Happened upon it on late night tv once on the sci fi channel.

Actually, it was a vocaloid song that I first heard a long time ago, Tori no Uta by Lia (covered by vocaloid IA). I loved the song, and up until then I thought anime was just some kind of weird animation style that no one cared about. But then I found out that this particular song was the Opening theme to an anime. So, I looked it up, and I came across the movie Air.

I have been obsessed ever since, and I still love both the song and the movie.

I just found Dragon Ball Z on my own and i've been hooked on anime ever since

My best friend at the time kept nagging me to watch Naruto which I really tried to avoid because I thought Naruto looked pretty silly (and anime in general).....
....then I watched it.... became addicted to anime, and Naruto still to this date is my favourite anime :)

Erm...how about both Myself AND my best friend/cousin? i mean,i know now that i've watched some animes (Sailor Moon,for example) that i liked when i was a kid but NOT realize it was actually one,until i saw my cousin watch an anime on Animax (if i remember right it was Shang-rila...? or K-on!),watch with her,then afterwards getting an answer of what it actually is...so yeah.

Yup.

It was kinda by chance that I picked up the Legend of Zelda manga, and that spiraled into a bunch of other manga, which spiraled into FullMetal Alchemist.