This is the thread where we all share our stories of how we first got into Ringo/Tokyo Jihen.
For me, it was at the very end of April/beginning of May 2002, after my friend Ashley posted the lyrics to "Identity" on a lyric blog both of us were working on at the time. I was a sophomore in high school, this was about 5 years ago (in fact, I'm coming up on the anniversary! XD). Out of curiosity, I downloaded it off the now-defunct Audiogalaxy.com and loved it. I quickly downloaded more, including "Honnou" (another immediate love), "Gibusu" (that one took some time), "Koko de Kisu Shite" and others. It was quite a ragtag bunch of songs I got at that time, actually... (like "Sigma" and "Mellow")
I slowly gained more and more songs, and would try and catch the Ringo block of PVs at J-pop rooms at anime conventions, but I didn't care to go gather all her stuff for a while. At the beginning of summer 2004 I purchased "Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana" (a year after its release), the first album of hers for me to own, and listened to it in my car driving to work; I loved it.
Later that year I was surprised to learn she had formed a band and they had already released a single, "Gunjou Biyori." My thought was, "Well, if she's stopped being a single artist, she's still releasing awesome songs, so who cares!" This drove my interest into higher gear and I started trying to collect more older B-sides and other things I didn't have already. In November of 2005 I launched my lyrics website and joined the Ringo Jihen forums and eventually became a real member of our little community! The rest is history...