I wrote a few weeks ago about how I believed I’d “cracked the code” as to why Japanese animation is so compelling to people around the world: it’s all about the emotions. From boy-meets-moe love stories to anime series with involved love triangles, and even stories that make you taste the sadness of losing someone you love or jealous rage through the characters on-screen, there’s something special about the way anime pushes our emotional buttons. One anime I’ve enjoyed recently is Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, an extremely realistic series about a young girl and her brother who are caught in a devastating quake in Tokyo. The story is about how Chihiro Mirai grows as she is spirited away to a magical world caught in world of death and destruction, and you really feel the fear and confusion in the characters as you watch them deal with great adversity, like Tokyo Tower falling down around their heads. Other forms of media have their emotional highs and lows, of course, but I think there’s something about the way the Japanese combine character, setting, and unique visual elements to really make you feel the story in unique ways.
To me, anime is at its best when it conveys strong emotions.
