It all started with a DVD I didn't want.
Peter Pan, the live action version, with a brightly coloured cover. I had loved that film ever since I caught a small segment of it on the TV at Christmas, so finding it in the bargain bin at the rental shop seemed too good to be true. Needless to say, I bought it straight away.
When I got home, I opened the case to find that while the cover of the DVD was the film I wanted, the DVD inside was something else altogether. A film so far away from the one I wanted that there was no way I could settle for it instead. Unfortunately, I had left the shop without a receipt.
When I told my friends about this DVD I didn't want, they were astounded by my reaction. They told me I was lucky to get it for such a cheap price, whether I intended to or not. I became curious about its content, finally caving and watching the entire thing.
That was the beginning of my addiction and it started so innocently. The film, as I later made my mission to find out, was a classic of Japanese anime. A few years down the line it was the one I would cite as my favourite.
A few years down the line, I was a different person.
The changes had all seemed so simple to begin with that I never noticed them happen. The first outfit I bought, in an attempt to portray myself as a character from a show that I liked. The first box set I bought in a bidding war. I never noticed how quickly I was changing.
I followed the same routine every evening - watch 3 episodes of whatever I had on my list at the time, then search for whatever was going cheapest on the 'anime' section of Ebay. I hardly ever found anything that interested me, or was truly cheap enough. Those days were the worst.
Or, at least, I thought they were.
I spent so much time on the anime section, you could say it was inevitable. Or, you could say I was chosen. However you argue it, I was the one who won the bidding war on a 99p Sim game, which in the end I paid twenty pounds for.
This sim game had no picture; it was its title that caught my attention. 'AWESOME ANIME GAME- BE AN ANIME CHARACTER'. The item description was extremely vague, except when it came to explaining that the seller did not accept returns. While I knew that I should have been more careful, especially taking into account the seller's complete lack of feedback, the idea of a game that allowed you to BE an anime character filled me with glee.
Course now I wish I'd never bought the bloody thing.