My first anime was Ronin Warriors. Yeah, that show ruled. I found it on early mornings, like two hours before school started. About 2 weeks later, I got all my friends hooked on it, so that we'd all get up super early and watch it, then talk about it on the bus to school (this was around 3rd grade). It was my favorite at the time, but it went off the air after awhile, and when I moved out to Nebraska, nobody had ever heard of it, and until Cartoon Network put it on a couple years ago, I never knew it was an anime.
The first show that pulled me to see more anime was Tenchi Muyo. At that point I'd seen DBZ and Gundam Wing, and I liked them both, but I really didn't care if I saw any other shows of that style. It wasn't until I realized that there was a completely different type of show in the same art style that I started looking for more.