12 Days of Christmas – Day 6 – Image
Seeing as how I’m about to finish grad school here in another 5 months, one of the main things that has preoccupied my thoughts is how I will be able to get a job. As a result, it seems like society has certain expectations of me when it comes to things like my hygiene, clothes, and appearance in general. Damn you, society. And at one point in time, I thought that even my sanctuary of anime was in cahoots with society to get me to become more presentable. But due to some recent anime, and (more importantly) general life experience, I see that this isn’t the case.
First, don’t think that I don’t believe in good hygiene. Being semi presentable on a regular basis isn’t a bad thing, and there have been plenty of anime that have depicted this line of thinking over the past few years. One example that quickly comes to mind is the Genshiken OVA episode that found Madarame so out of his element in a fashionable department store. The rest of the episode was, more or less, devoted to the idea that people could have their “weird” hobbies, but could also put effort into their appearance (an idea that was reiterated throughout the rest of that series). Unfortunately, that episode probably didn’t hit home with me as much as it probably should have for a couple of reasons.
First, it aired over three years ago, so I was understandably in a different stage of my college career with a totally different mindset. Secondly, it seemed that the show was, in a way, making me choose between the things I liked, like anime, and things I didn’t want to waste much time or money on. Now while this is obviously not true, I got that feeling when watching Genshiken. That’s why I’m glad that this past year there have been some really good shows that tackled this issue without tackling anime in the process.
One instance of this was in Psychic Detective Yakumo’s sixth episode. Though there wasn’t anything truly unique about this episode, one of its subplots focused on how Haruka needed to better present herself to others if she wanted to get a boyfriend, and its timing with the circumstances in my life made me take note. Now, you could debate that there is a difference between attracting potential boy/girlfriends and potential employers, but there are a lot of similarities, even if the end goal is markedly different.
I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I can come up with these realizations on my own time, but it is still nice to see that some shows, like Yakumo and Kuragehime, do recognize these issues, and attempt to provide real solutions (forgetting about the ghosts and such in Yakumo). Now, did the lack of an anime centric storyline in these series make me take note of these themes? Or, taking the reverse approach, would I have noticed these shows a few years back when my state of mind was completely different from what it is today? I can’t really say for sure, and I suppose that over time I’ll probably reorganize my thoughts on the stuff in this post, but the message nonetheless is clear. We all change, and hopefully we change for the better.
On that note, I’d recommend catching up on Psychic Detective Yakumo if you haven’t been watching, as it’s a well crafted, fast paced story that is definitely worth your time. Of course, if you haven’t seen Genshiken yet, I would be obligated to question your anime watching credentials.
