I want to write a roundup of some of the anime series I've been watching this season, but I have a couple more episodes to watch first.  As prologue, though, a recap of my history with anime.

Like many enthusiasts around my age, my first exposure to anime was completely unwitting.  Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets, and especially Star Blazers were cartoons that were just a bit different from the usual after-school fare, and in particular Star Blazers' continuing storyline set it apart.  (I was a little too young for Astro Boy, and a little too old for Robotech and Voltron.)  It was some years before I found out the reason behind that, though.

One of my college roommates was heavily into All Things Japanese, studying the language and owning shelves full of untranslated manga.  He introduced me to Miyazaki films and Bubblegum Crisis and Urusei Yatsura and other shows that would now be considered classics, but I didn't quite catch the bug at that time.  (He's pretty much gone native by now, living in Tokyo for many years, married with kids.)

A few years after that, I moved out to get married, and after a while learned that my wife was going downstairs to watch Sailor Moon in the mornings.  "Oh, well, if you're interested in that stuff, we should watch some of the real anime that Jim told me about," was my take, and I started renting shows from the Video Station in Boulder.  That was my doom.  I wound up finding the Denver Anime International club, many of whose alumni went on to start and run Nan Desu Kan, which just held its 18th convention.  (I run the Main Events room there and I'm the emcee.)  I've also wound up learning a good chunk of the language; I still wouldn't call myself fluent, but I can carry on halting conversations when the need arises, and I can pick up a lot of subtleties that aren't reflected in the subtitles as I'm watching.

So, yeah, I'm an anime geek, and my sons have wound up watching quite a bit with me as well.  This has been made much easier (for better or worse) in the last couple of years, since discovering Crunchyroll and the surprisingly large anime holdings on Hulu.  Feel free to chat me up about it if you like.