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.

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

Gonna feel old here but:

“Voltron: Defender of the Universe”

• Spirited Away and various other studio Ghibli Movies - first anime movies i watched and first type of anime content I ever saw, as a young child.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion. First anime series i watched, and first I chose to watch independently. ~ 16 years old.

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

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.

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.

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.

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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.

First anime that I downloaded and watched on computer was Mirai Nikki circa 2014. I YOLO watched the full series from 21h to 7h next morning.
Totally wasted at the end, like being drunk without alcohol.

Somehow I found doing this funny and redid it (less harcore) a few times with other animes.

I’m semi convinced that I saw some part on TV before, not really sure.

I did not expect to be alone on this, but I scrolled through and didn’t see it:

Record of Lodoss War from 1990. I had an older cousin who had fansubs of the series on VHS in '92 or '93. We watched through the whole thing probably a dozen times.

I am not 100% sure but it most likely was “The Promised Neverland”.

Of course if I wanted to count the ones I watched as a kid, then one of the Ghibli studio ones would be it, I guess “Howl’s Moving Castle” or “Totoro”?

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