When Anime Has That Personal Connection
By Yash Srivastava
Picture this, you’re on the last episode of an anime, you have watched the characters grow, the story progress, certain ships have concluded, some haven’t, some storylines ended, and some are still left open-ended. You listen to the ending theme one last time, turn the screen off, and go to bed., or at least try to. You are hit with an overbearing sense of something being taken away from you, you feel almost as if there is a hole in your heart, like you’ve lost something.
I cannot be the only one who has sensed those emotions. The first time any piece of media makes you feel like that, you feel almost stupid. “Why did I get so attached to this piece of fiction? I have a real life and responsibilities that I need to attend to, but still, why do I feel this way?” I remember the first time I finished watching Toradora and just missing my old friends; watching an anime about high school once you are out of high school is quite surreal. It’s amazing how much of an effect an anime with a personal connection can have on us. This is unlike an objectively good anime like Your Name or A Silent Voice which was always meant to move you emotionally. Concepts like love, friendship, and self-forgiveness which were the main plot points of the two movies are universal things that all of us have experienced in some form, but niches hit way harder.
You might’ve found a random show while scrolling the depths of MAL, maybe it was a show that reminded you of your high school life, a music show that re-kindled your love for music, you get the idea. It is the personal connection that we form with the show that makes us fall in love with it, which is why sometimes recommendations from your friends about an anime that they liked may not hit you as hard or vice versa, it just did not have that personal touch. A friend of mine liked Your Lie In April way more than I did just because he is a pianist and even though that anime hit hard for everyone, I imagine a musician would get way more out of it since they can appreciate it more and might even discover some easter eggs that non-musicians wouldn’t notice. I would go as far as to say that one of the main reasons I like cooking way more than ever is because the visuals of food in Shokugeki no Soma ignited a spark in me, and the music in Your Lie in April heightened my appreciation for music in anime.
But one show that has had a major impact on me is Oregairu. The medium that anime uses is writing. We are introduced to the protagonist, Hachiman, a pessimistic teen boy. His perspective of the world is something a lot of high school kids could find themselves believing since he has a distorted view of friendships and a generally critical view of youth. Following Hachiman’s journey, we look back at our old selves and laugh, but to someone who never had that experience, the anime might just be boring.
Maybe you find yourself more aligned with the boys in the daily lives of high school boys, maybe it reminds you of your goofy friend group back in high school that you still miss and wish to reconnect with someday. Even a sports anime can induce equally strong emotions, especially for the athletic people in high school, there is something for everyone.
I would recommend Your Lie in April, Angel Beats, and Oregairu as shows that you might enjoy watching and that might bring out something you might’ve hidden deep down in your heart. Maybe once we start watching media for the sake of personal fulfillment and satisfaction rather than the objective quality of the writing and focusing more on what we as individuals gain from it, that is when we are truly, liberating ourselves and regaining parts of our lives that we thought were lost forever.
