I fell in love with watching anime around the age of 15. It was a dark and stormy night, and there I lay, too lazy to look for the remote. (Hey, being a freshman in high school was pretty exhausting -- don't judge.) Playing on the television was an episode of "Inuyasha," my first taste of what anime was. Needless to say, it did a spectacular job of pulling me into the "weeaboo" world. I was hooked on the series and sacrificed a few hours of sleep to stay awake to catch the late night episodes that aired on Toonami.
Soon my mp3 player was filled with many of the opening and ending songs of "Inuyasha," leading me to the amazing discovery of Japanese and Korean pop music--which is a story for another time. There was no going back; my life had forever changed.
From there, I went on to watch other anime shows such as "Naruto," "Eureka Seven," "Prince of Tennis," "Samurai Champloo," "FLCL," "Bleach" and whatever else Toonami aired. Hulu Plus didn't exist and Crunchyroll wasn't as up to date with streaming as it is now, so I was forced to look elsewhere to discover more anime shows.
The world wide web did not fail me in my search, leading me to discover an extraordinary site which surpassed my expectations. Not only was the site brimming with a myriad of anime shows and manga, but there also existed a chat box, allowing me to meet others who also were fascinated by the anime world. Back in a high school milieu, I was surrounded by people who didn't understand my adoration of things that they thought belonged solely to another culture.
The people I talked to in the chat room provided me with solace, as I was now connected with others who understood me. That is where I met him, my real life Inuyasha -- no not really, but you get what I mean. Now before you judge me, these people that I befriended on the chat were not those "send me nudes" or "let's meet up somewhere" kind of people. They were more like the "virtually hands out slices of pizza and then challenges you all to a sword fight" kind of people.
Yes, there once existed a time where imagination was the key to overcoming boredom. On a random day, as I began watching the disturbing anime "School Days," I received a message in the chat from someone who I hadn't spoken with before. It turns out that he too was watching "School Days," which led to us discuss the craziness that was occurring within the episodes.
We continued to chat within the chat room, discussing both anime-related content and non-anime-related content, such as our drama-filled lives as teenagers. Our relationship eventually progressed to us befriending one another in the now-forgotten realm of MySpace, then to chatting over our house phones on a daily basis. We became best friends and it remained that way until we were finally able to meet in person as 18-year-olds, fresh out of high school. He triumphantly escaped the friend zone, although he's still my best friend, and went on to become the most amazing boyfriend. Although he's no Inuyasha, Ichigo Kurosaki, Hak Son or Takumi Usui (a few of my fictional crushes), he succeeded in stealing my heart.
