as a kid i'd watch anime before realizing what it was. i would watch dbz, pokemon and naruto dubbed on tv. last of which my mum never allowed me to cuz it was too violent, so i had to watch it in secret and change the channel whenever she'd come around. pokemon in particular has had a life-long impact on me, more so than the others. but that's a story for another time.
in my young yt days one type of videos that i'd watch would be tts top 50 facts about pokemon. one of these channels had a bunch of these. as i binged them i eventually ran out, so i checked the channel to see if there were any more left. there weren't, but what was there was a "death note alternative ending" type video. at the time i had no idea what that was, and so i didnt really care too much for it, but for some reason it stucked around in my mind. timeline's kinda fuzzy, but somewhere around this time i saw some "anime" related meme or something on Facebook, shared by that one thai friend (only thai person i've ever come across, story for another time. none of my other friends were weebs). so with all these on my mind i said fuck it let's try. so without knowing any better i looked up "death note episode 1" on YouTube my eyes were blessed with glorious 360p reuploads that only covered 60% of the screen. at the time people figured that reuploading with a border on the right and on top would evade youtube's copyright system. to this day i don't know if it was that easy or if they just were not checking. either way those borders are ingrained in my mind as pure nostalgia.
i don't remember much, probably wasn't thinking too much about it and just mindlessly watching, until episode 8 hit. i'm not the type to remember the number of episode/chapter things happen exactly, but this one stuck with me big time. episode 8 is the one where light reveals to that one lady that he's kira, and that he killed her husband i think? and basically implies she ain't bound for much longer anyway. the end of that episode has her walking back to the camera, background fades to black and a guillotine appears. that scene fucked me up. i was young and impressionable and i had never seen something like that before. instantly i closed it and never looked back again. well, never is a strong word in this case.
many moons went by and i was still anime free, till curiosity took the best of me. one of the aforementioned Facebook memes this guy was sharing (i think he followed a group that shared them and by him liking them they appeared on my feed, or wall as it was called in ye old days) read "if you know this girl, you're not innocent anymore". innocent as in childlike innocence. the girl in question was this generic redhead anime girl from the early 2000s. now of course being a sweet summer child i didnt know her, but i was curious enough to look for more info in the comments. and there i found what seemed like a name of sorts. turns out it was the name of the show. i looked it up and... it was a
by this point i think i already
crazy ride huh? what could possibly come after this? well after binging the entirety of ranma i just had to go for more. it wasn't instant though, again timeline of events is kinda fuzzy here. but what i do remember is waking up one cold but sunny day and my first thought was "imma watch some anime". i still remember the old crummy jacket i was wearing. i blame the influence of the Facebook memes. i guess like most young teens the aesthetic seemed enticing, it was totally different from the cartoons i was used to. anyways by this point i was in the middle of my league phase, so my thought process was like "well, i am a gamer, i should watch something related." a quick google search brough up the name that would change the game (pun intended): sword art online.
first of all, the name's just cool as shit. sword art online. sick. booted that sucker up on my goat animeflv and the rest is history. actually now that i remember i think i watched like half of it on crunchyroll for some reason. i didn't have a subscription obviously so i was eating all the ads. one in particular was about this rapper looking dude saying we should all go to his concert so that he can pay his bar tab. lovely fella.
anyways, i watched sao at the perfect time. preteen with hormones through the roof watching a show about the introverted male's power fantasy. matchmade in heaven. of course at the time i thought the greatest thing ever. specially season 1, season 2 not so much but mainly cuz i didnt really liked it aesthetically. the cross swords wallpaper with the sunset is stuck in my head. the ending specially had that glorious 2010s after effects post processing. as time went on i learned that people (digibro) really hated the show, and generally it's perceived as low quality. this is the main reason why i've never gone back to it. i may go for it in the future, but i want to keep the memory intact.
i call this my first real anime cuz for once it's the one that had that "classic" weeb aesthetic, watched it subbed and it was the first time i had the "woah, this is anime" moment.