This is the story of how Laina came to be
oh-so-interested in Gravitation. Read if you care.
It all started sometime
around either October or November of 2004. My dear friend Liz, who is quite
obsessed with anime in general, bought a copy of Gravitation Vol. 1, entitled
Fateful First Encounter. I had not had much interest in anime up to that point,
it was okay, it was entertaining, but I was not about to go out and buy any
myself. We watched Gravitation, and I found it to be the most entertaining of
any anime I had seen before, and as the last episode ended, I found myself
annoyed that I couldnt see any more that night. Oh well, I got over it
quickly.
Christmas and my birthday came and went, and I found myself with
a quite large pile of money, but nothing at all to do with it. It was Sunday,
January 16, 2005, and I was moping around Borders with Kitty and Lo because of
the crappy weekend I had been having. While wandering around, something pink
caught my eye. Yes... there it was, Vol. 2 of Gravitation. I picked it up,
pondered over it, then set it back down. I walked around some more, then found
myself back looking at it again, pondering more. Yet, I put it back down. My
mother arrived and we proceeded over to Best Buy. I wandered around there as
well, and found myself at the DVD section of the store, and again, my eye was
caught by something pink. My riches were burning a hole in my pocket, and I
impulsively picked it up and took it to the cash register. I can still remember
the strange looks from my mother... (Why are you buying anime??
o_O)
I got home and stared at the DVD. Then came more pondering and
worry that I may have just wasted my money. Even though I could remember liking
it when I saw it before, I couldn't remember much about it and wondered whether
or not I would be beating my head on a wall within the next hour. Oh well, I
figured I could always give it to Liz as a birthday present if I didn't like it.
I popped it in the DVD player and sat back with a bag of chips. Over the next 75
minutes, I experienced happiness for the first time that weekend and relief that
I had bought something that was actually worth my money. And on top of that, I
was dying to find out what would happen to Yuki... would he and Shuichi get back
together? Would he go kick Taki Aizawa's ass?
The next day, I got up bright
and early and headed over to Best Buy again and returned home successful with
Vol. 3. I laughed as Shuichi explored cross-dressing, I fell in love with the
Nittle Grasper song 'Sleepless Beauty', and I became worried as Yuki started
coughing up blood. And again, there was another cliff-hanger ending. (Don't you
hate that?) So the next day I convinced Suzi's mother to drop me by Best Buy yet
again, and snatched up Vol. 4 and Vol.1, which gave me a grand total of spending
$80 in three days. But it was worth it. Gravitation had cheered me up when I had
been in the depths of despair (okay, a bit of an exaggeration).
A few
weeks later, I was at Suncoast with Liz, when something Gravitation caught my
eye again. But this time it was the manga. Again, I felt money burning a hole in
my pocket, so I examined the covers of the books and picked vol. 8. Well, you
know how the story goes, I got home, I read it, I became ravenous and obsessed
again and bought 6, 7, and 9 the next day. Of course, that wasn't enough, and
the day after that, 4 and 5 were added to my collection. A few more days passed
in which I could not make it to a store, but I eventually got my greedy little
hands on 1 and 3 (2 was sold out at Borders that day, and I nearly cursed at
every person working there as to how they could let someone NOT as worthy as me
buy it.) Later that weekend, 2 became mine, and turned out to be my favorite of
all. Two days later, I realized that book 10 had just been released and I clawed
my way back to Suncoast to get it. My Gravitation collection was complete so
far, and all was well.
Overall, in less than a month, I had spent $180
solely on Gravitation. Go ahead, call me crazy. I'll bite your head
off.
... And that my friends, is the story of how I obtained my lovely
Gravitation stuff. Sorry about boring you to death with all the details, but I
just had to get out my feelings on the matter.