Love blossoms when you least expect it… Or so I’m told.
One of the many inevitabilities with watching anime is that much like real life, you’ll eventually fall in love. The concept of love is a strange thing isn’t it? It’s something we’ve constantly tried to define throughout our relatively short history on this planet. It’s a concept so abstract it still can’t be properly define, but the concept of love is a gender and culturally universal theme we love to explore, bad pun totally intended. While hard to define, it’s something we intrinsically understand when we see and experience it.
We all get several crushes of varying intensities, but one thing that holds true is that crushes usually don’t last very long. A week, a month, a year maybe. There’s no set amount of time for a crush to last. Much like real life, anime crushes pass over time, and one day you’ll look back and wonder why you ever liked a particular Flavor of the Month girl/guy — You’ll remember it was fun while it lasted but wasn’t anything too special in retrospect.
With the sheer variety of characters in anime, there are bound to be several characters that catch your fancy from voluptuous vixens to clumsy bespectacled maids. There’s a character for everyone, and you’re bound to find a few that absolutely capture your heart. I’m personally a big fan of amnesiac gun-toting girls that kick lots of ass, but the pickings are plentiful for all manner of tastes. Through the course of your anime journey there’s no doubt you’ll have many crushes, usually passing fancies from new shows that come and go like the wind, but there will only be a select handful of characters that you will genuinely love. Everyone has a different definition of love. I don’t claim to have the correct one, because no one really does, but one measure of love is that it doesn’t fade over time. Love is different from a mere infatuation in that it’s a more lasting feeling than the fleeting pangs presented by a passing crush — You’ll feel the same way about a specific person, or in this case a character, forever.
We all show our love for our favorite characters in different ways. There are those that proclaim their love by claiming waifus on various forums. There are also those that support their favorite girls by pestering persuading everyone to vote for Girl ABC in Saimoe, even though it’s just a stupid popularity contest (Remember kids, what is popular isn’t always right). Then there are those people that don’t feel the need to publicly announce their loves every minute of every day like the more fanatical fans and keep it to themselves (and in their pants). It’s perfectly healthy to express which characters you rabu, but just don’t be too annoying about it. Constantly telling us, “Feito is mah waifu” does get annoying.
For outsiders looking in and even among the casual anime community, there’s a misconception and stigma perceived with admitting love for a fictional character, deemed the 2-D complex. Though the 2-D complex only rings true when an individual exclusively prefers anime/manga/VN characters to real people, it has become an umbrella term of sorts to describe anyone that professes love for 2-D characters in general. I do understand their sentiment as it’s always the fans that take 2-D love to the extreme that get the most attention. There’s nothing wrong with loving a 2-D character in and of itself, but as is true with most things it’s only detrimental when taken to the far extreme. There’s nothing wrong with falling for a 2-D character, and I’d even say it’s a healthy part of being an anime fan as it means you’ve made emotional connections to shows and characters. You become more involved with the plights that befall your favorite character as well as rejoice in their accomplishments as if they were your own. When you invest emotions into your favorite characters, it really does enrich your viewing experience that much more. In fact it would be weirder if you’re an anime fan that’s never been smitten with an anime character whatsoever, and you’d be missing one of the intangible things that makes watching anime a great experience.
I don’t have a 2-D complex, or at least I prefer to think I don’t, but it’s not that different from, say… Falling in love with a movie or TV character. There are a lot of instances of people specifically falling in love with fictional characters and not the actors that portray them. The only major example I can think of is Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, though I’ll add more if I can think of other examples. I’ve known plenty of girls that absolutely… fangirl for lack of better word for Jack Sparrow but don’t particularly care for Depp. Are they considered weird for technically only liking a fictional character? That depends on who you ask, but the answer is generally no. It shouldn’t be any different for 2-D characters. People in general should be more open minded, and I say do whatever makes you happy. As said earlier I condone liking 2-D characters as long as it doesn’t blow up into a full blown 2-D complex, which isn’t healthy and at which point you’ve lost the game.
…Oh. Are you expecting me to talk about which characters I love? I suppose I could indulge you a bit. My first anime girl love happened to be a certain amnesiac assassin by the name of Kirika Yuumura from a certain anime called Noir. When I started watching the show, I found myself inexplicably drawn to her in a way much different than previous characters I liked. To me there was something intangible, something special about her that I couldn’t explain and still can’t. It just inexplicably happened, hence the term love blossoms when you least expect it. Most recently Hitagi Senjougahara from Bakemonogatari appeared on my radar, which I’ve made pretty obvious ever since the show aired. I want to say that I’ll continue to like her long after Bakemonogatari is over, but only time will tell if she’s just a Flavor of the Month or the real deal.
tl:dr: Come on, it wasn’t that long. I intentionally kept it short.
PS: Kirika is mah waifu.
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i can haz 2dloveburger?
Panther´s last blog ..Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 05 – Painful Glimmer
I think a good way to show it to people is by way of books. Especially when you present to them “Same-sex love” that is not romantic or sexual.
Those of us who read books grow to love characters. We don’t love them in the sense we want to bone them, but we love them in the sense that we want to hug them when they cry, we want them to hug us when we cry. We admire them, we sympathize with them. We appreciate the characters, and that too, is love.
Not all love is about sex.
For me, I think loving characters is a bit different, when it comes to anime. On one hand, I watch anime usually in a row, watching through 26 episodes in no more than two days. This means that my crush on a character, or how much I care for it is much stronger, much faster. I go along with the emotional heart-strings of the author(s), but then, it also means it stays with me much less, because to truly hold someone in your heart, and not just a small segment, repeated exposure is more meaningful.
Mai from Mai-HiME is a character I just wanted to hug. Nagi from Kannagi is an opposite example, we love to watch such characters, but as someone who actually knew happy-bouncy or super-demanding people in real life, it’s not as fun in person.
Guy´s last blog ..[Humor] Zabuza and the Rare Ingredient!
@Panther: No 2-D love for you, go hump a dakimakura…
Fine. You can has a Takane or something. Run along now.
@Guy: I was specifically referring to romantic love, but yeah, there’s that type of platonic” love too. I guess we do find them in books because it’s a more… intimate experience I guess? I know what you’re getting at. And eh, my definition of love doesn’t really include sex at all like it does for most people. But that’s neither here nor there.
Since I go at a slower pace of one episode a week and maybe 2-3 episodes at a time when marathoning, the characters are introduced to me at a steadier pace and my attachment to them steadily blossoms. It makes the experience much richer to me when I can take in everything about a show, including chacter attachments, slowly. I can see how big marathon sessions can sort of be more akin to short but very intense flings. Maybe if you went at a slower pace you’d find characters that have more lasting appeal to you.
Also, agreed about liking anime personalities but not liking RL people with the same… quirks. As much as I like the quiet assassin girls and tsunderes, they just don’t work outside of anime, especially the former. Sigh. Where are all those cute assassin girls, eh~?
can’t say I’ve loved a character at that, but there were many I liked after they died. mostly male characters =_= Haki+ zabuza from Guy’s post made me remember.
when i was like 10, i fell in love with sakura from sakura card captors and a girl from degimon that i forgot the name of, the one with gatomon
Enjoyable read. I’ve never worried much about the whole 2D-complex theory, mostly because I’m still awkward around girls IRL and therefore must be interested, but I always find it fun when I take a liking to a character in an anime. It usually makes the show a lot more fun, even if it’s for the wrong reason, and 2D crushes can make an convenient conversation piece among fellow fans. At the very least, I know it was nice to have Mio brighten up my week back in the spring, and I still like seeing my Shiori avatar every time I use Twitter
ETERNAL´s last blog ..If you don’t want to be protected, then I don’t want to be served
@Nosferato: Loving a character is what makes a sudden death that more heart wrenching because you’re more emotionally involved. Good character deaths make you cry manly tears of sorrow.
@thethorndog: Well… There are plenty of people well over 10 that like Sakura… But that’s beside the point…
@ETERNAL: Thanks mate. And yeah, it’s perfectly normal to form crushes and suddenly fall for a character, because it makes the experience that much more personal.
Eh… Thank goodness I never caught the Mio virus. Instead I caught a rare strain of Tsumugi rabu. Shiori’s sort of been falling out of favor with me lately too, but Misuzu and Kotomi are holding up the KEY fort as Mai’s stock is somehow rising again. Sorry for the blasphemy. xD
Anyway, I really need to update my outdated Fav Girls list now that I think about it.
This is the thing. What is “romantic love”? What is the difference between romantic and non-romantic love?
If I want sex, is it romantic, if I don’t want, or don’t see the possibility of not wanting, it isn’t? I went “platonic” because I think what makes up “romantic love” is ambiguous at best, and leaves much out.
Tokiha Mai, from Mai-HiME. I wanted to hug her when she cried, I wanted to comfort her, I loved her laughter, I smiled when she smiled, etc. but most of that also applies to our family members and close friends. I thought Mai had a nice body and looked good, but that is still applicable to friends and family members.
Likewise, what if it were a male, and me being a straight male didn’t want to do them? And I wanted to hug them when they cried, I was sad when they were angry, happy when things were going their way?
So I love characters, like Mai, but I won’t call it “Romantic love”, not because of fear of 2D complex, but for “romantic love” being undefined.
Guy´s last blog ..My Room, July 2009.
@Guy: Very good point. I have an idea of how to argue what differentiates romantic from platonic love, but I know it won’t come out right. I consider romantic love more about devotion and being more concerned about the happiness of the one you love… Not to say platonic love isn’t about the same thing. Hmmm. They are slightly different feelings, but I can’t quite describe it with words. Sex in itself isn’t much of an indicator of love seeing as you can have sex both with and without love. I think I know what you’re getting at though with that point. I lose teh debate. You can has a cookie.
Chocolate chip cookie or bust!
Check my new post, it’s about Mai-HiME. With Tokiha
Guy´s last blog ..[TIL] Mai-HiME – My Princess, Focus thy Attention [Long]
I explained it a long time ago. Here’s the post.
Anime chicks are so hot because they’re drawn that way, duh, but not just any way, a very special way. The human mind decides what’s hot by picking up certain cues in people’s faces and bodies. There’s a formula in our brain that literally calculates hawtness from this special characitured perception of the body. Anime specifically exploits this hawtness formula by exaggerating the cue points on the face and body. Anime people are characitures of real people. An anime chick/dude is tweaked in the right places, eyes, nose, mouth, chest, legs, etc, to provide values to our hawtness formula that are impossible. A normal person has a maximum possible hawtness under the formula because they would be genetic freaks otherwise.
Anime on the otherhand can push those values beyond anything in nature. So the reason they’re so hot is because they’re pushing our hawtness formula to its maximum otherwise impossible limit.
LA