I like all that is related to fantasy (books, games) so I stumbled on the Otome term while searching for romance mods for Baldur Gate 2 (back in 2016) . My opinion is that even if its an RPG game it is a bit weird to finish an entire game without developing "relationships" with your party members. I mean in the game world you are risking life and limb for an epic quest and at the end your party has very little to talk about. But I digress, so here I was looking at various mods when someone mentioned the Otome games. I did not know what the term meant then so I searched again and I stumbled upon Hakouki and I thought why not give it a try. I mean it had almost everything I like (sword battles, demons). The first route I played was Okita (I don't know, in this role Morikubo Shotaro sounds like a big cat :) and it was so interesting listening to him). I did not know Japanese back then so you can say I like listening to him.
In the Hakouki however I fell in love with Kazama route and when I read about the Drama CD I started looking for a drama CD with Tsuda Kenjiro and my first Drama CD was Kurayami Gatari Youen Ibun. That one was scary :)
You can say that Otome Games were the last catalyst for me to start learning Japanese.