Anime | Synthetic Opinion

I've been thinking on doing a synthetic opinion on my favorite anime, but then I thought that talking about the whole medium first would make a bit more sense. So, anime, is it good or bad?

Let me start by saying that I've grown up with both cartoons and anime simultaneously. Granted, I noticed the different drawing styles, but at the time there wasn't a clear distinction between them, even though there is, both story wise and music wise. As a consequence of this unclear difference, I always feel like I need to explain this to people that don't watch anime ("because it’s just cartoons" they say), it is not just cartoons, show me a cartoon where there is a decapitation or a child being impaled in the first episode and I will show you ten, even tough you most probably will not find any, anime on the other hand has, quite a few actually.  

With this I don't want to say that anime is good because of heavy violence and blood, no, it's good because it is not afraid of doing what it needs to, in order to give a compelling story, something that even movies aren't doing, near enough that is

Now, with that confusion out of the way, let’s talk plots. What was the last time you herd of a time machine inventor that meets a future girl in the present and falls in love with her just to find out later that it is his daughter? That is the type of complexity filled with glorious symbolism's that i love in a good, effective story. Of course, the example i just gave is over simplistic, both to make a point and to avoid spoilers of any kind. The fact is that it makes a point, good stories, out of the ordinary, original and beautifully drawn, only in anime.

Concerning music, a lot of the most epic and phenomenally well composed music of the last couple decades belongs to anime without the finest shred of doubt. Just search some mainstream anime soundtrack and be amazed with the quality and feeling in each note. I will post a top ten of my favorite anime tracks in the future so you can appreciate the magnitude of some personal favorites of mine.

Keeping the subject of sound, I love the Japanese language, the emotion it transmits in every word is something that both my mother tongue and English can't even grasp. I refuse to watch anime in any form other than Japanese. Concluding, it's quite special to hear a good anime, you will recognize what anime it is just by hearing a few seconds of a note or voice from whatever anime it is, that is a sign of good sound design and good anime.

But where anime truly shines is in the characters. There aren't two characters like each other in any anime, they might look similar, maybe have the same kind of back story or even act the same, but they never share more than one aspect at the same time. The way you root for the characters is quite unique too, you really wish them to succeed in their goals either good or bad characters, which leads me to villains, villains are just awesome, deep, developed, with set plans and filed with feelings and tragic back stories that usually accompany villains and heroes alike, which enriches heroes since they can exceed the difficulties of their environment, but also, gives villains a reason to get back at the world and not be bad for the sake of bad.

I will finish by saying that I acknowledge the fact of my vagueness in this opinion, however I tried to resume dozens of anime series in this overall opinion, which in such a diversified medium isn't easy. With that being said and to resume, the five reasons to watch anime are, the subjects are presented if necessary regardless of taboo, wonderful stories, absolutely perfect music, truly great characters and above all, the lack of fear the creators have of doing what they feel is necessary to deliver all of the above to you in the most flawless way possible.