Happy New Year! We all know what that means… it is resolution time! And what is most peoples new years resolution? Well according to statisticbrain.com two of the top five resolutions are about health and fitness. “I would like to get healthier and lose weight”. Admirable goals. Now beyond talking about the obvious things wrong with a statement like that, (e.g. not specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, or has a timeline), I would like to focus on where anime, cartoons and even live action movies can mislead you and make it impossible to achieve your resolution. What we should not learn from anime:
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Kuroko, was the phantom six man from his junior high basketball team, where the players were so good they were regarded as “The Generation of Miracles”. An apt description since there is a guy on the team that is a %100 shooter… from anywhere on the court… that’s right, anywhere… That’s what makes the show really fun though is some of the ridiculous things these players can do, and then in turn how the other team has to overcome them. Each of the six players from the Generation of Miracles can do something unique and amazing. They are so good that it starts to push them apart, and changes the way they feel about basketball; except Kuroko.
Prepare for the glass shattering effect. Remember that episode of How I Met Your Mother, where Ted pointed out to Marshal that Lilly chews loudly and then Marshal couldn’t not notice it after that, well I’m about to do that for western television.
Why are so many Young Adult (YA) books getting turned into movies? For me it comes down to the stories that get told in YA books. Some of the most fun and creative stories come out of this category of books. It is one of my favourite genre’s for this reason. They become so popular because they are accessible reads, meaning anyone from a child to an adult can read them and find something in them that speaks to them. Everyone is a young adult at some point and the struggles that these characters go through are therefore very relatable. Children and young adults can relate to how they are currently feeling and adults can remember back to that time in there own life. This makes it a powerful genre for hitting a huge audience, and when there is a huge audience for something obviously the next step is to transition it to film. So why do so many of these films flop?
Click here to After finally catching up on Bleach last week (a show I had put on hold watching for a very long time) I feel I am now caught up on the most popular shounen shows that are out there. It’s been a wild and enjoyable ride. Because of this, I decided I would take a break from the “What we can learn from Anime” articles and rank these shows in order of my most favorite to least.
Hunter X Hunter is a “hero’s journey” story about a boy trying to find his way in the world. It’s filled with awesome fights, a really cool and smart power system, and a very memorable cast of characters. This is one of my favourite animes of all time. There’s so many great moments and ideas in this show. I’m going to focus on one that comes up right at the end of where the current show has ended. The show is about a young and very talented boy who is set on following in his dad’s footsteps to become a “Hunter”. In this world, Hunters are gifted people who are licensed professionals. Their fortes can range from killing monsters, to archaeology, to cooking. The main character Gon was abandoned as a small child by his father who left to become a
Hunter. In “Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon?” the main character Bell’s largest driving force is to catch up in strength to the girl that saves him in the first episode. He forms a crush and due to this quickly begins to get stronger, and stronger. How can we apply what we learned from Bell to our own lives?
Watching anime may seem frivolous to some, but to me it has been anything but. These shows have allowed me to look at the world from different perspectives, given me insight into the human condition, and sparked many creative, psychological and philosophical ideas. There is a lot more to this medium than pure entertainment. It is an art form that allows the telling of stories that could not be told in any other medium. It is a place where a creator’s true vision can come to life and be shared with others.
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