Nationality: American

Hobbies: Anime (duh!), reading, movies, and whatever holds my main interest at the moment... I've slipped out of videogaming which has come-and-gone as a steady hobby in the past; DC and Marvel Comics are DEAD to me!

Favorite TV Series/Movies (live-action): Star Trek:TOS, the original Star Wars Trilogy, the first six Star Trek movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark (still the best Indiana Jones movie, my favorite action/adventure movie, PERIOD), Excalibur

Favorite Movie Genres: Film Noir, classic black-and-white horror movies (Universal, German silent horror), late 1970s/early 1980s science fiction, gangster movies (1930s Cagney/Robinson/Bogart and more recent films like The Godfather and Goodfellas)

Favorite Anime Characters: Lupin III (the entire main cast), Ranma Saotome, Saber (Arturia/FSN), Totoro, Cutie Honey, Roy Fokker, Scott/Stik Bernard, Gatchaman (the entire team plus Berg Katse who was the best villain of the entire series)

All-time favorite anime series: Macross/Robotech = Yes, I KNOW the differences and have seen ALL the original unedited series in Japanese with subtitles as well as the looser English adaptations aka Robotech; I like both entities so don't waste your time and mine trying to get me to say one is better than the other; technically, the Macross Saga section is my favorite part of Robotech (and I DO love the original Macross on its own) and I like New Generation/Mospeada quite a bit, too

Other anime favorites: Lupin III (great character, too bad the US anime community at large has NOT figured out what a great series this is!), any Gundam series with the number "8" in it, Ranma 1/2 (of course!), the original Bubblegum Crisis OVA series, Kimagure Orange Road, Oh My Goddess, Maison Ikkoku, Fate/Stay Night, Project A-ko (the original movie), Devil Hunter Yohko, Urusei Yatsura, Cowboy Bebop, the original Gatchaman TV series, Gunbuster, Paranoia Agent and ALL Satoshi Kon feature films, Record of Lodoss War, Vision of Escaflowne... I watched a ton of shows in the 1990s and early 2000s. I haven't watched as much anime in the last 6-7 years and I still have a huge backlog of series/movies I still have to watch on DVD!

Goes without saying I like most of the Studio Ghibli features... Satoshi Kon was one of the better alternatives to Hayao Miyazaki but the fellow who directed Summer Wars and Wolf Children is also an excellent director.

Earliest anime I can remember seeing: Battle of the Planets in the late 1970s (original edited English dub of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman... the original Japanese version is MUCH better. The ADV Films English dub is actually a VERY well done dub of that show and one of the few English dubs that I actually like. I gladly watched the series half-and-half; some episodes in English, the rest in Japanese).

The next anime series I saw was Star Blazers circa 1980. Voltron (Lions) was the next major anime series.

I originally saw a few episodes of Robotech in the summer/fall of 1985 on Saturday mornings but didn't see most of the series until 1986 when the local TV station (WUAB Channel 43, Cleveland) showed the series daily in order from Episode 1 all the way to the end (Episode 85). That show changed the way I looked at animation forever and it was many, many years until I saw an American animated series that struck me/had as huge an impact on me as Robotech did... That show was Batman: TAS. Even then, I still haven't seen an American animated series as ambitious as Gatchaman was in 1973! I would still consider that the best/ultimate superhero/action adventure series I've seen, period, despite the "monster of the week" plots... Robotech has held up remarkably well where I'm concerned. There are a lot of live-action series/movies that are better known that I feel frankly have not aged well...