Curling up in a corner with the anticipation and excitement of watching or re-watching anime is almost surreal. It’s like coming back home to comforting soul food after a long day at work.
“but it’s just cartoon…”, “it’s so over-rated and over-dramatic”, “it’s the saa-me”
If you’re mentally nodding at all or one of these statements and don’t really understand the hype going on with anime, this article is for you. Otakus, just let me know if all these points resonated with you or if I’ve missed something on why we all love anime so much.
Diverse Genres
First things first. Anime isn’t a cartoon and it’s not just for kids. Apart from conventional genres like Romance, Sci-Fi, Action, and Fantasy, there are also a lot of animes made on unconventional genres that don’t cater to everyone’s taste.
Bottom line, anime can have sappy, nerdy and “normal” stuff. However, some anime also have dark, messed up stuff that even most adults will stay away from.
Emotionally addictive
I won’t and can’t deny the fact that anime can be over-dramatic at times. For example, in almost every sports and shounen anime, there will be a heated battle royale scene in which the main character is about to face a humiliating defeat.
You’ll have the usual “mankind is doomed” evil laughter or smirk from the villain and the next instant, we’ll see the main character smiling.
The tides change swiftly and we’re left with a surprising “Nani?” (What?) from a
defeated villain. The main character then reveals the secret sauce behind their victory and the spectator(s) would go “Sugoi!” (Wow!)
It’s an over-used scene but the variations in which this “boring” scene is delivered, has an emotional impact and touches you. We all struggle to get through life and all of us want a rainbow at the end of the storm. Watching my favorite character win is the equivalent of a rainbow and anime has something that perfectly depicts all its colors.
Engaging Storylines and Strong Messages
It’s not just the fierce battle scenes that bring out the emotions. In general, anime itself is refreshing because of the versatile storylines. Simply put, there are diversity and individualism in the repetitiveness and mundaneness of animes. While some plots challenge our perception of right and wrong and promote a deeper thought process, a few others are message-oriented.
The most common message that is vividly or subtly relayed across all animes is, “don’t give up.”
Popular animes like Naruto and Fairy-Tail splatter the message directly through feisty and zealous characters whereas animes like Violet Evergarden put the message out there without any ruckus or compromise made on the effectiveness.
Personally, I think it’s a reflection of passion, hard work, and tenacity that is innate or acquired by these artists. Either way, all these animes tend to rub-off their fighting spirit on me and I can’t help but feel a bit fired up after watching such animes. Another reason to like anime more.
Crush-worthy Characters
I’m sure many of you otakus have crushes, a waifu list and what not. So, can we take a moment to appreciate how brilliantly each character is crafted and evolves throughout an anime?
I mean, it takes insane skill to create a character that humans appreciate, and look up to in some way.
Reliable Teachers
If you’ve watched a few animes, you’ll also see that the characters respect their
teachers a lot. Teachers are shown as competent, reliable role-models who play a decisive part in shaping a student’s future.
Sadly, both of the above practices were a bit surprising to me. I probably sound like a weebo but I had to include the last point on the list.
Yosh! (Alright!), this concludes the list of reasons I like anime. Do tell me if I missed any points.
Until then, Jana (see you later!)