Do you remember the first ever time
you truly felt a connection to something in an anime?
Was it a whole show, a character, a scene,
or perhaps it was just a single line?
One moment I remember vividly,
was when my grandmother passed away.
It was the first time in my life I really had to grieve,
and there were so many emotions I didn't quite know how to process it all.
It was then a few months later that I got to see "Summer Wars" for the first time...
and it was only then that it truly hit me.
Seeing the way this enormous family functioned together,
laughed together, cried together under the caring watch of a loving grandma
with such an eerie reflection of my family that I held dear...
it resonated with me so deeply that it actually brought out
the emotions I didn't quite know how to process before.
That was the moment for me.
The moment when you weren't just watching someone else's story on screen.
You were living it. He had lived it. You wanted to live it.
Part of it resonated with a fiber of your being,
and for a moment you felt a personal connection not to some person,
for something intangible that you were watching.
After I felt that for the first time, anime sees being something that could just entertain me,
but something that could also connect with me on an unspoken level that no person had ever done before.
*cute anime sound that I don't understand because there's no subtitles*
;-;
What got me thinking about this recently was when I got to see "A Silent Voice" in cinemas,
which I absolutely adored.
It's rare to see something that feels so intimate and familiar,
yet tackling very difficult issues in such a grounded and personal fashion:
suicide, social anxiety, bullying, disabilities, depression,
none of these are played as anything overly dark, dramatic, or tragic.
It's just portrayed as real. Which they are.
As while touching on these tough themes,
it manages to convey some of the most tender hearts warming moments in life
you get from finding the close friendship and reconnecting with people from your past,
because that's just the way life is.
Some days are fine, some days are not and
there's no on/off switch for these kinds of things.
You don't have to experience a tragic loss to feel like your world is falling apart,
you don't have to be in the middle of an epic story to feel like life is crashing at your feet.
Sometimes you wear a mask because you're not ready to let the world know that you're not doing okay.
And the people in your life you can seem the most fine,
are sometimes the furthest thing from it.
It was such a raw, delicate depiction of the most joyful and cruelest moments a person can go through,
and the amazing thing I felt while watching this film is that you realize
the smallest tragedies can come if you just let life play itself out.
Seeing something like this always leaves me feeling warm,
even if the topics explored weren't exactly pleasant.
It's like a cathartic realization that someone else out there gets it (gets you),
and it doesn't have to be any big emotional moment...
sometimes it's just a mood,
an atmosphere that has a familiar scent to it.
I left the movie with this heartfelt nostalgic feeling,
like coming home after a long trip and tasting mom's home cooking for the first time in forever.
It's this feeling, this connection that I managed to experience more so in anime than I do anywhere else,
and it's not just the shows or movies that come out, but also the people surrounding it.
I can't tell you the amount of times I've met a person in this community
he deals with similar issues that these characters have to live with on a daily basis.
No, it's not always dramatic, and no it's not always the people you think it's going to be...
but it is always so very real, and you'd be surprised how a medium can
attract so many people with similar issues, thought processes and experiences growing up
that goes beyond just a general interests of animation that comes from Japan.
It's like there is something quite different about anime that's hard to put into words,
but its appeal managed to attract certain people
and while I can't put down exactly what this is in a few sentences,
I will say that no matter how different our tastes are, or varied we are as people,
in order to like and appreciate some of the stuff we see coming out of this medium,
we all have to be at least a little bit weird.
Whatever that means.
If someone were to ask me what my ultimate goals are with the videos I put out,
people may think it's to entertain or to be funny.
But, in all honesty, is to connect.
Connect with a friend, connect with a stranger,
connect with someone I know, connect with someone I want to know.
Connect with all sorts of people from all walks of life in places I would never be able to reach in my lifetime.
Connect with you, and sometimes even connect with myself.
Because that's the biggest thing that draws me to anime.
Of course when I talk about connection, it's not always something you can relate to.
A series can just as easily speak to the person you want to be,
rather than the person you are now.
Put thoughts you've had on screen like you've never quite vocalize correctly,
or taken a subject and made you think about it in a totally different light.
How many people have related to the mental anguish of the Evangelion cast,
how many have been inspired by Simon's actions on his hero's journey
or gotten lost in the world of a Ghibli film.
The worst thing is, if we were to admit how intimately we hold some of these moments,
some people's first reaction would be to ridicule.
Like being real as a weakness that makes you an easy target.
How stupid is it for these dumb cartoons to actually have a personal effect on our lives.
How sad and detached from reality we must be...
but that's just it.
Some of us wanted that brief break from reality, and there's nothing wrong in that.
We built walls to protect ourselves from getting hurt,
shut the gate and threw away the key because it's safer to stay closed,
protected from the cruel words of a fellow human being.
But that's why it was easier to connect to a story or a character or an idea,
even if it's cheesy and childlike.
I always thought it was embarrassing when I looked back at my teenage self,
connected to a character like Naruto in a simple adolescence when I could cheer for the underdog,
because we saw ourselves as the quiet underdog.
But now it's not just a character who was there when I was a kid, but a character I've actually grown up with.
And as we grew older and learned that the world wasn't just a simple battle of good and evil,
geniuses versus hard workers, I never stopped yearning for this same connection I felt as a kid.
The more people I've met in this community,
the more I realized that we've all found something that resonated on a deep personal level.
And in doing so it's given us an opportunity to connect with each other,
which I couldn't be more thankful for now that I found the friends I never did in my teenage years,
when these animations were my closest connection.
We complain and joke about the common trends and cliche we see all the times,
but if you stop and think about it, this is one of the most varied mediums out there.
Which is why if anyone explores it enough, they are sure to find something that speaks for them.
There are the grand epic stories and bombastic gripping shows that grab the spotlight,
but there are also very personal tales and crazy artistic ideas being thrown around.
I mean where else can you say in one season you could be watching a show about gay ice skaters,
or historic royal battle, witches is in World War two, butt wrestling,
and a down to earth drama about dictionary making?
It's not always about writing the perfect story, or getting critical recognition.
Everything has his own voice, its own story to tell,
which could easily say something to you, because it's easy to forget that behind the screen,
behind every screen, isn't a callous machine producing stories, producing animation, producing content.
But it's a person. Someone with their own thoughts,
ideas and emotions they want to express.
Like you. Like me.
So look, if I had to sum up whatever points I was trying to make,
we all go through this strange love-hate relationship with anime as fans,
but beyond that, anime hasn't only been there as entertainment.
It's given me the friends I could never find growing up, kept me company when I needed a distraction from life.
Gotten me through some of my hardest times, resonated with all sorts of aspects of myself,
brought a community together that I genuinely love, and it continually gives me the chance to meet
and connect with new and amazing people that I never would have met otherwise.
And when I think about it like that, it's quite amazing really,
and I hope to God it's done something similar for you too,
as you shouldn't be ashamed to admit that.
Because for me at least,
that really is.
*music*