Ahhhh, this brings me back to my days as a sales associate at Sam Goody/Suncoast. When Jeff, my manager, asked me which side of the store I would rather work, I immediately told him that I wanted “to live with the movies,” an answer he found amusing. Music was fine, but it didn’t mesmerize me like moving pictures did. I hadn’t been exposed to anime yet, at least not outside of what was airing on Cartoon Networks’ Toonami block at the time (Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z), so I was intrigued by the teeny wall of VHS tapes with all of these big eyed (and busted) women and heavily muscled men on the sleeves. If don’t even think I’d read any manga at that point, either. There was a small selection of anime that we could play during our shifts, so I started there, gradually developing an affinity for it.

The first series I really got into was actually Martian Successor Nadesico, which is a delight, but then I found Bubblegum Crisis: 2040. A badass bitch (Priss), a good girl (Linna), a bouncy, nerdy girl (Nene), and a mysterious sexy woman (Sylia) fought robots and evil corporate overlords? I couldn’t get enough. I bought the VHS tapes as soon as they were released and played them while I was working, occasionally forgetting that I was actually supposed to be doing my job. But then I found out that BGC: 2040 was a reboot of a much older series that was available on DVD, and I nearly fainted. I special ordered the set for myself, and I’ve been a rabid fan ever since. Bubblegum Crisis even inspired my general obsession with 80s anime, too, so it was the beginning of a beautiful thing.

Art Credit: FanPop