Thanks to the right elements aligning, anime experienced a major boom in the early 2000s. Toonami made anime easier than ever to access on cable, while the internet gave some fans access to an even larger variety of series. At the same time, thanks to the proliferation of internet forums, anime was beginning to feel like this cool little private club that only a few people knew about.

Yet, as fun as the early 2000s were, those halcyon days weren’t completely perfect. When looking back without the Digimon-inspired nostalgia goggles, older fans have to confront a lot of the harsh realities from that era. While it’s easy to pine for the fun parts, there are a lot of things from back then that literally no anime fan would ever miss.

10

Anime Series Fansubs Weren’t Always Accurate

Excessive Swearing & Translator Notes Took Over the Screen

The early 2000s were filled with fans relying on fansubs to get their anime fix. To their credit, having fansub groups at all was impressive. Tons of passionate fans got together for the sake of translating, timing, and coming up with fancy typesets to fansub anime. However, sometimes translators will take a few liberties with a series’ translations.

Sometimes the translations were off because the translators weren’t the most experienced. Other times, they translated things “wrong” just because it sounded cooler. For years, viewers thought there was more swearing in some anime than existed, just because of certain fansubs. Other translations would leave things in Japanese because there were no “exact” words in English that worked. This resulted in subs with needless “translator notes,” often making for a more awkward viewing experience.

9

Buying Anime Was Extremely Expensive & a Luxury Many Couldn’t Afford

Anime DVDs Cost an Arm and a Leg

These days, it’s nothing to buy a subscription to a streaming service and have access to more anime than one can reasonably watch. Crunchyroll has dozens of the best anime on their own, for instance. For those fans who aren’t comfortable with how streaming services can take down series can also buy physical. Anime series box sets sell on DVD or Blu-ray for $30-40. It’s easier than ever to get into anime, no matter a fan’s preferences.

Yet in the early 2000s, buying anime on VHS or DVD could get very expensive. Entire series were rarely available as a whole, and instead they were often sold on VHS or DVD for $20 to $30 a volume. Volumes frequently only had three or four episodes, which meant buying even a 26-episode series often cost $200 to $300. Fans of longer series like Dragon Ball Z or Ranma 1/2 were doomed to lose thousands if they followed along.

8

Getting Anime Merchandise Was Much More Difficult

Good Luck Finding All the Exclusive Items for Your Favorite Anime

These days, it’s easier than ever to find fun goodies for nearly any series a fan might fall in love with. Walk into any random mall and there’s a strong chance there’s a store inside that sells anime merchandise, carrying everything from the popular to the niche. Even just walking into Hot Topic can net viewers T-shirts of all the most popular anime. Yet it’s all a luxury that fans from the early 2000s couldn’t even have imagined.

In the early 2000s, a fan’s best chance at finding merchandise was at an anime convention. Conventions were rarer and fans usually had to drive further just to get to their nearest one. Even then, the merch depended on what was available at the tables. That can’t compare to being able to go online and order from middlemen who will send merch directly from Japan.

7

Anime English Dubs Weren’t Always The Best

Dub Quality Often Made People Choose Subs by Default

While people might have their preference between dub and sub, every reasonable fan agrees that it’s a good thing for anime to be accessible to everyone. With that in mind, it’s a good thing that English dubs today are great. English voice actors are often big fans of the series they’re working on, resulting in them giving 110% to their projects.

In the early 2000s, anime fans couldn’t always count on getting a high-quality dub. Aside from very specific series, dub quality was scarcely ever consistent. Dubs could be uninspired or overdone to the point of barely being listenable. Some studios gained such poor reputations for their dubs. The process had a terrible reputation well into the 2010s. This didn’t really help anyone, as it’s hard to convince newcomers to get into anime when there’s no dub available.

6

Information On Anime Was Hard To Find

Fans of Less Popular Anime Were Often Out of Luck

These days, it’s true that the internet is pretty homogeneous. Nearly everything someone is looking for is found on one of a dozen sites at best. People looking for information often just turn to Wikipedia, or maybe a fandom page. Yet that’s actually better than the early 2000s alternative. Sure, back in the day there were plenty of fansites for the most popular anime series, like Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball Z.

If someone was looking for information about a series airing on Toonami, it was just a quick Google search away. Fans of series that didn’t air on cable couldn’t always count on having it so easily. If there wasn’t an obsessive fan keeping up a fan page for a show, learning more about a show was scarce. Even when there was a fan page, that information wasn’t always accurate either, which is how some misconceptions have stuck around in the anime world for so long.

5

Many Anime Series Were Just Unavailable

Finding Anime That Didn’t Already Have a Decent-Sized Fanbase Was Difficult

These days, nearly every anime is available for fans who are willing to look hard enough. In a given season, even the most obscure series will get a sub and find a home somewhere. Even retro anime are easy to pick up, thanks to companies like Discotek, so no fans are left out. In the early 2000s, if a show didn’t reach a certain level of popularity, it was almost impossible to get.

If the show wasn’t popular on the convention circuit, it might as well not have existed. Specifically, this was going to affect fans who preferred older ’80s and ’70s series, but even certain newer series weren’t guaranteed to be easy to find. A passionate fan would just have to settle for finding digital fansubs or buying bootlegs online.

4

Sometimes Viewers Were Years Behind an Anime Series

Many of the Biggest Anime in the Early 2000s were Anime from the ’90s

These days, anime fans aren’t just watching all the best new anime series, they watch them almost immediately after they air. The fandom has become accustomed to simulcasts and simuldubs, meaning they get to see their favorite anime the same time they air in Japan. Yet not only was this unlikely in the early 2000s, fans were often way behind.

Some of the biggest anime of the early 2000s include series like Gundam Wing, Tenchi Muyo, and Yu Yu Hakusho. These series were over five years old by the time they hit the states. Even series like Trigun and Outlaw Star often reached the states 2–4 years after their initial release. It wasn’t until 2004 that it became common to get newer series on television, like Fullmetal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

3

There Was Tons Of Social Stigma In Liking Anime

Watching Cartoons Made Fans Targets for Bullying

These days, anime is such a popular medium that it’s not even very controversial to mention liking it. Worse, it’s been popular for so long some people doubt it was ever controversial to like it at all. People just assume the popularity of series like Naruto, One Piece, and Dragon Ball Z means anime was always popular.

Yet in the early 2000s, it was about as niche as a medium could get. Continuing to watch cartoons at all was stigmatized for anyone in their teens or older. At best, people confused every show with Dragon Ball Z, while at worst people just assumed it was all creepy. So fans in those days were better off hiding their fandom than proudly sharing it like people do today.

2

Toonami was the Only Channel That Aired Anime During Those Times

Younger Fans Had No Choice but to Rely on Toonami

One of the best parts of the modern era of anime is how many options are available. If viewers don’t like Netflix, they have Hulu. If they don’t like Hulu, they have Crunchyroll. There’s always a place to watch one’s favorite anime and be exposed to new series too. In the early 2000s, the options were mostly limited to Cartoon Network’s Toonami brand.

While there were other channels airing anime, they were far more sporadic and rarely added many new anime series to their line-up. Buying anime was an option, but for younger fans, it was often prohibitively expensive. Toonami was the best option for constantly exposing fans to new series. While that’s commendable to everyone involved in Toonami, it still meant only having what that one block thought was worth watching.

1

Anime Reruns Never Stopping Rerunning

Fans Were Stuck Until the Anime English Dub Caught Up

At this point, the term “rerun” means nothing to most people. Fans might choose to binge-watch a series they’ve already seen again, but it’s always their choice. Meanwhile, most anime series release weekly until the end of a season, and vanish until their next season releases. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s one that works. In the 2000s, things worked a little differently.

Some of the most popular long-running anime series often ran into the same issue: eventually, the dubbed episodes would run out. Older Dragon Ball Z fans all remember when Toonami used to re-run the same episodes for months at a time while Funimation paid to license and dub more of the series. While becoming familiar with one’s favorite series is great, reruns often ruin the enjoyment of even the best series into the ground.