When I was 14 years old I went to my cousins' house one time and they'd rented three anime. This was the '00s, and anime was like "cool" but wasn't quite socially acceptable to be a weeb.

At this point my entire exposure to anime was like, Pokémon, Digimon, and packaging at the Asian grocery. My cousins told me this was like, more "grown up"; they'd gotten Ninja Scroll, Princess Mononoke, and an Evangelion Episode.

I was a dweeb and terrified of breaking rules (and also kind of averse to sex and violence), so I hid in the basement for Ninja Scroll, but by the time it wasn't quite over I decided I was gonna get over myself, so I came up just in time for Princess Mononoke.

I was in love. Immediately.

I was completely fucking entranced.

And then I saw San spit blood out of her mouth, and something clicked very deeply inside me.

I thought, "That's me."

"That's what being a woman is, that moment, and I'm that."

I remember crying a little for most of the rest of the movie. All the moments I'd spent as a little girl, confused and dysphoric, not knowing what was happening, suddenly made sense.

About a week later I went home and googled something like "How do I become a girl?" I found a small website run by a trans woman that talked about hormone therapy. I cried myself to sleep for weeks.

Fun Facts, the Evangelion Episode, which I also stuck around for was 16, the one with Leliel, where the references to LCL smelling like blood and Shinji introspecting about his mother are particularly prominent, as I recall. You know just for deep association bonus points.

I got really into GitS after that. It's kind of shocking I didn't wind up being more of a weeb, really.

I know this shit probably sounds like a weird joke but I broke down crying writing this thread