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As many are here, I am yet another lifelong fan of Anime and Manga.
For the longest time I did not even realize that I was a fan. It was not until my 13th year when I walked into a hobby store named "Enterprise 1701" in Orlando, FL and happened to walk by their rather small anime section and saw all my favorite shows from when I was a kid.

When I saw those shows from my youth (Robotech chiefly), I began my path towards American Otakudom (which is VERY mild compared to Japan's). I started collecting as many series as I could afford, a habit which I still follow, and dug into as many new series as I could. (And yes, much of my early collection is on VHS tapes.)

Oddly enough, after getting into anime and finding the original inspiration for my childhood favorite show of Robotech, the Macross series, I came to detest it (Robotech, not Macross). This was primarily because of the release of the complete series of Robotech on DVD and the Extra content discs that came with it. On one of those discs I found an interview of Carl Macek (Robotech's producer and responsible for some of the earliest infusions of anime into the US) where he claimed that Robotech was wholly his own studios' work. Of course any fan of the Macross series knows that that is an outright lie; being that Robotech is just a reedited version of two(2) seperate Macross storylines (SDF Macross and Southern Cross) and the unrelated series MOSPEADA done to a script that merged the three series. So, though I do still love the Robotech series, it is forever jaded by the shadow of Carl Macek's plagiarism.

In the late 90s, I ended up falling in love with Japanese music. Mostly the opening and ending songs (and a few inserted ones) from all the series that I was watching. Things probably would not have progressed much beyond that if it wasn't for the horrible state of 'pop' music here in the United States. Don't get me wrong, not all of the music produced by artists like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, etc. were bad, but the fact that the radio never seemed to play more than 2 or 3 of their total library of songs pushed me away from US music (the US music scene still has not improved in my opinion).
Thanks to a little store in Melbourne, FL called 'Anime Pavillion' (long shut down since about 2005-'06) I found many CDs from anime artists and series, some known to me and others yet to be discovered. I loved it when the shop manager, Heather, would hold her 'mini-con' parties at the store after the Florida convention season was over. Of course there would be many new things available from the 'cons' but the main thing I loved was when they would have 'Anime Name-that-Tune!'. I knew a lot of the songs they would use so Heather would always try to stump me by using remix albums. Honestly I think she did that to drum up new CD sales as well, since I would almost immediatly buy the remix albums she used against me.

Though I get older, I don't ever see myself getting tired of anime. They have some of the freshest perspectives (probably because they come from a different culture) and stories. I have been to Japan once and wish to go again. Hopefully after I can get an understanding of the language. The few words and phrases I knew from my long years of watching subbed anime were no where near what I needed to even ask a simple question and I was totally nervous about saying the wrong thing as well.

Favorite J-Music Groups or Artists:
Ijima Mari, T.M.Revolution, m.o.v.e, May'n, Kotoko and more