There is an unfortunate stigma attached to anime that I found whenever I speak of it to those that normally don't watch anime. To them, anime is just a bunch of brightly coloured characters flying around yelling and screaming, shooting massive fireballs while wielding gigantic swords. Bleach and Dragon Ball Z comes to mind.
Fortunately, people that do watch anime know that just like live action film, anime comes in many different types of flavors. Many of which are beautifully rendered visually, through its music, the narration, story telling, ambiance, character interactions and so on and so forth. I'm sure many of you have had the opportunity to experience a story where it really hits you where it counts. Some of which may have caused you to tear up and ball your eyes out.
With that said, over the course of my lifetime so far, there has been a few anime out there that was a reflection in some form or another, of parts of my life. One anime come to mind immediately. Macross Plus with the friendship love triangle, the struggles of rivalry, the deep seated emotions that had bottled up over the years and through all that, a finale of former friends apologizing to each other and moving forward.
So what about you? Which anime seem to be a reflection of your own life story, even metaphorically and how so?
Now you've made me think really hard. I don't remember some anime being a true reflection of my story, but I usually do find connections in between myself and the characters I like. For example, in Whisper of the Heart, I really understood the characters as I too was wavering. When it came to the final decision, of what I was going to study, it was either my choice or my parents choice. They wanted me in the pharmaceuticals or medical profession. I wanted to study English. We clashed. Our opinions differed completely. Same was with the boy from Whisper of the Heart, only he had to decide whether to follow his dreams of playing the violin in Italy (as far as I remember, it was a long time ago). I too ended up following my heart.
When it comes to Howl's Moving Castle, the connection is a little less obvious: sometimes I felt like Sophie, hidden under the mask no one could see through. She got cursed by the Witch and so everyone saw her as the old lady. No one saw Sophie. Sometimes I too felt as if no one saw me, but only a distorted image of me. Seeing Sophie triumph was such a pleasure! Maybe I can triumph as well and rid myself of the mask. In The Cat Returns, I felt the connection as well simply because at times I am so naive and easy to manipulate as the main character in the anime was. She got into trouble so easily and then had to fix it. It feels like such a bother at times....
There are probably countless of examples... but nothing more comes to mind at the moment.
I don't think one exists. But I do tend to relate deeply to a few stories especially the ones involving introverted socially awkward high school students lol. Tomoko from Watamote, and Hikigaya from Oregairu are the only ones I can think of at the moment. Also this next one may be different because it's from a visual novel (well actually it has an anime but it was crap so I didn't want to mention it), but I saw myself a lot in Sachi, in Grisaia no Kajitsu. Sachi route spoilers ahead... (For those interested in reading the VN, don't proceed).
I don't have PTSD or any of her traumatizing experiences of losing both her parents in a single day, in her birthday, while she was 8-9 years old, and thinking it was her fault because she was mad at them. I relate however to aspects of her characters and with how she deals with her problems. She thinks, unconsciously that is, that she will be accepted and forgiven for what she did to her parents by being a 'good girl', which involved doing everything somebody asked of her (she even wore a maid dress, a lot of times this was used as comic relief but it only got scary and deep later in the story). That self-blaming side of her and the illogical belief that she will be forgiven by becoming what everyone wants her to become, I relate a lot to that and it made me reflect on my life at the time I was reading this VN.
Wow, such in-depth answers. Hope, I can write a mini essay on this.
The short answer: Bakemonogatari and Oregairu and Non Non Biyori combined into a mix, while talking all the girls and replacing them with boys, and dumbing the drama a couple of notches.
Wny I chose these three anime specifically, is that with the solitude of Hikigaya, and the loveliness of little children, and sometimes extraordinary things that happened to me over my lifetime, and will continue to happen hereafter is just what these three anime contain. Some life lesssons that were so natural to others, didn't come to me till I'd experienced and took a blow, just like Hikigaya. Whereas, trying to understand little children so that they can listen to what I say, just like sisters in Non Non Biyori has put me in odd situations. Besdes, there've been times when I thought, "hey this moment in my life's just like that anime episode, hope it does turn out or not turn out like that," as if reliving life. That's very powerful, and romantic.
In conclusion, I think I've learned a lot from all the anime I've watched, sometimes wasting my time, sometimes not. But each of them contributed something. That was my confession.
I don't think there's any anime series out there that is very similar to my life. At least I don't know about any anime series having a short, geeky, weird and lonely dude who hates his life. If you know of any, let me know.
I do know the struggles of constantly being called short, similarly to Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist.
