What makes something real? Is it real if it’s something we can touch and hold? Is it a quantifiable entity? Would a painting done of a fictitious time, place, or person still be considered real if it is real to the artist?
Now that I’ve asked some truly “deep” questions, what the hell am I getting at? Anime is an imaginative and graphic medium; sometimes we the viewer get drawn into these worlds where we feel attached to characters and sympathetic to their woes and plights. Hence, making it real in a sense to us as viewers. I feel it’s only right that we get involved with a series or movie. It’s always better to cheer for a character after they’ve overcome an unendurable hardship than just sitting on your ass watching numbly. Where’s the fun in that?
Is it such a long shot, then to think that some fans would think, “Hey, so and so is kinda cute!” and feel attraction towards said character? Obviously not since there are an abundance of shrines all over the net devoted to the bishonen (hot guys) and bishishojo (hot girls) of anime.
I have heard people who knock anime, and even some anime fans, express disbelief and disgust at such outré displays. Naysayers state over and over again, “They’re not real, they’re a cartoon, it’s make-believe!”
Oh, OK, like certain people’s fantasy of wanting to hook up with Johnny Depp isn’t anything but make-believe? Johnny is real, he exists, and this is fact. Another fact is that they will NEVER hook up with the Depp man. For example; what are their chances of being in the same country, state, city, building, room, table as JD, hmm? And even if they do manage to be in close proximity with him, they would need to charm and convince him that they are better in every way than his hot French wife of over 10 years. Yeah, lemme know how that goes.
Personally, I feel my chances of getting close to Yazoo of Advent Children are loads better than anyone with a movie star hard-on. Cosplay has some use after all..
There are in my opinion, some fan girls that go over board, what with the squealing, bouncy little happy dances they do when their squeeze is on the TV set. Dude, I agree, totally bishonen, but I don’t think it’s sane to do a jig over it. Oh, and I would most certainly would never get online and start a freaking web-ring of bishonen or “stables” as some are referred to. Stables are sites where you “adopt” a bishonen and take care of it. Seeing as how I’d have had to e-mail these fan girls if I wanted a straight answer about that…yeah, guess we’ll never know for sure. I would probably keep the enthusiasm for hot anime guys/girls mostly to myself if I felt that strongly, otherwise you start getting close to being an otaku…ew.
Hee hee…You’d never do a jig huh? Well I’ll just leave that one alone for now. I think my problem with it is not that fans don’t have a chance at being with a cartoon character due to the laws of physics, but that said characters don’t really look enough like real people for me to legitimately feel attracted to them (with the notable exception of FFVII:AC).
Fine! Fine! Yeah, OK, sure I do indeed do the occasional lil’ happy dance when I see a hottie on the screen. So what? I also have a real-live man and an actual life. I do not do PDAs with anime characters. I only do my happy dance when I’m with friends…in private.