User blog comment:Pacifista15/Discovering One Piece/@comment-3097081-20110207182542

Hmm... it's a long story, so bear with me.

For me, the world of anime and manga started in 2005 (I was 15) with anime, or more specifically with amv's (animated music videos). A friend lent me a cd with lots of amv's on, and there was one with Linkin Park's In The End as the song. The video was about Rock Lee and Gaara's fight in the Chuunin Exam Third Stage Preliminary fights. Needless to say, I wanted to watch more Naruto immediately. I mean come on, such and awesome fight accompanied by such an awesome song!

So my friend promised to lend me his Naruto dvds, but instead he brought me his Bleach dvds. He said he was still watching Naruto, and that I should watch Bleach in the mean time. He promised that it was really good. When he explained to me what Bleach was about (Death Gods and Hollows and Soul Society etc), I wasn't really excited, but damn was I happily surprised! After that he lent me the Naruto, and I love it too. Since then I've had a fixation with anime, and have seen many more series'.

In 2007, I moved from South Africa, where I'd spent my whole life up till then, to Australia. In South Africa, it's difficult to even acquire anime, let alone manga, but I never had any interest in manga back then anyway. I just wanted to watch anime. But Australia is different. Here, you can find lots of places that sell anime and manga. Only in 2008, while sitting in the school library, would I start reading manga.

I started with series' that I already followed as anime, like Bleach, Naruto, etc. I had already heard about One Piece on the internet. Everyone said it was the best manga of them all, but when I looked up what it was about and saw it was about pirates, I ignored it. Then, in the school library, I saw they had volume 01 of One Piece. I was supposed to be studying, but I was bored so I picked up the tankobon.

It's now 2011 and I'm 20 years old. I have read every chapter of One Piece, Naruto and Bleach to date, as well as watched every anime episode. I will continue to do so until the series' are completed. I don't care that I am an adult and am supposed to stop playing and be responsible. Life is temporary. The most important part of it is spending the time that we're alive happy and enjoying it. I enjoy reading manga. It makes me happy.