The Unreality Makes Me Feel Real—Why I Love Anime
What touches me most about anime in the 2D world can be summed up in two words: purity.
When watching anime, we don't think about people in reality, and we certainly don't think about human nature. As we all know, human nature is neither absolutely good nor bad.
When we watch stories told by 3D characters, we naturally project them into reality. The themes conveyed by film and television works are generally idealized, which creates a gap between ideals and reality.
But anime is different. The 2D format has no natural intersection with the 3D world. The kindness, gentleness, courage, innocence, and other traits of anime characters—or the idealized themes they convey—do not cause even the slightest sense of disconnect for us. We don't feel that an anime character is too fake or that they don't exist in reality, because their non-existence is a fact in itself.
The non-existence of anime characters perfectly blends with the non-existence of pure human nature (being entirely good or bad).
I wasn't very interested in the 2D world before. One night, out of boredom, I watched a highly acclaimed and classic Japanese anime film. After finishing it, I didn't have any particularly profound feelings. I understood the plot, the characters' personalities, and the various themes the film expressed. I thought it was quite simple—just the kind of trivial matters we take for granted in real life.
However, there was one thing: when I was immersed in the film, I could feel a sense of being healed, briefly escaping real life and entering the pure 2D world. This sense of healing was real, perhaps because of the anime visuals, or perhaps because of the purity of the anime characters.
I think that if I grow to love anime in the future, it might be because my real life isn't going as well as I'd like, and anime can provide me with a brief yet real sense of healing.
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Have you ever been deeply healed by a certain anime? Feel free to share your stories~
When watching anime, we don't think about people in reality, and we certainly don't think about human nature. As we all know, human nature is neither absolutely good nor bad.
When we watch stories told by 3D characters, we naturally project them into reality. The themes conveyed by film and television works are generally idealized, which creates a gap between ideals and reality.
But anime is different. The 2D format has no natural intersection with the 3D world. The kindness, gentleness, courage, innocence, and other traits of anime characters—or the idealized themes they convey—do not cause even the slightest sense of disconnect for us. We don't feel that an anime character is too fake or that they don't exist in reality, because their non-existence is a fact in itself.
The non-existence of anime characters perfectly blends with the non-existence of pure human nature (being entirely good or bad).
I wasn't very interested in the 2D world before. One night, out of boredom, I watched a highly acclaimed and classic Japanese anime film. After finishing it, I didn't have any particularly profound feelings. I understood the plot, the characters' personalities, and the various themes the film expressed. I thought it was quite simple—just the kind of trivial matters we take for granted in real life.
However, there was one thing: when I was immersed in the film, I could feel a sense of being healed, briefly escaping real life and entering the pure 2D world. This sense of healing was real, perhaps because of the anime visuals, or perhaps because of the purity of the anime characters.
I think that if I grow to love anime in the future, it might be because my real life isn't going as well as I'd like, and anime can provide me with a brief yet real sense of healing.
---
Have you ever been deeply healed by a certain anime? Feel free to share your stories~
