Hello guys and welcome to another weekly post. I hope you all had a good start to 2021. Has everyone been following your New Years resolutions? You know, for me I see New Years as a way to branch out and try new things for the year. I’ve done exactly that by watching anime for the past few days. It’s a new form of entertainment that I have just started watching, and this post is all about the film techniques, language, and other things I have noticed while watching anime.

So I have been watching 2 different shows this year. These shows are Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma and Boarding School Juliet. Now I have watched other anime’s before. I’ve seen shows like Naruto and Haikyuu. Now these shows all have something in common. They are all part of a genre of anime called Shonen. Shonen anime is geared towards boys the ages of 12-18 (my age). So first lets start with what I have noticed in each of these shows. 

In all of the shows I’ve mentioned so far except Boarding School Juliet, I have found a very common and recurring theme. All of these shows follow the same basic plot line. In the first season, the main character has a goal, and gets extremely close to that goal before failing. In season two, the protagonist is distracted by a sudden plot twist, in which another antagonist will show up, probably to try to change the theme of the first season. It is interesting how they all follow the same basic structure when it comes to conflict and plot. 

Something else I noticed is that every single show has the same group surrounding the protagonist. The protagonist is a hot-headed, impulsive character, who tends to grow throughout the seasons as a more practical character. They are surrounded by a variety of personalities. There is the lighthearted, joyous character, a quiet “nerd” who tends to only appear when explaining something, there is always a loud/obnoxious friend, and a close friend who pushes the protagonist to keep fighting. These characters all play a roll in the story. The lighthearted character helps show the protagonists seriousness when it gets tough, almost like a contrast. The “nerd” is quite literally there to explain things. Anime enjoys to over explain and stretch a story as long as possible, so the nerd is there to explain these things. The loud obnoxious friend is who helps the protagonist keep spirits high when he fails or makes a mistake. Then there is the close friend who pushes the protagonist. Without them, the story would never progress, as these characters tend to be the real challenge in the story. Of course, the shows have similar antagonists/enemies as well, but it is essentially the same as the protagonists close group. 

Another thing i noticed is the beauty standards in these shows. This includes Boarding School Juliet. Every single character is attractive in some way. All the boys have jawlines and attractive features. Every girl has big breasts and pretty eyes. I have yet to see someone who does not like they were enhanced by a photoshop app. It seems pretty unhealthy, in a way. All the people who watch must not feel very happy seeing all these attractive characters on screen. And when I say attractive, I mean completely unreasonably attractive. There is no possible way a normal person could look like some of the characters I’ve seen. It’s… interesting how this is a recurring theme through most single anime shows. I guess it is the same as casting attractive actors, but I feel like because you are drawing these characters, it feels a bit more weird.  

Now don’t get me wrong, these shows are good shows, particularly Haikyuu, but I don’t understand how an entire entertainment industry can use the same predictable plots throughout every show. These shows use a ton of foreshadowing too! So now you are watching a predictable show that has the characters obviously hinting something bad is going to happen this episode. So in conclusion, anime has predictable, yet still entertaining plotlines. I don’t know what keeps people coming back to these shows, but it works! Anyways, hope you enjoyed this little off-topic post. Bye!