Anime: a place beyond reality

Li Yuxuan
Nov 14, 2016
4 min read

The unrealistic pulchritude of white clouds and blue sky, the adorable faces with crystal clear coloured eyes not drawn to scale, the cute and high-pitch voice that only exists in your dream... Yes, you are not in the real world. You are in another world beyond reality, a world created by this five-letter word--Anime.

Anime, a word that comes from its full form "animation", has been tagged specially with Japanese hand-drawn or computer animations. According to Wikipedia, the origin of anime can be traced back to the early 20th century. Through about one hundred years of evolution and development, anime quickly went beyond its own homeland and became a worldwide trend. Now, not only Japanese people watch anime, people all around the world are watching it. So, why do people like anime? Why do people like to experience another world with the self-realisation that they will never get into that world in the real life?

To answer this question, I would like to talk about why people watch TV drama series and movies. The reasons are rather similar. The reason why those drama and movies are categorised into entertainment is because they help people lay down their burdens from work and experience a sense of enjoyment. This enjoyment can be of all kinds. Some people enjoy horror movies because they are fond of the feeling of being scared and shocked. Some enjoy romantic shows because they can sympathise with the characters inside and they like the heart-touching feeling gotten from the shows. Some enjoy watching action films because they feel relieved after seeing those violent fightings. People watch TV shows and movies for all sorts of reasons, but in summary, they watch them because they find them entertaining or exciting. Same for anime, people like to watch it because they enjoy it, but there is one thing unique about anime, which is its ability to go beyond reality.

Of course, you may say that TV shows also can go beyond reality, which is definitely true. But anime does it in a different way. TV shows are acted out by real humans in real scenes or real enough background made by advanced Computer Graphics (CG) technology. However, anime, at the first glance, you are pretty sure that it is not real at all. Exaggeration is being used everywhere, especially on the characters, in order to show people that this is an anime, this is not what real world looks like. And it is because of its unrealistic graphics that more and more people become interested in anime nowadays.

The increasing popularity of anime can be partially explained by the changing lifestyle of nowadays society, which is also one of the many reasons that manipulate our preferences. Needless to say, our society has become more and more competitive. Everybody is carrying heavy expectations and everyone is striving to reach the pinnacle of his or her career ladder. Having this hectic lifestyle, it is not surprising to see that many people actually get tired of living in the city and prefer going reclusive to seek their own peaceful lives. However, the reality is here and it is impossible for them to really turn their dream bubbles into a concrete ball. Therefore, they finally resort to anime, which brings them into an unrealistic world in which they yearn for living. Their minds are temporarily detached from their heavy workloads and their emotions are totally integrated into the characters inside the story. After they finish watching, they feel refreshed and rejuvenated and are energised to take up new challenge in their real life.

Moreover, sometimes the story in the anime is too perfect. Then some people may set their goals according to these unrealistic perfect situations. There are two significant advantages of doing this. Firstly, since they know the situation is unreal and is impossible to achieve, they do not have the mental stress of not achieving the goal present there and hindering their progress. Secondly, since it is a perfect situation, they can keep progressing further and further as there is always space for improvement.

Nonetheless, we still cannot deny the fact that some people without self-discipline, may easily get addicted to anime and lose themselves in the non-existent virtual world. Even at their working age, they still stay inside their room all days and nights, not knowing what's happening in the outside world, not caring about their real careers or marriage or whatsoever, just staring at the screen watching those anime and then creating their unrealistic bubbles. They lost all their friend and forgot all their relatives. All they care about are those colourful 2D characters in another dimension. In fact, they have turned themselves into 2D characters as well.

Therefore, I want to call anime a place beyond reality. You never know the place beyond reality will be beneficial or pernicious. But one thing for sure, anime is like a flat world model laid over the real world you are living in, and by watching the anime, you are creating your own imaginary world in this unrealistic space. Your own interests and preferences become the tools to manipulate and modify various elements in this world and the entire setting is changed based on your own imagination and contemplation. In the end, after you finish an anime series, you have built your own world on top of the original story using your own comprehension and all kinds of figments. After that, you will get a sense of achievement and enjoyment by looking at the masterpiece you have created. Okay, now comes the important part which determines whether you will be overly indulged into it or not. If you can leave your masterpiece behind and return to your real world rejuvenated, you are fine. If you are not able to do so and decide to stay and live in your unrealistic dimension, you will be lost in that surreal space, beyond the reality, even beyond the boundary that can ever prevent you from derailing further.