I became a fan around mid/late 2002.
I was bored one day, and was looking at stupid fan made music videos of Final Fantasy (my favorite video game series of all time, btw
). One of the music videos had this absolutely amazing song, I was playing the video again and again and, little did I know, they actually credited the artist of the song at the end of the video. It was Ayumi Hamasaki - Fly high
So, I looked her up and came across songs such as A Song for XX, evolution, Endless sorrow, Boys & Girls, Depend on you, M, Far away, SEASONS. Every song by Ayu I discovered the more I thought I just came across an artist who's special. At the time, RAINBOW was coming out in a bit and I decided to buy it, I couldn't stop listening to it, it was, and still is my favourite Ayu album. I then bought "I am..." and after listening to that masterpiece I decided Ayu was my favourite artist, So I began to buy all the albums she had out, remix albums and a few of her DVD's. From that point I never turned away from Ayumi
How did it feel? Well, pretty amazing. I found an artist who wrote amazing songs, there wasn't one thing I disliked about her and everybody I knew had to endure me talking about her constantly and had to put up with her amazing music everyday.
I'm also grateful I discovered Ayu. She was the first Japanese artist I discovered and after Ayu came a ton of other Japanese artists I found and in turn, came a severe decrease in my interest for western artists.
I'm very happy I became a fan of Ayumi Hamasaki, she was, is and will be my all time favorite.