Anime Needs To Have More Mature Characters
Seriously.
This thought came to me as I pondered how to improve the currently airing Kanamemo. I realized that the structure of the story – the female main character, upon the death of her grandma who doubled as the parental figure, goes off and without meaning to, ends up working as an apprentice in a business – almost exactly matches the recently completed Ristorante Paradiso. That show was one of my favorites of the Spring season but Kanamemo got dropped for being so lousy. So what’s the difference that caused the disparity between the two?
I could fault Kanamemo for including characters like the loli-obsessed yuri girl and praise Ristorante Paradiso for including interesting characters like Luciano but that wouldn’t get to the heart of the matter. The difference – I realized – is Ristorante Paradiso packed their show with older men and these men, because they’ve lived a longer time, have accrued interesting and varied life stories that influenced their actions and made them great and unique characters.
I concluded then the way to improve Kanamemo was to include some older characters – maybe change it so the paper is run by an elderly couple that are working hard to keep the paper going even when more and more people turn to digitally getting their news. I’m sure there are other improvements one could do but just changing this one thing makes this show sound much more interesting.
My mind wouldn’t stop there, I started to think about other older characters in anime. The first show that came to mind was Ghost in Shell: Stand Alone Complex. For all it’s sleek, cyber-infused future, the character that just oozes coolness isn’t the Major or Batou but Aramaki. With a simple look he could stare down a criminal or just as easily, out-maneuver a government bent on shutting him up.
Or who could forget the granny from Dennou Coil
Or Takeda Shingen from Sengoku Basara
Or the detectives Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple from Great Detectives Poirot and Marple
And I could go on – I didn’t even touch any of Miyazaki’s movies – but I think I made my point. Anime needs to have more mature characters (and American animation too – just look what Pixar did with UP.)
Posted in anime, anime rants/views, general anime interst
