How did you watch anime before the internet?

How did you watch anime before the internet?
How did anyone watch anime before the internet?
(adultswim and colours tv when it was still on)

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Locomotion
VHS store

bootleg vhs tape with fansubs

bump

We had this thing called video rental stores

...

Colours TV introduced me to Negima, it was like the closest thing I had to porn then

VKLL and and other funsubers. Sending a mail order to Canada and then getting VHS tapes back in several weeks was fun.

Yea this. I lived close to store that sold a bunch of overpriced anime merch, authentic VHS and bootlegs. Also rented out fansubbed tapes.

>buy a tape
>5 minutes in "If you paid for this you got ripped off scrolls at the top"

Some of the hardcore types would actually mail they're VHS tapes to fansubbers and pay them to hard sub them.

honestly people would write ads in newspapers and stuff advertising anime clubs where people would make their own vhs. not to mention the amount of dedicated otaku recording every single episode of anime ever aired to distribute to their friends and shit.

watch otaku no video

Flipland TV+cable is the shit for anime.

In a way I almost miss those days, the fact it wasn't as readily available meant you had to value what you had.
If you don't like an anime now, you can just close the tab, but back then you were more or less forced to like it.

VHS mailorder.
Video rental stores.
Poke around Chinese video stores and watch raws with subtitles you don't understand.

Adult Swim started in the early 2001. The internet as the main distribution of fansubs started around the late 90s (shitty encodes, mostly realmedia). By 2000, the "hacked" version of divx made is VHS fansubs obsolete and purely digital fansubs were very common. So by the time adult swim was airing anime, the online fansub community was already thriving. Naruto was airing the same time adult swim started.

Prior to that, if a series was licensed in the US, it would be aired on broadcast TV (sailor moon, card captors, etc.) or available on VHS. Some major rental stores had the big names, but most of the more obscure titles were only carried by specialty stores. These stores were usually focused on Japanese games not released in the US, but they also carried manga, books, and other related items. These specialty stores were also usually part of the fansub "underground" and had copies of fansubs on VHS, usually available for sale "at cost".

Other ways to get VHS copies of fansubs was to send SASE with blank VHS tapes to fansub groups. You'd wait a few months and them back. They were typically random episodes of various unlicensed titles or whatever was airing in Japan. Rarely, you would have a group that did a full series. The only full series I had on tape was To Heart. I didn't know how to get the addresses of these groups until I first had access to the internet in 2006, so I couldn't tell you how the addresses got distributed before the internet.

>Before internet
Nigga,I wasnt even alive

I had a sailor moon tape that was like that. I bought it because some of my asshat friends said that the unedited sailor moon in Japan had sex and violence in it.

One shop near me sold so much bootleg stuff. While it was a big deal on r.a.a.m. and other fan places, I found as long as the bootlegs were cheap it was OK.

VHS store
A local tv station took a chance with one anime series.
Then it was your friendly neighborhood bootleg copies seller.

This
Afterwards there was internet but my connection was too slow, so I bought CDs/DVDs
>I paid for fansubs

When I was in high school, I paid my guy friend to record episodes of sailor moon for me on vhs,

>you can just close the tab,
>streamfag

Digital fansubs might have been common in the early 2000's, but a vast majority of anime enthusiasts in the U.S. did not have access or the means to download them.

People who could afford an Internet connection in the early 2000's either had DSL or 56k. Many metropolitan areas did not have ISP's who could provide broadband-based Internet, while the cities that did have a broadband services available were being cucked by the ISP's who ran them (they often refused to offer high-speed Internet packages to individuals, offering them only for businesses.) Not only that, but the average size of PATA drives in the early 2000's ranged anywhere from 30 to 150GB (if you wanted to shell out an arm and leg).

I desperately wanted to download fansubs for free in 2001, but my 14 year old self was unable to scrounge enough money for extra storage space and a NIC that wasn't complete chink-shit.

Animax Asia because I lived in a third world shithole at the time.

I had broadband in 99 and my ISP was fucking great back then. Never heard a peep about downloading ton of crap off Usenet and no datacaps.

I really miss when newgroup access was default included in your ISP subscription before they started becoming more anti-consummer with their packages.

You were one of the lucky ones then.

Comcast pretty much ran a monopoly in Portland during the 90's and the first half of 2000's. They didn't even begin offering broadband packages here until 2002. Thankfully, they were benevolent enough to offer the International Channel as part of their basic-cable channel package. That was the only way I discovered subbed anime back then.

This.

Yea, I had @Home which got gobbled up into Shaw and Rogers in Canada. Within the month of them getting acquired I could already feel the rough assfucking of monopoly ISPs.

Strictly adult swim. I was a limited child.

Fox Kids > Toonami > The Anime Network/Channel > Adult Swim> Internet

I watched it on cable and/or terrestrial TV.

Basically.
Bebop, Trigun, FLCL, Evangelion, Inuyasha (lots and lots of Inuyasha), Bleach, FMA, Ghost in the shell, Champloo, DBZ, Paranoia Agent, Yu Yu Hakusho, etc I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot. I feel like adult swim prepared me pretty good for my future in anime but that's just my opinion.

Not kidding when I say lots of Inuyasha. I've probably seen every episode of Inuyasha at least four times. Fun fact of the day fellow user! Ending seven of Inuyasha was actually a cover, the original is a English version sung by Sophie monk. Check it out

Cover
m.youtube.com/watch?v=R0gxVVR1yuc

Original
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb8j9RaIIy0

There was some on TV, and of course there were VHS tapes.

I remember being pissed when they had that online voting thing and people voted for Adult Swim to only show anime on Saturday night. That totally fucked me over.

Yellowsubs

Thanks for ruining my already shitty childhood.

Nice tits.

Anyway, to answer your question, I am a Britbong, and I mosty saw anime on VHS, which I either bought or got a lend of from friends, and Channel 4 sometimes showed it late at night.

Before that, there was the odd anime i'd see localized on kids TV like Battle of the Planets/Gachaman

I used weeaboo magics to possess nips while they slept and used their bodies and linguistic centers to watch anime.

>Locomotion
Yeah pretty much this, if you were a young kid growing up in Latin America Locomotion was the shit and was the first experience of anime for everybody. Here in the states there was Sci-fi Channel's anime block. And of course Adult Swim. Thats how I got into it at least.

Pretty much adult swim and whatever blockbuster had on the shelves.

Even with the internet, it took fucking forever to watch anime. I remember with AOL, I had to leave the PC on for 6-8 hours just to watch a 20 minute episode of rurouni kenshin

That's +1 for the UK.

What did the Philippines ever do to your fucking buckteeth country? Fucker.

I actually remember that poll, and I actually remember voting for anime to be aired on Saturdays. Sorry I did that, I was in high school when it happened, and as a result, Saturday was the only night I had to catch anime on Adult Swim.

But they still aired anime on weeknights... just re-runs of Lupin at 4AM.

I'm still in awe that people actually did this.

I weaved long parchments from flax fibres that I grew in my wee garden. I coated them with a fine layer of white funeral ointment obtained from the local shaman.
On stormy days, I placed the parchments in a nice stack and flipped them in the light of thunder. Good times.

Why in the holy hell did you do that as an anime fan? That makes no sense!

I was a country boy with no internet. You basically cut me from my source.

This. Anime died when the local rental shop stopped carrying fansubs, just official fucking garbage.

mein kuya

Adult Swim debuted in 2001, iirc. Well around the time most people had the internet. Toonami, and just random anime shows playing on TV are really got a lot of people into anime before the internet.
Besides that, I used to use Blockbuster and other rental stores. Buying VHSs (often blind, going by the covers). And trading with friends.

However, I was in elementary and middle school in the 90's. I'm sure some older animefags had anime clubs at their high schools or universities, even before the web.

Record store sometimes sold anime so I got a Tenchi Muyo VHS there. But when I DID get the Internet, I immediately tracked down episodes not on the VHS. Not a lot of anime made it onto tv and when it did, it was horribly dubbed. Y'all remember early anime clips and videos on baby Internet? Shit was so blurry and had terrible tracking. Now I can watch Di Gi Charat like I did back then, being able to read everything and properly see the subtitles and animation, but nothing beats out squinting at messy blurs on video players as small as Sup Forums's reply boxes.

Anime could have been normal.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=XP5lz2CYNR4

As an older fan trading with friends, and buying VHS was the only real way to get it. The original Dragonball, Saliormoon, and Ronin Warriors used to run on TV at like 4 in the morning.

GIRUGAMESH

>not waking up at the crack of dawn to pray to, worship, and thank the anime gods for their gracious blessing of 4am anime before school

This, i remember there whole thing for fansubs VHS tapes in my local video rental store.

I didn't say I didn't get up and watch user. I watched the same fucking episodes of Ronin Warriors repeated over and over. I think that is why endless 8 wasn't that bad for me.

>Colours TV when I was little kid
>Then Betamax
>Laser Disc
>VCD
>DVD

Public TV channels.
Video rental place.
That pirate tape stand in pretty much every tianguis.

>not programming the VCR to record those late night shows

Mail ordered VHS fansubs from groups / distributors.

Cheez TV

My local TV. We used to be a paradise for anime here.

>How did you watch anime before the internet?
I don't live in America.
>How did anyone watch anime before the internet?
Not all people live in America.

Also, VHS.

>How did you watch anime before the internet?

EVERYBODY knows this trailer.
EVERYBODY.

youtube.com/watch?v=cCbUMEooHhI

>Go to blockbuster
>Kimba the White Lion
>Rent
>Watch
>Learn I need to eat food slowly or else it means I hate it because dub

I knew a guy...
who knew a guy...
that paid the shipping expenses...
to another guy who lived in a japan and was SUCH A GODDAMN HARDCORE FAN that he had gone out and bought like $15,000 worth of video editing gear (remember, this was like 1995, before video editing was easy on home computers) so that he could not only record the broadcast episodes, but could put the subs on the thing---the subs that they're doing themselves and then passing the copies off AT COST. All because they're THAT big of a fan and want other people to enjoy it. It's why the really old subs have that obnoxious "BY FANS FOR FANS NOT FOR SALE OR RENT" stuff on the mid-episode card. It was a passion project through and through.

"Fans" nowadays just don't understand how it used to be and how easy and convenient it's all become now that it's all digital. Analogue and physical media were a pain in the ass.

Sci Fi used to show Japanimation movies on Saturday mornings.

I remember paying $5 a piece for "BY FANS FOR FANS NOT FOR SALE OR RENT" anime at the flea market.

This.
Kids now don't know the joy/confusion of getting a "new" sixth gen 3 hour copy of the first half of the bardock movie, raw, bundled with a fandub of episode three of El Hazard's Wandarers along with a random episode of 3x3 eyes.

Did you see Sky Movies run the entire Devilman movie franchise? It was sometime between 98' - 2000, I remember watching that every saturday night for about 2 months.

Fox kids had a bit if it and you can't forget toonami.
As for me, there was a video store that had all sorts of hent- er, obscure Japanese animation.

My favorite rental place ran a show on a public access channel, it's how I discovered hentai and hentai is how I discovered anime.

I tried to watch anime as a child, I had friends who spoke about it but I never had the right channels or the right time to watch it. Then one night my parents were out so I got to watch a random episode of something on the sci-fi channel.

VHS
Public TV
Cable (Magic Kids, The BIG Channel, Locomotion). If you ever wonder why there are so many weaboos in this shithole, just remember I used to watch Captain Tsubasa and Saint Seiya with my milk and cookies.

Then a few fansubs popped out of nowhere and that's when I started watching subbed anime. Thank god for that because every fucking VHS you'd find before that had awful Castilian Spanish dubs.

3rd world dweller here btw.

Only picked up anime in the 90's when still in school, doubt anyway back then even used the internet for it most likely just rental stores.Well shit, you make me feel old now.

I remember watching anime back in the early/mid 90s on random channels very late at night. Then eventual got cable and would watch plenty more on Adult Swim, Cartoon network and a few other channels, sci-fi channel?.
I was unfortunate to have grown up purely on dubs until i eventually got the internet at home in 2006 and i finally went full spiral.
/blog

I paid out the fucking ass!

Typically around $40 for 30min of animation.

Adult Swim was not before the internet.

That said before downloading digisubs became a thing I did the whole VHS fansub trade thing and I also actually bought anime, first on VHS and then on DVD.

Rtl II and CN.
Truely the dark ages.

Anyone else remember the old self addressed stamped enveloped shit where people would publish a list of the fansubed episodes they had copies of on VHS and you'd send them a blank VHS to make copies of the ones you wanted for you? (or later a couple of bucks to buy the tape to save a bit on shipping?)

Or the trade lists where people would directly trade you episode for episode?

>sci-fi channel?.

Sci-fi channel had the best anime block. They showed a bunch of older OVAs and movies on their original Saturday Anime segment. So stuff like Robot Carnival, Armitage III, Iria Zeiram, Galaxy Express 999, Macross Plus, amongst a ton of other things.

>laser disk

Quit reminding me of that grumpy old man ;_:

Holy shit this is fucking great. It brings me back to staying up late and watching whatever was on late at night.