I started watching ''anime'' and reading ''manga'' in 2013.
When i came from DR to USA, i only used to be an anime watcher, by that time i considered naruto a cartoon. When my friends told me about the whole thing of anime/manga, i decided to read the manga. Then sometime later i became a member of NB (dec 2012).
Yeah same thing. Never paid attention to manga until Naruto, then again I never paid attention to anime until Naruto. Any anime I watched before Naruto, I thought were just other cartoons lel.
My first anime was Rurouni Kenshin but as someone said before I just thought it was a cartoon that used to show in my local channel's Saturday morning cartoon line up.
My first manga was Naruto however, as I started watching it on Toonami. I was so hooked that I began researching and realized that the anime was based of a manga by Kishimoto.