Where do I start? I've been watching anime on and off over the years. I usually gravitate towards the shonnen, mecha and slice-of-life genres. Some mahou shouhou is fine too.
My most beloved series of all time are Dai no Daiboken, Slam Dunk, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Magic Knight Rayearth, Sailor Moon, Saint Seya and Ranma 1/2, mainly because I grew up watching them. Currently, the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Another and Nazo no Kanojo X are reaching legendary status for me too.
And of course, you can't be an anime fan without some Dragon Ball in your diet too.
The first anime I saw must have been Heidi, Astroboy and Mazinger Z around 1985 but back then I didn't know they were japanese. I watched them along with several other US shows like The Flinstones, Tom & Jerry, Thundercats, etc.
The first "anime" that I watched on a regular basis was Robotech. It was transmited in Mexico by XHGC-TV (Channel 5) on 1987 and kickstarted the golden anime age in Mexico.
Let's go back a few years...
XHGC-TV was founded in 1952 with a mother's day special although its regular transmisions would begin until august that same year. Its founder was Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena, whom some of you might recognize as the inventor of the color television.
The first anime that was aired in Mexico was Astroboy on 1974. After a year Kimba joined the fray along with another action classic, "Capitan Centella" (Gekkou kamen). XHGC begins to import more shows into its "Barra Infantil" which was a segment transmited on saturday morning. This segment saw several new entries like "Meteoro" (Speed Racer) on 1976 and Heidi on 1981. Half a year later Candy, Candy, Remy and "La abeja Maya" (Mitsubachi Maya no boken) show up too. The mecha genre was represented by Voltron and Mazinger Z, both introduced on 1984.
On 1985 the mexican goverment creates the Red Nacional 7 and Red Nacional 13 channels which are dedicated to educative programs and national productions. XHGC-TV remains as the sole children centric channel until 1990 when both of those channels are privatized and form what today is called TV Azteca. From the start TV Azteca imports a lot of shows to counter the monopoly that XHGC enjoyed in terms of children programming. This brought a huge influx of titles that would last until the 2000s.
The first series that TV Azteca aired were Candy, Candy, Mazinger Z and, more importantly, "Las Aventuras de Fly" (Dai no Daiboken), a runaway hit back then. You couldn't go to school (at least not mine) without children shouting "Corte de Aban!!" (Aban's Slash) at lunchtime. XHGC began to rely a lot on re-runs of previous series (Astroboy and Remy were re-aired on 1992) padding it with some other new shows like "La abejita Hutch" (Minashigo Hutch) and lots of Hanna Barbera shows while Azteca 7 began to expand its anime offerings but the megaton came on 1995 when "Los Caballeros del Zodiaco" aired. This came to highlight even more the divide between XHGC's and Azteca 7's programming.
That was a big mistake on XHGC's part, now a Televisa property, as TV Azteca was keeping the all valuable children's market to them. 1996 saw the introduction of even more series like Sailor Moon and my first 2D crush, Amy Mizuno (don't laugh, short haired girls rule). After that came my second 2D crush with Lucy (Hikaru) from "Las Guerreras Magicas" (Magic Knight Rayearth) and later Zenki came along. This put some pressure on Televisa and that same year XHGC introduces "Los Super Campeones" (Captain Tsubasa) to which TV Azteca responds with Slam Dunk and Slayers.
Televisa couldn't keep up with such material although they had several good entries like Ranma 1/2 and my first exposition to a Tsundere character: Akane Tendou, my third 2D crush mainly because of the mexican seiyuu which was the same one that voiced Sailor Moon's Amy (on a side note, she also voices Buttercup and Yumi). I wasn't until october that Televisa had a good counter to Saint Seya's popularity: Dragon Ball.
Because of this leveling on the battlefield, TV Azteca shuffled its programming by taking down Mazinger Z re-runs and putting Escaflowne in its place. Televisa dropped Heidi and Astroboy and brought in Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z on 1998 which gave it a rise in ratings. Lots of new series saw the light in Mexico in this period from both sides, like Ghost Swepper Mikami, Detective Conan, Ninja Robots, Samurai Warriors, Arbegas, The Secret Garden, Thunder Jet, Transformers, Magical Circle Guru Guru and some others.
TV Azteca began to put anime movies on sundays mornings, like the Saint Seya movies, Nadesico, Slayers movies and the 2000 Child's Day special which consisted on the 3 Magic Knight Rayearth OVAs (the only time the OVAs were aired in Mexico). That same year TV Azteca introduced "Las aventuras de Siniestra" (Saint Trail) and Televisa did the same with Card Captor Sakura. TV Azteca tried to fight back the rising DBZ/Pokémon craze but in reality the only show that was bringing eyes back was Saint Seya. Televisa put another nail in Azteca 7's coffin with Digimon (a show that TV Azteca fought for to try to counter Pokémon) and Dragon Ball GT.
After this TV Azteca relinquished and little by little began to cut anime shows from its programming, leaving them only on saturday mornings. At one point, the only running shows were Saint Trail and Saint Seya. Televisa continued adding some poke-like series, like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Beyblade but after 2003 too began to drop most shows. On 2005 TV Azteca tried again with a segment called "Reanimacion" which saw re-runs of some of its finest licenses like Saint Seya and Escaflowne besides adding Inuyasha but there was hardly any kind of advertisement and the initiative fell through (Inuyasha made it to the 40th episode before being dropped).
Currently only 4 series are being aired, Pokemon, DBZ and One Piece by Televisa and Saint Seya by TV Azteca. There have been more recent series dubbed in spanish, mainly by Cartoon Network and the now deceased Locomotion and Animax channels but certaintly the golden age ended a long time ago
Nowadays I'm keeping up thanks to Crunchyroll and spanish fansubs. My favorites this season are Naruto SD, Shirokuma Cafe and Nazo no Kanojo X.
they must be in a box somewhere
