How did you first get into Fruits Basket?

The first time I saw Fruits Basket, I was in the 4th or 5th grade, and it was on a local TV station that was airing the English dub of the 2001 anime, and I was pretty much instantly hooked.

It was the first anime I'd really watched and followed, and when the first (and only) season ended, I begged my parents to take me to an "anime store" so I could find and read the manga. There was only one shop in our vicinity (that we could find) so they took me there in the hopes that I'd find what I was looking for.

I feel I should preface the rest of this by saying this was still in the early 2000's, and while the internet might've been around, I certainly didn't have access to it, so I didn't know that I could have looked up where the anime left off in the manga, let alone find the summaries for each volume.

And with every manga sealed in plastic and unable to be flipped through, I just had to guess as to which volume I should start with. (Honestly, I don't know why I didn't just start at volume 1... but then again I was 10 years old and thinking things through was not my forte.)

I picked one from around the middle of the series, probably rationalizing that the anime MUST have gotten at least halfway through the series, right? So I get it, go home, and start to read it, only realize that not only do I not know what's going on, but I don't even know the people in the story! Which is weird to me, who was so convinced that this was a fool-proof plan lol

Turns out I had just so happened to pick volume 16, which (at the time) was the one detailing Kiyoko and Katsuya's history, which was admittedly a little traumatizing to read as a ten-year-old just wanting to know if Tohru and Kyo got their happily ever after.

I didn't touch the series again for years because of this lmao