Anime you didn’t know was Anime
I know I posted ages ago about doing some manga reviews, which I should hopefully get around to soon as I’ve just finished reading several volumes of Phoenix. Actually I can do a one word review right now: Unbelievable.
So anyway, I was looking around anidb (a slow moment during my work day), and out of curiosity I put in the names of some old series I remember watching on TV in the 80s:
- Dogtanian (called “Wanwan Sanjushi” in Japan)
- Sherlock Hound. I’m pretty sure I remember seeing this on VHS years ago, unless there was another sherlock holmes-based story with anthropomorphic dogs. And this was a Miyazaki work
Obviously, when I saw them at the time I’d no idea they were even Japanese. However I was huge fans of both - especially Dogtanian. So technically this makes me an Anime fan for a lot longer than I’d thought, over 20 years in fact 
I’ve probably mentioned this before but I normally regard the first Anime I remember as being Anime was Project A-KO, and I first saw that around 1994 or so.
So does anyone remember series that aired here or were released on VHS that you’ve since realised were Anime? The only other obvious ones I can think of were Mysterious Cities of Gold and Ulysses 31.
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I must be to young for this. I remember dogtanian, but nothing else. Nothing I remember watching could be considered anime.
Oh, maybe the Moomins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins
Nothing that pre-dates Dogtanian I don’t think. Jayce and the Wheeled warriors is the only one that comes to mind.
Obviously certain people are predisposed to anime. Most of my mates didn’t watch any of the above mentioned series and also don’t like any modern form of anime either
Jayce and the Wheeled warriors?
It’s not anime…
It was by Michael Straczynski and Larry DiTillio
who also did Babylon 5
It was so weird I just gathered it was Japanese!
yeah no, it’s just a high quality western cartoon
Pity they don’t make em any more, so good.
There were Japanese shows on when I was a kid though, I remember Gigantor, and several others I cant remember the name of, but similar in style to ‘They were 11′ , so much so I’d say it was the same artist. They were shows very early in the morning on Saturdays and Sunday , a few years after that they Channel4 started their late night Anime Sessions, that was pretty sweet.
I know this sounds weird, but I honestly did not think that Transformers was anime when it used to be on. I only realised it was anime after I became a ‘fan’. The first anime that I realised was anime was Pokémon!
Yeah - I was a big Dogtanian fan back in the day. Great show! I don’t think that watching it as a 10yr-old(?) makes me an anime fan for that long though…
The French should really start making cartoons with the Japanese again - it worked out really well! Ulysses and Mysterious Cities were very very good.
Shout out to another Jayce fan! Totally crazy concept, but very enjoyable. Oddly enough, when I tried describing it to friends in Secondary School, no one remembered it, and just looked at me oddly. Also: having seen the first episode again recently, most of the characters are lifted straight from Star Wars.