Mine’s Violet Evergarden in 2021. I’ve seen others before that, but I thought of them as “cartoons” or movies in the generic sense.
I started with SAO, but I didn’t really get into it until the original run of Full Metal Alchemist, then the rest is history
Urotsukidoji, after seeing it on laserdisk at the first ever Hellraiser rave party (Netherlands). I was mesmerized more by that giant screen than the actual rave, so I looked for it, which back then was very very difficult. People didn’t know what anime was and I didn’t even know that word anime. I was lucky enough to have the Videoland (video rental place) help me out because after me telling him what I had seen, he was interested. First I actually managed to get Akira, and watched that, then eventually I found Urotsukidoji, which back then was imported via a label called “Manga entertainment” and dubbed, from great britain. Later on I would also find (very expensive) Manga dubbed tapes in the brand new Virgin megastore in Amsterdam. And thats how I got started with anime, this was in 1992. Been in to anime ever since, first thinking it was actually called manga, but then learning about it. even joined a mailing list fanclub (there was no internet yet, just BBS’s which were dial-in) where I learned a lot about it over the phone from the guy running that mailing list. they would send out a news letter it was a lot of fun reading those.