The introduction to anime for many of us came on the deck of the Absolution, the flagship of Toonami and it’s robot pilot Tom. That was what came next. Certain channels had already bought the licensing rights to things like Sailor Moon and Ronin Warriors. You could watch them at five a.m. right before they switched over to the news or something else.

Of course, we know where it ended with anime infiltrating everything and Demon Slayer’s movie rocketing to the top of the charts. It’s just about everywhere now but I still remember those early days. Join me in my reminiscence.

First off, there were no streaming services. If you wanted anime that wasn’t one of the few that were licensed by the various television stations you had to buy it on DVD. That’s where the trick came in. Because they were foreign exports, dealers would charge an arm and a leg. Each disc of six episodes was about 20 bucks each. However, if you wanted the two episode finale you had to buy it for about 60 bucks. Extortion of the highest level.

Secondly, was the pointless censorship. For some reason, 4Kids, thought that we needed to not know what a rice ball was. Thus, we have this famous line:

Because it was the early 00’s, they had to protect us from the horrors of… lesbians! The stupidity of that is well documented. However, they did this by turning them into… cousins. You know how cousins act?

Not like that. So, yeah, they made it far worse because now it’s not just harmless lesbians it’s horrifying incest.

Then came the fact that we were being brought into a world that we hadn’t seen before. They started showing Dragonball Z without ever making mention that there was an entire other series, Dragonball before that. That there were nearly two hundred episodes introducing these characters to the world. That this was a continuation. No, we just thought it was just Dragonball Z and nothing else.

For those who haven’t seen this series, let me paint you a picture. You meet this guy named Goku and his crew having a reunion on an island with a turtle and an old man. Who are these people? Don’t know. They’re just here. We also saw this asshole meet and he nearly fights a green man.

Are there more green people? Is he a special case? Doesn’t matter. Keep it pushing. We find out that big hair is the main character’s brother. They’re saiyans! What’re those? Keep it pushing don’t stop. We know Goku is the main character. Him and the green man start fighting the big haired guy. They’re losing bad. But they’re the heroes! They have to win! That’s how these things work. Well, guess what, episode 5 they do win! And the main character is killed. What the fuck?

It was startling to watch. But for all of us, it was so interesting to watch. We hadn’t seen anything like that before. I think it’s what drove us into it. That strangeness, that weirdness. That just kept growing with every series they threw at us. Gundam Wing, Big O, Naruto and Bleach. We just kept going. I wonder what’s going to happen next. I wonder what the next revolution is going to be.