hmmm... I guess when I got into Japan, suprisingly, was December 2005. But I was unknowingly fascinated way before that.
Since I was 5 years old, I've been fascinated by Samurai and the Warring States Era of Japan. I've been locked away from society for a long time so between 11 and 17, I really wasn't allowed to think to freely, much less use the internet.
But that changed in my senior year. I started to watch Case Closed and Lupin the third at 1am on Adult Swim here in the states. That was when I first fell in love with Conan, but that was English dubbing. That May, after graduating, I happened to see a fascinating ad on a Yahoo search. It was the only Japanese word I knew at the time "Banzai". That's right, B'z - Banzai. I listened to that and I just couldn't get enough. Sadly, I couldn't find out who it was by.
2005 I went off to college, still into solely American media and dubbed anime. Around November 2005, that all changed when I started watching Bleach at random. I was hooked. Soon I was watching more and more anime in Japanese. Later I preferred Japanese language in anime. And even later I despised dubbing altogether.
Around December I started watching Conan and loved the Japanese Music themes. That's when I first heard Everlasting. Man, did that song just flow through me. I loved it thoroughly. This time I was able to discern the letters B and z as the artist. So I decided to research this "B'z" thing. When I realized how great their music sounded I decided to dl a 1.48 GB mp3 disography.
Shortly afterwards I was jamming to the album where Everlasting comes from "GREEN". (Now you can see why it's my fav.)
As of late my current goal in life is to spread the awesomeness of B'z to as many people as possible.
And it wasn't just B'z, Izumi Sakai, better known as ZARD, also played a huge role in my love of Japanese music. As did artists such as: Miho Komatsu, Garnet Crow, Deen, UVERworld, dream, and L'arc~en~Ciel.
Probably about midway through college, I fell in love with an anime character (I'm weird, I know. I hear it from everybody). Kitsune from Love Hina was like the perfect woman in my eyes and noone else would do. To make a long story short, that was my start in hentai. Now I have one of the most prolific hentai collections this side of the U.s. (Self-stated, no actual proof.) And I still love her to this day and I still love hentai too.
Now, I love Japan more than anything else. Probably the only things I still like that are non-Japanese are: Family Guy, Simpsons, South Park, some american cartoons, and like 4 or 5 music groups. Like anjoschka178, i too have come to respect the culture and traditions of the Japanese people and sometimes, scrath that, continuosly regret that I was born in America and not Japan. And I will be flying to Japan this fall to catch the tour and pay my respects to Izumi Sakai.I am a true Japan-a-man.
P.s. I challenge someone to write a longer post than mine. I think I beat Kaizou's infamous Conan retirement speech with this post.
