It Started with One Piece and Naruto

Sometimes I wonder just how the trend started. The strange trope for shounen anime and manga that I don't know exactly how to classify it. I guess it's better to explain it. So, One Piece the manga/anime about Luffy the boy who wants to be King of the Pirates, and Naruto the boy who so desperately wants to be Hokage. 

It's this, the theme of a protagonist who wants to be more, they want to be in a position of power. I can name a few other anime that follow this trend, Fairy Tail, Magi: The Adventure of Sinbad, Blue Exorcist, Attack on Titan & Boku no Hero Academia to some extent and Black Clover as of recent.

These anime are popular shounen anime that follow that trope where the main protagonist is actually over powered, but has 0 skill. Or that can access their power for some reason, that or they don't know how to use it powered or to it's fullest potential. On top of all that because they are underestimated and looked down upon they have this urge to be in a position of power. Did I mention that they're almost always orphans or they have one parents or their parents die early in the show, what's with that? 

These anime thrive on the power of friendship, having self confidence by believing in yourself, and essentially never giving up.

The motif is so strong that it's sometimes so overwhelming it makes the anime corny. The attempt at making it relateable by having an underdog who has to rise up and doesn't know his true potential, and learn from his mentors and friends. That just becomes the whole anime with the plot kind of woven in there to give it subtext. They just throw it on there like "here's the plot, but it's really about friendship." Now I'm not saying that this makes the anime bad, but knowing this set up can sometimes make it boring because it can become predictable. Friends become villain, villains become friends. The protagonist is always awe inspiring, and revving his friends up for the give fight. These characters are most times loud obnoxious, and super overzealous.

Earlier anime, I can't really remember if they ever had this trend of the young boy wanting to be in a position of power.Those anime often had the lone wolf trope. The main character had their own demons they had to solve and even though they were surrounded by people they were always alone. It seemed like they purposefully isolated themselves to some extent. Some examples of the lone wolf types are Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, YuYu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, and Beserk. Somewhere during Naruto that would be Sasuke, in Sinbad, Darkon, and Yuno would represent the sullen lone wolf in Black Clover. 

the late 90's and early 2000's there was a shift in the theme. I know that around the time of the lone wolf anime the 'cowboy' was a pretty big thing, especially with Clint Eastwood around, and thus the emergence of these types of characters. Though when the shift happened, the lone wolf became the secondary character within the new trope. In

It was almost as if the artist decided to stop focusing on the lone wolf type and instead on their funny friend who is sometimes comedic relief.

Now can i tell you why the trope changed so suddenly, not really, they were probably just moving with the times. I guess it's just that I'm waiting for it to end, that's assuming it ever will. The trope was one of the reasons why I couldn't finish anime like Fairy Tail and Naruto Shippuden. (Of course there are other reasons this is just one of many).

It's also why I struggled to watch Black Clover. It just seems so over done and played out. Of course this is just a personal opinion. Boku no Hero Academia is amazing though!

Anyway, I'm going to go watch anime!

The Perfect Waifu

She doesn't exist. Haha, just kidding she exist... in your imagination. 

Alright on a serious note all waifus are perfect, in a subjective way. Unless they are actually perfect then, it's objective and anyone who disagrees is wrong. But they are perfect the same way a husbando is.
Now what is a waifu? Well if you're new to the word it's our weeb slang for an anime character we consider to be a significant other. They are treated with the utmost respect, and one isn't supposed to commit any kind of sin against them. Like sins of the flesh.

I see you, put your lotion away there.

Some people take the waifu and husbando relationship seriously and others take a more casual and
lenient approach.

If you know anything about Korean pop culture a waifu and husbando are the equivalent to an ultimate bias which is just the person that surpasses all others and means more than all others. You can only have one though. (At least that's what I've been told). The waifu and the husbando are important to the otaku culture. I think the best part about them are the fact that they give us unrealistic expectations of actual human beings. Isn't it great?
I'm kidding again. Obviously.
The importance of the waifu and husbando is that regardless of them being real or not, they have certain characteristics that most of us find desirable, thus we'll all probably find great significant others.

As I said, waifus and husbandos have certain characteristics. They are normally very supportive, and loving (sometimes maybe too much), they push and motivate you to never give up. They strive for to be the best possible you. Sometimes testing you, showing that you can truly achieve greatness.

I'm tearing up thinking about the perfect waifus out there.

Now there are different types of waifus and husbandos, they all fall under a 'dere' type. There are 14 types of dere. Oujidere, Himidere, Tsundere (Type A), Tsundere (Type B), Dandere, Deredere, Kuudere, Yandere, Kamidere, Undere, Bodere, Sadodere, Hinedere, and Mayadere. As you can see there a lot, I'm not going to explain each one, so I'll leave a link (Dere Types) that'll do that job.

I'm a Tsundere (Type B) just in case you were wondering. Maybe a Kuudere (Coodere)

One of the best things about a waifu is they they can be from any form of media, not just anime and manga. The idea of one makes the term relatively inclusive, because they are fictional characters. As long as they have the characteristic I mentioned before, they can be a waifu/husbando.

There are people who believe that having a waifu or husbando prevents a person from having a real 3D relationships, which is not necessarily the case. There are people who have both and it doesn't make the person any less committed to both relationships. Of course there are those who take the idea of the waifu too far, but hey, if they aren't hurting themselves and/or others, well do you be you.

All in all, your waifu/husbando is your and thus the relationship is yours. However serious or casual
you go about it, is up to you. They are perfect always.

I'm going to watch anime now!

Junji Ito's Work Should Have Been Left Alone

LOOK y'all I don't know if you've read his work, but he's made some horrifying creations. They're amazing and the stories are quite chilling. I often find myself absorbed unable to stop reading them. I wonder what's going through his mind as he writes manga. To some degree I believe he has to be just a little twisted to come up with some of them. 

Now recently, his work has been made into an anime titled The Junji Ito Collection. It unfortunately is not that great. It's actually pretty disappointing. For some reason the episodes lost seriousness and became comical, which is something I doubt he was trying to do in his manga.

Now here's where I think it went wrong within the art, and animation. I'm not an animator just so you all know, so I don't know a lot about the process, but I feel like based on my many years of consuming the product, I think I can tell decent animation from, well, not decent animation. So that you all know my scale I'll tell you which anime did animation extremely well in my opinion and those that didn't. (Side note: Just because the animation sucks doesn't mean I didn't like the anime). Kiznaiver, Castlevania, and Kakegurui were some anime I thought had great visuals, exceptional to be honest. Anime that I thought could have done so much better, Ajin, Aku no Hana, Quan Zhi Gao Shou, they are really good so I definitely recommend them, but their animation and art style is pretty awful.

I don't think that The Junji Ito Collection is close to the art and animation of Ajin or Aku no Hana, but it wasn't Kiznaiver, but a lot of anime fall into that category, you know somewhere in between. So what's the problem you're probably still wondering, I personally didn't think it was clean, and not in the sense where it needed to lose that grittiness if had, but I feel like because it was animated it should've had that hyper realism. Somewhere in the realm of  Attack on Titan. I know for a while the art style and animation of AoT made it a little terrifying to watch. If The Junji Ito Collection was like that it would have gotten under my skin so much more. There were a few stories like that, like, the one with the jade stone with the holes, but I'm sure that's because it played on a phobia.

Take the episode with the model who was obviously a creature, for example, if that were hyper-realistic, I would have been disturbed tenfold. On top of this, the music didn't help set the mood for the show. The opening theme was upbeat and dance-y, it wasn't misleading, but knowing how psychologically horrifying his work can be, the opening just seemed inappropriate for the anime. There is one anime that comes to mind when I think about appropriate music for the horror and gore it provided, and that's Elfen Lied. That opening theme, Lilium, although I like the song, it gave me goosebumps and to this day I can't hear it without remembering a scene where this girl got her limbs ripped off. But I digress. The music missed the mark completely.

Isn't the magna terrifying 

Like I said I'm not an animator, but I also want to let you all know I'm not a voice actor either. I didn't have any qualms with the voice acting except when some of the characters expressed fear. It kind of reminded me of Scooby Doo, I'm sure that was definitely just me though. Overall I liked his stories in manga form, but watching them, I was disappointed. They were lack luster, with the exception of a few.

If you on the other hand really enjoyed the collection as a whole, please don't be afraid to let me know how I wrong I am to dislike it. Maybe you'll change my mind.

I'm going to go watch anime now!

Why You Need to Watch a Staple Anime

What is an anime staple? Ha, well, it's one of those anime that is a must. That shapes the way one ends up watching anime growing up... or not, but they are normally shows everyone should watch. They would be in the "anime starter pack" if you were trying to ease someone into their new life. I'd consider them to be important, they're often pretty big hits, and have more than 12 episodes. Oh, and sometimes get reboots, sometimes. 

Some anime that I would consider to be staple anime would be Yu Yu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, Cowboy Bebop, Cardcaptor Sakura, Inuyasha, Trigun, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Dragon Ball/DBZ, Pokemon (but not really, and I'll explain why later), Ghost in the Shell, Ruroni Kenshin, Berserk, Hunter x Hunter, and Mobile Suit Gundam. There are even some more recent anime I'd consider staples, like One Piece even though it came out in 1999, Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, and even Wolf's Rain.

In regards to Pokemon being a staple and yet, at the same time, not a staple, well, the thing is with this anime in particular, its target audience is young children and prior fans that have basically grown up. Even then the anime itself is really for the older fans. And I'd say they care more about the games than they do the show. So for someone who hasn't watched anime before, the last thing you'd recommend them would be
Pokemon, but because it had and still has such a large fan base with young children and prior fans because it was and still is such a big hit, it makes it staple, to some degree. 

I personally believe that a staple anime takes a while to become one for some years and that's why newer anime, regardless of whether they fit all the previous criteria I mentioned earlier I wouldn't classify them as a staple. Think of it as the criteria a place has to fit before becoming a national landmark. If you've never watched any of the anime mentioned above, don't worry that doesn't make you any less of a true anime fan. No one is gonna gate keep you. 

They're just highly recommended anime, the originators of the tropes. They've paved the way for other anime, and besides they're all phenomenal in terms of animation for their time, character development, and plots/concepts. Take Sailor Moon for example, I'm pretty sure it was one of the first, if not the first magical girl anime and now that genre is pretty huge. The clothes transformation sequence can be been in other magical girl anime and not even just that. Mobile Suit Gundam gave other anime like Neon Genesis and Gurren Laggan the opportunity to explore the mech genre as well.

Staple anime just have a way of always being relevant. Remember though all of this is just opinion based, and my ideas of what makes a staple anime could be very different from what yours or someone else's are. The staple anime I mentioned earlier are also subjective, if you have any anime you think should be considered a staple for the "anime starter pack" feel free to disagree in the comments below. 

I'm going to go watch anime now.