My Journey of Falling in Love with Manga

Ever since I was introduced to Naruto on Adult Swim’s Toonami, I continued to expand my deep appreciation for anime. There was something special about it that I could not pinpoint at the time. As a child, I was a fan of cartoons, especially of the comedic variety. However, I seldom found myself enjoying animated action cartoons aside from Static Shock and Teen Titans.

I was fully invested in the boy who wanted to become Hokage. I was amazed at the high stakes that felt palpable and it was the first time I found my heart racing while watching television. The battle choreography was intense and satisfying. To me, the story was more layered and compelling than most of the American shows I’ve experienced during my childhood.

In the following years, I explored the internet to discover more anime to consume. I satiated my desire by watching classics such as Yu Yu Hakusho and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I don’t recall myself having any awareness of legal anime streaming sites like Crunchyroll and Funimation at the time, so I watched them on YouTube and Kissanime (RIP). It was especially frustrating searching up part 1’s and 2’s of essentially every episode of YYH on YouTube at the time. There were a couple of times I couldn’t find a part of an episode, but I made it work evidently.