Things I've Learned from Anime

First, I guess I should start off with an apology. The last couple of posts have been kinda haphazard. I tried my hardest not to make them rants, and yet the main point was kinda to rant, so it all was in pieces. I'll try to get things a bit more coherent.

Anyways. If you don't know what Anime is, it's a broad classification of romance, comedy, action, horror, philosophical, visionary, melodramatic, stupid, ridiculous, and insane things. In short, it's Japanese cartoons. Several have made their way to the US, including stuff like Pokemon, Naruto, and Spirited Away, but who could forget the stupidity that is Dragon Ball Z. Suffice to say that if you think all Anime is like that, you're sorely mistaken. It would be like trying to collect all American movies and categorize them as "American". The style varies from studio to studio, and since it's animated the content is a varied and limitless as the animation. Everything from realistic drama to giant battling mobile suits with beam swords, Anime's got you covered.

The key thing about Anime is often its themes and/or style. It is extremely distinctive form the American style, although The Avatar on Nickelodeon has done a very good job at imitating it. Also, a common trademark in more comical ones is the expressions are distilled into very specific things, like a single sweat drop to illustrate nervousness. Also, a common feature in many Anime is large eyes, since the Japanese culture has a fascination with eyes and their ability to convey emotion and character.

Enough with the background.

So, some fun things I've learned form Anime.
1) The protagonist will always have a secret past. This isn't completely true, but it's something people like to use as a plot device. Something about the history of the person will define something about the current period of their life that we're watching. Whether this is a latent superpower or an explanation of whey they react the way they do to certain situations, the past makes a difference. Of course, to counter this, a common theme is also being able to break away from the past and destiny in general and to be yourself.

2) Your body can take it. For example, Bleach seems to think the human body has about 3+ Liters of blood that you can lose, and still get up and use your super powered move to finish off the bad guy. Or, how about several instances where people undergo intensive training and eventually become super powered over the period of about 1 year or less. Note they never break a bone or anything during all of this. Weird.

3) When the going gets tough, be sure to have friends. Now here's a theme I can get behind. The support of friends is awesome. Period. Mudd takes advantage of this by often times forcing to rely on your peers for homework and projects. And usually people do a good job of helping each other. Anime sometimes takes this to a whole new level. Basically, if you beat up the protagonist's friend, suddenly they get all pumped up to defend their buddies. So, if you're a bad guy, remember to kill the main character first, then gloat, then kill the friends. Hurting friends will mean the main character will suddenly get a power boost as if they ate a Mentos or something and then commence to beat you down.

4) Family is important. Sometimes people get confused when Anime makes such a big deal about family. This applies to not only relationships, but also to family history. Often they have to deal with something that their father or predecessor has done. However, to the Japanese, family is extremely important. There's often even a sense of debt to your parents for raising you and caring for you. The extreme case is the family is more important than the self, a theme that crosses with honor of the family name. Relationships, especially broken ones, are often a key and central theme in many series. Finding a family is also important, whether it be comrades or blood relatives, the idea of a family unit being together is important.

5) Only teenagers can pilot giant mech suits. OK, make that angsty teenagers that are maladjusted. See Evangelion. On second thought, don't. You might not be prepared for the insanity of the series. This is more of a LOL point. Most likely this theme appears in certain genres since they are geared towards middle school to high school aged kids. And let's face it, the time of change during High School is perfect emotional fodder in general.

and finally 6) Serialization is a bad idea. Trying to continue a series for to long usually ends in fail as the makers try to keep topping themselves with more outrageous characters or abilities and situations. First season they stop a nuke? Well, next season let's have them stop an entire insurrection. Then the national army. Then... ALIENS! You get the idea. The good ideas may still pop up every now and then, but usually they become so sparse it's not worth it anymore. I guess the same rule applies to this blog. Eventually, I'm gonna run out of good ideas to talk about. Then I'll have to try and write some random gibberish, or only talk about current events. Merp. That would be sad. I'd become a reporter. And it's not like I live an exciting life with robots and ninjas and cute girls everywhere... wait... I do live a life with robots and ninjas around. Now I just gotta get myself a cute girlfriend. A girlfriend with a mysterious past that will unlock my latent superpowers.

Heh, that would be hilarious.