I think the first anime I saw was My Neighbor Totoro at age 7, it was the original Japanese version with Chinese subtitles. Didn't make much sense due to my lack of knowledge in both languages, but I do remember being amazed by its beauty and scope. Anyways, this isn't a conprehensive guide to anime, but some essential links and personal thoughts.
Is Anime that Japanese Cartoon Crap? (as seen on Letterman). Required reading for everyone who visits this page. This Means You.
The US version of the soundtrack has a few changes from the original Japanese release.
Image Album: Original compositions based on the themes created by "images" from the movie, composed before the movie was made. Some of the pieces are made into soundtrack, but some are not used for the film. *text borrowed from here
Then there is the Symphonic Suite CD, Hey wait a minute, you say, isn't the soundtrack done by another symphony? Why would I want dup? True, the original is performed by an symphony (can't find the exact one), but the Symphonic CD - performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra - contains a version of Mononoke Hime with Joe Hisaishi on piano. Is that all? Nooooo.... the songs on the OST are short. On the Symphonic CD they're long. In other words, just as a song is being developed on the OST it'll be cut short, how else to fit 32 tracks on a CD? The Symphonic CD only has eight tracks, and runs over 43 minutes, for an average of 5.375 minutes per song. "Departure - To the West" is 2:33 on the OST, 4:56 on the Symphonic CD. Here's my detailed review at Soundtrack Central.
Milan Records is releasing the Symphonic Suite CD! No more need to shell out $45! Your local CD shop probably won't stock the CD, but every major on-line retailer carries the CD.
Favorite songs:
Both The Art of Mononoke and Helen McCarthy's Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation are worth buying. The first contains a ton of images from both the movie and production, McCarthy's book takes a critical look at Miyazaki's work. No Amazon referal, so click away!
Looking for a place to buy import CDs? Animenation is OK, but their backorder wait can be terrible. CD Japan is much faster, but the shipping is quite high. Kinokuniya also sells CDs - if you can't find a certain Ghibli CD drop me a line and I'll see if the one near me has it in stock.