Anime Which anime make you think?

[lostsoul612]

I love anime so I started looking at the bigger meanings in anime. For example life lessons, different ways of doing things or of thinking, or the connection between the anime and the real world.Basicaly I want to know what anime changed your life or way of thinking and why.

[visualkei]

You know what anime has a lot of life lessons in it? GTO, yes, Great Teacher Onizuka. Not just the anime, but the live action television series as well.

It's freakin hilarious in every scene, but in the end of each episode/story, there's a life lesson, especially for kids going through junior high, high school, puberty. All that **** that you make a big deal of, popularity, friends that don't matter, hate, pride, regrets, resentment, money, a lot of those things don't matter. Even the ones that you think are really personal. If you'll just let it go, and look at the big picture in life, you can be a lot happier. The anime shows you how some things in life are made overly complicated when it's actually simplistic if you look at life obstacles in a different light.

Anywayz, it's a good anime and tv series, it's fun, and I couldn''t stop laughing when I watched it.

[musical_kitten]

I'm not sure if anime has made me look at things in a good way. Now when I go to write I don't picture what I'm writing or what I'm going to write as if it were a movie with real people. I picture my characters as if they were anime characters and I picture the plot just as if I was watching an anime show. Its insane. I pick up the little things too, without knowing it, like the teasing and the tauntings that the characters from different books and shows throw at each other. Its funny in a sense cause one of my friends recognizes it and is constantly saying, "Hey, that's just like when this person did this thing in this book!" Or something like that. So I guess I learned a little, but probably not in a good way.:animeswea To me its just entertainment and something my mom hates. :animesmil

[Raiyuu]

[font=trebuchet ms]This thread is in the [b]wrong forum![/b]

lostsoul612, please read the [thread=52331][u]Otaku Lounge Sticky Thread[/u][/thread], paying especial attention to the part right at the top headed [b][i]Not For Anime[/i][/b].

*moves thread to Anime Lounge*[/font]

[AnimeHeroX]

[B][SIZE=4][U][COLOR=Red]Serial Experiments Lain[/COLOR][/U][/SIZE][/B] it makes you wonder if their really is a connection between the real world and the wired and what would happen if those 2 world ever crossed over. and could their be a GOD of the wired like theirs a GOD of the real world? That Anime really had me thinkin.

[PaganAngel]

[b]Chobits.[/b] That series made me think more than The Da Vinci Code. It was one of those things where you had to stop and reconsider all the morals you've been taught. What is love? What is acceptable love? Can you love someone even if they're not physically capable of returning the love? Can you replace someone you loved? Moreover, is it right to do so? These questions and more made Chobits a hit.

[musical_kitten]

I agree with you, PaganAngel - Chobits made me actually have to think while reading. I liked it for that purpose. Chobits is one of those anime's that's almost indescribable.

I also think that Fruits Basket made me think a little too... Or maybe its more of a wondering, like, why is this the way it is, why can't the author just tell us everything at once... But the way the people act toward each other makes me think of how different everyone is, and how many people can be.

[Andy]

[COLOR=DarkRed]Hmmm...Well I don't think that anime has really changed my perspective on life or how I live it, except that I do seem happier when I watch a certain anime. For example if I put in a certain anime dvd, where that episode was a happy one, like say something good happened or it turned out to have a happy ending, I would feel happy. Where as if it was a episode where my favorite character died or something of the sort, I would feel sad and possibly angry. So I suppose that anime can control my emotions sometimes[/COLOR]^^

[aoi_hikari]

Haibane Renmei, because it is really interesting, and things in the series can be interpreted in a number of different ways.

Also xxxHOLiC, because Yuko-san actually teaches life lessons, like:
-everyone has a different idea about what is good or bad
-words can hurt or set free yourself and other people around you
-you should try your best in everything you do
-don't drink too much alchohol, or you'll get bad hangovers :animesmil lol Yuko-san does this a lot

Fruits Basket made me think too, because it confronts lots of different issues (even more so with the manga)

[KungFuChan]

Noein !!! all that quantum physics talk.... have to pause and take it all in before moving on....

[Zerosaber]

An anime that I really liked that made you think would have to be [B]Kino's Journey[/B].
In this anime the main character Kino journeys to many countries, each with their own unique way of life. Most of these countries are pretty interesting, and make you think if it could happen here in the now. One example of this is when Kino visits a county where the level of ones income is based on how stressful the job is, but it isnt necessary for anyone to work in the country.

[AnimeHeroX]

[SIZE=4][B][COLOR=RoyalBlue]Betterman[/COLOR][/B] [/SIZE] - Who would ever thaught that an evil force could exist in the human body. and that it could be the key to the most powerful being in the universe but also has the power to destory all of existance. that anime also proved that when you die your soul is never really gone forever and never go to waste. espically if it's to save all of humanity.

[Fasteriskhead]

[quote name='KungFuChan']Noein !!! all that quantum physics talk.... have to pause and take it all in before moving on....[/quote]Noein's a fun little show. Coincidentally for the topic, the word itself actually translates from the Greek as "thinking" - although the ancient Greek conception of what thinking is is completely different from what we mean by that term (but I'll shut up about this lest I go on for ten pages). Most of the quantum theory there, by the way, should be immediately recognized by anyone halfway familiar* with the topic (I myself am FAR less than halfway) as gloriously impressive-sounding half-truths aka technobabble. It's good fun, it takes about four different competing theories of how at all "works" and mashes them together, thankfully going no further than that (I'm not sure I'm ready for a show that tries to teach me how to calculate a wave function). But actually, if we're really talking about what shows "mean," I think what Noein is ultimately saying has practically nothing to do with the quantum theory stuff it uses to puff itself up. The last episode makes this especially clear (and is, by the way, one of the best finales in recent memory).

As for the main topic: honestly, I'm not sure I could bring myself to watch ANY anime if it didn't make me think (or, better: if I'm not thinking while I watch it, I'm not really watching). But I should add that thinking here means something wider than just "deep pondering." Anime in particular seems to do much better when it's working itself out silently, letting the thinking [i]guide[/i] the action rather than putting it up front in a big talky scene full of "ideas." This is why Innocence is, I think, more interesting than GITS1; it's also why I felt a pang of embarrassment when Haruhi decided to spill its cards in the second to last episode. Anime is not at its best when characters are discussing theory of knowledge in the back of a car... and thinking is [i]never[/i] just limited to that kind of display.

Okay, forgive me, I've gotta do this.

Hannah Arendt: "To think and to be fully alive are the same." This quote is [i]not[/i] a recommendation for how to live; it does [i]not[/i] mean that in order for someone to be "fully alive" they've got to read Proust and be able to write out differential equations. Rather, it's a determination of [i]what thinking is[/i]. Thinking [i]means[/i] life; thought is then by no means some kind of "abstracted" measuring and calculating how the world is, even less a biological (or psychological?) process. Where we [i]think[/i] the most, it means that we [I]live[/I] the most. Where something is really and truly living, there we also find occasion for thought. Thinking always accompanies the moments where we experience life at its greatest heights. (which obviously doesn't mean that we have to be constantly going wild to be thinking well - sometimes the quietest moments can be the most lively)

In any case, if one can take any of the above seriously it means that the shows that "make us think" the most are necessarily always the ones most full of life. But that doesn't mean just being "exciting": a show can be as whiz-bang WOO EXPLOSIONS as it wants, and it won't mean a damn thing if I've forgotten it ten minutes later. The most thoughtful shows are the ones that [i]linger[/i]. They're the ones that follow you around and never let up. Perhaps they never actually go and "say" big important things about life lessons and philosophy, perhaps those images that stick in our minds are actually completely [I]silent[/I] about what they "mean," but still they haunt us and confront us at every turn.

For me, this was watching Evangelion back in high school (and the ghost of that first viewing is still around!). But I'm not really ready to talk about Eva yet, so I'll just leave it at that.


[SIZE=1]* FOOTNOTE! I offer this piece of advice: if you're going to study quantum theory AT ALL, you'd better do it in at least a halfway serious manner. It is so, so, so, SO easy to get caught up in some "nifty" concept that happened to come about as a result of the absolutely bewildering crap that happens in quantum experimentation without actually trying to work out where that concept comes from, what the difficulties with it may be, and how useful it is. There are too many good kids who've read three QT pages on wikipedia and now think that in an alternate world they're actually a jedi knight, or they think that their computer will cease to exist whenever they stop looking at it. Do your homework, folks.[/SIZE]

[Guest Dogwaffle]

EVANGELION!!!one

not many people actually pay attention to the religeous connatations in that anime(that's is why most people don't enjoy the true ending i.e episode 26 not the ova). once you actually realise the symbology in the anime, it begins to make alot of sense and it also tends to get even more disturbing then it already is.

(one must also realise that the author was going through a stage of depression when he wrote the anime).

everything down to the character names gets you thinking about this anime, you only have to do the proper research.

of course i doubt the viability of any "life lessons" that is taught by Eva, execpt that religion is scary, and the dead sea scrolls should not have been deciphered :animeknow [IMG]http://dragonnocturno.com/anime/imagenes/evangelion.jpg[/IMG]

[aoi_hikari]

[quote name='KungFuChan']Noein !!! all that quantum physics talk.... have to pause and take it all in before moving on....[/quote]
I watch Noein too. Because I didn't wnderstand the quantum physics stuff, I looked it up. When I did, I thought, "How is anyone supposed to understand this stuff??? It makes no sense whatsoeverl!!!!" This is partly because I haven't studied physics yet...
Yeah, 1 more anime that made me think:

Gundam SEED: Which side on the war do you really agree with? I mean, the Naturals are fighting because they feel threatened by the Coordinators and they don't like the fact that coordinators are superior in a lot of ways (of, course, this is the naturals fault for meddling with DNA...) Zaft is fighting the war because the naturals are trying to exterminate them and they have to retaliate, right? Both sides have their pros and cons, and it's an odd topic to debate about inside your head (actually, I do this)

[2010DigitalBoy]

Neon Genesis Evangelion, my personal favorite anime, definitely made me think. Okay, so when I actually watched it (in one giant marathon, and uncut b/c adult swim cut some stuff out) I didn't have any thoughts at all. I stared blankly at the screen with my mouth wide open through the last 2 episodes and just about cried as the answers to questions Id contemplated for months were answered.

Anyway, the next day I thought a lot. It really changed the way I look at life and gae me the idea that perhaps life is all in our imagination and stuff. It helps that I relate to the characters so well...

[Horendithas]

[COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]Most recently the one show I watched that made me stop and really think was [B]Now and Then Here and There[/B]. It?s about Shu a typical boy who is pulled into a strange desert world. Within a very short time he is drawn into a pointless war that really shows some of the true terrors of war like genocide, brutal torture, hunger, thirst, child exploitation and rape. It?s the type of show that makes you stop and think on how just insane war really is. [/COLOR]