I was always envious of the european countries like France, Italy and even Spain. In the 90s, the french even had a TV channel that reported about the new anime and manga trends.
Since I used to visit Italy practically every year, I also grew to love the italian anime/manga market with all their TV releases, magazines, merchandise and original theme songs.
In Germany, Manga & Anime was associated with hentai only for a long time. Even though german television broadcasted a lot of meisaku anime and other stuff, but no one knew that it was actually anime and considered it to be western cartoons. Manga-wise, there were only a few quality releases like Venus Wars and Battle Angel Alita.
Fortunately, this changed when Sailor Moon was picked up and by another channel and re-aired for the second time.
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