User blog comment:OnePieceNation/Your anime History, with Hunter X Hunter highlighted./@comment-7388020-20130818134550

The timeline isn't exact, but I think it might have been 1995, so I was 10, and I remember watching Fox and a strange cartoon was on. I'd never seen this type of animation before, or action. I was used to DuckTales, Darkwing Duck and Ren & Stimpy. The most action out of a show I got was Batman: The Animated Series or Gargoyles. So coming across this fast paced show, I really couldn't believe my eyes. It was Dragon ball Z. They were fighting Cell and the Androids were beat up. Cell was blowing up the islands, and there was just so much tension and a sense of destruction and power. That was my first encounter with anime. Later, I guess Pokemon started coming out, but I never was too into that. I got the Yellow version gameboy game, but didn't like the show. I got very invested in Digimon however, and enjoyed that show immensely more. Toonami's hour or two hour block for Cartoon Network began I remember featuring DBZ, Dragonball (which I like a lot more) Rurouni kenshin, Yu Yu Hakusho, though it was awhile till I found out about Adult Swim. As time went on, I learned of Outlaw Star, Tenchi Muyo!, Robotech, Gundam (though I've never been a fan of big robot shows for some reason, except Zoids maybe.) Once I did however, I finally saw my favorite anime Cowboy Bebop. There's really no story, barely any character development, barely any insight in to any of their pasts, but it was so beautifully made and subtle, amazing soundtracks, written and drawn and shot in a way I'd never seen any show do, I realized anime could go a step further than I ever thought. It was only later that Naruto hit the scene, then Bleach. I enjoyed them at the time, but they suffered so much with filler, I turned to the mangas, which might have been the first mangas I ever read, but really I'm not sure. As I grew older, so did my tastes. I played more RPGs, discovered Hayao Miyazaki after seeing Princess Mononoke, and discovered FMA, Trigun, GTO, and Excel Saga. I even became the anime guy in my group of friends, do you know how hard it is to explain FLCL! lol I got sick of shounen animes though, so later I turned to more darker, psychological animes. I think the first dark, semi-disturbing one was Akira. I'd never seen anything so psychologically weird and engaging. I needed more! So I watched Berserk, Death Note and Ninja Scroll. After the Eclipse scene in Berserk and it just ENDING, I had to find out what the hell happened! So I turned to the manga. And really, now I think I read more manga then I watch anime. Attack on Titan, Claymore, Blade of the Immortal, History's Strongest Kenichi, Vagabond, Vinland Saga. So as you can see I've turned to more seinen stuff. As for Hunter X Hunter, it had been on my "read this" list for awhile and once I saw it had the same creator as YYH, I jumped right into the 2011 series, not even realizing there was a 1999 one. I'm glad I did, cause it's amazing! There's many others I didn't even mention... man I've watched and read and played a lot of this stuff o.o