DrBanneker
Space is the Place
This is a bit late but Ninja Scroll was first released on June 9, 1993. It was probably the anime that made anime 'big' as in its own sought after genre. There was a bunch of Japanamation in the US prior like Robotech and others as well as the fact Japanese companies had been providing the visuals and stop motion animation for a bunch of productions going back to the Rank Baskin Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in the 1960s. However, people didn't really go after anime by in large for its own sake unless you maybe lived near a community on the West Coast or knew a service member that spent time in Japan, etc.
I had actually started watching anime about a year before Ninja Scroll since before the companies started selling anime big time there was a 'network' of amateur subtitle people who copied and exchanged VHS tapes and I was friends with one of the plugs in ATL. So Ninja Scroll didn't get me into anime but it got the rest of the high school dudes into it.
This was mentioned by @Mr. Negative about being the film that put anime on the map and his post was even within a few days of the actual anniversary June 9th
I had actually started watching anime about a year before Ninja Scroll since before the companies started selling anime big time there was a 'network' of amateur subtitle people who copied and exchanged VHS tapes and I was friends with one of the plugs in ATL. So Ninja Scroll didn't get me into anime but it got the rest of the high school dudes into it.
This was mentioned by @Mr. Negative about being the film that put anime on the map and his post was even within a few days of the actual anniversary June 9th
Nah, Ninja Scroll opened the "floodgates"
and yeah, there were "cartoons made in japan" on TV since the 80s, but they weren't pushed or even recognized as "anime" or evem "japanese cartoons".
they was just "cartoons"
