It's a long tale...
<color=white>Line Break!
One day, when I was but a lad, I was flipping through channels and chanced to alight upon Cartoon Network. In fact, I alighted on a show that suddenly did something I hadn't seen before by that point: a major villain pointed out that one of their subordinates had deliberately disobeyed orders, and subsequently killed them (in front of another subordinate; their lover, no less). Two scenes later, I saw some familiar outfits and, with my encyclopedic knowledge, identified this show as a little-known cartoon known simply as "Sailor Moon." Intrigued, I kept watching, and was hooked for quite a while.
Soon after, Toonami started showing episodes of another show I coincidentally stumbled across: Tenchi Muyo. As I watched and enjoyed, the claws hooked deeper.
Some time later, I moved on to high school, and followed some friends to something called the "anime club," where I chanced upon a showing of the movie Ranma 1/2: Nihao My Concubine. I began to think there might be something in this "anime" thing. Subsequent rental of Sorcerer Hunters, and the purchase of Slayers movies and OVAs corroborated this idea.
Continued watching of Toonami eventually exposed me to the likes of Yu Yu Hakusho, Outlaw Star, and Rurouni Kenshin.
ADV anime previews not only recommended more shows for me to seek, but also made my ears perk up at the wonderful music. The preview for Slayers Special, the first of these, started me on the path as I looked for an mp3 of "<url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL72wuHraS4>Kagirinai Yokubou no Naka de" ("Within Limitless Desire").
Easy internet access provided me a way to find pieces of music from various anime. My music collection grew from this seed of Slayers and Rurouni Kenshin music.
One of my internet wanderings led to a surprising revelation: some people take other music and set them to clips from anime, creating these sort of Anime Music Videos. Fortunately for my taste in the genre, my first encounter wasn't the sort of random crap a 15 year-old throws together with some Linkin Park and Naruto, but a surprisingly well-done Rurouni Kenshin AMV entitled "<url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcz8MDGZ0AU&feature=related>Soujiro's Lost Soul," set to a piece called "Punishment Divine" by a little-known band called Blind Guardian. While I was initially unimpressed with the song, I loved the video enough that I watched it multiple times, thereby giving the song time to grow on me. (Side note: it was a similarly well-done Kenshin AMV set to the tune of "Evolution" by Ayumi Hamasaki that started my love of J-pop)
After graduating high school, a chance encounter in a Chinese restaurant led to my reestablishing contact with an acquaintance from the band and RPG club, who got me into a small (three-person) tabletop RPG-playing group focusing on the (now) old World of Darkness. I showed the video to one of the other guys. At a later session, he reveals that he looked into the band, and played another piece by them called "Time Stands Still." I took to it immediately (long before I figured out that the song is about Finwë and his final stand against Melkor, later called Morgoth).
My curiosity piqued, I locate mp3s online of the songs "Age of False Innocence" and "The Soulforged." I decide that I really like this band.
When I reveal this to my friend at a later date, he shows me that his efforts far surpassed mine. He offers me a couple of songs by Blind Guardian, one song by Demons & Wizards, four songs by Dragonforce, and many songs by Rhapsody (now Rhapsody of Fire). I listen and enjoy, and decide that there's probably something in these genres of power and symphonic metal.
<color=white>Line Break!
<color=white>Times Two!!
And that, my friends, is how I saved Christmas.
Or at least how I got into metal (later forays into classic, thrash, and viking metal and hard rock notwithstanding).
