club. I've been rather hooked ever since. Though I will admit no other anime has quite hooked me as much as Eva. Though some like Bebop and Trigun got me pretty good. Also I would get into maga and got hooked on some like Blame! pretty good too.

Eva showed me what anime could do, what animation and a television show could do. It could be deep, even too deep. Ok, the budget and animation wasn't up there with the stuff you see now, but fur its time it was pretty cutting edge.

Of course, we've got four movies that redo the series planned as well as that possible live action movie, so Eva is far from dead. Nevermind the merchendise. Hooo boy. Does Gainax loving whoring it self out for moichendizing! (Moichendizing, where the real money from the anime is made.)

As for my first manga... That would actually be Lone Wolf and Cub. The recomendation from Frank Miller sold me. Later I would get into those early Tokyopop titles like Bebop. Hell, I have comic book format copies of Bebop and Love Hina (which I didn't care for). They were published as individual issues which contained a couple of chapters of manga. This was before Tokyopop went to takubon / whole volume format only. Dark Horse was doing it long before them.

Actually, I think a friend who get me into Eva had me pick up some random Super Manga Blast issues. In a way, it's like Japan, which has monthly anthologies like Super Manga Blast tried to do. I think they still do a couple of single titles as issues, like Blade of the Immortal.

I like to think I was a comic book fan that took very easy to reading manga. I don't think I turned my nose up at it. I just didn't know where to start or what I would like.

Though Viz certainly had some out and Dark Horse's other stuff like Hellsing appealed to me. My friends got me hooked on Berserk by showing me the anime first. I had to get the manga after that.

[MKTerra]

As I recall, Sailor Moon. I looked through a character book in Borders, and later recognized it on Cartoon Network. That was the first show I recognized by the name "anime," or rather "japanimation." I first heard the term "japanimation" from a friend, and only picked up on "anime" later from the Internet.

From there, with the Internet, I looked up info on Magic Knight Rayearth, Evangelion, El Hazard, etc., going by whatever names I could remember from flipping through Animerica :p In those pre-Google days when search engines tended to turn up lotsa repeats, I made heavy use of Anime Web Turnpike (back when the layout sucked less). My actual viewership was pretty small, just what aired on CN before the parents came home :p Voltron! But Robotech aired too late in the afternoon for me to catch.

[Xero Kaiser]

DBZ, Guyver and Ninja Scroll got me into Anime. I never got into American comics, so other than The Ultimates I really don't even pay attention. I still watch American cartoons though

[Black Atom]

Project A-Ko got me hooked on anime. I didn't even get most of the parodies, but it was so well animated and consisted mostly of hot teenage girls fighting in skirts, so what's not to love? That led me to Fist of the Northstar and Macross/Robotech, which are both parodied in A-Ko and I was later blown away by 3x3 Eyes. Then I really got into series like Tenchi Muyo!, Slayers and manga like Gunsmith Cats. Unfortunately, the abundance of awful imports killed anime for me almost as quickly as I'd come to love it. It became harder and harder to sift through the crap until I just about completely lost interest.

Never stopped following American comics or animation.