Talk about finding a time machine! While browsing around Hulu the other night, I came across a ton of “old school” anime that I haven’t seen in years! [insert hipster look] I was watching anime before it was cool (lol)! But seriously, I recall the days of stopping by the local Suncoast video store and perusing their single tiny shelf of anime VHS tapes, making sure I purchase the subtitled versions over the dubbed!

Unlike DVDs & Blu-rays, VHS tapes couldn’t contain both formats. You had to pick one or the other. On top of that, we had to pay $40 for a single VHS tape that contained 2-4 episodes! Wow, those were the days. I guess it’s kinda nice (on the pocket) how anime has become mainstream. The only way to be even more old school is if you actually understood Japanese and imported the laser disks from Japan and played it on your LD player, hah! Fansubs back then were much more tedious. As my husband’s co-worker put it, we make him feel old by saying VHS was old school.

Being that my husband donated all of our old VHS anime collection (since they’re not worth anything and we don’t have any storage space for them anymore), I haven’t been able to see my old favorites in a long time. Sure, I could have gone and updated my collection to DVDs, but meh. I owned a lot of Ranma 1/2 VHS tapes, as well as my coveted box set collection of Saber Marionette J. That was really hard to let go because I spent about $200+ on the entire thing! I was a HUGE Hayashibara Megumi fan during that time (still am, but since she’s not actively voicing these days, I have other favorites). There was just something enduring about her voice that tugged at me. It also helps that she can’t sing real well (she’s not a pop idol like Horie Yui or a trained singer such as Inoue Kikuko), so that meant that I could actually attempt to sing along and not sound like I’m ruining the song! XD

Other VHS tapes that I owned were Tenchi Muyo in Love and Slayers! More Megumi! <3 I was shocked to read an update that she’ll be voicing a character soon from something I’ve never heard of. It seems she has stopped voicing the energetic hyper type characters to a more mature, subdue character. Don’t blame her; probably less effort. ^^;

But I digress. If you’d like to catch any of these old school titles that aren’t in widescreen and were not CG’d do death (still hand-painted cells!), I highly recommend hopping onto Hulu! It seems that FUNimation acquired a lot of the original/old Pioneer/Geneon & ADV titles, so now most of them are available to stream. I was quite surprised that Hulu has more variety than Crunchyroll. Sure, they have more of the newest stuff, but if you want a slice of nostalgia, check it out!