Lessons from Anime
In recent years, my daughter has introduced us to anime. We've grown to love some of the shows and it's funny how references from them crop up in our lives now, as family jokes.
Before we even had children, my husband used to watch things like Dragonball Z. If I wasn't working, I'd catch the occasional episode myself and they were fun enough to watch, but nothing that caught my attention particularly. So when my daughter talked us into watching some shows with her, I was expecting something similar. Yet over time, I've been quite impressed by not only how enjoyable they've been, but how many of them seem to be teaching the audience something on morals and ethics.
We enjoy animes that make us laugh the most, as an escape from the stresses of life, but there are plenty of serious ones which can make you think about situations in life that aren't always as black and white as we might like them to be. If you've ever seen Attack on Titan, you'll probably know what I mean. I don't want to give the plot away because the revelations as you move through the story are what makes it such an eye opener. What I will say is that you may never look at war in the same way again and be sure who the good guys and the bad guys are.
Attack on Titan image courtesy of Wallpapercave
We see animes that like to tip our usual beliefs and concepts upside-down by looking from a different perspective. Mairimashita! Iruma-kun (Welcome to demon school! Iruma kun) is a fun one that does this. When Iruma's irresponsible parents sell him to a demon, he expects he will end up being killed, but instead, he becomes the happiest he's ever been and makes friends for the first time in his life.
These kinds of stories remind me how we often judge people by what others tell us before getting to know them ourselves. A common tactic used in war time is to dehumanise another group of people in order to rally their own people against them. If they are demons or monsters, then you aren't killing other people, you are merely saving you and yours from inhuman creatures. We've seen propaganda used in that way multiple times in history.
My daughter and I recently watched 86. You could see parallels in this anime with how the Nazi regime declared the Aryan race as the superior people. In the story, they (the white haired Albos) did this in order to dehumanise the people (coloureds) that they were sending out into the 86th precinct to fight and die to protect them in the inner precincts from AI fighting machines that had gone rogue. They even called the fighters drones so that they could disassociate themselves with them as they directed them in battle, often to their deaths.
An anime that really got me thinking recently was Overlord. It was fun to watch and certainly made us laugh, but you felt torn on some of the ethics in it. The concept was a player, Momonga/Ains, who was in an online game that was being shut down. He had made some good friends in this game and decided to stay logged in until the end when it was taken off-line, for old times' sake. However, instead of getting booted from it when it goes off-line, he finds himself trapped there or transported to a world with the non-human NPCs his guild created. The NPCs have become sentient and revere him as their overlord and guild master. He is stuck in his gaming form, which is that of an undead skeleton, and finds he's formed more of a connection with this guild of monsters than the humans in the world they're in. While he initially saves a village from being slaughtered by some bad people, he does so more because he knows that was what one of his previous gaming friends would have done, rather than because he felt any empathy towards them himself. This village comes under his protection from then on, but he seems to view them more as his pets than as people. His guild sees humans as inferior and the more he disassociates with humans, the less concern he has for them and is ultimately encouraged by his guild to slaughter innocents in order to gain complete obedience as he becomes the ruler of this world.
Overlord image courtesy of wallpapertag
On one hand you are cheering him on when he wipes out some terrible people like they are nothing more than ants, but on the other hand you are pleading with him that the innocents in the city that he has just destroyed didn't deserve to be punished along with them just to set an example. You long for him to regain some empathy towards these people that you, watching from both sides, have gotten to know as individual.
As a gamer, we know that things are virtual, so we happily go around killing things in a game that we wouldn't if they were real. We might choose to be an evil character in the game and part of what we do to advance and gain reward would be doing bad things; things we would never do in reality. I feel like the Overlord story plays on this, exploring what it might be like if this gaming scenario became a reality. I'm curious to see how future seasons will play out. Will he regain his empathy for humans or has he completely become inhuman himself now?
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It is wonderful to hear how anime has become not only the main source of entertainment, but also a medium for exploring important themes and life lessons within your family.
I'm sure your family is well acquainted with the entertainment.
There are certainly some very talented writers for manga and anime, to get you thinking in this way.
My eldest daughter loves Anime, I've yet to watch with her, although she has asked me too. My first impressions from watching over her shoulder briefly, was that the animation is very fast. I'm happy to get your perception of it. I'm really intrigued now xxx
There really is something in anime for everyone. If you think of all the TV show genres we have, they have that same variety for anime. From comedy to action and slice of life. Also slightly suss and not family friendly, but we avoid those 😳 We tend to like the reincarnation in a fantasy world type for the escapism and comedy. Hubby has had quite a few deaths in his family over the last few years as well as job issues, so we go for uplifting as much as possible. Our all time favourite has to be TenSura (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime). My daughter has Rimuru (Slime) plushies everywhere! 😆 That's another one coming from the point of view of the monsters which aren't really monsters at all.
You'll have to let me know if you take to any. I'm curious now as to which ones your daughter likes.
Oh yeah, about happy killing in games and who the real evil is, that reminds me two situations from World of Warcraft.
First is the whole series of quests involving killing bandits from Defias Brotherhood in The Deadmines. Only later you learn that the band was founded as a result of government corruption and betrayal of hard working people that helped to rebuild Stormwind. They had no choice but to rebel.
Second is even worse. There is a race of humanoid walruses in Northrend. Players choose to do quests for them mainly for one reason - once you gain their complete trust, you can buy epic fishing rod from them (gives you nice bonus to fishing, underwater breathing and some more bonuses). One of the quests involves killing nearby wolf-like humanoids and kidnapping their pups, so they can be brainwashed and raised as warriors to hunt their own for the benefit of their kidnappers. But no no no! It is not like that. The kidnappings are for the good cause. The Wolvar adults are too hell-bent on fighting peace loving Tuskarrs, so they can't be saved, but the pups can survive otherwise inevitable extinction. 😉
That first one is a crafty one. You think you're doing the right thing until after the fact. It reminds me of a dilemma in a game (I don't recall which one) my daughter got me playing a while ago where you have to choose to save your kid, but sacrifice a craft full of strangers, or save the strangers and sacrifice your kid. Naturally we tried out both endings to see what would happen. 😆
It also reminds me of One Piece. The government is often not to be trusted there either. I haven't been able to keep up with watching it, but my daughter often comments on the parallels with it to real life injustices.
Well, I think I'm glad that you learnt something from the game. Judging people based on what others told us is wrong. It us better to make proper research instead of mere assumptions.
Judging them ordinarily won't be nice at all
There are really many anime that can have teachings or have quite complicated approaches in the moral and that leave us much to think about, 86 was an anime that I liked a lot and really the parallelism to the past of humanity where many times other people have been belittled even making their death irrelevant is very strong.
86 was really well done. It was sad in many ways, but heart warming too. It came to a good conclusion in the end as well.
It is common for some anime to leave us with lessons as they usually scrutinize the values of friendship, perseverance and the tireless struggle to achieve one's goals.
One that particularly touched me in that sense was Naruto, although it is a very famous anime for its fights, it teaches us a lot about how to deal with conflicts in which there is no clear solution, something that serves us for the day to day with our friends and family.
Agreed with regards to Naruto. I love that he never gives up on reaching whatever goal he's set himself, which includes saving his friends. I haven't managed to get back to Naruto Shippuden, so I've not completed it. Sadly everyone else seems to have given up on watching it, so I may never see how he saves Sasuke.
Many recent animes ive watched, including manga as well usually starts with being isekai’d. Being transported to another world with different rules on a whatever setting the author could think of. Makes me wonder hoe people would truly react if it was to happen in real life. Would your values and virtues remain the same? Or willing to adapt, change and give up those values in accordance with the new rules.
Haha, yes. How many animes start with them getting hit by a truck! 😱
That's actually a really good question. After all, you are shaped by the world and circumstances around you, so you'll surely need to change to some extent in order to adapt and that would likely change your values.
Haven’t watched anime for ages 😵 the only ones I have seen from your list is Dragonball Z (which I hated) and Attack on Titan (I got too bored of the gore before I had a chance to get into the story).
And then despite my opening sentence we did watch My Neighbour Totoro recently with my parents, which made me feel like I want to watch more stuff but time is a thing aaaahhhh.
It’s cool that you have a thing that you all do together 😄
It funny you say that, because my daughter was just going through some names of films she wants to watch with us and this was one of them. 😆
With Attack on Titan, the theme and the gore put me off watching it for a long time. It's certainly the story that makes it. You have to try not to get too attached to any characters, though.
I do love the Studio Ghibli movies XD
And yeh I know everyone dies at the beginning, middle and end in Attack on Titan (kind of figured that would probably happen from the first few episodes after seeing what it was all about) XD
I've never seen anything that makes me an important lesson in life but I really like something that makes me more meaningful
This anime will make you curious how you enjoy this anime so that you can learn important lessons both good and bad it is something valuable, especially when a child sees it will definitely lead him more to the good and my hope is that your favorite child can always understand about anime and bring him to the better
My prayers for you @minismallholding and healthy family are always there
How nice to meet people who like anime. It is not that I am a big consumer of them, but there was one that marked my life since I was a child, maybe you have heard its name: "Saint Seiya" or "Knights of the Zodiac". This anime series left me deep lessons that I'm sure have shaped many moral aspects of my life, such as the value of friendship, the meaning of justice, the role of the gods in humanity, the power of persistence among other things.
Some time ago I published a post where I describe extensively how this anime, which, by the way, is a classic of classics, touched my life. I invite you to watch it, as well as to read my post.