Never lived through those days, as I'm only 21, but on a related note, I greatly miss game cartridges and large, detailed video game manuals.

The aesthetic enhances the content for me, for whatever reason. Though, as the thread topic implies, it's likely just nostalgia.

I only ever had one bootleg vhs, of some random dragonball episodes. I have no idea where I got it.

I remeber watching Evangelion Death and Rebirth on VHS with those yellow subs, and the first Pokemon movie, but dub.
I'm more curious about betamax... there were releases on betamax?

LDs used to be cheaper than VHS, at least in terms of yen.

For shows that are so obscure and/or unpopular that they never got a DVD release, they're still the best choice if you want to get a rip of them.

>>59693122
Betamax from what I understand was a dead market because of the cost with little to no benefit. There probably were releases but not enough to care about. LDs are different because of their audio quality.

>>59692971
God, I miss those manuals too and the fact that there were so many small game studios who if you sent a letter to they would send you all sorts of shit back. Sadly now all these studios are controlled by publishers and shell of their former selves.

I actually miss the anime stores I used to rent from.
All subs, all the time. In VHS, no less.

My local shop was run by a bunch of kindly neckbeards who really liked anime, and would take the time to recommend me things based on what bought or borrowed from there.

Good times....

>>59693472
Remember all those VCRs recording multiple copies of their rental VHS in the back? I miss that sound of tapes being rewound and recorded.

>mfw I would go over to my bros house and watch shitty subtitled Dragonball Z, Utena and Ranma 1/2

Those were the days

>>59693559
>mfw i still have a VCR and like 30 VHS tapes

>>59693633
Ha! I've got like 100 different VHS of old kids shows and shit I used to watch. I would record stuff like you wouldn't believe.

(I too still have a VCR. It's attached to the TV)

>>59693633
The humidity got to my VHS. That's the curse of living in Hawaii.

I remember when anime was a unique hobby for mature people.

What the hell happened?

>>59693559

Aww man.. I heard that crunchy buzzing sound in my head. ;_;

The shop was also filled with video games, incidentally- so that sound would occasionally be mixed with people arguing over who looked at whos screen during a deathmatch.

>I still kept most of of my vhs' . Screw progress.

>>59693633
Same here man.
I used to have a pokemon VHS and like 15 DBZ VHS tapes at one point, they're gone now though.
Still got a lot of movies on VHS though.

Still have Japan-only Ranma laserdiscs, and fansubbed VHS

Denon LA-3500 LD
Mitsubishi HS-U80 SVHS

>>59693710
Translation groups. Availability. Mainstream. Adult Swim.

It became easy, in the past like computers, it was hard, expensive and foreign to most people. Now it's a common hobby because everyone made it too fucking easy.

>>59693710
>I remember when anime was a unique hobby for mature people.
You got the unique hobby part right.

Also, Sailor Moon, DBZ and Pokemon happened

>>59693710
Internet happened (?)

>>59692971
>I greatly miss game cartridges and large, detailed video game manuals.
I am a fan translator (occasionally, anyways) and I have to say that one of my biggest ideological influences was Working Designs and the extent to which they, and specifically their translators, really CARED about the product they put out. Most of their manuals had a "Notes from the translator" page in them. Translator's prefaces are very, very common in literature, but I don't think anybody but WD has ever given the translator of a video game that kind of platform.

>>59693710
>I remember when anime was a unique hobby for mature people.
The internet happened, and made you realize that your small social circle did not reflect the the same experiences of people across the rest of the world.

>>59693847
Internet was the biggest reason that older fans could get into anime. Before that it was more for people who could figure out fan magazines of Japanese culture and technology. Or the dreaded monthly mail orders from foreigners in Japan or Otakus who wanted to make some cash.

>>59693796
>Sailor Moon, DBZ and Pokemon

All the Blockbusters under the sun had these and Devil Hunter Yohko, in my area, and people still didnt know what anime was for the longest time.

Its kind of surreal, now that ive outlived that era.
Walking past all the abandoned storefronts with that powerlevel..

>>59693961

>Devil Hunter Yohko

Um, was that in the back room?

>>59693633
>mfw I own every Miyazaki movie, pokemon the movie and first season, all of Yu yu hakusho, and like 30 more tapes of recorded anime with 2½ hours+ on VHS

ZEROTH generation fansubs copies. Spooled right off the import laserdisc, through the genlock, onto the projection screen.

Best anime club evar.

>>59694139
In the 90s all hentai was placed among either animation, Japanese, or foreign section.

You wouldn't believe how many kids watched porn because video stores doesn't know how to Japan back then.

>>59694139

Ironically, it was always next to the kids anime. Really enforced that "kids cartoons and porn" dichotomy that people viewed anime with.

Always gave me a chuckle.

Ah, the days when a 175mb AVI file encoded in DivX (because Xvid wasn't out yet) required to use a certain player and the quality was all over the place. HD was merely a dream.

And those shitty translation notes like "Onee-san mean big sister" or "bento is a boxed lunch".

Those were the days.

>>59694490
No, Get out.

>>59694314
La Blue Girl next to my Miyazaki at Blockbuster

Awwwww yeah

>>59694524
Not far back enough in time?

I got Lupid III and Crusher Joe on LD but I got no player. I still kick myself everyday for passing up ultra cheap LD of Bubblegum Crisis.

It seems that there always LD players for sale on ebay so I am not worried.

>>59694314
This. My sister was 12 when she hired out Urotsukidoji on VHS and had no idea is was "porn".

>>59694731
Tell us more. What happened after?

I remember watching 5mb .rm eva episodes back in 2001. Actually I might still have the files on my PC.

>>59694828
> 5mb .rm eva

how does that even work?

>>59694860
15 second segments.

>>59694828
>5mb rm eva episode
oh wait, what?

>>59694828

Fucking Real Player, man... Oh god, that takes me back.

Remember those shitty Geocities sites, with eye paralyzing gifs?

>>59694887
I see

>>59694903
Remember Altavista?

>>59694860
Should be 50mb...

And if is wasn't for H.264 comming out as soon as it did, we probably would have seen a ton more anime encoded in it at higher bitrates.

But good thing fansubs are bleeding edge.

>>59694893
>>59694860
>They didn't watch anime in 1997

>>59694947

Just barely... its fuzzy at the edges. Like Angelfire and my memories of midis embedded in fan shrines.

Shrines for everything.
EVERYTHING.

>>59695004
Yes, it's fucking huge but watching Kiki's delivery service on it and listening to that music is an amazing experience.

>>59694860
>>59694893
It was complete shit. I still got it on my PC.

Pic related.

>>59692840
You miss that? Are you gay or something? I love modern technology that let's us download 1080p rips in an hour with no hassle.

>>59694999
More like i didn't owned a PC with/without internet till 2000. And even then, it was just one of the "brand new" Pentium 4, with CD writter!!!! And Windows 98

>>59694971
There were a few other steps in between there. XviD, for example.

>>59694797
She show my father. They went back and got something else more appropriate from memory.

>>59694828
I remember watching anime on .rm files around in the early 2000's and having to trawl IRC for the files.

My first torrent experience was in Dec 2002 when I started to use bittorent to download Chobits.

2012 is this generation's Y2K.

>>59695277

>>59695313

That brought flashbacks of being spam mailed AOL cd's, for some reason. Analogue style.

>you are now healing dial-up static in your head
>manually.

>>59695416

*hearing

derp.

Did anybody here have compuserve dial-up?

I miss their browser, it was so colorful ;_;

Ohh yeah, playing AoE II and the ping spikes. My friend usually typed "99! 99!" frantically when my ping got too high. God those were the days.

>>59695277
>>59695313

I remember the first time I ever heard of Y2K. I called out someone much older than I on it being bullshit and proving it to them by setting the clock on their PC forward to 11:59PM, Dec 31, 1999.

That was in 1996, I believe, which means I was 8 at the time.

>>59695641
Y2K, the electronic industry's joke.

Dat feel when you snail mail for vhs subs and when you got the ep back, the video was in worse quality than before.