Yeah, so shitty title is shitty. It's a thing I'm not used to doing, but maybe this little segment will make for some interesting reading around these parts.
Today marks the first Why I Love Anime segment. Or WILA if you're into acronyms (I'm not judging here). And today, I wanted to start with one of the weirdest possible choices for why I enjoy anime so much: Because it consists of two genres I actually hate.
So what got me thinking about this segment, and why this show in particular? Well, that's an interesting story...
It's no small secret that things here have been quiet for some time. And I feel that this background is necessary to explaining why this show means what it does to me, so please bear with me here. The last several months have been difficult, to say the least, in my personal life. Work and home life have been stressful. No big surprise there I suppose.
It must have been sometime around late September that I stopped watching anime again, outside of the blog. Not entirely sure what caused this either. I love watching stuff while I'm at work, and had picked up a few current series at the time, but it struck me as strange that I just had zero desire to watch any of my shows. Maybe it was the work wifi, but I think that I was just feeling the burnout again. 2015 had some *incredible* shows, with Aldnoah Zero being one of my top picks for the year, hands down. Yet, why was I not wanting to watch anything?
Even at home, I stopped watching anything. Perhaps I was a bit jaded. But something struck me as odd. Co-workers would continue to recommend great shows for me, and I'd counter with stuff that I'd watch - shows they'd never heard of, sometimes incredibly niche things (like Jubei-chan!), and that would get them off my back for awhile. Must have been a couple of weeks ago when I suggested to a co-worker that maybe, if he was really looking for something different, he check out Rideback, or maybe even Suzuka.
That's when it hit me. I'd lost touch with why I loved anime so much. Forgotten about all the things that made these shows great, why I was always drawn to them. So it got me thinking: Why Suzuka? Of all the possible shows I could think about, why after nearly a decade did I remember some obscure sports romance series from my teenaged years over great titles like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, or even Ninja Scroll?
Well my friends, let me tell you why: Because it was a show which defied my every expectation, and it took me on a ride I'll never forget, and taught me some valuable lessons that I should keep close to my heart.
Suzuka is a sports-romance anime. I've complained about a lot of stuff around these parts, but I always avoid the shoujo and sports titles for a reason: I feel like, 95% of the time, they're full of shit and rely on the same contrived plot sequences all the time. Free!, I am looking at you buddy - way to defy all of my expectations at the end, you magnificent bastard!
But regardless, there I was looking for shows to pick up, and my good buddy Hal must have suggested that perhaps I go and watch Suzuka. "But I hate these genres!" I exlaimed, to which he must have replied something like "But it's goooooood" and I'm just like "Well fine I'll watch it then."
I must have been very easy to convince back in those days.
Regardless, I gave it a try, and found myself pretty annoyed from the start. Not Peach Girl levels of annoyance mind you, it was still watchable by my standards. It was a fairly basic premise. Dude finds girl on track team extremely hot, kind of wants to get with her, joins track team to get close to her because hey that's how anime works (also real life or something I guess). Lo and behold, dude is actually pretty amazing at track!
Like I said, your pretty standard story, but there was something about the show I couldn't quite wrap my head around. Would they, or wouldn't they? You were supposed to tell that they were clearly supposed to have a thing together. I mean, the story was pushing them that way, but at every turn they found a way to keep them apart - for good reasons. It started showing hints that maybe there would be some dark twist at the end, for all of the feels.
And like that, I found myself invested. Would he win the track match? Would she notice him? Would they ever actually get together, or would something keep them apart? I couldn't tell where the story was going to end anymore, and this excited me, because I love not knowing what's going to happen next. With each and every episode growing closer to the finale, I found myself not knowing if they could ever wrap it up in the precious few episodes remaining.
The story then abruptly ended, and while they never explicitly stated whether the two would get together or not, it no longer mattered - what mattered was that Suzuka had finally resolved something that had been plaguing her mind for years, and was finally able to move on with her life. And that was not something I'd expected out of a goddamned sports anime. The show focused on the characters, their motivations, and their pasts to really emphasize the connections between them, and this affected me on some level, because I'd never really seen anything quite like it before.
Really, that's one of the many reasons I love anime as opposed to other forms of media out there. The plots can be complex, and the visuals can be amazingly awesome, but when you get down to it, I love characters - good guys, bad guys, I love knowing who they are, what they're about, and why they do the things they do. I like to know the way they think, which isn't something we typically get in a lot of American media. Sometimes you'll get a great TV show, but if you want great characterization, you're forced to stick to novels, RPGs, or tabletop games.
It was a lesson I didn't really understand at the time, but looking back on it now, I can see why I still remember that show so fondly. It defied my expectations in a great way, and gave me something I never expected out of it. It showed me that a show can be something better than the sum of its parts, if only it is arranged in just the right way.
And that's just one reason why I love anime so much: The characters. Even a couple of completely normal, totally played straight human beings can be great sources of drama, just by having the right sort of chemistry together.
I'd never usually suggest someone go watch Suzuka. I mean, it's not a bad show by any stretch of the imagination, but when I think of anime, it's not one I usually recommend. It's not Video Girl Ai (a guilty pleasure of mine), it's not particularly surreal, and let's be honest, it's pretty hard to sell someone on a show that is literally about a dude joining the track team to impress a girl.
But if you ever want to try something a little bit different, maybe you should think about giving Suzuka a try. You might also be pleasantly surprised at what you find.
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