The Genre I Never Knew I Needed The Most - Fantasy

All my life, I was never a reader; I have never fully read a book. I didn’t read for pleasure, nor did I read for knowledge. Most of the books I read were the ones I was required to read by the school’s curricullum. None in my family read books, I do not know how to elaborate on this but it was just a blur, time just passed, I had weird hobbies; most of which I do not remember anymore.

2020 has been the most depressing year for me so far; a lot of harsh life lessons were learnt. I was mostly on the internet trying to drown my sorrows with memes, and it only worked as long as I was infront of the screen. The moment I leave the desk, I am brought back into the real world; weight of life is realized and I am weak again. The year went on and I didn’t achieve much but, could barely pull the weight of my responsibilities and not bring myself more pain than I was already in.

And then, 2021 came. I joined The Fediverse. Surprisingly there’s just too much anime posting—at some point, I was almost annoyed—and I had thoughts about getting back into anime after many years of not watching. I went with Fantasy genre this time. I watched more just a couple of animes since then. But I will only reference the one that I’m currently watching(I will not spoil anything).

Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World; the anime that brought about a change in me. The one thing that immediately caught my attention is that the protagonist is willing to go to unbelieveable lengths to help his friends all throught the series. Given the fact that he does enjoy the “Return From Death” power, its still death, a painful and grueling one. Witnessing deaths of people around you over and over, and still standing up to fight on is amazing. He becomes the strength that his friends need, when they lose hope. A powerless & weak human leads an army of the most powerful beings in existence to victory. I find this funny, yet captivating. Along the way, people around him realize that all they lack was some push to get things done. While doing so, the protagonist also realizes what he truly wanted to be in life; he wanted to fix his weak past with the given opportunity.

This anime had the most impact on me and pushed me to rethink my life. I was on the verge of giving up my goals and settle for something much lower. But, as I kept watching the anime, I imagined myself as every possible character in the show, making all the decisions similar to them, in real life for myself. I could see me helping myself out of the hell-hole I was stuck in. I was able to see the ray of hope, I could see through the fog and lift myself up from the ground. This is an out-of-the-world experience for me.

After years of brushing off Fantasy genre as a fools’ gold, I am finally able to see the clear picture. I needed fantasy the most when I was going through the darkest of the times, I needed a good story to teach me that suffering shouldn’t bring me down, but only arm me better for the next fight.

I am truly happy to have realized this. I shall never look back again. Fantasy saved my life.