Japan's OBSESSION With High School Anime: A SAD REALITY

If you are the owner of any of the clips I used in this video and want it replaced or removed, I will respect any permission given. I had a lot of fun making this video. Between doing research and trying to get the facts right about the topic and balancing it between the emotional storytelling I was going for. I'm really proud of how this video turned out. Also I was horribly sick while recording some parts of the scrip, that's why I sound weird in some parts. Let me know what you guys think of the video and have fun watching!!!

Japan is obsessed with high school because that was the last time they got to happily socialize and live life before their corporate masters enslaved them.

Japan is a society that has gaslit its youth into peaking at high school, and that's REALLY depressing to think on.

Bros acting sad about being 25. 35 year olds: 💀

”I’m 25 and that’s old” Dude try being 38, getting out of depression and catching up to life, missing milestones and everyone looks weird at you.

adult freedom is a paradox because you dont take direct orders from your parents anymore but you have bosses and governors who expect everything out of you.

Japanese highschool is considered the last safe haven of adolescence like how Teen dramas and college movies are in the US.

Just how terrible must being a working adult in Japan be if everyone agrees that those three years in high school are always the best life can possibly be even wile HS in Japan is known to be a hyper competitive crunch compared to most of the world...

"back when i started highschool in 2010"... dude, that hit harder, that's when i finished hs...

I had a friend that gave the most cold-blooded response I've ever heard. A Japanese guy said that, because he was America, he was lazy compared to them. His response was "Yeah, that's true. And what you hate the most is you can't be me."

It's always cute hearing people younger than you say they feel old

Interesting what you mentioned about isekais. I think that 20th century isekais are different from 21st century (especially 2010s onwards) isekais, since in the first ones the protagonist, at least, accepts our world as their home (with all its imperfections) while in modern isekais they despise and reject it: in the anime No Game No Life, the protagonist thinks directly about this at the end of the first episode, I think (he says something like "in the isekais, when the protagonist ends up in another world, he always wants to do anything to come back home... but who would want to leave a world like this?").

Great video. However, there is a minor correction. The escapism doesn't start at adulthood. High Schoolers love high school anime. People will learn escapism once they've taste depression.

I fucking HATED my times at high school and I am loving being a adult. Having my life, achieving my desires through my own efforts and having understanding of myself, it is beyond comparison to being the dumb and awkward kid on the class that got bullied by being too stupid to know basic social interactions on a country where people interact the most. I can understand the japanese's appeal for that kind of thing, but it's totally not for me. When I was on my teenage years, I watched and thought "damn I wish I had a nice school life like that", but now I think "damn... imagine having THAT as your golden years..."

Dude, I'm 40 and 'i was there' when everything still had to be fan translated and bootlegged on VHS. And I STILL love a good High School anime.

“Japan technologically is 20 years ahead of everyone else”. Considering the economic crisis of the late 80s and it’s consequences, this is a myth. I like the saying: “In Tokyo it is always the year 2000. It had been in the 70s, and it still is in the 2020s.”

The worst part of the adult life isn't that paradox you point out about "no one telling you what to do, but no one telling you what to do"... but the fact that actually everyone expects you to do things, and do them in a certian way... but no one "tells" anything to you openly. The societal pressure to conform to expectations, unwritten rules, etc. never goes down. When you're a teen you just rebell, or whatever. Inside the little bubble where you're constructing your identity and your vision for the future you're protected from the real world. You spend most of the time in a walled garden with little real responsibilities and consecuences; one were rules are clear, but rather simple and explicit. As you wery well explained in the video, school is that. You spend most of your time away from authority figures (or around limmited ones) and ammong your peers; you can dedicate your time to things YOU like without having to justify them to anyone. And then you adult... and suddenly everyone gives you the stinky face if you're being "unproductive", if you have no material independence, if you choose a path that isn't giving you economic solvency, if you have no partner at age X, if you are too happy, not happy enough, if you have no kids at age X, if you haven't "made it yet", if you are failing at something, if you are not ambitious enough, if you are too ambitious... So, yeah... when you're an adult everyone "tells" you how to live your life, but no one does. And that "limbo" pressure is the worst, because you can't even argue against anyone, because no one is standing up and saying things to your face. Maybe that's why at some point we all end up having some kind of argument with our parents about "our life" and stuff. They are probably some of the few who will actually tell you things to your face; so they become the only ones that we can stand up to and get mad at. We probably tend to given them a lot more flac than they deserve, but it's because they make themselves a stand in for societal pressure as a whole I guess.

It's funny how in Japan they idolise high school and in the west we hate it.

I guess it's not just Japan anymore, all you said can be also be seen today...and i think thats why anime is becoming mainstream

In the words of a philosopher I respect. Imagine if every night you could dream any dream. You would spend 75 years of life everytime you fall asleep. What would you do in those dreams? Have grand adventures, harems, children, etc. But after a few nights of having dreams filled with absolutely everything you ever wanted, you'd start to want more, you'd start to want the dream to pleasantly surprise you. But if there are to be pleasant surprises there must also be unpleasant surprises. Rude shots. You'd want to stop controlling the dream in which you can do anything. You'd want to forget that you're having a dream while you dream. And in so doing, by adding more and more things that are out of your control into your dream, you'll eventually arrive at the same life you're living in today. - Alan Watts, paraphrased (i cant be bothered to find the direct quote, my obsidian is a mess.)