Hidden Messages Inside Anime

Anime is one of the best things that could possibly happen to television. Since its debut outside Japan, anime has reeled in millions and millions of fans. However, there are those that remain skeptical of anime, thinking of it only as a glammed up version of the typical cartoons that we see on TV. They take one look at the too perfect faces, the out of his world costumes, and the quintessential talking animals and they immediately dismiss anime as childish. Well, we as watchers of anime know that there’s much more to anime beneath its cartoonish facade.

There are several hidden messages in anime, messages that speak directly to the soul, messages about life’s lessons and truths. They might be hard to see at face value but if you look past all the humor and all the drama, you’ll see that what the characters are going through, be it a robot invasion or one-on-one battle with a dragon, are essentially the same things that we’re going through… just translated into fantasy. And every obstacle they encounter, every moral dilemma they face, we can relate to in some way or another.

Take Naruto for example. He is a young orphan boy who has been ostracized by his village for having a demon fox sealed inside of him. Now, I doubt that any of you who are reading this have demon foxes sealed inside of you. But I can bet that some of you have felt ostracized, unwanted, underestimated, and utterly alone at some point in your lives. And even when all you want is a bit of acknowledgment, nobody seems to want to give it to you. And here’s where Naruto’s hidden message comes in even in Naruto Shippuden… it’s a challenge to all of us, to do what Naruto is currently doing: never giving up. It’s a challenge for us to take on his nindo and to never back out on our own words.

Almost all of the characters have hidden messages within their own stories and backgrounds. Take Zabuza, he is portrayed as a heartless killer, a villain, someone whom we are programmed to hate. And yet, at the final moments of his life, it is revealed that despite all his brusqueness, he is still human, like all of us. And he knows how to value and be grateful to those he loves. The message in this is clear, those who have done several misdeeds are still human, and we owe it to them and to ourselves to coax the humanity out of them.

And it’s not just the characters that are worth looking into either. The themes and plots of several anime deserve a lot of praise for their insight and ingeniousness. Look at the anime Deathnote, if you take it at face value, it’s nothing more than just a very well-written and well-portrayed thriller, complete with some of the best plot twists ever concocted in anime history. But if you look at its theme, you’ll see that it’s about the classic debate on justice… is it just to kill evil men for the sake of protecting those who are good? Or should we allow evil men to live on the premise that they’re human like all of us? It’s even reminiscent of the age-old debate about the death penalty. Do we really have the right to kill another human being?

Indeed, the hidden messages in anime are very thought provoking and it fosters self analysis at many levels. They might just change the way we view our lives if we take a more serious approach to them and utilize its life provoking lesson to make our society a better place. Yes, all in all it’s just anime but the power that it brings onto the table should never be underestimated.