Well, like valkyriepilot above, I too had grew up in Asia (Taiwan more specifically). Being a former Japanese colony, even with a Japan hating martial law government in charge of Taiwan at the time, a lot of our entertainment sources came straight from Japan (the other half being the US), japanese anime pretty much made up most of my animation watching days growing up.
In fact, one of the earliest memory I have of my childhood was watching Macross on TV at my grandfather's house, where Hikaru and Misa talking onboard SDF Macross. Macross was a definite obsession of mine growing up, and would doodle various mechas in my textbooks in school (to include a series of fruit-based battlepods, hey, I was in first grade, I thought that was cool!). Got the songs on cassette tapes, and have posters and various toys littered about my room.
After moving to the US shortly before M+ came out, my friends and family and Taiwan would still mail me VHS and VCDs of shows that they know I would like, and managed to keep up my fandom that way. Also got exposed to Robotech on Sci-fi... Not knowing english at the time, I just watched it religiously because I didn't have the original Macross with me, with a WTF factor slowly creeping in as I learn more engllish. Also went and got the Robotech books too, which is actually the first recreational use book I've read in english. Once again, the WTF factor slowly creeping in as I learned english lol.
Watched and rewatched my M+ and M7 VCDs, and also went and bought the english M+ VHS when it came out in the states.
Also remember the days when they used to carry some Macross models at the local Michael's/MJ Design shops (pretty darn cheap too thinking back... less than $20 a pop, cheaper than VHS), I went and loaded up on the various destroids that they have available, due to the fact that I was nitpick about the VFs not being able to transform...
When internet first became available to me I would stand around searching for Macross related stuff online. Also made a now defunct Geocities site devoting to Macross, and participated in some of the old Yahoo! Group RPGs about mechas, choosing the VF-17 for my character and throughly confusing the heck of the other players that would use "Alpha VT Fighters"... those were the days, and I feel freaking old. I was actually born the same year the Macross originally came out, so everytime they have an anniversary of some sort, aside from reminding me of the good ol' days, also serves as a reminder of my age