My first anime (i.e. “cartoon”) in childhood times is probably Pokemon or Digimon.

Excluding those, it should be The Familiar of Zero or Infinite Stratos. I simply watched whatever my friends were watching / recommended back in my school days.

But the first anime in recent times - the one that kickstarted my 700+ anime journey? It’s Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.

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First “anime” was Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Second one I think was Death Note, then Attack on Titan. Haven’t watched much outside of those, ngl. Not a big anime guy.

Gonna feel old here but:

“Voltron: Defender of the Universe”

Dragon ball, because they streamed it on the open channels on the tv. After that it was Naruto, Pokemon, Hunter vs Hunter and One piece

Evangelion. One might imagine that it was a bit of a wake up call that anime ain’t kids cartoons, and I then became a self-respecting anime watcher until the Age of No Time arrived and I just rewatch Toradora! Or Clannad so I can sweat manly tears.

I watched a lot growing up, probably my first one ever was Sailor Moon or My Neighbour Totoro when I was around 5, then as I aged my anime choices slowly evolved (and I was also limited to what was on the TV until around 2003/2004 and started watching streams on whatever site I could find. My first ones that I guess I thought of differently than as an after school cartoon would’ve been Escaflowne in 2002 and Inuyasha in 2003.

Born in the 70’s so technically battle for the planets or astroboy. But first conscious choice was Eva on SBS

YuYu Hakusho, Dragonball Z, and Gundam Wing were airing around the same time when I watched them.

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Furthest back that I can remember are Doraemon both films and series from around 80s 90s and some other tokusatsu. All on VHS. Can not remember which one exactly is “the first”. I start early ;)

Then some series that I never watched from start to finish on cable network. Like Ranma, Sailor Moon, Oh! My Goddess, You’re Under Arrest!, Houshin Engi, El Hazard, CC Sakura, Galaxy Angel. I always try to be in time for Sakura and Galaxy Angel airing, because cute girls. Never did, because school.

edit to include Utena… it became a source of running joke between me and a girl next door.

Some certainty with title that marks the moment I start actively seeking out and watching more anime. Probably Sister Princess, fan-subbed, burned on CD-R. Good times.

The first anime I ever saw was Samurai Pizza Cats since my mum LOVED that show and had a DVD of one of the seasons. I can’t figure out the first anime I conciously watched though, it was either Initial D or Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.

Initial D Stage 1-3 is awesome but I do kinda regret watching Dragon Maid in full due to the Kanna scenes

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Pokemon and Dragon Ball were just cartoons to me at entry, but after those I realized I like anime.

First ones after that I got into were Cowboy Bebop and Trigun.

Beyond the usual Dragon Ball and Pokemon things, along with catching random episodes of Sailor Moon, Hamtaro, Cardcaptor Sakura etc on morning TV before school, It was Evangelion, Bebop and couple of years later FLCL on late night TV. I also remember seeing a few random episodes of Escaflowne as well in the 90’s.

I later completely watched and got very into Eva and Cowboy Bepop, but i still didn’t really think of it as Anime for some reason.

so beyond those the first “modern” anime that I watched and actually got into the media properly with was Haruhi, then the first thing I watched in Japanese instead of English was Hibike! Euphonium.

so that’s where I stopped watching dubs for shows other than the classic dub series where most people also listen dubbed.