Thursday, January 9, 2014

Find Your Flaws Using Anime


What good is a perfect character anyways?

Throughout my days of watching anime and being an otaku, I've seen that being perfect in a way, is flawed. Few people would be interested in watching a character who goes through life without any form of struggle or trouble. We love characters who are flawed because we can relate ourselves to them.


The one word you hear mostly when it comes to fictional characters is development. That flawed character of ours has to progress in some way right? Similarly to humans, characters change and grow during the series. These changes can be for the better or worse. Again, the same happens with humans.


I'm sure everyone who watches anime can relate to at least one character. There's one that stands apart from the others. You feel the same emotions as them, react the same way, maybe even share personalities; but they're almost like an alternate version of you.

Hold on a minute! They're not you...they may act and feel like you, but they aren't actually you. So how does this even relate to finding flaws?

Well, through interacting with and watching this character you start to discover more about yourself. You find that certain things bug you, while others don't. You discover that you may pick up things the character does that aren't really great, and later find yourself doing the same. Flaws may become more obvious when you examine yourself from an outside point of view.

It's not completely about losing yourself and becoming an anime character. It's not something that preaches relating to a character is bad or such. It's about developing yourself and finding your flaws through a character you relate to.

4 comments:

  1. Just found your site. Really interesting post! I never thought about it, but it's true. When I really relate to a character, I usually can't see their flaws for some reason. It's only when I hear/read a comment about the character by someone else that I notice things like that. Like I'll read something like "Character1, being [bad quality] as usual" and think "Wait, Character1 is [bad quality]? I didn't think so...Well, maybe a little". But I never really thought about it until now. Generally when I do notice character flaws in characters I relate to, it's because in spite of generally relating to them, the flaw seems out of place, and I can't understand their reasons for being that way. It might only work that way for me though.

    Keep up the good work!

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    1. Thank you for reading!

      I think it's hard for us to see our own flaws as we can't really see ourselves from other people's perspective, but looking at an anime character (or any character you might relate to) helps us accomplish that. I'm glad you were able to realize something from my post!

      Arigato Gozaimasu, Ganbarimasu!
      (Thank you, I'll do my best!)

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  2. VERY interesting... I have to say, nobody has ever defined a "perfect" character as well as you just did. I think that anime characters are even easier to relate to than some characters from novels, in a sense.

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    1. Yes, and sometimes fictional characters can be better role models than people we see everyday. I enjoy reading as much as the next person, but being able to see the characters alive and animated is great!

      Thank you reading!

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