At what point did you know anime was anime? I think for me it was watching Gundam 8th MS team on toonami. The ending song was in Japanese. Clearly it wasn't the same as American cartoons. This was back in 2001 or so.
>>287262962My dad subbed anime back in college, so I grew up with those tapes and the other stuff we rented and watched on tv
>>287262962Doraemon. i read the manga first and the author was clearly nipponeses.
I don't think I ever didn't recognize anime as being from Japan, at least when I was old enough to think about it. It helps that where I lived there were people more involved in the Japanese side of things. Like having Japanese Pokemon cards, Japanese imported video games (and other merch), and such.
>>287262962not actually anime, but when I was <10 my brother gave me a dragon ball volume and instructed me to read it in reverse