*hello

I’ve recently been going through my long queue of animes that I’ve always been planning to watch, finishing Anohana, Angel Beats!, and Toradora! this past weekend respectively.

I adored Anohana. The winding buildup to the final scene was so worth the wait. I could empathize with the characters, because the whole series revolved around the development of the relationships between the characters and, of course, it brings back nostalgic memories of my own childhood. Other than that, I personally enjoyed the OP and ED music–they bring me to tears, now that I’ve finished the series. I feel like the expressions of the characters during the climax really captures the feeling that the viewer should be feeling at that time in more than one dimension.

“I don’t want this to end.

This bittersweet feeling. The relationships of the characters that I’m watching. This show. 

I don’t want any of it to end.”

This is the feeling of the Anime Escape, but I’ll come back to this later.

Like most others who watch anime, I immediately looked for something else to fill the void:

Angel Beats! didn’t affect me as much I thought it would. It was sad, but I couldn’t connect to the characters well enough to be deeply affected by the end. It seemed a little rushed in the end, and I didn’t really see the love connection in the end; it seemed so sudden. “That can’t be how love is supposed to be in this anime,” I thought. In all honesty, I really wanted to like it, but in the end I was sorely disappointed. I could explain further, but it’s apart from the actual point of this post.

Toradora! was different. As I watched, I suspected it to be another simple, cute high school anime with conflicted lovers, tragic stores etc. By the time I reached the end, I realized how far from the truth my initial thoughts were. It’s the most inspirational anime I’ve ever had the privilege to experience and decisively my favorite anime so far. I feel like I could be a different person after watching this and I’ll try to explain why.

Toradora! isn’t your typical high school anime love story. Personally, I think it’s captured the meaning and the feeling of love better than any other anime. Love isn’t always happy. Love isn’t always romantic. Love transcends such superficial things. Love accepts how things are and works from there on. Love is dynamic, growing, living, understanding, patient–it’s so much more than “being happy.” Most importantly and relevant to this story, love is equal.

Love is not only shared between lovers.

But also friends.

And family.

And even with that said, love isn’t everything either.

(SPOILER ALERT) (SPOILER ALERT) (SPOILER ALERT) (SPOILER ALERT)

The two characters that I admire the most in the end are Taiga and Ami, the two escapists.

I don’t think that Ami ever really felt love towards Takasu. She mentions late in the series how she’s jealous of Taiga–jealous of how she can be herself unapologetically.

Ami is running from her insecurities, so she wears a mask. Even as a model and the portrayal of the beauty in the show, she has her flaws. She just wants to be herself. Takasu accepts her even without the mask. It’s acknowledgement. She loves that Takasu can love her who she is, not who she pretends to be. This isn’t a romantic kind of love though; it’s just acceptance of people as they are–no masks.

Taiga was running from her family problems, thinking that love was the solution. She was relying on the love of Takasu to make the problems go away, but that’s not how things work in life. Even after Takasu loved her and accepted for herself, she could not reciprocate that same love if she wasn’t equal.

“Since ancient times, the dragon has been the only beast to equal the tiger.”

After seeing Takasu make amends with his family after hurting his mother, Taiga realized that she had to be equal. She loves Takasu, so she wants to be by his side as the Dragon and Tiger are equals. She can’t do so if she keeps running away from her broken family, so she faces her problems head on.

The picture that she sends to everyone has such a deep meaning as well. Earlier in the series, Taiga and Takasu had a conversation about how the stars look like they’re close, but are actual far apart. Taiga is the lone star. Despite the distance from everyone else, she refuses to stop shining–she’ll do all that she can to brighten up the night sky. Then one day, when she’s at her brightest, she’ll shine with everyone else.

She leaves school to fix her problems–leaves her one true love, Takasu–to become the Tiger that is equal to the Dragon.

I feel especially inspired by Toradora! Even without a love interest, I’m inspired to do my best. More than that, I want to do my best while being myself. I want to be like Taiga and face my problems head on after ignoring them for so long. I want to be like Ami and learn to accept myself. I don’t want to be someone who everyone thinks is nice. I want to be someone that people that I care about love and accept for who I am.

I’ll still enjoy anime in my free time, but it won’t be my escape anymore. I won’t back down from my problems and I won’t be afraid to be myself.

(Starting with this post. I’d never post something like this. I’m actually pretty embarrassed to admit how moved I was by a fictional work, but that’s just so much more of a reason why I have to post this. I shouldn’t be embarrassed.)