My Idol Story - How I became the idol fan I am today. Part 1.

So I suppose the first thing is well, where is the start of this story? I guess as early as I can.(so, the way my life lead up to me discovering idols)

I was introduced to anime pretty young due to having brothers that are roughly 10 years older than me, who watched some anime. The main one I remember is 'The Heroic Legend of Arislan Part 1 and 2' (now known as Arslan as the author intended).
Here I'll skip ahead a few years to when Pokemon/Digimon/Sailor Moon started being aired (in England). One day, I bought a non-official pokemon/digimon magazine(it had one from the front and the other from the back) and in this fateful magazine, there was a list of web addresses. I asked my Dad how to use to the internet, as before now I had only used the PC for playing games(such as Doom/worms/HeXen/etc) and one of the websites had a lot of artwork on it. It also had a list of other series art work I could look at, including Sailor Moon. Now here, I fell completely in love with Naoko Takeuchi's artstyle.
(A sample of some of the images that really pulled me in plus the posts image)
I then spent several years in the Sailor Moon fandom (Also digimon and Card Captor Sakura, but that's less relevant to the story) and it was here that I discovered Sera Myu: Sailor Moon Musicals.
Firstly with this video (in roughly this quality)

I then went to buying some of them as well as finding clips and mp3s online.
(I had already owned sailor moon anime and manga products that I'd bought online with my Dads help)

Now to a 'momentous moment.' One of the Sera Myu websites was run by a German Girl. I remember the site had a yellow colour theme. On this website I found a few mp3s including one by a Japanese Artist.
(sorry for using a random amv)


This song really touched me somewhere in my heart. It was so soft and delicate yet really powerful, I immediately had to learn the lyrics(and read the translation). After many listens of the song and a year or so I realised I needed to know more about this artist.
I eventually found an Ayumi forum named AHO (I forget if it stood for online or org ><) I also found 3 of my closest friends at school enjoying her music as well. On this forum another big moment occured!
After enjoying following the Ayu scene for a while I started to check out the 'other artists' part of the forum and came across these 2 videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pff8VEKKkY

"I mean WHAT EVEN IS THIS?!" Was my initial reaction, but I couldn't stop watching. I ended up looping the videos a bit. In the thread someone linked 2 other videos saying they were favourites(probably H!P favourites or something) So I tried downloading those 2 and I can't remember what 1 of them was since I didn't like it(so probably "As for One Day" or something) but
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_xkQAxyf-o

What even was this?! It seemed so outdated sounding but so cool! It was kinda like that 'awful pop music' I hated(as well as musicals/anime/ayu I also listened to a lot of rock/punk/metal as a kid) but... I loved it! I needed more!
I downloaded a few more music videos and then found Mini Moni Chiccha!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpuYvMdTAI

I also then found Hello!Morning batches. My first up to date clip wasn't until I found Osaka Koi no Uta but even then I still just kept catching up on things until Iroppoi. 'Until the bus comes' and the infamous mechaike specials, also a few TV interviews that had been subbed.
Somewhere along the way I registered here, probably when I found the Hello!Morning batches ^^


So that's roughly my story up until I found Hello!Project. I'll write a Part 2 for how I moved through Hello!Project( Berryz ) and maybe some more depending on how much I write.