I was a huge Gundam fan (original series) back in the early 80s. I just came to the US for high school in the Boston area, and Anime was HARD to come by. The big shows back then was Gundam, then the Ideon movies, then I think Godmars. I remember reading a new show being announced, and the line art really caught my eye. No, it wasn't necessarily the Valkyries (cause I didn't know how cool they would look animated), but MINMAY. Mikimoto's line art of her in the Chinese dress looked so cute!
It was really refreshing to see a character of Chinese descent (I'm Chinese myself), I don't believe there were any major characters that were Chinese in any anime before Minmay.
Somehow I got hold of a copy of the soundtrack cassette, I must've worn that tape out and drove my roommate nuts with repeated listens of "Kyun Kyun". It would actually be a couple more years before I saw any video of the series!
In 1984 I saw DYRL in a theater in Tokyo. What I remember most was the shower scene ... some otaku ran up to the screen and took a picture, then promptly ran out of the theater! This was the bad old days before you can even be certain the movie is going to come out on video tape (yes, the days before the Internets, and DVD). That's SCREEN capture for you! (I think the idiot used his flash, which meant he got a picture of the blank screen canvas, lol)
So yes, I'm not ashamed to say that I am Richard Birla!