My mom told me about the show, since she knew that it was popular in Japan (if you're curious WHY she knew this, my mom's side of the family lives in Japan and she contacts them about once a week). Since I had JUST run out of ideas of anime to watch, I decided to watch the first episode on YouTube. I instantly loved it and finished all the episodes I could in about a month (It was around the Shiratori/Kobayashi episodes that I finished most of the previous episodes). So then I started reading the manga when I could online as I waited for the next episode. And that's about it.