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Was Pokémon the first anime you watched?

41,294
Posts
17
Years
For many people, the Pokémon anime series was the first anime we've seen when we were young (or among some of the first)! Was it yours?
 
413
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5
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Yes! It think I was first introduced to the series when it was on TV at some point in kindergarten, and then we rented all movies we could find (on VHS!). Though I also recall a Kimba the White Lion movie as a kindergarten memory, not sure which one was first.

Perhaps unusually for a Pokémon fan, Pokémon are the reason I don't watch anime. Pokémon anime is so deeply ingrained in my perception of anime itself that whenever I see the style, it screams nothing but Pokémon to me. I can't unsee it or take the non-Pokémon anime seriously.

I've seen a friend watch Detective Conan: Conan goes to dramatically point out the perpetrator of a grisly murder, and all I see is his glasses flashing in an anime way and the background going black with glowing moving lines as he strikes a pose... And I just can't help thinking "oh, he's gonna throw a Pokéball now", and laugh, no matter how serious the scene is.
 

QuietDragon

a wavering flower, a bird taking flight
226
Posts
18
Years
  • Age 32
  • Seen Oct 20, 2023
No, because dubbed anime is quite common and always was in the Middle East! We have a lot of older anime, especially kids' anime, that were never dubbed in English here, particularly 80's onwards, but there's also some 60's and 70's stuff.

I think my earliest include:
Future Boy Conan (an early, pre-Ghibli Miyazaki series, here known as 'Adnan and Lina)
Chibi Maruko-chan (the original 90's show I still love and patiently await the English subbed episodes on youtube!)
Doraemon (the newer dub keeps the original names, but the one I watched as a kid was 'Abqoor)
A certain kid's series I forget the name of.. a cat, penguin/blue bird, and um, a mouse...
 

Setsuna

♡ Setsuna Scarlet Storm!!
2,649
Posts
3
Years
I'm pretty sure it was the first anime I'd watched on my own, but my family had introduced me to anime when I was younger and I just don't remember a lot of the shows I'd see them watching. There's a whole bunch of them, but the only one I can really remember by name is Naruto.
 
9
Posts
3
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  • Age 33
  • Seen Nov 2, 2023
1st anime I ever watched was Dragon Ball Z followed by Pokemon. Think after that was tenchi muyo though these were all dubbed as I watched them on Sky One/Cartoon Network/Toonami.
 
11
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9
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I started like most people with the first season, or so I think my memories are hard to get right and for the most part I watched either the Indigo league first or the Johto seasons, since I was into Pokemon as a kid, and I feel I have more solid memories of the Johto seasons than the Kanto ones officially.
 
33,668
Posts
18
Years
I think the first anime series I watched in full was the Manga UK dub of Sohryuden: Legend of the Dragon Kings.

Pokemon was probably the first one I watched that was popular with the general population, so it was something you could actually talk about instead of getting blank stares!
 
19,142
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11
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for sure. and for the longest time, it was the only anime i watched lmao (can't really count stuff like medabots, bakugan, b-daman, etc. since i barely ever watched more than 2 eps of those). i loved to play the games and reach up to the point where ash and friends were, then see how his gym battles would go vs mine xD
 

pkmin3033

Guest
0
Posts
Nope, the first anime I watched was the original dub of Sailor Moon, at a stupidly early time in the morning, which half the time I couldn't wake up for. I just thought it was a cartoon version of Power Rangers with girls, haha. Pokemon was the second, a few years later...I think. I'm pretty sure Pokemon aired in this country before Monster Rancher did.
 

Kieran

the Blueberry Champion
1,486
Posts
14
Years
Hm, I cannot with my bad childhood memories remember if Pokémon was or Digimon was the first anime I watched, so I'll give it a half-yes since they both correspond to me together.
 
104
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6
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For me it was Sailor Moon. I got into it by watching the first movie, then the other two movies, and then the thirtieth episode, not realizing that there was an actual order to the episodes.
 

Iceshadow3317

Fictional Writer.
5,648
Posts
13
Years
Hmm.... I do think Pokemon may have been my first anime I watched, but Cardcaptors Sakura was going on at the same time and on the same channel. I remember specifically watching the Johto Episodes in the afternoon when I was staying with my Grandmother during to day. It would come on at about 4 and 4:30.

So if Pokemon wasn't my first, it was definitely my second. But I think I remember watching Cardcaptors before I was introduced to Pokemon. Yu-Gi-Oh and Dragon Ball Z were very very very close as well.
 

virtualpet

The Anomaly's Mewtwo
147
Posts
3
Years
Mew: I actually have no idea, we grew up with 4kids and when we were a kid couldn't tell the difference between anime and other cartoons, it might have been Pokemon but it could also have been Sonic X or Kirby
 

icycatelf

Alex
3,556
Posts
19
Years
Pretty sure my first anime series was Sailor Moon. I remember flipping through the channels at my grandparents' and my aunt pointing out "one of those Japanese cartoons." Pretty sure that's when I got hooked on anime and may be one of the reasons Pokémon appealed to me so much. Counting movies, Kiki's Delivery Service may have been my first anime. Or Little Nemo, if that counts.

I actually didn't get to watch much Pokémon during my first couple years as a fan, mainly just a few VHS tapes and the first two movies. Didn't have the channel it aired on. Finally got to catch up with those classic episodes once my grandparents started picking us up from middle school though.
 
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tigertron

Pokémon Master
228
Posts
8
Years
I started with the very first season of Pokémon, that was my gateway to anime. I then watched Cardcaptors after that, then Sonic X and Transformers Armada.
 

Palamon

Silence is Purple
8,146
Posts
15
Years
I would technically have to say no. But I watched a lot of stuff that were probably anime w/o me knowing they were actually anime.
But, from a standpoint of it being the first thing I watched I knew was anime? Then, yes. I would have to say it was my first anime.
 
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