Adventures in Anime

Anime. First hearing about it, all I could think about was cartoons. I had no idea why any adult was obsessed with it. Sure, I enjoyed turning on Spongebob or The Amazing World of Gumball if I had nothing else better to do, but it certainly wasn't anything I watched religiously. Images of Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z flashed in my head.

I had friends obsessed with anime, telling me to give it a chance. After hearing about it from the internet for years and my friends bugging me about it, I finally caved. I opened Crunchyroll and found the first Anime that looked remotely familiar from a YouTuber's recommendations.

I lasted two minutes.

It was weird. It was a show about food, and the first scene was basically light tentacle porn. I didn't venture back for another few weeks.

I finally decided to try again after hearing all the hype about Yuri! on Ice. Not normally something I would watch, but the animation I saw on Tumblr looked beautiful, and the story also interested me, so I gave it a shot.

The first episode took some getting used to (without giving away any spoilers—Victor is a bit extra in the end scene). By the second episode, I was hooked. By Episode 10, I didn't want it to end. Alas, all good things do, and I spent the next week browsing Tumblr for anything related to Yuri! on Ice.

It was time to find a new anime to watch, but I had no idea where to start. I finally decided just to browse Crunchyroll's library and landed on Bungou Stray Dogs. Bungou Stray Dogs takes famous literary authors and turns them into super-powered heroes and villains bases on their works, an interesting concept (one that I did not pick up on being unfamiliar with Japanese authors). This was more my style than a romance anime.

I started finding all of these animes with really dark and brilliant story-lines. Joker Game is about Japanese spies in World War Two. Erased is about a man who travels back in time to himself as a child to prevent terrible tragedies. 91 Days is about a young man during prohibition who seeks to gain revenge for his family's murders. Death Parade is about the judgment of the dead and how people react when you try to bring out their darkest side.

Anime offers something for everyone. If you're like me, you'll find dark dramas to keep you captivated. If you like romance, plenty of stories there. Action and adventure? Got that covered. It's all about finding what you love. Don't like one anime? Try another!

The beauty of our world today is that we are exposed to so much literature, art, and media. All we have to do is go out and find out what we like.