For me, it was like suddenly my childhood grew up and became cool again.
You ever try watching an 80s cartoon as an adult? It's awful. The memories are like a cute pet, and then someone takes an SUV and runs it over. And all you can do is stare in horror as you see what the lil fuzzy was really made of, which turns out to be quite nasty and gory when exposed to open air, and now lifeless. I'd rather watch a good remake of a show than ever watch an original again. *shudder*
MLP:FIM is a kid's cartoon done right. While the primary audience is little girls, the staff writers are all nerds and put little jokes and pop culture references in there in plain sight that only someone over the age of 20 is probably going to get. Pretty sure they did that for the sake of parents like lolgaxe, but it's still good enough that non-parents can appreciate it as well.
Anime is sort of weird. The shows made for younger kids uniformly suck (with the exception of Doraemon.) The shows made for teenagers are generally @#%^ing awesome (aside from all the filler episodes since they tend to be based on unfinished manga.) And the shows made for young adults are often witty, thought provoking, and offer an interesting perspective into modern life in Japan.
Edited, Dec 6th 2011 7:53pm by catwho