Manga or Philosophical works of Art?

In today’s schools, education includes the lauded works of Shakespeare and the like, it also includes books that are thought to be relevant in enhancing the student’s understanding of broader concepts. An interesting example is the fact that Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime has made it to this list, for a lot of reasons including the writing style and the fact that it is a very modern recount of a boy growing up in apartheid and segregation and how he goes onto make a life of his own. The story itself is riveting, but upon studying it, the lessons you could gain from it are innumerable. And this is true of more than just this book.

I postulate manga, anime - are things that will be taught at school in the coming years. But not for English class. I don’t know about what happens at every other school, but at my own school, we had Philosophy classes. We’d discuss ideas and put forth questions. I am sure if these classes didn’t exist for everyone, they will be common practice soon. And there will be works of manga studied alongside discussions, thrusting minds to consider even more questions and even wilder possibilities, as well of course for the philosophies they espouse.

How am I so certain about this? I could be wrong about this on so many levels. But I do believe, this is ideal. Even more so, it’s useful and stands to reason.

The various stories tackle not only the age-old questions of existence but also try to tackle all kinds of difficult questions. They take into view the world we live in; not always giving us black & white, but a lot of the time a LOT of the grey. Through the story and character developments, we’re always taken on a journey of growth. From which we can very easily adopt the characteristics, and by putting ourselves in those shoes, question the actions of the character and our own. The attitudes of these characters themselves are of so many varied intensities, each world is as wholesome as can be.

Manga has always been bold in creativity, forming new worlds and slews of characters in each unique plot (well, a lot of them at least). And even though there’s at times, an old fashioned take on some of the art and roles of the characters (especially in the older ones), there’s also fierce representation with which it intrinsically carries a nonchalance.

With fierce characters showing you that you never even need to declare gender and is thus that inconsequential (very much unlike what you see on every form you ever have to fill out for a job or an education), and determined, courageous and resilient attitudes assigned to characters of very young ages, with 13-year-olds changing the world in every episode ever, anime transcends you to a world where EVERYTHING you can fathom, you can make true. Encouraging you to adopt a behaviour of hard work, determination, dedication and the right attitude and resilience in the face of extreme adversity to be the recipe for doing so. They even show you how to feast like a king(food- not throwing money on exorbitant parties i.e.,) even when you’re broke AF.

The concepts in the book Ikigai, the secrets to longevity and happy lives, are ideas that these works of art showcase.

With words such as Ganbaru & Nakama, and phrases like “Since the day we’re born, we’re free” and principles tightly locked into our ‘Kokoro’, things that only make us, us… irrespective of life’s challenges, and mind you, we all have it much easier than a lot of these characters, to forge ahead with optimism and an insurmountable amount of resilience.

“Most people are capable of much more than they think they are” — paraphrasing Musk.

Every character cast as weak overcomes something huge, even their own shortcomings and are shown to be capable of great growth.

It makes you consider what’s truly important to you in life, all of this, it comes back to you. Because as you sit there ingesting all that it has to offer, you’re not passive, you ask yourself, you find yourself wondering, “What would I do? What could I do? Who am I and who am I meant to be? What do I want to do?” You transcend space-time and enter a realm that is your own and I kid you not, it is meditative. (And I say that as a person who’s spent weeks immersed in actual meditation for hours at a time, each day.)

And the best part? These badass characters who could destroy an entire town, sometimes even a country or continent, instead save the planet and slay monsters and evil, and trample “the-real-world” societal notions of what is weak and what is power. These formidable characters, they cry their eyes out, they scream and shout and display a wide range of emotions that are truly and uniquely human. Emotions that we as people of this society are too scared to even admit that we have and feel and instead feel the need to put on an act even in front of our own selves, because of the collective notion of ‘you show emotion, you show weakness’ in this society, that’s so well ingrained it makes us doubt our own capabilities.

It gets us to consider copious amounts of ideas and attitudes that aren’t widely adopted or even come across in our world because of the societal structure in it.

In a world where status and reputation are the foremost regulators of how one leads their life, from having to put on a show for the outside world on every level, making the word ‘outside’ narrow down to even your true self, anime together with manga reaches its recipients to their very core and is a form of artistic creativity that is communicated to and embraced by more people than any other form of art, and that in turn has been something of a factor in making it so accessible.

The immense influence of Japanese art and culture on the rest of the world during this period has been vast.

So far plays, books and art were all assumed works for entertainment and pleasure. All of which — are works of the intellect and have been studied. And it’s only natural that so too is the case for anime/manga. What we consume as entertainment today will probably be what the 22nd century looks back on, as works to be studied for insight into our worldviews and as guiding principles for our values and our actions. If this is so, then what does it say about the current generation or whatever comes right after gen Z.

So many schools of thought in every field/subject/topic. How to live life, deal with trauma, troubles, how to treat yourself/others, partners, family — we are all violently looking for guiding stones. Anime is something that definitely has that effect and serves in that fashion in the current climate/today’s world.

P.S:

Whether these are plausible or even believable thoughts or not, one thing is for sure: Attack on Titan is literally history in the making. AoT has not only taken the world by storm but while being its creator — Hajime Isayama’s first-ever series- is setting the gold standard by which future works will be measured. It’s no hype to say, it’s created a bandwagon for a new generation of art, thinking, writing, hell even business and marketing!