Thanks for leaving a comment @niallon11!!!
I think the first anime I saw as kid was one of the popular mechas, like mazinger Z, Voltus V, you know, the ones that made the rounds worldwide... but after that my most recent memory is of digimon (the anime) and pokemon (the game).
In my country as far as TV goes there is 0 culture, we only have a 2 hour long special on saturdays night where most of the time the host shows some movies in the seinen category... but some people download subbed versions from internet and share them with friends, and those friends share it with others... and so on, until everyone has all the shows airing this season.
It's like you say, it's a vast world indeed, just by looking at some of the anime mentioned above, specially genshiken, you can learn ALL sort of things and realize that there is always more to enjoy and expand upon... no wonder the comiket is such a HUGE event worldwide.