Post by LiosoRinlyeNeoNoez on Apr 4, 2011 15:46:18 GMT -5
Not sure if this would fit any better in the Video Games section, Anime, or even off topic section. Given my own personal experience with the topic, I'm posting it in the video games section. Anyone with power, feel free to relocate this if need be.
Ok, by remotely Japanese, I don't mean American made cartoons for originally Japanese properties or localizations needing little, if any changes, like Donkey Kong for example. Anything that retained the anime art style, butchered as it may get, definitely counts.
I know I talked about my growing up with a tg-16/turbo duo, amongst other things in another thread. So many tg-16 localizations retained much of that unique "flavor of Japan", with some later releases on Hu-Card, or "Turbo Chips", and cd retaining the anime style box art. Though the two characters in Shockman (Kaizou Choujin Schbibinman 2: Arata Naru Teki) still got name changes to sound more American: Arnold and Sonya iirc.
Though Lunar: The Silver Star gets the distinction of being my first realization of exposure. Not that I knew it was anime or at all related to Japanese culture at the time, but there was too much that stood out that I knew something was very different. Shortly thereafter, there was Popful Mail.
I had never seen anything like the animated characters in the cut scenes before, and playing the early console cd games when nearly everyone else only knew of the solid state world was something else. I missed dragon ball and sailor moon growing up, as they only aired in the ungodly hours of the morning on local channels. We are talking, before ungodly hours of having to get up for the school bus early. I only knew of them by the names I saw on tv guides; we didn't pay for any extra channels until I was on my way to middle school
I did see some junk like the original Mega Man and Darkstalkers DIC cartoons, as they were the cartoons on when I was eating my breakfast and waiting for time to head to school. Well, that and this terrible cartoon, Blinky Bill as another channel's choice. I'd also catch the tail end of some old Popeye reruns or the Flintstones before Mega Man and Darkstalkers. This was when my mom had started driving me to school, and the ungodly hours stopped being quite as ungodly by the fourth grade.
But anyways, after Lunar and Popful, things really got interesting when we got the Turbo Duo. Not only was everyone at school convinced I was making it all up, but we got a whole lot more than just the 2 sega cd games we owned by then. You couldn't rent games for the Turbo Grafx, let alone cd games by the time the duo hit stateside. And even in the earlier days, my parents had to hunt for places to even rent new games, let alone buy. Thank God for TZD (rip).
I have so many fond memories of Ys Book I and II, Ys III Wanderers from Ys, Dragon Slayer (I will NEVER forget how hard we all laughed at "I hereby command you to ladedada!"), Dynastic Hero (which I later came to find out the licensing cluster quadstrix known as the Wonderboy series), and Dungeon Explorer II.
I remember we rented Exile, but my dad and brother didn't like it, with me only having vague memories of the first town and area with monsters. And somehow I managed to pick up a cheap copy of Exile: Wicked Phenomenon in my years of collecting, but never grabbed a ~$10 sealed copy of Exile off ebay. Btw, Exile: Wicked Phenomenon is every bit of terrible as they say, and then some.
So, can everyone pinpoint what their first exposure to anything remotely Japanese, and around when it happened? I think it would be very interesting to hear from those of you who grew up/lived/live/still live in a country outside of the US or Japan.
Ok, by remotely Japanese, I don't mean American made cartoons for originally Japanese properties or localizations needing little, if any changes, like Donkey Kong for example. Anything that retained the anime art style, butchered as it may get, definitely counts.
I know I talked about my growing up with a tg-16/turbo duo, amongst other things in another thread. So many tg-16 localizations retained much of that unique "flavor of Japan", with some later releases on Hu-Card, or "Turbo Chips", and cd retaining the anime style box art. Though the two characters in Shockman (Kaizou Choujin Schbibinman 2: Arata Naru Teki) still got name changes to sound more American: Arnold and Sonya iirc.
Though Lunar: The Silver Star gets the distinction of being my first realization of exposure. Not that I knew it was anime or at all related to Japanese culture at the time, but there was too much that stood out that I knew something was very different. Shortly thereafter, there was Popful Mail.
I had never seen anything like the animated characters in the cut scenes before, and playing the early console cd games when nearly everyone else only knew of the solid state world was something else. I missed dragon ball and sailor moon growing up, as they only aired in the ungodly hours of the morning on local channels. We are talking, before ungodly hours of having to get up for the school bus early. I only knew of them by the names I saw on tv guides; we didn't pay for any extra channels until I was on my way to middle school
I did see some junk like the original Mega Man and Darkstalkers DIC cartoons, as they were the cartoons on when I was eating my breakfast and waiting for time to head to school. Well, that and this terrible cartoon, Blinky Bill as another channel's choice. I'd also catch the tail end of some old Popeye reruns or the Flintstones before Mega Man and Darkstalkers. This was when my mom had started driving me to school, and the ungodly hours stopped being quite as ungodly by the fourth grade.
But anyways, after Lunar and Popful, things really got interesting when we got the Turbo Duo. Not only was everyone at school convinced I was making it all up, but we got a whole lot more than just the 2 sega cd games we owned by then. You couldn't rent games for the Turbo Grafx, let alone cd games by the time the duo hit stateside. And even in the earlier days, my parents had to hunt for places to even rent new games, let alone buy. Thank God for TZD (rip).
I have so many fond memories of Ys Book I and II, Ys III Wanderers from Ys, Dragon Slayer (I will NEVER forget how hard we all laughed at "I hereby command you to ladedada!"), Dynastic Hero (which I later came to find out the licensing cluster quadstrix known as the Wonderboy series), and Dungeon Explorer II.
I remember we rented Exile, but my dad and brother didn't like it, with me only having vague memories of the first town and area with monsters. And somehow I managed to pick up a cheap copy of Exile: Wicked Phenomenon in my years of collecting, but never grabbed a ~$10 sealed copy of Exile off ebay. Btw, Exile: Wicked Phenomenon is every bit of terrible as they say, and then some.
So, can everyone pinpoint what their first exposure to anything remotely Japanese, and around when it happened? I think it would be very interesting to hear from those of you who grew up/lived/live/still live in a country outside of the US or Japan.
