You lot are making me feel old!
I first became aware of Anime sometime in 1992, after buying a SNES and buying Super Play magazine for game reviews. They happened to have an Anime page every month written by Helen McCarthy, which I read every month, but didn't act on it until late 93. I decided to try one of these "cartoons" and picked up Akira, well I wasn't sold straight away, probably because I was going through a breakup at the time. A month or so later BBC2 showed Akira, in subtitles, to say I was hooked was an understatement. The subtitles just seemed to bring it alive for me.
Back then there was no internet to help in getting information, so buying magazines was the only way. AnimeUK, MangaMania, Animerica, all defunct now was the main source on information. As was a local comic shop, Sheffield Space Centre and Helen McCarthy on a few occasions, she was open to talking and was very informative and knowledgeable.
Getting hold of Anime was a little difficult to start with, very few titles available in the UK and some were expensive. Bubblegum Crisis was £21.99 an episode, straight exchange conversion from the US prices. But was well worth it, but just as Werewolf has mentioned, importing was the way to go, in fact the only way to go if you was after subtitled material. The only company releasing with subtitles was Animiego UK. UCLA had a very good bookshop with regular shipments to the US, with Planet Anime in Houston Tx being another good shop at the time. I was importing so much that I had my own FedEx account for the import fees.
Things have certainly changed in the last 20 years. Full tv series in sets, subbed and dubbed and cheap. Anime in the cinema and on tv. Channel 4 still push Anime on film 4. Some goods changes, but also some bad ones as well, no more AD vision, Animiego having to resort to kickstarter, Bandai not releasing directly in the west.
Anime has been a big chunk of my life, it also helped me through a very serious bout of depression. I even have a Lum tattoo to remind me of happy times when I'm down.
Sorry for the ramble. Just doesn't seem feasible that it's been 20 years
Short version.
When I was a lad........
