Hello! Io sono Giovanni...

I'm a late 30 something Italian-American Anime lover born in The Bronx and raised on Long Island. I grew up in a time when it was called Japanimation or Japanese Cartoon(s) and it was dubbed horribly. Speed Racer and Tranzor-Z were seen on UHF TV and Battle Of The Planets were my intro to anime. For me, Robotech aired at 5am and I saw the first dub of Dragonball thinking "what the hell is this?" I knew that Mighty Orbots was animated by TMS (and that it's a Japanese studio) and all the 80's DIC, Sunbow, WEP (loved Saber Rider) and other company's cartoons (Bionic 6, Spiral Zone etc...) were done buy either Toei, Sunrise, TMS, or Studio Perriot before and during puberty. I also knew that Zillion, a Sega Master System game (I was one out of 2 kids in my school with an SMS... the other was named Kip) was an Anime I NEEDED TO SEE!!! I even wrote to Sega Of America.

Growing up, I hunted for Anime and Manga endlessly. Flea Markets are all over. Chinese copy Di-cast robots (Lion-Bot for example) were everywhere. Shogun Warriors came then went and Transformers/Gobots came out like and uncontrollable lava flow. In 1987 I became acquainted with Mr. Comic (bastards... they NEVER let me complete any series I asked for to be put aside) in Lake Grove and got my dose of LUM, Pinapple Army, Justy, Appleseed, M66, Grey, Speed Racer (NOW Comic's AND the original) etc... and EVEN Adam Warren's Dirty Pair... which was kinda cool until he made them have puffy, droopy lips. SIM HELL was killer!

No. I don't deserve a medal.

I like classic Anime/Manga (60's- mid 80's) and a few newer ones (Gravion, FMA). I am an "original" and might be considered an "original hipster" in terms of the philosophy of obtaining and enjoying Anime/Manga. I LOVE the classic drama (like Nobody's Boy and Hiedi), super robot/combiner (Gravion, Daltanious, Go-Lion,  Mazinger-Z), some comedy (Excel Saga, Crayon Shin-Chan, Samurai Pizza-Cats...tee hee... Mon-cole Knights was funny too) and team based (Zillion, Gatchaman) anime for starters. I highly dislike the haughty, spiky looking, rapid moving, and 30 minute commercial type anime (Pokemon to Yu-Gi-Oh to Bayblade and some Transformers series) as well as the serial 300+ episode "Trump you to death with power-ups and training eps after eps" laden anime (Bleach and DBZ/GT are good examples) to anime that makes 10,000 face gags an episode (Bobobo Bobobobo).

In closing:

What kills, more like frustrates, me now it that Anime is ALL OVER the place. Over-saturation!!!! It is no longer secrete, rare, special, and unobtainable. When I found anything resembling Anime I was filled joy and elation. Now, Anime and Manga fans are a plethora of trendy, snotty hipsters, Comic Book Guy wannabees, preaching Tr00ness, who drip of Otaku lifestyles who force themselves into the Japanese Culture,  and/or are PS2/3 and Nintendo GBA/DS whores who don't understand that when the past occurred in Anime it was not easy to obtain and if ANYTHING was Anime/Manga it was a blessing. Better THAT (Tranzor-Z, Voltron, BOTP) than nothing.

What I like about Anime now is that the classics are being unearthed and shared. I love Bit Torrents!!! If anyone needs help with a voice acting project/dub I'll be glad to assist for free.

I do apologize for my harshness. I'm a really nice guy.