It's now that I remember that I first learned of KH from a commercial when I was about 12 or 13 for KH:CoM for the US.
At the time, I thought it sounded really stupid, and then I forgot entirely about it.
Then, a couple of years ago, I actually did well in school, so my dad said he'd buy me $70 dollars worth of video games as a gift. Now, I'm not a real gamer, so I had no clue what to buy. I asked the associate what to get, and he recommended Kingdom Hearts- the first one. So, I bought it. I started playing it, and didn't get any further than Wonderland, 'cuz I was horrible at it, and so I gave up.
Then, last year, I went off to college, and I met my best friend, who saw that I had KH and went completely nuts, saying that she had never been able to play the game because she didn't own it herself, and she couldn't actually go over to her friends to play it often enough. So, she asked me to play it with her, and so we did, turning it into a bit of a competition.
And from there, our obsession for Kingdom Hearts and everything to do with it started. Ah... good times, good times.