Gaming was one of things that opened anime up to me. It's hard to be a fan of Japanese RPGs, especially in the 90s, and not to get some small contact with anime, be it on forums or in attractive and flamboyant character designs. The two pursuits seem to go, to a point, hand-in-hand; so it's only natural that fans of, say, the Fullmetal Alchemist anime will often buy the games, or fans of the Gungrave game are attracted to the anime when it comes out.