General Anime Thoughts Part 1

We all have our own thoughts and ideas about what we like.  One of these things that we can like is anime. Whether we are a huge anime fan or someone who is interested in learning more about it, and/or teaching a class, or classes, about it, we all have our own thoughts and ideas as to what anime is.  Who we are, as well as what we experience, also influences our thoughts.

For example, who I am now is a monk who lives in a monastery.  No one would really expect a person who decides to be a monk to also be a person who is into anime.  The thing about monks is that we are still people, just like everyone else, and we have lives before deciding to enter a monastery.  Before entering the monastery is when my interest in anime started. To be precise, this interest started in high school. I went to the high school where I teach now, and besides working in the monastery, I also work in the high school on our property.  I also live in the monastery now, not just work in there. Everyone who decides to live in a monastery for the rest of their life has to bring who they are, as well as what they have, to that particular monastery. What we do with whatever we bring to this monastery is what matters, and I try to do that with the anime class I teach by what I write (and talk about with this writing).

The point of this writing is to use my own thoughts, in written form, to help me express my thoughts about anime in general.  What I have written in the following pages of this book is what I think about anime.  For example, I prefer dubbed anime over it being subbed (doesn’t mean I hate subbed - means I like dubbed better than subbed, although I think it definitely depends on preferences). The main reason for this is that I like learning more about anime by listening to it, not just seeing it (why I also prefer anime to manga: I also happen to know more about anime than manga in terms of series).  It’s easier to listen to anime when you can hear what is being said instead of following along with subtitles. I also think dubbed anime is more realistic. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, Dragonball and Dragonball Z, Kenichi, and Avatar are examples of anime that I like. I consider Avatar an example of what I would call Westernized anime, meaning it is more than just a simple cartoon, but not really traditional anime (I do not know if this is already a term - I just happened to come up with it on my own).   Yu Yu Hakusho is my favorite anime, so I have written more about that one, and the character analyses are examples of characters that I like.     

This writing is not meant to create debate amongst anime fans as to what is good and bad about anime, especially since I do not like doing that myself (easier said than done - we all need to be honest with ourselves about what we say and do).   Discussing anime is also better than just arguing about it because discussing anime, like discussing anything else, is how we can learn from each other. For example, I do not know the history of anime and am not interested in knowing the details of a particular anime series, like who created it, the number of episodes, how it is broken up, etc.  I have nothing against knowing these things. I just like analyzing anime in a different way. If we disagree with something, then let us just talk about it, agree to disagree about it, and move on. So let us move on now with this introduction with my observations of anime, starting with reflecting on, and discussing, what I have written so far with the help of the following questions.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. Who are you, and what do you experience in your life?  How does this influence your thoughts, including those about anime?
2. Do you tend to be an agreeable or disagreeable person?  Does it depend on what is being discussed, like anime?

Five General Anime Observations

1. The Power of Music

The power of music is something that can make you think, or feel, a certain way about something that has just happened, and anime is definitely no exception to this.   Certain music usually starts at certain points throughout the anime. For example, when something bad happens, or is about to happen, the music usually reflects that. Music can also trigger emotional reactions, known as giving you the feels (“the feels are real” is a common statement), which are important to talk about, and not hold back, like the popularity of anime music.

A really interesting thing about the power of anime music is is the popularity of it, especially opening songs of anime.  It’s not unusual to see anime fans sing the opening songs of their favorite anime with a deep passion. Knowing the words doesn’t matter.  In fact, this is usually done with opening songs that are not in English, or are a combination of Japanese and English.  I also believe video images with these lyrics is what makes these songs so popular. They are like genograms, which are simple drawings used to explain a situation in a counseling session. Although, like genograms, anime openings, and other soundtracks, need to be explained since they are not the explanation itself. For the most part, the power of music can be seen in the rest of my anime observations, as well as the rest of this class, which is why I start with this one.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. What do you think about the power of music, not just in anime?
2. Reflect on your favorite anime opening song, and/or soundtrack.  What do you like about it? What does it mean to you?

2. The Power of Friendship

It’s safe to say that this is the most obvious thing that can be seen in fighting anime (and anime in general, but definitely ones with fighting in it).  In fighting anime, having friends to fight for is what gives anime heroes the upper hand in fights. Even when the hero is losing, they just have to remember that there are people who believe in them, and/or that they just have to say something about this, and all of a sudden, they start winning the fight.  This can be seen in many ways, including in the anime that will be analyzed as this class continues.

One of these other examples can also include the enemy purposely harming the hero’s friends, even to the point of trying to kill them.   The hero needs more power to defeat the enemy, but doesn’t know how to get this power, even if they have it already. It usually takes witnessing the death of their friend(s) at the hand of the enemy, or preventing this from happening, for the hero to unlock/find the power needed to win, even if that means the hero has to die in order to do that.  There are also examples of this in the anime that will be analyzed as this class continues.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. Does friendship give you power?  Why or why not?
2. Would you will be willing to die for a friend if it was the only way you could save them?  Why or why not?

3. Human Sexuality

I would be foolish if I just ignored the fact that anime does not talk about anything sexual in nature, especially since there are anime that focus on this, as well as a vocabulary that seems to focus on sexual terms, including the concept of perversion, which is seen in most, even in ones I analyze.  I would be equally, if not more, foolish if I did not address this issue in terms of human sexuality. Sex is one thing. Sexuality is another. I strongly believe that sex education, which is not the main purpose of this class, cannot, nor should not, happen without talking about human sexuality. Besides, human sexuality is an issue in anime as well (that's how I understand all of the sexual content of anime - I am obviously not into that, but at the same time, it's obvious that I know about it since it's pretty much something difficult to avoid).

The biggest issue in human sexuality involves human identity.  This is not only an issue in anime because it can also be seen in our lives, especially in the time we live in now.  It seems to me that coming out as gay, lesbian, or however you identify yourself in terms of sexuality is a big issue now, and more conversation about it is happening now.  That needs to be the case in both our lives, and in anime. Knowing more about how people identify themselves influences how we should treat them, and behave towards these individuals.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. What are your thoughts about human sexuality?  Have you ever thought about this before? Why or why not?
2. What would you do, or how would you react, if someone you knew well came out as gay, or lesbian, or had some other kind of sexual identity issue?  Explain your reaction.

4. Forgiveness vs. Revenge

Another important idea that can usually be seen in anime, and life itself, is the idea of forgiveness vs. revenge.  From what I notice, revenge is usually the path people choose instead of forgiveness because revenge is easier. Forgiveness involves not doing something about what has just happened, so revenge is a better reaction, at least it is at first, and is what people tend to think. Revenge usually doesn’t work out from what I notice when it isn’t planned out.  Revenge only works out when you take the time to think it through, especially when you already know more about doing it. Forgiveness doesn’t need to be planned out before doing it. It just needs to happen. Forgiveness not only involves doing something about what just happened, but also choosing to not take revenge. A good way to understand this is to see forgiveness and revenge as two sides of the same coin.  You can only choose one side, so what side would you choose? More about this will be seen as this class continues.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. What are your thoughts about forgiveness and revenge?
2. What side of the forgiveness and revenge coin would you choose, and why?  Would it depend on what happens? Explain your answer.

5. There’s More

There are obviously more things that I have seen in anime based on what happens in it, but I would need a lot more time to talk about what they are (that also includes writing - if I wrote everything I thought, I would constantly be changing this writing and adding more to it).  Instead of doing that, I will talk about something called the Time - Space Box, or TSB. The TSB is a way to understand what you see. Inside this figurative box (not an actual box, except when you use a box to demonstrate this) is explanation.  Meaning can only exist outside of this box. Meaning can be explained, but explanation cannot have any meaning that exists outside this box. There are many ways that this can be seen in life, including in thoughts about anime. For example, when main characters in anime make decisions, especially bad/foolish ones, it can usually be explained by the fact that they are at the age where executive functioning, or decision making, skills aren’t developed (main characters in anime tend to be children or adolescents).  Meaning isn’t needed for this, or for any other example, but it can be seen if you look into it, and want more than an explanation of why it happens. This can also be seen as we analyze anime in this class, but before that are more questions for reflection and discussion.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. What are your thoughts about the TSB?
2. Give an example of something from anime that we have either talked about already, or haven’t done, and use the TSB to understand it.  How would you define this in terms of the TSB? Explain your answer.