Asklemmy

Probably Bee Maja, Wickie and the strong men or Heidi. Tons of classic German children's shows are actually animes.

Chobits

Outlaw Star was my first, on early Toonami. I got into DBZ because outlaw star came on later in the night and I refused to miss any of it! It was so… different from everything else on TV.

Still one of my absolute favorites to this day, I prefer it over Cowboy Bebop 😘

It was either Cowboy Bebop or Princess Mononoke - I was first introduced in an after-school anime club.

dbz and pokemon as well but only when id catch it between other activities. Didn’t actually sit through an entire anime until high school where my friend borrowed me Cromartie High.

First film was probably the first Pokémon film in theaters.

It was the year of our lord 1990, I was 5 years old, and the time was somewhere after midnight. I had snuck out of my room and into my grandparents basement to sneak some late night tv.

The original Vampire Hunter D was playing and I had no idea what it was, but it was amazing. The guy had a hand that ATE things!!!

I didn't realize what it was until around 8th grade when I started getting into the standards of DBZ and Sailor Moon... I expanded drastically from there once I realized I could, spent around $4000 on manga throughout highschool and found a little hole in the wall DVD rental shop on the local college campus with a wall of anime DVDs and VHS tapes.

Show - Robotech, it was on Sunday mornings on sci-fi channel for a while in the mid 90s. Film - Ninja Scroll, dad had a descrambler and saw it on PPV in the early 00s. Good times.

If we're talking about just what you watched before you recognized it was anime, it's between pokemon, Naruto, and One Piece. Couldn't tell you which I watched first.

If we're talking "Oh! I recognize this is anime!" then probably either Deathnote or Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) thanks to mid-2010s Netflix (back when it was still good).

Akira. I saw it playing on a TV behind a table at a pop culture market and got my own copy (on VHS. Yes, I'm so old that bits are starting to drop off) to find out how it ended.

Edit: Now I come to think about it, I used to watch Science Ninja Team Gatchaman on TV as a preteen. Can't remember the english title.

Yu Yu Hakushou. I didn't even realize the name is Yu Yu Hakushou until years later. I only remember thinking the delinquent guy with a laser sword and a guy shooting energy balls from the finger tip's pretty cool.

I also watched Pokemon and DBZ when I was young, not even knowing about anime.

In highschool I thought "What is anime? Let's give it a shot". I opened up Hulu and somehow picked out Non Non Biyori. Looking back, it was a banger choice.

It was the late 80’s, I saw Robotech which used to play after school on a local UHF channel, and also Speed Racer. Probably the first more typical Anime was renting the Super Space Force Macross movie on VHS

Pokemon for TV, movie would probably be Laputa.

First show was probably Voltron. First film was probably Vampire Hunter D.

Toonami became a big part of my life, and there was a small theater downtown that did showings of Miyazaki and such. I remember seeing Metropolis there, too.

I owe a lot to those scrappy little enterprises, taking a gamble that there would be an audience for this stuff.

I watched sword art online because I read a little about the plot and it sounded interesting to me. Second was High School DxD I believe I picked because there wasn't much else dubbed (I don't watch anything dubbed really now).

I went through a big binge of practically everything after that but only really watch the odd airing one now.

My parents bought me My Neighbor Totoro when I was a kid. I absolutely loved every second of it. Then I came across Ranma 1/2. Next came Kiki's Delivery Service. It kind of snowballed after that.

CBN licensed the 1966 Kimba sequel in the mid 80s. My family was super religious around that time and I remember watching it then.

Pat Fucking Robertson was responsible for my introduction to anime.

Death Note, sometime in 2009 or 2010.

I remember when it came out, people on forums kept talking about it nonstop. I had no idea what it was, so I just blindly torrented something called Death Note... it was the live action Japanese adaptation lol. I didn't even know it was an anime until years later. Just for years I thought everyone on the internet was obsessed with that live action movie.

I remember watching Totoro as a child not knowing it was an anime. Later I watched The Guyver (1989 OVA) on VHS at my cousin's. Evangelion and Lodoss War were the first fansubs I watched knowing they were Japanese.

Heidi and Maya the Bee when I was about 4

Akira

Cowboy Bebop

Show would have been Starblazers or Robotech (Americanized Space Battleship Yamato and Macross/Southern Cross/Mospaeda, respectively.) For movies probably Akira.

Death note

Akira, as was common at the time. Not counting stuff like Robotech or Speed Racer that I wouldn't have known was anime.

First show: Pokemon

First movie: Pokemon (the Mewtwo one)

Not sure if everyone would consider it "anime" as it's more a hybrid of US and Japanese, but "Flight of Dragons." It felt very stylistic and deep to a young me, and showed me animation could be serious.

As to specifically watching anime as a known thing, Toonami shows pulled me in. I caught DBZ flipping through the channels and I started watching that and Outlaw Star.

Met a friend that was into it and he lent me Iria: The Zeiram, Armitage 3, Ghost in the Shell, Vampire Hunter D, and eventually a few others.

Very first was probably Inuyasha, Dragonball Z, or some Gundam way back on adult swim as a kid. My first real one that I engaged with as a semi-adult was probably Death Note.

Sailor Moon. It was on early in the morning and I’d get ready for school really fast so I could sit and watch it before running to catch the bus.

Princess Mononoke. I randomly picked it up at Blockbuster and it was so different than anything else I'd ever watched. I instantly fell in love with it.

I'm surprised only a handful of people have mentioned Ghibli movies. For me it was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, it's probably one of the first movies I remember watching in general. Still my favorite Ghibli movie and I must have watched it dozens of times as a kid.
The source material for it is a manga by Miyazaki himself and it's much longer and deeper (the movie only covers about 1.5 out of 7 volumes, and changes a lot of details). Highly recommended.

Neon Genesis Evangelion. I had such high hopes...

Edit: autocorrect put evangelism...of course.

Mermaid melody Pitchi Pitchi Pitch! It played early in the morning every day in one of my country's public networks

TV: Battle of the Planets, way back in the late 70’s

Film I’m really unsure. Would’ve been late 80’s or early 90’s. Could’ve been any of: Warriors of the Wind (localized title of Nausicaä), Castle of Cagliostro, Akira, Project A-Ko, or Vampire Hunter D

Kiki's Delivery Service. I got it on VHS, probably for Christmas the year the Disney dub came out. I didn't have cable for a decent chunk of my childhood, so I saw that even before Pokemon.

Has to be Pokemon for me, I used to like it for a year or two then got bored. Then I got hooked on Dragon Ball Z, which I still love.

I think I saw the Pokemon movie before Spirited Away though

Probably “Alfred J Kwak”. A Dutch cartoon produced in Japan. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLITzooyl5h5GKwvnwe3zSVXjnrDOiO_5P

Or “The Wonderful Adventures of Nils“ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Adventures_of_Nils_(TV_series)

Back in the 70’s and 80’s it was common to outsource the production of animation to Japan. So many European cartoons were basically anime. It had the typical Japanese animation style of that time. For example the same company that produced "Alfred J Kwak" made the 1990 version of the Moomin TV-series.

I first saw Saint Seiya in Mexico in the early 90s. Being a young kid I didn't know it was anime at the time but remembered it being special compared to cartoons of the day.

I think it was an episode of Cowboy Bebop that came on Toonami one night when I was staying at a friend's house.

It was the first episode, Asteroid Blues.

I didn't really watch anime until years later when a friend suggested I watch Yu Yu Hakusho so I did.

Pokemon or Sailor Moon. Movie, probably the first Pokemon one.

Netflix dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Probably this one, not that I associated it with anime at the time.