♣ Day 1 - Very First Anime ♣
Hmm, well this a tough one, isn't it? I think admittedly, to all anime fans, we never really remember our first anime. It's all a mix from our childhood.
So, to start of, it was basically a mix of me staring at Cartoon Network watching Naruto, Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokemon, and some Avatar. I do realize ATLA isn't an anime, but it is roughly based off and inspired off Japanese animation, so I decided to include it :3
I suppose truly, my first ever experience of anime was me sitting alone, bored on Netflix as I scrolled through the movies and TV shows to watch. I had seen the anime section before, but I had donned them as "creepy" since I was like "the fuck is this demon butler thing I'm never watching that" (oh how wrong I was, now I'm obsessed with Kuroshitsuji . . .)
Anyway, my first ever anime was Hetalia: Axis Powers. My sister had watched it, and I had seen multiple clips (including England bashing Sealand and saying "why don't you just go home and watch some anime?" which I promptly chuckled at, and Ukraine and her big breasts . . . yeah.)
So I decided, why don't I watch it? And I was so glad I did. It was stereotypical, yet absolutely hilarious. I love how Himaruya Hidekaz exactly described each country's stereotypes and made it into something so humurous and lovable. The different characters are all adorable and quirky in their own ways, and makes you enjoy World History more as you giggle in class whenever the teacher mentions something about Germany or Italy. Seriously, GerIta is canon, like, 80% of the fandom ships it.
The English Dub was definitely worthwhile watching, though it did get cringeworthy in some parts (I didn't really like Lisa's VA . . . sorry). Besides that, the voice actors definitely captured each country's accents, and their voices made the show amazing and contributed a lot to the humor. Basically, Hetalia is five-minute episodes on crack.
And your favorite character have literally a 0% chance of dying. Besides HRE, and Davie. *gets shot*
I'm sorry, I had to.
Anyway, yeah, I'm glad I decided to watch Hetalia. It's so laughable yet so sweet and sad in some parts. Like the Revolutionary War episode or Holy Roman Emperor leaving Chibitalia, it made me cry, a lot. Somehow animes do that to you.
Season 5 tho. Ah, the animation is so much more better and prettier! The shiny-ness reminds me of Ghibli for some reason, especially the nature scenes were the light is shimmering in everything ≧◔◡◔≦
I'm so involved in the Hetalia fandom now though. I follow a lot of blogs on tumblr and now read a lot of the manga updates for World Stars while posting some fanart from artists in Japan from Pixiv and I think it's awesomesauce we can actually do that! I also stalk bamboothicket (Himapapa's blog) for requests and updates. Seriously, kudos to all those amazing hetalians for translating the manga and works!
I'm looking forward to season 6, The World Twinkle (so many worlds in these seasons cx) and I hope you are too!
Ciao, minna (●´ω｀●)