Fruits Basket - My proudest possesion

I was asked a very strange question the other day (when people drink, and stupid conversations come up, this is the head wrecking stuff that starts to get asked) 'dude whats your most prized possession' i of course said i didnt have one, because i love too much stuff, and wouldnt pick one of the other, and i think its a very commercial thing to have a prized possession, for starters my prized and beloved things cant technically be considered possessions, ye know, like family, pets, friends, all those none possessions. honestly (i sound like suh a hippy) i dont put too much weight on what i own, maybe its because i havent really got stuff i couldnt live without.
Dont get me wrong,  ive loads of stuff plenty of people would love and consider them prized possessions,i just dont.

However, if we had to start choosing, after alot of thought, and a coincidental clear out of my brothers room, where i found bags of my old stuff, including books, games, clothes and dun da da duuuuuun My fruits basket collection.

Now i have plenty of books and games series, complete series'
i have collections of brands, dresses, merchandise, but nothing was so hard to come by as the above photo.
i kid you not, this is the manga that started it all for me.

i was about fifteen and not studying for my GCSE exams as usual (for those of you who dont live in the UK, GCSE exams are our end of high school exams, as important as your SATs and given to us at an age where we just dont care.
So whilst i wasnt studying, i was roaming the internet, and i cant remember how, i think it was during my not so legal downloading of sailor moon episodes, i got recommended results of anime, and i wasnt overly into anime at the time. so far id watched a total of maybe four animes at that time, all during study leave mind you.
So i watched the first four episodes of fruits basket, and that was it, there was no more.
researched it, found out there was a manga, so i gave it a try.....i think i read it on ONEMANGA (omg the nostalgia) back when they used to host manga....now i think theyre just links (omg for about two years,i basically lived on that sit.....kinda like how i live on mangafox now)
So thats where it all began......we can safely all blame fruits basket for my obsession in manga.

i loved it. soooo much.
i loved it to the extent i finished the manga and decided i needed it. like in my hand, to hold.
even if ive read a book, if i loved it, or it meant something to me, i want to have it, ye know, memories n all that.
so that summer after exams i was at Qcon (northern irish comic book/gaming festival) and in the manga section which i never bothered with at any other conventions. and i found the fruts baskets..... this would be a very boring easily got collection if id just lifted them all then. NO people! i was only 16 at this point, how on earth would i afford over twenty mangas at 7.99 each.
i got three of them. and thats when it all began. i got 4-6 around September, i mustve plagued forbidden planet to order the rest in (belfast based comic book and all things dorky store) every trip to belfast i had to get to forbidden planet, just to see what new ones they had. of course my mummy couldnt understand why i couldnt just read them online like the others.....gawd mammy, i had, but this was my thing, i needed the collection. i stalked ebay for silly parents selling their childrens manga collections, but again, i was a low income teenager who valued her sweets, so no chance did i have a random 200 quid lying around. i did however find the fruits basket DVD collection on one of these ebay hunts.... thus the DVD above.
it was the first of many many many things i bought online. it was my favourite thing for so long (well that and the chobits dvd that i got at the same time-which a friend 'borrowed' and never returned) anyways, between christmas' and stalking forbidden planet and alot of ordering them in, i some how got the whole collection (prob wouldve been easier to order online, but i never seemed to have the money at the time)

well one off the whole collection....its missing volume 23.
ye know what, thatll be what i buy the next pay check (if i remember) the final fruits basket manga(think the dead mother is on the cover)
dont get me wrong, if i didnt read them online, they wouldve been bought alot quicker, but this is just a collection, not my need to read or desire to find out the ending.

So thats the boring long story of how i stumbled upon fruits basket, watched and read it, and collected all of it.
ive read and watched alot of anime and manga. and i mean an obscene amount. and out of all of them...fruits basket was always my favourite.

i highly recommend it. especially if its your first.
its a perfect first read/watch.

fyi the dvd follows the first dozen (i think) manga volumes.
to find out what the whole thing is about.....google it ya weirdos.
but to save yous a bit of time, ive put in a wee link below, so you get the gist of the story...but i recommend you just read the manga incase the awesome plot twists get spoiled, after all its technically an old series (timeless but still old, so beyond the reach of the spoiler alert)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruits_Basket

its funny but really sad sometimes.....but dont worry, happy ending all around. promise.