Rant: Anime

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Hey! Maveric here. 

Today I want to address one topic that not everyone talks about; anime, and how we live in a society where being an anime fan is more of a stereotype, rather than a brand we could be proud of. For starters, anyone of you, reading this now surely knows what anime is. "Japanese cartoons right?", well... You kinda somewhat get it. Kids from the 90's sure experienced how anime dominated the television during their time, and I am no exemption. True anime fans go beyond that. Watching anime to the extent of being obsessed with it, not just one genre alone, but the expansive medium as much as possible, and becoming a nerd in some cases may qualify one as an anime fan.

Now here comes the issues that go on with being a true anime fan. You could go around and be fanboys/fangirls of a mainstream celebrity and not get that much hate from society... Well except from a few haters that swing in a few times that might get on your nerves. Being an anime fan is a challenge. You have to put up with haters and flamers calling you "weaboo", stupid grown ups that claim to know anime but only watched one show their entire life, mainstream fanboys that roam everywhere claiming their anime is the "best", fellow anime fans, and this society's branding where "Anime is for kids". Being an anime fan instantly creates this virtual wall that separates you from the norms of this society. And by those "norms", you could see some people that "screwed" themselves up, disconnecting the links to this reality totally dedicating their lives to anime.

Mobile Suit: Gundam Seed Destiny

Being immersed in anime is a totally different experience. You get to see somebody's imagination at play expressed in the most astounding possible way of story telling that art has never seen in any other medium. That may be an exaggeration... But you get the idea. Well, not totally ignoring western cartoons and those big-ass studios with multi-million budgets at hand, but I could never care any less. They were meant to be targetted for kids, with weak plot and poor narratives to back up that poor concept and heavily milked theme compressed altogether. And seeing how this music industry is slowly crumbling in their standards(see my previous rant), even that aspect of musicality among these films gets its quality lost out of nowhere, making the effectiveness of our films drastically fall. And this is no joke. Everytime I listen to the main theme songs and BGM's of these "new" cartoons, all I could say is "meh..." . Now let's get back to the topic shall we?

Now this is where anime hits any medium hard. DIVERSITY. The anime medium as a whole is as diverse as the music medium, and can be executed with more freedom than actual films. The genres range from the tearjerking Drama stories that may spring Romance here and there, gruesome Horror and soul-taking Suspense, the ever-common Sci-Fi, Comedy, Military and Fantasy, the gender specific Shoujo and oversaturated Shounen, the hormone-stimulating bizarre Yuri(girl-to-girl) and Yaoi(men-to-men), and the brain-wrecking Psychological animes that make you question what you are watching. Pretty weird actually...

And when I say "weird", oh boy, we are just touching the surface. You have to handle some "anime tropes" and brace yourself from the Japanese culture shock. Even I was baffled when I first encountered Harems(one character, multiple "partners"), Tsundere, Yandere etc... And you have to prepare yourself from the Japanese vocabulary overload that gets repeated over and over, and you have no choice but to remember these terms for your convenience.

Plastic Memories

This anime wrecked my life. I cried so much from this scene.

And the next trouble is, what anime do you really want to watch? You could browse the web, listen to anime elitists and trust their suggestions and recommendations, but honestly, anime is so subjective that all of us has different tastes. That's one thing I could assure.

If your brain hasn't exploded yet, then I invite you all to watch anime... Oh no, not the most common and mainstream ones, rather, try watching one that is heavily regarded as a masterpiece. Never get intimidated by the usual branding "it's for kids" rather, watch it for that experience. My experience with anime has lead me to a roller coaster ride, from moments that made me sit at the edge of my seat raising my adrenaline to the highest degree, screaming "HELL YEAH!!!", getting my mind blown from the protagonists' cunning and genius mind, having myself educated from the culture of not just Japan, but other countries' practices as well, and down to covering my face with a huge pillow and a thick blanket sheet because my heart can't handle the too much sadness that's going on.

Umm.... Kindly give way to the shonen fanboys?

If you're still not sold, I don't know what will. I hope you too get involved with the medium. You might be surprised.