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Ive always joked about "winning with the power of love and friendship" being very anime. And a lot of people can take that as cringey, but I wholeheartedly appreciate it. I think people as a whole wish we could manifest our desires for a better world to defeat the evil in it. Its absolutely magical to me. Edit: didnt have notifications on but good to see theres still people who live on that hard Edge that they cant have a little optimisim in their life. Its sad really.
I think that might be why it's such a common truth because in real life not a lot if any of your problems can be solved through things like friendship or love and I think some like you and indulge themselves in a in media were such things can happen
It's not just a matter of love and friendship, it's a matter of rejecting the selfish desires of this world, not just for ourselves, but for the longevity or our environment, the sound demeanor of our own minds, and the security of our own nature (i.e., "the soul"). It's not just about saying "yes" to each other, it's about saying "no" to ignorance, and eliminating it not through violence, but through education, through understanding, through compassion, through the deterioration of entitlement and expectations, by relieving the burdens we place on the martyrs in our society, and building each other towards a more estimable (sustainable) future. You don't need to believe in love, friendship, or magic to believe in the power of humanity. You can't behold the maw of a species that horrifying and not believe in its capacity for carnal cooporation.
Dude. The nonself idea fits super well with "self insert" characters like the MCs of Persona. Empty (often silent), always has compassion and selflessness (you're often doing quests for others), and understands the meaning of being alive (often the moral center of the group). That's such a fascinating look into the eastern style of making video games
@@thomasffrench3639 but Persona has that as it's main themes, for example, 3 focus on death and dealing with it, 4 on acceptance and being yourself, 5 focuses on freedom and rebellion against corruption
Sadly, for this to be the case you would have to neglect the understanding of non-self and instead only go of off the name alone. Non-self does not mean empty, it means impermanence. The self is every changing, ever regressing and ever growing as such there can not be a true self as for a self there needs to be a state of permanence. Self-insert characters have no self and thus they can have no non-self for they are hollow, husks without humanity meant to give access to yourself. The video has completely butchered the actual meaning of achieving a state of nirvana. He had said that it's about extinguishing desire (which is true), and then fill it with love and compassion (wrong) to find true happiness (very wrong). The extinguishing of desire speaks about accepting ones desire, it's about allowing yourself to feel what you feel when you feel it and then to work towards eradicating it to find relief from existence. What is as wrong as it gets is the part about filling it will love. The goal isn't to fill it with love, it's to transcend emotions. Love & compassion, hate and jealousy, they are both one and the same, of the same origin. You can not have one without the other, and as one can not be without the other you can not replace one with the other without the concepts ceasing to exit. In life, love might sometimes feel more present and sometimes disgust will take it's place. There will always be emotions that feel postive as there will always be emotions that feel negative, sometimes in balance and sometimes one overweighs the other but always together. And as they are the same, they too get marked by what is knon as the three marks of existence. Those are (1) Impermanence, (2) unease/suffering, (3), non-self aka no lasting essence. Your goal is not to achieve happiness, it's to find salvation from the cause that is behind your so called happiness/dissatisfaction. It's a return to nature; a cessation of consciousness (extinguishing of desire), and thus an escape of the cycle of rebirth, no longer animal, human, hell, or god but beyond. This doesn't have much in common with self-insert characters at all, even within the games of Persona. I'm sorry to say that since it's probably a bummer to have you be corrected haha But your connection does have a cute sentiment to it though, although it's entirely made by rhetoric and not by process. Hope this helped to understand the concept.
Some things are predictable in life: -The sun rising each morning -Dogs barking and birds chirping -No new BotW 2 or Silksong info that day -Daryl putting Makima in the Psych of Anime thumbnail
@DED_C and some1 insecure hurting some1,either municipaliting 1000 people to believe in aleins and that the insecure person MAGICALLY knows more aleins or supernatural thing only THEY CAN SEE, or a crowd of insecure kretens of humanity are either trying to take away rights, or 1 decides it can magically survive bullets and decides to go to church or to a fun place... with a gun... or rich insecure people are making conspiracies to get MORE money and control. in saints row its called having fun and shooting any1 or anything you see for 5 or 10 minutes useing specific weopons. the only difference is you see the massacre or genocide in the video game, if you want to see it in real life,you need to have 70 decades of waiting and alot of cameras looking everywhere at once all on 1 big tv.
"I'm a closet weeb" Nah, you just like anime. Oh....you like manga? That's fine. Sometimes you read the manga after watching the anime, y'know? ....You read manga that haven't been adapted to anime? Woof.... *There is no saving him. He is WEEB weeb.*
Conversion Disorder?! I finally have a name for it! One of my best friends has been experiencing temporary blindness in one eye lately due to her work forcing her to work 90 hour work weeks. She kept calling it hysterical blindness, but I think she thought it was more brain damage from lack of sleep. I'll let her know asap, thank you so much!~
@@luckyblockyoshi As long as she controls her stress levels she can see out of both eyes again! Plus apparently it was so severe for her that her colourblindness was also an effect of conversion disorder. She still works a bad job with horrible coworkers, but she's finally getting therapy and things are looking up~
I think Anime’s trend of manifesting emotions into physical or metaphysical manifestations is because of how Yokai and Kami play an important roll in Japanese culture, and most Yokai and Kami are representations of emotions/habits/phenomena. I.E. can’t sleep well at night? That’s a Yokai’s fault. Stopped raining shortly before you had to go out somewhere? That’s thanks to a Kami. You get the urge to dance whenever you hear your favourite song? Well that’s either a Yokai or Kami depending on if you see it as a blessing or a curse.
@@mihailmilev9909 I mean that you can feel relief or advancement when an emotion you feel is portrayed in anime in a physical or metaphysical form, specially if you originally don't ubderstand it and is resolved in the anime or game by teying to solve the psychological origin of that manifestation
It could also be a case of how symbolic things are a favorable thing in Japanese culture, because symbolism appears in a lot of things if you look close. So it makes sense that appears in anime where you have situations that relate to a person's emotion, a person's thoughts or feelings that are put into the environment around them or clothing or colors.
You feel like someone is following you? Thats a yokai. Please step aside and kindly ask the yokai to continue walking and it will follow the road and leave you alone
This video really struck a chord with me as someone who only started watching anime a couple years ago but completely fell in love with the medium. I always had a lot of trouble explaining why anime resonated with me in a different way than western TV and film, but this video explained a lot. I started watching anime during the pandemic, a time when I felt at my most isolated and was really disillusioned with individualism because of the selfish way so many of my neighbors and even family were acting. The nihilistic, "you're on your own" attitude of most western media (especially social media) really weighed down on me. So I too, I found a lot of solace in seeing the interconnected nature of anime and Japanese culture. The sense of community between the characters as they strive for their goals together, the way they lean on each other both consciously and unconsciously, and especially the way they confront their fears and anxieties head-on, all fill me with happiness and make me feel a lot better about my own place in the world. P.S. The intro and outro with the rapid cuts of different anime set to music was absolutely badass! I actually felt a little choked up on the outro.
Ye we in the west has an almost toxic problem with over coming our problems and struggles alone by our self. But in anime it's almost always a team effort where the characters help eachother in the friend group with eachother problems. And it's always way clearer then some vague inner struggle, unless it's some anime like Evangelion or Lain...
Better late than never, glad you picked up anime and appreciate its interconnectedness with Japanese culture and a source of story telling. Been watching anime for years and i truly love the medium, manga and anime, and how it helps me learn about Japanese culture by being a compass of sorts. Now I'm a fan of Japanese culture and it's history as a whole
I think our Westernized minds tend to distance ourselves from anime and its themes of friendship and connection. It's "cringy" and "cliche." But I think everyone could use a story of people coming together to defeat a common enemy, while yelling about how much they love each other. ("Don't you ever mess with friends!! Magnum Punch!!!") It's cool to see an individual overcoming their own inner demons along their journey, but it's a journey for the viewer seeing two or more people finally defeating their worst enemy through each other after so much growth.
This video did a lot for my understanding as well. I really tend to not like western media and love eastern stuff, and it explained why. I'm...kinda cripplingly disabled and outright cannot work, so the whole "you're on your own" thing that pervades most of western works and that I constantly hear from people reads to me as "you aren't wanted here if you can't contribute the same way everyone else does." Which, being disabled as I am, means I read it as "please just die already so someone can take your place." Even people who I need to rely on tend to spew that very same thing, which as you can guess only makes it worse because now I'm disabled *and* trapped with people who, on an unconscious level, view me as worthless, and I can't leave because the support system for people like me is genuinely so bad I often consider killing myself because I'm not getting enough help. Eastern media does away with that. It tells me that I have value even if I can't do a lot of things everyone else can, because there are still things I can do. It's nice.
Two weird thoughts about the “this thing gains more power the more you believe in it” trope: - The stock market and currency itself seems to pretty much work this way. Terrifying. - Final Fantasy Tactics had this mechanic in its unique “Faith” system. High Faith value = high effectiveness using magic and high damage taken from magic. Low Faith value (or no Faith in the case of the robot unit Worker 8) means that magic has no effect on you for good or ill.
The entire system of magic in the nasuverse (Fate/Stay Night, Kara no Kyokai, Tsukihime, etc.) is based on that trope. Everything works as much as people have enough doubt to believe in something. Explained as: 'Even if someone says that they don't believe in ghosts, when they are alone at home and hear a noise somewhere in their brain will believe that it *may* be, that's what makes magic (thaumaturgy) possible and more powerful the more people *may* think that it *may* be possible'
The idea of power from status in general could be considered a concept that only exists because people believe in it too; For example there could be a king of a country; if every one of his subjects decided they no longer wanted to obey his rule he would have no power. If the people who governed the parts of the country that have him power, law, military and economy, stopped listening to him, he would have no way to exercise power and his power would cease to exist. The king would be reduced to nothing more than a single man with no way to influence or control anyone in the country
Paranoia Agent is the biggest example I can think of of this as far as anime is concerned. Little Slugger becomes more powerful thruout the series and started as one person's paranoia and becomes everyone's with the help of media and the news talking about it all the time.
Sounds like police brutality and racism in the current media landscape. Morgan Freeman said it best, "It'll go away when we stop talking about it. I'm not a black man, I'm Morgan Freeman"
Wow this was a blast to watch and a painful reminder that I need to go back and watch some of these anime. I'm also incredibly hyped to see that Psych of Anime will return again! Also that psychology on Dating Sims seems absolutely ridiculous and I hope that we can see that some time. Banger video as always Daryl!
I can't believe Daryl just EVA-rolled me As a non-closet weeb I just want to say: amazing video, hope to see more psych of anime in the future! The only thing I disagree with is (and this is really something I disagree with almost everyone on the internet it seems) EoE is not a feverish nightmare as it seems, it's really a hopeful ending but I feel people gets too engrossed on the visuals
I agree, All of Shinji's problems aren't fixed but he now has the right mindset to move forward and live in the world. He isn't suddenly fine now because of what he learned but he's going to try to be
I've written probably only like 2-3 UA-cam comments in my life but i immediately felt the need to convey just how amazing this video was and how much i relate to it. It's like hearing the doubtful and lonely observations i keep locked up while growing an awareness of my own emotional world and seeing it being expressed and connected to in anime. You wrote this beautifully and would love more content like this.
Ahh it's here!! Daryl, I just wanted to say that was such an entertaining and fun video, and being a little bit of a weeb myself seeing my fav works in little clips made me smile. Keep being yourself cause no matter who many views this gets, know this community will forever be interested and love your work! :)
As a psychology student who really likes Jung's Ideas, I really dislike how much people are reluctant to talk about jung at all, and it's all because Freud discredited him. THE Freud canceled Jung before "cancel culture" was a thing and it's for that that there is little to no research on those Ideas today. The thing about Psychology are it's ties to Philosophy and imposibility to proof without any doubt. It's in the edge of science and we are taught so in college. Proving that a symptom is not feigned and it is in fact a psychological issue manifested in the body (Conversion Disorder) is not as hard as to prove that a runny nose and fever are in fact a virus even though we can't easily see the virus either. Psychology is loaded with skepticism, and as such will always be in a "schrodinger's cat" status between provable hard researchable science and purely imaginative philosophy of a metaphysical entity called "the mind". For that, I'm willing to at least try with Jung. Your channel may benefit from this more "purely imaginative philosophy of a metaphysical entity called 'the mind'" as a "Yin" to the "Yang" you promised to go back to in this video. I really liked it, thanks.
Can you recommend some books about Jung, please? I remember I was really drawn to his understanding of psychology and archetypes, but when I tried to read his work (iirc I tried "Psychology of the unconscious"), I just couldn't. Maybe my attention span wasn't enough to sit through all the terms, or maybe I wasn't prepared enough - either way, it was extremely hard for me to read. Maybe there are books that conveyed Jung's ideas in a more digestible way?
This might be my new favorite video essay about anime, genuinely. This feels like a really fresh and unique perspective in the ocean of anime content online and I'm excited to see more! Also, discussing Bunny Girl Senpai in the video and putting Vivy in the intro is more than enough for me to trust your taste in anime implicitly, so now I'm off to read DanDaDan. 👍
The connections of conversion disorder and anime are hella intriguing, and you went in a far different (and awesome!) direction than I thought you were headed. Japanese culture, especially in comparison to many western cultures has a habit of making internal/emotional/psychological worries or anxieties either invisible or dismissing them due to their lack of external manifestation. Purely from what friends have told me, it's a bit like the idea that if you are incapable of assisting the collective, unless it is a physical malady (and even then, disabled peoples are treated with utmost prejudice), it is seen as 'laziness' rather than anything actually debilitating. I wondered when you first introduced Darius' case if you were going to make the connections to things like Menhera-chan and the culture around suicide, depression and mental anguish that too often connects to the 'Otaku' or 'NEET' circles in Japan. Many cases of disturbed abusers/terrorists/murderers are often associated with the Otaku sub-culture, and the image of otakus' even within anime/manga are usually stereotypical outcasts or creeps. Perhaps as a physical manifestation, mangaka feel as though their anguish will finally be taken seriously? Or maybe in a way to reach out to readers and say 'hey, this happens to me too, it's real, and it's threatening, but it'll be okay'. That's what manga always has been for me. PS. Check out Wonder Egg Priority if you want almost a literal example of this, it's such a wonderful show!
as someone who studied psychology in uni in southeast asia, we are taught about culturally different manifestations of mental illnesses. i think it isnt just that they feel emotional anguish will be taken more seriously but also that in east asian cultures like japan, mental illness actually often manifests as physical aches and pains. older, depressed japanese people will report that they feel fatigue and like theyre aching all over but show no signs of physical disability or illness. i think part of it might be that, as someone who is entrenched in a lot of the overarching asian beliefs and socialization, we dont learn to identify or label our feelings. a lot of people around me dont know what they feel when they're feeling it. it is difficult to ask for help when you cant even identify that youre struggling. and so i feel like the body ends up relying on psychosomatic pains to make people take notice and actually take care of themselves, like what happened with Darius.
@@zorro...... Great to hear from that perspective! I’ve experiences from European/North Am perspectives and whilst we touch on cultural differences, it’s definitely rarely a main focus unfortunately. It makes sense then that expressing unknowable/undefined emotions might be easier in art forms like anime and manga. Might even be a healthy way of processing emotions to help psychosomatic symptoms as you’ve mentioned. A super interesting research prospect, ‘might otakus cope better?’. Thank you for your input, was super thought provoking!
(spoilers for wep ig) WEP is a really good show! ..until it basically blames all the inner turmoil and reasons for why the girls were even pushed to suicide in the first place on some random robot, not because of the issues with how society and important figures in their lives treated said girls :/
I think it also helps to know the concept of Kami in Shinto. Kami are the literal spiritual personhoods of physical things. It's a very animistic concept. So emotions, which have physical processes related to them are also given these Kami, these spirits, these personhoods. It's a very interesting concept because a trauma or mental disorder can be a very literal personable thing, and I honestly think that can help people approach these things within themselves.
When you were talking about the metaphysical manifestation of your inner demons in Persona it reminded me of Steins Gate where there is literally not a singular villain that is physically visible besides whatever vague organization is running CERN and the "villain" is literally an abstract concept that nobody can see or interact with. I wish I could say more without spoilers because this show hit me in a way that no other show has.
This was far more entertaining than I expected. This for sure was very motivated. I know that Mushi-shi was one the animes I fall back to that had a big impact on me, as mundane as Mushi-shi is. Honestly, how they explain their world and why things happen it's very pretty. How the main character tries to find that balance go live with the mushi rather than destroy the scary, the unknown. It changed my view on how to go about things and people. I grew up watching anime and there's so much that they teach you beyond the goofy character interactions and the action as you said. It was very, mmm for lack of a better word, heart warming to watch this video that touched the concept of anime bringing forth emotions as a physical depicetion for the characters to grow and/or defeat. Thank you for the video!
missed opportunity for Paranoia Agent...but anyway, great video. I feel like a lot of this trope can be hit or miss for me, depending on the tone and how these stories are told in general, but it's always interesting to think about how it tends to manifest in the first place.
Want to second this opinion in regards to Paranoia Agent. The plot echoes a lot of what you mentioned about True Detective season 1, while exploring the ideas of the manifestation of unhealthy aspects of the collective subconscious. It's a great piece of social commentary that opens with Japanese yodeling and manic laughter. As a fan of Satoshi Kon, I love the series, and it's a short watch, so I think it's worth your time.
Have you read Oshi no Ko?, if not I feel like you'd love it. It covers the dark side of the Japanese entertainment Industry and the characters are very well written. Its being made by the Author of Love is War and Illustrated by the Author of Scum's wish. It currently has 90 chapters out but the release date of the physical volumes have yet to be announced. Edit: Physical volumes are releasing on january 17th
It's finally here! This might be my favorite video yet (alongside the deltarune, inscription, and internet checkpoint videos from off the top of my head). To go on a little bit of a rant, this is why I LOVE psychology and storytelling. Psychology is ways to understand people and stories are ways to Invision things and communicate to people. Stories have helped me so incredibly much to develop myself into the person I am, and I love the idea of fictional people growing and developing to teach people (and not just kids) how things can be in life. I also love animation for being a medium to create and show so many things. Some things can't be described with words, and animation can do as this video said and turn those things into something real that can be understood. When you look into stories for something deeper you can find beautiful things. You can learn and grow without intense hardship. You can find real people in fictional characters. And that's special.
I was on my binge high going through Daryl’s videos (because his script & storytelling is always *chefs kiss*), and what are the chances I got introduced to Dandadan here, and THEN see that an anime PV for its 2024 release was uploaded LAST NIGHT and it came up on my feed 🤯
The thing is though about the idea of a collective unconcious is that it is factually correct in a certain sense. Many fears, phobias and such things ARE passed down genetically in some fashion, you dont learn to fear snakes or bugs from being taught or experience, your ancestors learned it and the fear they learned is still passed down to modern humans. The same is true for social recognition aswell. You could recognize a social situation or a kind of behaviour in another person and be anxious or afraid of it without ever experiencing anything like it. You can be afraid of snakes and so on aswell instinctively without ever seeing one before in your life. So you could absolutely recognize certain archetypes of people at birth the same way you can be afraid of certain things at birth.
As a major anime fan and a big fan of you, I was really worried you weren't going to do justice to explaining anime the same way you do with games but you haven't dissapointed me, you've even made me realise things about why I like anime so much
Another example of the collective unconscious manifesting physically is in Code Geass, where an entity likened to being God is literally referred to as the Collective Unconscious.
"Share the anime that had a deep effect on you" From the New World and Welcome to the N.H.K. are probably my top picks when it comes to the commentary and exploration of the psyche. I've finally started reading the Monster manga and it's also been fantastic. Of course there's also Ergo Proxy, ID:Invaded, Ghost in the Shell, Mardock Scramble, and plenty more that imo were quite good.
Bro that entire section building back up to discussing Eva was FANTASTIC, you are making some of the highest quality content on the platform right now!
Oh wow that intro from 2:27 to 3:27 goes hard. The combination of the very beautiful and visually striking scenes into some of the most emotionally charged moments from my favourite shows just gave me chills. Like microdosing the heaviest parts of all those shows at once. Oh man, I wasn't ready for that.
Very interesting! As I was watching, I realize that I do this a lot myself- envisioning things or feelings as something physical, rather than just "abstract motivation". But, talking to someone close to me, it's interesting that they do not do this at all. For me, the physical representation serves as a "conduit" for the emotion. Sort of in the same way that some people feel inspired to dance when they feel very happy (or sad). It's like a means of expression. The eastern vs western philosophies give an interesting background to this conversation.
This was really fascinating, I am autistic and have found i always connect more deeply to anime style characters than I do with other types of story telling, I wonder whether the physical manifestation of emotion, conflict etc you talk about might explain part of why that is. Being autistic often feels like many conflicts or emotions get stuck inside because the way i would express them would not be considered appropriate. Anime therefore expresses situations or feelings in a way that i can resonate with but could not do myself. I used to be a dancer and I think I loved it for similar reasons - it was a physical expression of inward emotion, not like in the crime series you talked about, but like my sadness literally became a leap or an external villain for example. Not sure if this is interesting to anyone, do with it what you will, but wanted to say thanks for this video, it has helped me to understand myself a little better actually, even if I can't quite express it coherently here.
Fellow autistic person here. I can totally empathize with how you feel, and it honestly is such a relief to lose myself in a fantasy where complex emotions can be released in a way that doesnt involve clumsy, fumbled words. Emotions feel impossible to explain, and anime creates a fantasy where you dont need to explain them, because theyre plain to see
Here 2 years later to say that his prediction about Dan Da Dan getting an anime adaptation ( 19:19 ) was right on the money. Last week they did an early premiere of the first few episodes in theaters before it even released in Japan.
That concluding bit of the video hit hard. I think doing these videos and searching for these answers about humanity is in itself an expression of empathy on your part. At the very least I feel that you care deeply about humanity from this and your other videos, and it makes me and I’m sure others feel less alone and less insane in this crazy world we live in. Much love to you, Daryl, and thank you for everything.
I really appreciate the start and conclusion of your journey through this rabbit hole because it kind of helped me contextualize my own views of this amazing genre. I’ve always known (well for as long as I’ve watched anime) that it’s made me feel a totally different kind of way, a way that western storytelling and media never quiet touched. But I guess I never really looked past the “it just expresses feelings better” part of the discussion and touched on the far FAR deeper points that you did. But as soon as you started talking about how in western society we use the action of a story to relate back to the emotional side of our characters arc and how in eastern storytelling the emotional/psychological arc IS the action just put into physical form for my dumby brain to understand (obviously I’m joking just look at Eva and all the analysis it breeds) it gives this weird sort of…release that I don’t feel very often to almost never that I have a very hard time pulling from the metaphorical abstract version we in the west put forward. Maybe I’m just really bad at connecting strings from physical plot to mental plot and that leads to having a little piece of tape that helps connect them for me helps more than I realized? Or maybe I need to sit down and seriously think about what I watch more than I do. Anyway this was a very VERY long comment but thank you so much for your awesome videos and helping me with self realization
Great video, as always! I half-expected Serial Experiments Lain to pop up when you mentioned "we're all connected" and I found it a bit odd you didn't mention it in this video, considering how popular and closely related to the Collective Unconscious theme it is. If you didn't watch it, I think you might really dig it.
I'm surprised you haven't talked about "Egregores". It's basically what you talk about : concept representing a non-physical entity arising from the collective thoughts of a group of people. The more we think about them, the more they gain importance. Gods, feelings, idéologies, archétypes,... All Egregores. Most of the info on the internet is in french tho.
I really like this anime called ×××HOLiC. It is about a mysterious store that grants wishes to people. Kind of lighthearted but also dark and karmic at times, because people's whishes often come from their flaws that they have and refuse to get rid of. And then there is also this whole part about a boy that is pursued by ghosts and a witch that really loves sake and the whole spiritual world filled with a ton of different characters. It's great. And I really like how it can visualize an invisible struggle.
As an aspiring writer, I have been studying different styles of writing and eastern writing styles have always been my favorite. They are always so different and interesting from what I have read in school. It has always affected me the more emotionally than anything else. The ideas that the writers for anime and manga have implemented into characters and events is really creative.
As a lifelong lover of mythology, I also really enjoy anime for its use of youkai/creatures as manifestations of cultural fears and beliefs. It really is a fascinating idea. This was a great episode! I really enjoyed it:) I was waiting for Kyouko Suiri to come up in that part of the discussion - if you haven't seen/read it it, I can recommend it.
The concept of negative emotions manifesting as monsters or physical symptoms is my favorite thing in media. You explained how well the persona series does it. There’s also the game LiEat that does it as well. I love this concept so much that I made a dnd character for it. I’m glad you made this video cuz now I have something to reference when talking to people about this.
One of your best videos! I love turning feelings & concepts into something physical in all of my games and stories so, very interesting. :) I've been writing for 2 years a graphic novel where scientists basically turned the collective inconscious into a metaverse/internet. Of course, Jung inspired me greatly, and so did animes. :D
I've always appreciated this sort of thing in anime and other storytelling simply because I'm a very metaphorically-minded person. I make heavy use of metaphors when trying to understand and communicate with people and process things, and having a well-thought-out visual metaphor helps me massively when I'm trying to understand something I'm watching, playing, or reading too. It's just very intuitive for me.
Try that,but some1 is useing passive aggressive hate speech and telling you're wrong=for LITTERLY ANYTHING YOU SAY OR DO,while still trying to figure it out.
I can relate to the beginin,the sheer panic upon discovering i couldnt see in my left eye after waking up,and doctors first couldnt figure out at first, and then discoverin i have keratoconus,that really sucks and feels hopeless
I was honestly surprised by you going into detail about Kawai Hayao's ideas. He was certainly not obscure at the time in Japan, but definitely not someone I'd expect to have international recognition. Most of the Japanese translations of Jung were done by him, and his application of Jung's theories to Japanese culture and psyche is quite insightful and interesting. Chainsaw Man was also one of my best reads in the past few years. The breadth at which the manga's author explores fear and its manifestation is probably what really sold me. One particular scene sparked a memory of something Kawai Hayao said, that the Shinto gods were the "fear" that the Japanese felt towards nature (he used the word 畏れ as opposed to the general term for fear, 恐れ). As with everything in nature, the gods may assume roles that benefit people, but they weren't ever conceived as truly benevolent beings. Their overwhelming presence humbled the ancients and whatever mercy imparted became a blessing. Fear bred reverence. Thinking about it, there is another noteworthy parallel between Chainsaw Man and the broader shintoist ideology. In Chainsaw Man, most anything that's feared can become a devil. In Shinto, most anything that's conceived can become a god. Which leads me to guess that the older gods can manifest in the world of Chainsaw Man, but their power is not nearly what they used to be. As Kawai once quoted: in modernity, a growing number of people have lost the ability to "fear". On another note, are you considering exploring the shadow archetype and how it's been dealt differently between cultures? How there's a prevalence of thwarting one's enemy for justice in western media, while anime so often likes to resort to talk-no-jutsu and vegetafication? I think there's a lot to talk about when it comes to conflict(shadows) in stories. There's also a whole other topic of how the projection of one's shadow can lead to conflict. If by any chance you get around to it, that'll be awesome. Great vid. Love your work. Hope to see more.
If you like this kind of dialogue about the collective unconscious in anime, highly recommend anything by Satoshi Kon (Paranoia Agent, Millenium Actress, Paprika, etc). He was a master at bringing out the strangeness of people's anxieties onto animation/film. I think he was my favorite anime director before he passed.
This actually might be one of my favorite summerzations as to WHY I like anime. I've always just had the "they're different than western stories" answer. But this, THIS, has so much more depth and actually equips me to with the real reason I like it so much.
Omg yes. Thanks for this video. I love that I have a dialog that speaks to much of my fascination with anime... because yea! Anime depicts so much metaphysical and psychological phenomenons and manifestations in ways that live-action movies/TV just can't express the same way. Even like the expressions right? The way emotions are conveyed on all anime characters faces so exaggerated or so defined in ways that again live-action media just cannot capture. It's powerful art that speaks to the soul and that's why I just love it and gravitate to it more than the regular stuff.
Banger episode man, I think this explains a lot of why I tend to feel more attached to anime characters then characters from most other forms of media. I do tend to enjoy learning and understanding about the more collective culture in the west and having met people who believe western philosophies it is quite interesting to see how anime heavily romanticize them. I can't speak the Shintoism, but Buddhism and especially Hinduism are incredibly brutal religions when fully and properly carries out. My time in Nepal has shown me a lot of the darker side of some religions that the east romanticized to the moon and back.
Dude, this video is so good. It's given me a ton of fascinating things to think about in terms of how culture shapes media and my own love of anime/manga. I think the "physical representations of mental/emotional states" trope gives this medium the power to be uniquely cathartic.
Everytime Daryl uploads I think: "This is my new favorite Daryl video" but this is now my all time favorite. Thank you for all you do Daryl. This was a nice experimental(?) way of doing a video that was highly requested.
I don't know how. But the anime Re:Zero basically destroyed my whole outlook on life for the better. I have been in a much more positive head space for months afterwards.
dude I LOVED THIS, so glad to see a retrospective psychological analysis of anime, gaming is great and all but I'm at a stage in my life where I don't game any more at all, but have so many cherished memories of anime and watching this just felt like such a full circle moment. pls do more ill watch em all ;) I think the anime that had the biggest effect on me was Eva, definitely got way to into that (Trice was such a trip after all those years of anticipation) Some honourable mentions: Hajime no Ippo, Chuunibyou demo koi ga shitai, Bunny girl, Welcome to the NHK, FMA: Brotherhood, YOUR LIE IN APRIL, hero aca, soul eater, naruto, one piece, i guess SAO since it was such a formative time in my life, death note, bebop, attack on titan first season, psycho-pass, lovely complex (so underrated), shokugeki no souma first season, ghibli in general, and loving demon slayer so far sorry im gushing i just miss anime so much
This has put my mind in its deep thought working state like its not been for a while. Thank you for the horrifying and intensely gratifying situation I find myself in.
This is awesome! Along with Jungian psychology and buddhism, gnosticism seems to be a weirdly common idea within anime/JRPGs, with bits of Jewish mysticism thrown in
Gnosticism takes a fair bit of Greek philosophy and mixes in bits and pieces of Christian terminology and, like you said, Jewish mysticism. The reason for this is because "the Gospel is foolish to the Greek," so as a result this (and result in pseudo-Gospel accounts such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas) was developed by fake teachers to stroke the human ego without having to face the utter helplessness of humanity to not desire to do evil (whether it be basic selfish thoughts or... more extreme examples), all while allowing them to take advantage of their adherents and grow their power.
I never considered the concept of a consciousness or awareness without an ego... god, that sounds like something I need to understand, now. I want to know what it feels like to understand that concept.
After watching this video for what feels like my 100th time and now showing it to everyone I know (including my parents who neither play games nor watch anime) I can confidently say that this is my favorite video of yours ever!
I don't know if I experienced conversion disorder, but I definitely experienced something very similar. Nearly 5 years ago, back in highschool, my parents and I had learnt about some bad things I had done and some online friends on discord I made that were pretty shitty people. I regretted a lot of the things I did and wished that some of those friends would change, but I cherished those friends and memories because they saved my life. Before I met them, I was lonely, depressed, apathetic, and suicidal, but they showed me there was more to life and inspired me to grow. I chose to cut ties with many of them while sticking close to a select few, and I tried to distance myself from my mistakes, but it was too late. My parents were extremely upset at what I had done that it was hard for them to trust that I really wanted to change. It was only the night before when I had sent my best friend a message saying that I would take a break from discord for a while in an effort to change. They overreacted and took away everything. All of my accounts were deleted so that I would never be able to talk to any of those friends again, including my best friend who had the biggest positive impact on my life. My parents forced me to sit with them and read all of the bad things me and my friends had said out loud every day for a week before finally deleting the account. They learned about my prior experiences with depression and suicide and they hid things like medicine and knives that I needed for normal, daily things because they couldn't trust me, and it felt so insulting. Many other things happened that I won't go into, but that week traumatized me. All of my efforts to grow, the important connections I had made, the willpower I had to muster to decide to change were all for nothing. In the following weeks, I had severe stomach pains, and they got worse and worse every day. Before that point I had weighed 185 lbs., and I was healthy and athletic, but it hurt so much to eat that I dropped to 135 lbs. and was chronically fatigued. There were nights when the pain was so bad that I would literally cry myself to sleep, and I would typically only be able to sleep for 2 hours before going to school the next day. This problem persisted for a full year before my parents finally realized the severity of the pain and took action. After some food sensitivity tests, I had made some extreme changes to my diet that cut out almost everything and made it immensely difficult to find anything I could eat. Wheat, eggs, dairy, common fruits and vegetables, many meats like pork and various fish, all of it was cut out of my diet. The pain still persisted, but the diet did help to alleviate it a little bit. After beginning this diet, it took 2 full years to fully reintroduce something like eggs, and nearly 3 and a half to reintroduce wheat. This week I had actually just began working on reintroducing dairy, and things have been mostly ok so far. The symptoms have gradually lightened as I reconciled with my parents and graduated from highschool and no longer needed to maintain perfect grades. Throughout all of this though, anime began to heavily resonate with me, and I think this video helped me to make sense of it. In recent months, we took much more thorough (and intense, lol) tests, but all of the results showed that I never should have had a sensitivity to things like gluten, dairy, and many other foods that I cut out. For nearly half a decade, my physical health was closely tied to my mental health. The pain would peak along with stress, and it's taken years to work past the trauma of losing some of those friends. Nobody knows why I was so sensitive to these foods and had such frequent pains, but every for every step that my mental health improves, so does my physical health. I feel more confident and less physically weak. While I know people who have gone through far worse than I ever have and likely ever will, I am now much more mentally mature and resilient, and I accept everything that has happened because it has made me who I am now. I am happy with my life and the kind of person I am. I love my parents and friends and appreciate everything that they've done. I'm glad that despite everything, I'm still alive, and that I've been able to help others and find happiness myself. In the past, I lost hope that things would ever improve, that I would always have persisting pain and would never be able to truly fix my life, but I'm so grateful that I was wrong.
the more you put out, the more convinced I am that you are genuinely one of the best content creators I've ever followed. I'm consistently impressed by your work, thank you for all your hard work!
The idea, that the believe or fear in something/someone will manifest them or grant them power is not isolated to anime, far from it I would say. Small Gods from Pratchett immidiately comes to my mind, where he explores it with his usual smart and funny style. Check out the trope "Gods Need Prayers Badly"
Now I understand why Xenoblade Chronicles 3 ends the way it does. The final villain is literally the manifestation of the collective anxiety of two whole worlds.
I really love the concept of archetypes, I did a lots of researches and I wanted to bring justice to this concept that is not defined exactly how Jung does in this video : An archetype is basically the image and the emotion that are seen by the individual when an instinct is "activated". Also, the archetypes of the collective uncouncious are not really an inherited memory, but more a structural way of seeing things and behave to the things happening in the outside world. The instincts actually produce spontaneously an image that can born in every psyche, even if the representation of the archetype will certainly be quite different from an individual to an other. The representation of the archetype (the image that born within the activation of the instinct) will always have a similar pattern, but can take many forms. One of the best example is God, as an achetypic idea that born spontaneously in the psyche, that can take many forms as we see in many various religions. But remember that the image that born is not the archetype but the representation of the archetype. The archetype is more like a tendancy to make a particular image, with particular caracteristic, born in the psyche.
This. This video is SO important to me. If not answered, you have pointed out and debated over questions that I haven't been able to fully form up until now. I've been an anime/manga fan for some time and have always found impressive the creativity of the artists, but couldn't quite understand why their stories are written the way they are. The characters, the worlds, conflicts and resolutions; some people simply state them as "weird", but I have always found that there's probably more to them, even if I couldn't understand yet. At least for some stories. Thank you for making this video. My perspective of the media might have changed for good (for the better).
I just started on my bachelor in psychology and without you repeatedly showing me how interesting and fun it can be, idk if i would have chosen this major. So thank you!
Your use of music in these videos is amazing. Always reminds me how powerful music can be when used properly in a video. Especially at 2:30. Literally gave me goosebumps
Satoshi Kon based-off his whole visual storytelling style on this topic and I've always thought of how mind bogglingly beautiful yet eerie was the use of Match-cuts to jump from scene to scene, or merely between mind states within the character and by a certain point you can no longer tell where the defined reality ends and where does the mindspace of the characters begin which is so powerfully used in Paranoia Agent and Paprika, but my favourite being Millenium Actress' Finale!
"Maps of Meaning" is a book that talks about Freud and Jung's ideas quite a bit. A bit long, but has an audiobook as well. That aside, looking forward to more anime where people turn into goo for some reason. At least now, perhaps I know why.
For me it’s undeniable that there is something spiritual about many many anime and games. It can be heavily influenced by Buddhism or Shintoism yes, but spirituality being a mostly personal part of life in Japan, there is a far less dogmatic approach. While most people are indifferent, the storytellers make use of all kinds of spiritual concepts freely because they don’t have the intention of indoctrinating, merely exploring. And we love it because that kind of exploration can be really beautiful and can even bleed over into self exploration
"Memes: the DNA of the soul. They shape our will. They are our culture -- they are everything we pass on. (...) All memes. All passed along" -Monsoon from Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
I sincerely would like to see more Psyche of Anime stuff from you. Idc if it's on this channel or a second one, you do incredible work and I love both games and anime so I'll be watching both.
Buddhist here! First and foremost Japan and Japanese media is influenced very heavily by Buddhism and Buddhists values. The more you learn about Buddhism the more anime and the way people act in anime will make sense to simplify things. Its similar to how America is heavily influenced by Christian values and you'll see it in media as well. As for your video I was waiting for the moment you were going to bring up Buddhism because I'd say it's the main reason for this trope. So in Buddhism though there are prominently light beings such as the different Buddhas and dark beings such as Demons. That concept is very rare. A person is not an inherently "good" or "bad" person. They are what they choose to be in this lifetime. You are the actions you choose to make that effect you and other people. And when you choose your actions you have to think and realize they never just effect only you, other topic that is forgin to the west. Also something I think that was slightly glossed over in the video but not on purpose. It's very common in western media for a character to be a lone wolf and leave people that need them or care about them behind because they dont want their whatever call to justice to effect them but it does effect their love ones. As an American in many things leaving a wife with 3 children to fight a war you may never come back from is seen as the most noble thing you can do. In the east there is a whole Buddhist holiday to bless your parents that you may be able to take care for them as long as you can. This non-belief of your either good or bad has Buddhist look inward and focus on growth of self and emotions and how you as person effect other people. Which is why in a lot of anime you see a power up after a reach inside yourself for strength that you had inside you all along kind of thing. As for the physical manifestation of negative emotions is something also seen in Buddhism. People will often go to temples asking masters for blessings to remove "ghosts" or negative energy to demons off of people who have been sick lately after something happened. It's very common to believe that these dark energies and spirits can cause physical problems. I dont live on Japan but in larger temples you can bring home wards to keep bad spirits out of your house from keeping you sick or hurt. So when they use it in anime I believe it's an exaggeration of myths and things your grandmother says. Such as when someone dies a "ghost" can attach to someone grieving very deeply for them and cause them to become ill. So my theory is if they sort already kinda believe negative emotions can cause physical harm anime pushes it to "ok okay everyone knows you can get a headache but WHAT IF YOU GOT CUTS ON YOUR SKIN WHEN YOU GOT BULLIED wouldn't that be wild!?!?" And it puts things into perspective because someone could've gotten bullied and gotten a headache before but then they watch that anime and it's like "oh wow that is what it feels like" so it's just as impactful of anime but not for the same reasons. There are some beautiful concepts in Buddhism and putting that in the creativity of anime you will find a lot of out comes. If that makes sense? That last part is a theory tho so dont quote me on that 😅
At the end, when you said that the reason you love anime is because it makes you feel connected to all people. Really struck a cord with me. And I realized that I shared that same reason for loving anime. But I’ve also felt that overwhelming spiritual/cognitive connection with others when I learned of/contemplate the nature of matter/the universe. How matter and energy are nither created nor destroyed. How all of our atoms were once cooked in the guts of stars. And how one day, the universe will experience heat death. Or could all be swallowed up by black holes, the places were matter and energy do break down. How all once existed, now. And how all will not exist, the future. How we all are small specks on a speck, hurdling through space, spinning on an axis. How our existence is at once, insignificant. Yet irrevocably important, simply because we effect one another. And our connections to one another is what makes us significant.
I am reminded of the trends of fiction relating to societal anxieties, resulting in "survival fiction" and "death game" series (Battle Royale, Mirai Nikki) which were fed into by Apocalypticism. Pause and Select has a few great videos on it. Recently I've noticed a lot of series are about being eaten (Attack on Titan, Promised Neverland) or replaced by dopplegangers (Shadow's House, Summertime Rendering) and I'd love to see that explored more in depth.
I'm very interested in you doing a video on koe no Katachi, because it points out a different question, what happens when an anime becomes individualistic? What happens when an anime takes a deep dive into a topic that is very important in Japan, and how they take into it as a personal trip, koe no Katachi is my favourite movie of all time and that's because of how deep it moves you, it's a crude, realistic yet magical way of showing the internal struggles of someone without materialising like most anime does, Koe no Katachi goes into a subtleness so different from your traditional anime, compare it to Kimi no nawa and their magical travel through time, here you are in an scenario so real you or anyone could be on it, and the way they show it makes you really feel you are on their shoes. You could had been in an scenario like that, but for me, no show has ever described it so perfectly and clean as koe no Katachi did. I dunno, I could
Well, I thought about a video essay themed as "why anime is the most psychedelic art form", and you pretty much summed up it here. When you take psychedelics, you would then study Jung and Buddhism, as people do. And here's you, watch anime and find all the influences there.
I would say that this stuff is very common in a certain genre in the west: horror films. Like The Shinning being a manifestation of the Hotel comes from the violence that came into evil spirits. You find this all over supernatural horror. Maybe it’s not exactly the same, but I see so many similarities.
I've had this tab open for almost a year now, and I've been putting off watching this one. I wanted to give it the attention it deserved, and it was an absolutely fine video, I love metaphors and seeing the psychology in media
This is one of the most impactful videos for me that you've released. I'm so happy to hear you talk about anime, I truly, truly am so happy to hear you address these themes I've never been able to express. Thank you so much, Daryl!
Nailed it. Always been obsessed with the way anime manifests the psychological aspects of its stories. Not only does it do this. It leans hard into it. It's not shy. It is what it wants to be in a bold manner that I absolutely love. DBZ, for example, may be simplistic. Childish. But goddamn. There is something so powerful about a character literally transforming into a more powerful version of himself when overwhelmed with feelings of righteous anguish. The catharsis in witnessing that is worth it.
Holy sh** it's here! Amazing video Daryl! Super happy that you had a great time writing it because damn it was super fun to watch. This also serves as a reminder for me to go and re-watch some of the mentioned animes and even pick up some new ones. Thank you for making such banger content, regardless of what the topic is. Be it gaming, wrestling or anime - you always make it fun, interesting and entertaining. Here's to hoping that we soon hit the next milestone for a Psych of Play on Dating Sims! Stay awesome.
This video was awesome! I’ve been writing a novel and haven’t had much success explaining scenes that change based on the unconsciousness of those in the scene itself. Watching your video opened up so much insight. Like you mentioned, growing up with strong individualist tendencies make explaining collective communal manifestations in fantasy or sci-fi hard to explain. Thank you for this!
These ideas of spirits gaining power from belief exist in Western media too, but typically these types of spirits are good rather than evil. In the classic Peter Pan play Tinkerbell and other fairies gained power from the belief of children. It also shows up in "The Guardians" movie for both positive and negative with Jack Frost and the others gaining power from belief while "Pitch" gains power from fear. Assassin's Creed also plays with the idea a bit. Changing enough people's minds is enough to physically change reality. On another note, I'd like to mention how similar the ending of Splatoon 2's DLC is to Evangelion's ending.
This video is sponsored by... *you* :)
The only way this was possible is thanks to the delightful people supporting the show on Patreon. We have pledge milestone rewards that we try to hit over time and a Psych of Play on anime is the first one we hit! Our next milestone is a Psych of Play on Dating sims, so if that sounds fun and you'd like to contribute to the NEXT outlandish video topic, head on over to my Patreon and consider supporting the show - www.patreon.com/daryltalksgames
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Thanks again to everyone who made this possible. I am extremely happy with this one, so truly, thank you for letting me do this.
How did you post a comment 2 days ago ? How did some comment like 10h ago when the video was posted not more than an hour ago ?
@@elio6361 Patreon! I'm sure all supports get early access to videos! www.patreon.com/daryltalksgames
@@elio6361 Daryl can upload early, keep it private, and add comments. As for other commenters, maybe early access for patrons.
This is a top contendor to a hug by you! I would love a heart on this comment.
Lets goooo. Anime video.
Ive always joked about "winning with the power of love and friendship" being very anime. And a lot of people can take that as cringey, but I wholeheartedly appreciate it. I think people as a whole wish we could manifest our desires for a better world to defeat the evil in it. Its absolutely magical to me.
Edit: didnt have notifications on but good to see theres still people who live on that hard Edge that they cant have a little optimisim in their life. Its sad really.
This nigga 3 years old
Helps to have a gun or two just in case
Its magical because it doesnt happen irl. What wins irl is violence and greed and survival instinct.
I think that might be why it's such a common truth because in real life not a lot if any of your problems can be solved through things like friendship or love and I think some like you and indulge themselves in a in media were such things can happen
It's not just a matter of love and friendship, it's a matter of rejecting the selfish desires of this world, not just for ourselves, but for the longevity or our environment, the sound demeanor of our own minds, and the security of our own nature (i.e., "the soul").
It's not just about saying "yes" to each other, it's about saying "no" to ignorance, and eliminating it not through violence, but through education, through understanding, through compassion, through the deterioration of entitlement and expectations, by relieving the burdens we place on the martyrs in our society, and building each other towards a more estimable (sustainable) future.
You don't need to believe in love, friendship, or magic to believe in the power of humanity.
You can't behold the maw of a species that horrifying and not believe in its capacity for carnal cooporation.
Dude. The nonself idea fits super well with "self insert" characters like the MCs of Persona. Empty (often silent), always has compassion and selflessness (you're often doing quests for others), and understands the meaning of being alive (often the moral center of the group). That's such a fascinating look into the eastern style of making video games
That’s just a thing with most RPGs.
@@thomasffrench3639 but Persona has that as it's main themes, for example, 3 focus on death and dealing with it, 4 on acceptance and being yourself, 5 focuses on freedom and rebellion against corruption
That's profound, OP.
Sadly, for this to be the case you would have to neglect the understanding of non-self and instead only go of off the name alone. Non-self does not mean empty, it means impermanence. The self is every changing, ever regressing and ever growing as such there can not be a true self as for a self there needs to be a state of permanence. Self-insert characters have no self and thus they can have no non-self for they are hollow, husks without humanity meant to give access to yourself.
The video has completely butchered the actual meaning of achieving a state of nirvana. He had said that it's about extinguishing desire (which is true), and then fill it with love and compassion (wrong) to find true happiness (very wrong). The extinguishing of desire speaks about accepting ones desire, it's about allowing yourself to feel what you feel when you feel it and then to work towards eradicating it to find relief from existence. What is as wrong as it gets is the part about filling it will love. The goal isn't to fill it with love, it's to transcend emotions. Love & compassion, hate and jealousy, they are both one and the same, of the same origin. You can not have one without the other, and as one can not be without the other you can not replace one with the other without the concepts ceasing to exit. In life, love might sometimes feel more present and sometimes disgust will take it's place. There will always be emotions that feel postive as there will always be emotions that feel negative, sometimes in balance and sometimes one overweighs the other but always together. And as they are the same, they too get marked by what is knon as the three marks of existence.
Those are (1) Impermanence, (2) unease/suffering, (3), non-self aka no lasting essence.
Your goal is not to achieve happiness,
it's to find salvation from the cause that is behind your so called happiness/dissatisfaction.
It's a return to nature; a cessation of consciousness (extinguishing of desire),
and thus an escape of the cycle of rebirth, no longer animal, human, hell, or god but beyond.
This doesn't have much in common with self-insert characters at all, even within the games of Persona.
I'm sorry to say that since it's probably a bummer to have you be corrected haha
But your connection does have a cute sentiment to it though, although it's entirely made by rhetoric and not by process.
Hope this helped to understand the concept.
they aren't exactly self insert you just have to look deeper
Some things are predictable in life:
-The sun rising each morning
-Dogs barking and birds chirping
-No new BotW 2 or Silksong info that day
-Daryl putting Makima in the Psych of Anime thumbnail
My man 😈
@DED_C and some1 insecure hurting some1,either municipaliting 1000 people to believe in aleins and that the insecure person MAGICALLY knows more aleins or supernatural thing only THEY CAN SEE,
or a crowd of insecure kretens of humanity are either trying to take away rights,
or 1 decides it can magically survive bullets and decides to go to church or to a fun place...
with a gun...
or rich insecure people are making conspiracies to get MORE money and control.
in saints row its called having fun and shooting any1 or anything you see for 5 or 10 minutes useing specific weopons.
the only difference is you see the massacre or genocide in the video game,
if you want to see it in real life,you need to have 70 decades of waiting and alot of cameras looking everywhere at once all on 1 big tv.
"I'm a closet weeb"
Nah, you just like anime.
Oh....you like manga? That's fine. Sometimes you read the manga after watching the anime, y'know?
....You read manga that haven't been adapted to anime? Woof.... *There is no saving him. He is WEEB weeb.*
Dogs barking? I hope not, they're the sole reason my life is going to end soon.
@@Aflay1 dont let him know about light novels
Conversion Disorder?! I finally have a name for it!
One of my best friends has been experiencing temporary blindness in one eye lately due to her work forcing her to work 90 hour work weeks. She kept calling it hysterical blindness, but I think she thought it was more brain damage from lack of sleep.
I'll let her know asap, thank you so much!~
@@vectormanforever that scam bot
@@thebiggesthatersinworld I'm well aware, but I still appreciate the concern~
How’s it been?
@@luckyblockyoshi
As long as she controls her stress levels she can see out of both eyes again!
Plus apparently it was so severe for her that her colourblindness was also an effect of conversion disorder. She still works a bad job with horrible coworkers, but she's finally getting therapy and things are looking up~
@@vectormanforever Oh, good to hear!
I think Anime’s trend of manifesting emotions into physical or metaphysical manifestations is because of how Yokai and Kami play an important roll in Japanese culture, and most Yokai and Kami are representations of emotions/habits/phenomena.
I.E. can’t sleep well at night? That’s a Yokai’s fault. Stopped raining shortly before you had to go out somewhere? That’s thanks to a Kami. You get the urge to dance whenever you hear your favourite song? Well that’s either a Yokai or Kami depending on if you see it as a blessing or a curse.
I agree, and if you ask me, it's very cathartic to see when you relate to the specific emotion being incarnated
@@BlaxeFrost-X wym lol
@@mihailmilev9909 I mean that you can feel relief or advancement when an emotion you feel is portrayed in anime in a physical or metaphysical form, specially if you originally don't ubderstand it and is resolved in the anime or game by teying to solve the psychological origin of that manifestation
It could also be a case of how symbolic things are a favorable thing in Japanese culture, because symbolism appears in a lot of things if you look close. So it makes sense that appears in anime where you have situations that relate to a person's emotion, a person's thoughts or feelings that are put into the environment around them or clothing or colors.
You feel like someone is following you? Thats a yokai. Please step aside and kindly ask the yokai to continue walking and it will follow the road and leave you alone
This video really struck a chord with me as someone who only started watching anime a couple years ago but completely fell in love with the medium. I always had a lot of trouble explaining why anime resonated with me in a different way than western TV and film, but this video explained a lot.
I started watching anime during the pandemic, a time when I felt at my most isolated and was really disillusioned with individualism because of the selfish way so many of my neighbors and even family were acting. The nihilistic, "you're on your own" attitude of most western media (especially social media) really weighed down on me.
So I too, I found a lot of solace in seeing the interconnected nature of anime and Japanese culture. The sense of community between the characters as they strive for their goals together, the way they lean on each other both consciously and unconsciously, and especially the way they confront their fears and anxieties head-on, all fill me with happiness and make me feel a lot better about my own place in the world.
P.S. The intro and outro with the rapid cuts of different anime set to music was absolutely badass! I actually felt a little choked up on the outro.
And...super irrelevant and I'm barging in... the collective action problem of taking the 'orange pill'
What'd I jus say
Ye we in the west has an almost toxic problem with over coming our problems and struggles alone by our self. But in anime it's almost always a team effort where the characters help eachother in the friend group with eachother problems. And it's always way clearer then some vague inner struggle, unless it's some anime like Evangelion or Lain...
Better late than never, glad you picked up anime and appreciate its interconnectedness with Japanese culture and a source of story telling.
Been watching anime for years and i truly love the medium, manga and anime, and how it helps me learn about Japanese culture by being a compass of sorts. Now I'm a fan of Japanese culture and it's history as a whole
I think our Westernized minds tend to distance ourselves from anime and its themes of friendship and connection. It's "cringy" and "cliche." But I think everyone could use a story of people coming together to defeat a common enemy, while yelling about how much they love each other. ("Don't you ever mess with friends!! Magnum Punch!!!") It's cool to see an individual overcoming their own inner demons along their journey, but it's a journey for the viewer seeing two or more people finally defeating their worst enemy through each other after so much growth.
This video did a lot for my understanding as well. I really tend to not like western media and love eastern stuff, and it explained why. I'm...kinda cripplingly disabled and outright cannot work, so the whole "you're on your own" thing that pervades most of western works and that I constantly hear from people reads to me as "you aren't wanted here if you can't contribute the same way everyone else does." Which, being disabled as I am, means I read it as "please just die already so someone can take your place." Even people who I need to rely on tend to spew that very same thing, which as you can guess only makes it worse because now I'm disabled *and* trapped with people who, on an unconscious level, view me as worthless, and I can't leave because the support system for people like me is genuinely so bad I often consider killing myself because I'm not getting enough help.
Eastern media does away with that. It tells me that I have value even if I can't do a lot of things everyone else can, because there are still things I can do. It's nice.
Two weird thoughts about the “this thing gains more power the more you believe in it” trope:
- The stock market and currency itself seems to pretty much work this way. Terrifying.
- Final Fantasy Tactics had this mechanic in its unique “Faith” system. High Faith value = high effectiveness using magic and high damage taken from magic. Low Faith value (or no Faith in the case of the robot unit Worker 8) means that magic has no effect on you for good or ill.
The entire system of magic in the nasuverse (Fate/Stay Night, Kara no Kyokai, Tsukihime, etc.) is based on that trope. Everything works as much as people have enough doubt to believe in something. Explained as: 'Even if someone says that they don't believe in ghosts, when they are alone at home and hear a noise somewhere in their brain will believe that it *may* be, that's what makes magic (thaumaturgy) possible and more powerful the more people *may* think that it *may* be possible'
The concept of faith giving ideas power permeates practically every aspect of society.
Stock Market no Akuma when, Fujimoto.
Also, that "Faith" system you mentioned is so interesting!! I wanna get into Final Fantasy now.
Noragami's world is another one based on this, it is one where gods must have enough people believing in them to exist.
The idea of power from status in general could be considered a concept that only exists because people believe in it too;
For example there could be a king of a country; if every one of his subjects decided they no longer wanted to obey his rule he would have no power. If the people who governed the parts of the country that have him power, law, military and economy, stopped listening to him, he would have no way to exercise power and his power would cease to exist. The king would be reduced to nothing more than a single man with no way to influence or control anyone in the country
Paranoia Agent is the biggest example I can think of of this as far as anime is concerned. Little Slugger becomes more powerful thruout the series and started as one person's paranoia and becomes everyone's with the help of media and the news talking about it all the time.
Sounds like police brutality and racism in the current media landscape. Morgan Freeman said it best, "It'll go away when we stop talking about it. I'm not a black man, I'm Morgan Freeman"
Wow this was a blast to watch and a painful reminder that I need to go back and watch some of these anime.
I'm also incredibly hyped to see that Psych of Anime will return again!
Also that psychology on Dating Sims seems absolutely ridiculous and I hope that we can see that some time.
Banger video as always Daryl!
Thanks so much Kishan!
@@DarylTalksGames Tokimeki Memorial 👀
Paranoia agent is propably the best example of an anime about collective anxiety
I can't believe Daryl just EVA-rolled me
As a non-closet weeb I just want to say: amazing video, hope to see more psych of anime in the future!
The only thing I disagree with is (and this is really something I disagree with almost everyone on the internet it seems) EoE is not a feverish nightmare as it seems, it's really a hopeful ending but I feel people gets too engrossed on the visuals
I have the same name,I have an a,not e.
go look the legion of night in warhammer 40,000,that's literally what my family is like.
I'm pretty sure I know why I got my name,it's dark and unsurprising as the army.
I agree, All of Shinji's problems aren't fixed but he now has the right mindset to move forward and live in the world. He isn't suddenly fine now because of what he learned but he's going to try to be
I've written probably only like 2-3 UA-cam comments in my life but i immediately felt the need to convey just how amazing this video was and how much i relate to it. It's like hearing the doubtful and lonely observations i keep locked up while growing an awareness of my own emotional world and seeing it being expressed and connected to in anime. You wrote this beautifully and would love more content like this.
Ahh it's here!! Daryl, I just wanted to say that was such an entertaining and fun video, and being a little bit of a weeb myself seeing my fav works in little clips made me smile. Keep being yourself cause no matter who many views this gets, know this community will forever be interested and love your work! :)
Thank you so very much!
Happy to hear you're doing alright my guy. 👍🏻
+1 for this comment! It makes me so happy when I recognize a show or clip hahaha
"My AT field strong as hell dawg" Deepest introspective realization in western ideology of self.
As a psychology student who really likes Jung's Ideas, I really dislike how much people are reluctant to talk about jung at all, and it's all because Freud discredited him. THE Freud canceled Jung before "cancel culture" was a thing and it's for that that there is little to no research on those Ideas today.
The thing about Psychology are it's ties to Philosophy and imposibility to proof without any doubt. It's in the edge of science and we are taught so in college. Proving that a symptom is not feigned and it is in fact a psychological issue manifested in the body (Conversion Disorder) is not as hard as to prove that a runny nose and fever are in fact a virus even though we can't easily see the virus either.
Psychology is loaded with skepticism, and as such will always be in a "schrodinger's cat" status between provable hard researchable science and purely imaginative philosophy of a metaphysical entity called "the mind".
For that, I'm willing to at least try with Jung.
Your channel may benefit from this more "purely imaginative philosophy of a metaphysical entity called 'the mind'" as a "Yin" to the "Yang" you promised to go back to in this video.
I really liked it, thanks.
People are reluctant to study Jung coz his work's too honest for their repressed parts to handle.
@@PeverellTheThird a very honest comment XD
Can you recommend some books about Jung, please? I remember I was really drawn to his understanding of psychology and archetypes, but when I tried to read his work (iirc I tried "Psychology of the unconscious"), I just couldn't. Maybe my attention span wasn't enough to sit through all the terms, or maybe I wasn't prepared enough - either way, it was extremely hard for me to read. Maybe there are books that conveyed Jung's ideas in a more digestible way?
@@PeverellTheThird thank you very much! 💜 Jung with collaborators sounds exciting, I'll definitely check it out!
I guess the question is, are Jung's ideas falsifiable? If so, are they testable? If not, then it's more of a way of seeing than a way of describing.
This might be my new favorite video essay about anime, genuinely. This feels like a really fresh and unique perspective in the ocean of anime content online and I'm excited to see more!
Also, discussing Bunny Girl Senpai in the video and putting Vivy in the intro is more than enough for me to trust your taste in anime implicitly, so now I'm off to read DanDaDan. 👍
The connections of conversion disorder and anime are hella intriguing, and you went in a far different (and awesome!) direction than I thought you were headed. Japanese culture, especially in comparison to many western cultures has a habit of making internal/emotional/psychological worries or anxieties either invisible or dismissing them due to their lack of external manifestation. Purely from what friends have told me, it's a bit like the idea that if you are incapable of assisting the collective, unless it is a physical malady (and even then, disabled peoples are treated with utmost prejudice), it is seen as 'laziness' rather than anything actually debilitating.
I wondered when you first introduced Darius' case if you were going to make the connections to things like Menhera-chan and the culture around suicide, depression and mental anguish that too often connects to the 'Otaku' or 'NEET' circles in Japan. Many cases of disturbed abusers/terrorists/murderers are often associated with the Otaku sub-culture, and the image of otakus' even within anime/manga are usually stereotypical outcasts or creeps.
Perhaps as a physical manifestation, mangaka feel as though their anguish will finally be taken seriously? Or maybe in a way to reach out to readers and say 'hey, this happens to me too, it's real, and it's threatening, but it'll be okay'. That's what manga always has been for me.
PS. Check out Wonder Egg Priority if you want almost a literal example of this, it's such a wonderful show!
as someone who studied psychology in uni in southeast asia, we are taught about culturally different manifestations of mental illnesses. i think it isnt just that they feel emotional anguish will be taken more seriously but also that in east asian cultures like japan, mental illness actually often manifests as physical aches and pains. older, depressed japanese people will report that they feel fatigue and like theyre aching all over but show no signs of physical disability or illness.
i think part of it might be that, as someone who is entrenched in a lot of the overarching asian beliefs and socialization, we dont learn to identify or label our feelings. a lot of people around me dont know what they feel when they're feeling it. it is difficult to ask for help when you cant even identify that youre struggling. and so i feel like the body ends up relying on psychosomatic pains to make people take notice and actually take care of themselves, like what happened with Darius.
@@zorro...... Great to hear from that perspective! I’ve experiences from European/North Am perspectives and whilst we touch on cultural differences, it’s definitely rarely a main focus unfortunately.
It makes sense then that expressing unknowable/undefined emotions might be easier in art forms like anime and manga. Might even be a healthy way of processing emotions to help psychosomatic symptoms as you’ve mentioned.
A super interesting research prospect, ‘might otakus cope better?’. Thank you for your input, was super thought provoking!
(spoilers for wep ig)
WEP is a really good show!
..until it basically blames all the inner turmoil and reasons for why the girls were even pushed to suicide in the first place on some random robot, not because of the issues with how society and important figures in their lives treated said girls :/
@@inactive_ina yeah...
I think it also helps to know the concept of Kami in Shinto. Kami are the literal spiritual personhoods of physical things. It's a very animistic concept. So emotions, which have physical processes related to them are also given these Kami, these spirits, these personhoods. It's a very interesting concept because a trauma or mental disorder can be a very literal personable thing, and I honestly think that can help people approach these things within themselves.
When you were talking about the metaphysical manifestation of your inner demons in Persona it reminded me of Steins Gate where there is literally not a singular villain that is physically visible besides whatever vague organization is running CERN and the "villain" is literally an abstract concept that nobody can see or interact with.
I wish I could say more without spoilers because this show hit me in a way that no other show has.
This was far more entertaining than I expected. This for sure was very motivated. I know that Mushi-shi was one the animes I fall back to that had a big impact on me, as mundane as Mushi-shi is. Honestly, how they explain their world and why things happen it's very pretty. How the main character tries to find that balance go live with the mushi rather than destroy the scary, the unknown. It changed my view on how to go about things and people.
I grew up watching anime and there's so much that they teach you beyond the goofy character interactions and the action as you said. It was very, mmm for lack of a better word, heart warming to watch this video that touched the concept of anime bringing forth emotions as a physical depicetion for the characters to grow and/or defeat. Thank you for the video!
i like how anime itself could be viewed as a metaphysical representation of our collective consciousness
Yeah, you can find at least one trope or idea that is shared between pretty much every anime.
Isn't art in general a way to express unexplainable emotions in a physical way?
missed opportunity for Paranoia Agent...but anyway, great video. I feel like a lot of this trope can be hit or miss for me, depending on the tone and how these stories are told in general, but it's always interesting to think about how it tends to manifest in the first place.
Want to second this opinion in regards to Paranoia Agent. The plot echoes a lot of what you mentioned about True Detective season 1, while exploring the ideas of the manifestation of unhealthy aspects of the collective subconscious. It's a great piece of social commentary that opens with Japanese yodeling and manic laughter. As a fan of Satoshi Kon, I love the series, and it's a short watch, so I think it's worth your time.
I was waiting for Paranoia Agent the whole video!
Could be wrong but I wouldn't be surprised if he just hasn't watched it and thus can't draw parallels.
@@daephx It'd be a great recomendation for him then. By how perfect it fits in this video it's very likely he didn't watch it too.
Yup, Paranoia Agent immediately sprung to mind. Let me join the chorus of those recommending it, it's very much worth your time.
Have you read Oshi no Ko?, if not I feel like you'd love it.
It covers the dark side of the Japanese entertainment Industry and the characters are very well written. Its being made by the Author of Love is War and Illustrated by the Author of Scum's wish. It currently has 90 chapters out but the release date of the physical volumes have yet to be announced.
Edit: Physical volumes are releasing on january 17th
Oshi no Ko enjoyer detected
Opinion accepted
With regards to how Persona has to do with people's literal personas (masks) you may want to read about the Japanese concepts of "honne" and "tatemae"
It's finally here! This might be my favorite video yet (alongside the deltarune, inscription, and internet checkpoint videos from off the top of my head).
To go on a little bit of a rant, this is why I LOVE psychology and storytelling. Psychology is ways to understand people and stories are ways to Invision things and communicate to people. Stories have helped me so incredibly much to develop myself into the person I am, and I love the idea of fictional people growing and developing to teach people (and not just kids) how things can be in life. I also love animation for being a medium to create and show so many things. Some things can't be described with words, and animation can do as this video said and turn those things into something real that can be understood. When you look into stories for something deeper you can find beautiful things. You can learn and grow without intense hardship. You can find real people in fictional characters. And that's special.
Not a lot of creators can make a change in subject matter feel seamless like this.
what change of subject? ... ... no, seriously, i didn't notice it
In practice,it's called=a matter eco logical shift.
I was on my binge high going through Daryl’s videos (because his script & storytelling is always *chefs kiss*), and what are the chances I got introduced to Dandadan here, and THEN see that an anime PV for its 2024 release was uploaded LAST NIGHT and it came up on my feed 🤯
The thing is though about the idea of a collective unconcious is that it is factually correct in a certain sense. Many fears, phobias and such things ARE passed down genetically in some fashion, you dont learn to fear snakes or bugs from being taught or experience, your ancestors learned it and the fear they learned is still passed down to modern humans. The same is true for social recognition aswell. You could recognize a social situation or a kind of behaviour in another person and be anxious or afraid of it without ever experiencing anything like it. You can be afraid of snakes and so on aswell instinctively without ever seeing one before in your life. So you could absolutely recognize certain archetypes of people at birth the same way you can be afraid of certain things at birth.
What's crazy is that every successful generation of humans will be more keen to this. What's inconceivable is what is the apex to this evolution?
As a major anime fan and a big fan of you, I was really worried you weren't going to do justice to explaining anime the same way you do with games but you haven't dissapointed me, you've even made me realise things about why I like anime so much
Another example of the collective unconscious manifesting physically is in Code Geass, where an entity likened to being God is literally referred to as the Collective Unconscious.
"Share the anime that had a deep effect on you"
From the New World and Welcome to the N.H.K. are probably my top picks when it comes to the commentary and exploration of the psyche. I've finally started reading the Monster manga and it's also been fantastic.
Of course there's also Ergo Proxy, ID:Invaded, Ghost in the Shell, Mardock Scramble, and plenty more that imo were quite good.
Bro that entire section building back up to discussing Eva was FANTASTIC, you are making some of the highest quality content on the platform right now!
Oh wow that intro from 2:27 to 3:27 goes hard. The combination of the very beautiful and visually striking scenes into some of the most emotionally charged moments from my favourite shows just gave me chills. Like microdosing the heaviest parts of all those shows at once. Oh man, I wasn't ready for that.
Very interesting! As I was watching, I realize that I do this a lot myself- envisioning things or feelings as something physical, rather than just "abstract motivation". But, talking to someone close to me, it's interesting that they do not do this at all. For me, the physical representation serves as a "conduit" for the emotion. Sort of in the same way that some people feel inspired to dance when they feel very happy (or sad). It's like a means of expression. The eastern vs western philosophies give an interesting background to this conversation.
What does infamous have to do with this?
The fly me to the moon Eva edit at the end was mwah
This was really fascinating, I am autistic and have found i always connect more deeply to anime style characters than I do with other types of story telling, I wonder whether the physical manifestation of emotion, conflict etc you talk about might explain part of why that is. Being autistic often feels like many conflicts or emotions get stuck inside because the way i would express them would not be considered appropriate. Anime therefore expresses situations or feelings in a way that i can resonate with but could not do myself. I used to be a dancer and I think I loved it for similar reasons - it was a physical expression of inward emotion, not like in the crime series you talked about, but like my sadness literally became a leap or an external villain for example. Not sure if this is interesting to anyone, do with it what you will, but wanted to say thanks for this video, it has helped me to understand myself a little better actually, even if I can't quite express it coherently here.
Fellow autistic person here. I can totally empathize with how you feel, and it honestly is such a relief to lose myself in a fantasy where complex emotions can be released in a way that doesnt involve clumsy, fumbled words. Emotions feel impossible to explain, and anime creates a fantasy where you dont need to explain them, because theyre plain to see
Here 2 years later to say that his prediction about Dan Da Dan getting an anime adaptation ( 19:19 ) was right on the money. Last week they did an early premiere of the first few episodes in theaters before it even released in Japan.
2 years later, Dandadan is indeed taking the world by storm.
5:40 Holy fuck that's good scriptwriting, I just had to comment, the perfect use of every word in this sentence, that's a chef's kiss moment my dude.
That concluding bit of the video hit hard. I think doing these videos and searching for these answers about humanity is in itself an expression of empathy on your part. At the very least I feel that you care deeply about humanity from this and your other videos, and it makes me and I’m sure others feel less alone and less insane in this crazy world we live in. Much love to you, Daryl, and thank you for everything.
I really appreciate the start and conclusion of your journey through this rabbit hole because it kind of helped me contextualize my own views of this amazing genre. I’ve always known (well for as long as I’ve watched anime) that it’s made me feel a totally different kind of way, a way that western storytelling and media never quiet touched. But I guess I never really looked past the “it just expresses feelings better” part of the discussion and touched on the far FAR deeper points that you did. But as soon as you started talking about how in western society we use the action of a story to relate back to the emotional side of our characters arc and how in eastern storytelling the emotional/psychological arc IS the action just put into physical form for my dumby brain to understand (obviously I’m joking just look at Eva and all the analysis it breeds) it gives this weird sort of…release that I don’t feel very often to almost never that I have a very hard time pulling from the metaphorical abstract version we in the west put forward. Maybe I’m just really bad at connecting strings from physical plot to mental plot and that leads to having a little piece of tape that helps connect them for me helps more than I realized? Or maybe I need to sit down and seriously think about what I watch more than I do. Anyway this was a very VERY long comment but thank you so much for your awesome videos and helping me with self realization
Great video, as always!
I half-expected Serial Experiments Lain to pop up when you mentioned "we're all connected" and I found it a bit odd you didn't mention it in this video, considering how popular and closely related to the Collective Unconscious theme it is. If you didn't watch it, I think you might really dig it.
I'm surprised you haven't talked about "Egregores". It's basically what you talk about : concept representing a non-physical entity arising from the collective thoughts of a group of people. The more we think about them, the more they gain importance. Gods, feelings, idéologies, archétypes,... All Egregores. Most of the info on the internet is in french tho.
Didn't really know what I was getting into with this video but I was enthralled from start to finish
I really like this anime called ×××HOLiC.
It is about a mysterious store that grants wishes to people. Kind of lighthearted but also dark and karmic at times, because people's whishes often come from their flaws that they have and refuse to get rid of.
And then there is also this whole part about a boy that is pursued by ghosts and a witch that really loves sake and the whole spiritual world filled with a ton of different characters. It's great.
And I really like how it can visualize an invisible struggle.
This was AMAZING. All of my favorite things in one- psychology, anime, persona 5, true detective, etc etc. I loved it. I hope you do more like this.
As an aspiring writer, I have been studying different styles of writing and eastern writing styles have always been my favorite. They are always so different and interesting from what I have read in school. It has always affected me the more emotionally than anything else. The ideas that the writers for anime and manga have implemented into characters and events is really creative.
I've never been more glad to have randomly clicked on an essay video, let alone an anime one, and shed a tear. Awesome work dude
As a lifelong lover of mythology, I also really enjoy anime for its use of youkai/creatures as manifestations of cultural fears and beliefs. It really is a fascinating idea. This was a great episode! I really enjoyed it:) I was waiting for Kyouko Suiri to come up in that part of the discussion - if you haven't seen/read it it, I can recommend it.
The concept of negative emotions manifesting as monsters or physical symptoms is my favorite thing in media. You explained how well the persona series does it. There’s also the game LiEat that does it as well. I love this concept so much that I made a dnd character for it. I’m glad you made this video cuz now I have something to reference when talking to people about this.
One of your best videos! I love turning feelings & concepts into something physical in all of my games and stories so, very interesting. :)
I've been writing for 2 years a graphic novel where scientists basically turned the collective inconscious into a metaverse/internet. Of course, Jung inspired me greatly, and so did animes. :D
Paranoia Agent is a fantastic example of this collective consciousness. Highly recommend.
I've always appreciated this sort of thing in anime and other storytelling simply because I'm a very metaphorically-minded person. I make heavy use of metaphors when trying to understand and communicate with people and process things, and having a well-thought-out visual metaphor helps me massively when I'm trying to understand something I'm watching, playing, or reading too. It's just very intuitive for me.
Try that,but some1 is useing passive aggressive hate speech and telling you're wrong=for LITTERLY ANYTHING YOU SAY OR DO,while still trying to figure it out.
I litterly just try to walk away now,because it's just hate speech and I can notice it now.
Have you read 'Man and His Symbols' by Carl Jung or '12 Rules for Life' by Jordan Peterson? Books to read if you excel at metaphorical thinking.
I can relate to the beginin,the sheer panic upon discovering i couldnt see in my left eye after waking up,and doctors first couldnt figure out at first, and then discoverin i have keratoconus,that really sucks and feels hopeless
I was honestly surprised by you going into detail about Kawai Hayao's ideas. He was certainly not obscure at the time in Japan, but definitely not someone I'd expect to have international recognition. Most of the Japanese translations of Jung were done by him, and his application of Jung's theories to Japanese culture and psyche is quite insightful and interesting.
Chainsaw Man was also one of my best reads in the past few years. The breadth at which the manga's author explores fear and its manifestation is probably what really sold me. One particular scene sparked a memory of something Kawai Hayao said, that the Shinto gods were the "fear" that the Japanese felt towards nature (he used the word 畏れ as opposed to the general term for fear, 恐れ). As with everything in nature, the gods may assume roles that benefit people, but they weren't ever conceived as truly benevolent beings. Their overwhelming presence humbled the ancients and whatever mercy imparted became a blessing. Fear bred reverence.
Thinking about it, there is another noteworthy parallel between Chainsaw Man and the broader shintoist ideology. In Chainsaw Man, most anything that's feared can become a devil. In Shinto, most anything that's conceived can become a god. Which leads me to guess that the older gods can manifest in the world of Chainsaw Man, but their power is not nearly what they used to be. As Kawai once quoted: in modernity, a growing number of people have lost the ability to "fear".
On another note, are you considering exploring the shadow archetype and how it's been dealt differently between cultures? How there's a prevalence of thwarting one's enemy for justice in western media, while anime so often likes to resort to talk-no-jutsu and vegetafication? I think there's a lot to talk about when it comes to conflict(shadows) in stories. There's also a whole other topic of how the projection of one's shadow can lead to conflict. If by any chance you get around to it, that'll be awesome.
Great vid. Love your work. Hope to see more.
Love ur comment!
If you like this kind of dialogue about the collective unconscious in anime, highly recommend anything by Satoshi Kon (Paranoia Agent, Millenium Actress, Paprika, etc). He was a master at bringing out the strangeness of people's anxieties onto animation/film. I think he was my favorite anime director before he passed.
This actually might be one of my favorite summerzations as to WHY I like anime. I've always just had the "they're different than western stories" answer. But this, THIS, has so much more depth and actually equips me to with the real reason I like it so much.
Omg yes. Thanks for this video. I love that I have a dialog that speaks to much of my fascination with anime... because yea! Anime depicts so much metaphysical and psychological phenomenons and manifestations in ways that live-action movies/TV just can't express the same way.
Even like the expressions right? The way emotions are conveyed on all anime characters faces so exaggerated or so defined in ways that again live-action media just cannot capture. It's powerful art that speaks to the soul and that's why I just love it and gravitate to it more than the regular stuff.
Banger episode man, I think this explains a lot of why I tend to feel more attached to anime characters then characters from most other forms of media. I do tend to enjoy learning and understanding about the more collective culture in the west and having met people who believe western philosophies it is quite interesting to see how anime heavily romanticize them. I can't speak the Shintoism, but Buddhism and especially Hinduism are incredibly brutal religions when fully and properly carries out. My time in Nepal has shown me a lot of the darker side of some religions that the east romanticized to the moon and back.
Dude, this video is so good. It's given me a ton of fascinating things to think about in terms of how culture shapes media and my own love of anime/manga. I think the "physical representations of mental/emotional states" trope gives this medium the power to be uniquely cathartic.
Everytime Daryl uploads I think: "This is my new favorite Daryl video" but this is now my all time favorite. Thank you for all you do Daryl. This was a nice experimental(?) way of doing a video that was highly requested.
I don't know how. But the anime Re:Zero basically destroyed my whole outlook on life for the better. I have been in a much more positive head space for months afterwards.
dude I LOVED THIS, so glad to see a retrospective psychological analysis of anime, gaming is great and all but I'm at a stage in my life where I don't game any more at all, but have so many cherished memories of anime and watching this just felt like such a full circle moment. pls do more ill watch em all ;)
I think the anime that had the biggest effect on me was Eva, definitely got way to into that (Trice was such a trip after all those years of anticipation)
Some honourable mentions: Hajime no Ippo, Chuunibyou demo koi ga shitai, Bunny girl, Welcome to the NHK, FMA: Brotherhood, YOUR LIE IN APRIL, hero aca, soul eater, naruto, one piece, i guess SAO since it was such a formative time in my life, death note, bebop, attack on titan first season, psycho-pass, lovely complex (so underrated), shokugeki no souma first season, ghibli in general, and loving demon slayer so far
sorry im gushing i just miss anime so much
Got me super excited for a second when I heard "tumbling down tumbling down" :P
This has put my mind in its deep thought working state like its not been for a while. Thank you for the horrifying and intensely gratifying situation I find myself in.
2 years later and im hyped for the Dandadan anime coming out soon
This is awesome! Along with Jungian psychology and buddhism, gnosticism seems to be a weirdly common idea within anime/JRPGs, with bits of Jewish mysticism thrown in
Gnosticism takes a fair bit of Greek philosophy and mixes in bits and pieces of Christian terminology and, like you said, Jewish mysticism. The reason for this is because "the Gospel is foolish to the Greek," so as a result this (and result in pseudo-Gospel accounts such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas) was developed by fake teachers to stroke the human ego without having to face the utter helplessness of humanity to not desire to do evil (whether it be basic selfish thoughts or... more extreme examples), all while allowing them to take advantage of their adherents and grow their power.
Not just that, but it is extremely common for them to use ancient hebrew and refer to it just as hebrew (which is incorrect)
I love how you called Dandadan and the grandma love
I never considered the concept of a consciousness or awareness without an ego... god, that sounds like something I need to understand, now. I want to know what it feels like to understand that concept.
After watching this video for what feels like my 100th time and now showing it to everyone I know (including my parents who neither play games nor watch anime) I can confidently say that this is my favorite video of yours ever!
I don't know if I experienced conversion disorder, but I definitely experienced something very similar. Nearly 5 years ago, back in highschool, my parents and I had learnt about some bad things I had done and some online friends on discord I made that were pretty shitty people. I regretted a lot of the things I did and wished that some of those friends would change, but I cherished those friends and memories because they saved my life. Before I met them, I was lonely, depressed, apathetic, and suicidal, but they showed me there was more to life and inspired me to grow. I chose to cut ties with many of them while sticking close to a select few, and I tried to distance myself from my mistakes, but it was too late. My parents were extremely upset at what I had done that it was hard for them to trust that I really wanted to change. It was only the night before when I had sent my best friend a message saying that I would take a break from discord for a while in an effort to change. They overreacted and took away everything. All of my accounts were deleted so that I would never be able to talk to any of those friends again, including my best friend who had the biggest positive impact on my life. My parents forced me to sit with them and read all of the bad things me and my friends had said out loud every day for a week before finally deleting the account. They learned about my prior experiences with depression and suicide and they hid things like medicine and knives that I needed for normal, daily things because they couldn't trust me, and it felt so insulting. Many other things happened that I won't go into, but that week traumatized me. All of my efforts to grow, the important connections I had made, the willpower I had to muster to decide to change were all for nothing.
In the following weeks, I had severe stomach pains, and they got worse and worse every day. Before that point I had weighed 185 lbs., and I was healthy and athletic, but it hurt so much to eat that I dropped to 135 lbs. and was chronically fatigued. There were nights when the pain was so bad that I would literally cry myself to sleep, and I would typically only be able to sleep for 2 hours before going to school the next day. This problem persisted for a full year before my parents finally realized the severity of the pain and took action. After some food sensitivity tests, I had made some extreme changes to my diet that cut out almost everything and made it immensely difficult to find anything I could eat. Wheat, eggs, dairy, common fruits and vegetables, many meats like pork and various fish, all of it was cut out of my diet. The pain still persisted, but the diet did help to alleviate it a little bit. After beginning this diet, it took 2 full years to fully reintroduce something like eggs, and nearly 3 and a half to reintroduce wheat. This week I had actually just began working on reintroducing dairy, and things have been mostly ok so far.
The symptoms have gradually lightened as I reconciled with my parents and graduated from highschool and no longer needed to maintain perfect grades. Throughout all of this though, anime began to heavily resonate with me, and I think this video helped me to make sense of it. In recent months, we took much more thorough (and intense, lol) tests, but all of the results showed that I never should have had a sensitivity to things like gluten, dairy, and many other foods that I cut out. For nearly half a decade, my physical health was closely tied to my mental health. The pain would peak along with stress, and it's taken years to work past the trauma of losing some of those friends. Nobody knows why I was so sensitive to these foods and had such frequent pains, but every for every step that my mental health improves, so does my physical health. I feel more confident and less physically weak. While I know people who have gone through far worse than I ever have and likely ever will, I am now much more mentally mature and resilient, and I accept everything that has happened because it has made me who I am now. I am happy with my life and the kind of person I am. I love my parents and friends and appreciate everything that they've done. I'm glad that despite everything, I'm still alive, and that I've been able to help others and find happiness myself. In the past, I lost hope that things would ever improve, that I would always have persisting pain and would never be able to truly fix my life, but I'm so grateful that I was wrong.
Reading this made me tear up a bit. I'm really glad you are doing well now, and I really hope for the best for you!!
I really don’t know what to say but that this really resonated with me…thank you for sharing this.
Watching this in October of 2024, with Dan da Dan having an anime adaptation out now is wild
I am so happy. Also, you are one of the gentlest, down to earth people on this platform buddy. Don't be so hard on yourself.
the more you put out, the more convinced I am that you are genuinely one of the best content creators I've ever followed. I'm consistently impressed by your work, thank you for all your hard work!
The idea, that the believe or fear in something/someone will manifest them or grant them power is not isolated to anime, far from it I would say. Small Gods from Pratchett immidiately comes to my mind, where he explores it with his usual smart and funny style. Check out the trope "Gods Need Prayers Badly"
Wasn’t that also the entire shtick of American Gods by Neil Gaimann?
Now I understand why Xenoblade Chronicles 3 ends the way it does. The final villain is literally the manifestation of the collective anxiety of two whole worlds.
I really love the concept of archetypes, I did a lots of researches and I wanted to bring justice to this concept that is not defined exactly how Jung does in this video :
An archetype is basically the image and the emotion that are seen by the individual when an instinct is "activated".
Also, the archetypes of the collective uncouncious are not really an inherited memory, but more a structural way of seeing things and behave to the things happening in the outside world.
The instincts actually produce spontaneously an image that can born in every psyche, even if the representation of the archetype will certainly be quite different from an individual to an other. The representation of the archetype (the image that born within the activation of the instinct) will always have a similar pattern, but can take many forms. One of the best example is God, as an achetypic idea that born spontaneously in the psyche, that can take many forms as we see in many various religions.
But remember that the image that born is not the archetype but the representation of the archetype. The archetype is more like a tendancy to make a particular image, with particular caracteristic, born in the psyche.
that's just describing the basics of evolutionary psychology, just vary vaguely and much more mystified, as was the norm of Jung.
This. This video is SO important to me. If not answered, you have pointed out and debated over questions that I haven't been able to fully form up until now.
I've been an anime/manga fan for some time and have always found impressive the creativity of the artists, but couldn't quite understand why their stories are written the way they are. The characters, the worlds, conflicts and resolutions; some people simply state them as "weird", but I have always found that there's probably more to them, even if I couldn't understand yet. At least for some stories.
Thank you for making this video. My perspective of the media might have changed for good (for the better).
I just started on my bachelor in psychology and without you repeatedly showing me how interesting and fun it can be, idk if i would have chosen this major. So thank you!
This is great, one of my favorite channels suddenly started talking about some of my favorite anime, THANK YOU, both Daryl and the Patreons.
Your use of music in these videos is amazing. Always reminds me how powerful music can be when used properly in a video. Especially at 2:30. Literally gave me goosebumps
Yeah the Haven Soundtrack is incredibly powerful
Satoshi Kon based-off his whole visual storytelling style on this topic and I've always thought of how mind bogglingly beautiful yet eerie was the use of Match-cuts to jump from scene to scene, or merely between mind states within the character and by a certain point you can no longer tell where the defined reality ends and where does the mindspace of the characters begin which is so powerfully used in Paranoia Agent and Paprika, but my favourite being Millenium Actress' Finale!
"Maps of Meaning" is a book that talks about Freud and Jung's ideas quite a bit. A bit long, but has an audiobook as well.
That aside, looking forward to more anime where people turn into goo for some reason. At least now, perhaps I know why.
For me it’s undeniable that there is something spiritual about many many anime and games. It can be heavily influenced by Buddhism or Shintoism yes, but spirituality being a mostly personal part of life in Japan, there is a far less dogmatic approach. While most people are indifferent, the storytellers make use of all kinds of spiritual concepts freely because they don’t have the intention of indoctrinating, merely exploring. And we love it because that kind of exploration can be really beautiful and can even bleed over into self exploration
"Memes: the DNA of the soul. They shape our will. They are our culture -- they are everything we pass on. (...) All memes. All passed along" -Monsoon from Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
I sincerely would like to see more Psyche of Anime stuff from you. Idc if it's on this channel or a second one, you do incredible work and I love both games and anime so I'll be watching both.
Buddhist here! First and foremost Japan and Japanese media is influenced very heavily by Buddhism and Buddhists values. The more you learn about Buddhism the more anime and the way people act in anime will make sense to simplify things. Its similar to how America is heavily influenced by Christian values and you'll see it in media as well.
As for your video I was waiting for the moment you were going to bring up Buddhism because I'd say it's the main reason for this trope. So in Buddhism though there are prominently light beings such as the different Buddhas and dark beings such as Demons. That concept is very rare. A person is not an inherently "good" or "bad" person. They are what they choose to be in this lifetime. You are the actions you choose to make that effect you and other people. And when you choose your actions you have to think and realize they never just effect only you, other topic that is forgin to the west. Also something I think that was slightly glossed over in the video but not on purpose. It's very common in western media for a character to be a lone wolf and leave people that need them or care about them behind because they dont want their whatever call to justice to effect them but it does effect their love ones. As an American in many things leaving a wife with 3 children to fight a war you may never come back from is seen as the most noble thing you can do. In the east there is a whole Buddhist holiday to bless your parents that you may be able to take care for them as long as you can. This non-belief of your either good or bad has Buddhist look inward and focus on growth of self and emotions and how you as person effect other people. Which is why in a lot of anime you see a power up after a reach inside yourself for strength that you had inside you all along kind of thing.
As for the physical manifestation of negative emotions is something also seen in Buddhism. People will often go to temples asking masters for blessings to remove "ghosts" or negative energy to demons off of people who have been sick lately after something happened. It's very common to believe that these dark energies and spirits can cause physical problems. I dont live on Japan but in larger temples you can bring home wards to keep bad spirits out of your house from keeping you sick or hurt. So when they use it in anime I believe it's an exaggeration of myths and things your grandmother says. Such as when someone dies a "ghost" can attach to someone grieving very deeply for them and cause them to become ill. So my theory is if they sort already kinda believe negative emotions can cause physical harm anime pushes it to "ok okay everyone knows you can get a headache but WHAT IF YOU GOT CUTS ON YOUR SKIN WHEN YOU GOT BULLIED wouldn't that be wild!?!?" And it puts things into perspective because someone could've gotten bullied and gotten a headache before but then they watch that anime and it's like "oh wow that is what it feels like" so it's just as impactful of anime but not for the same reasons. There are some beautiful concepts in Buddhism and putting that in the creativity of anime you will find a lot of out comes. If that makes sense? That last part is a theory tho so dont quote me on that 😅
At the end, when you said that the reason you love anime is because it makes you feel connected to all people. Really struck a cord with me. And I realized that I shared that same reason for loving anime.
But I’ve also felt that overwhelming spiritual/cognitive connection with others when I learned of/contemplate the nature of matter/the universe. How matter and energy are nither created nor destroyed. How all of our atoms were once cooked in the guts of stars. And how one day, the universe will experience heat death. Or could all be swallowed up by black holes, the places were matter and energy do break down. How all once existed, now. And how all will not exist, the future.
How we all are small specks on a speck, hurdling through space, spinning on an axis. How our existence is at once, insignificant. Yet irrevocably important, simply because we effect one another. And our connections to one another is what makes us significant.
I am reminded of the trends of fiction relating to societal anxieties, resulting in "survival fiction" and "death game" series (Battle Royale, Mirai Nikki) which were fed into by Apocalypticism. Pause and Select has a few great videos on it. Recently I've noticed a lot of series are about being eaten (Attack on Titan, Promised Neverland) or replaced by dopplegangers (Shadow's House, Summertime Rendering) and I'd love to see that explored more in depth.
I'm very interested in you doing a video on koe no Katachi, because it points out a different question, what happens when an anime becomes individualistic? What happens when an anime takes a deep dive into a topic that is very important in Japan, and how they take into it as a personal trip, koe no Katachi is my favourite movie of all time and that's because of how deep it moves you, it's a crude, realistic yet magical way of showing the internal struggles of someone without materialising like most anime does, Koe no Katachi goes into a subtleness so different from your traditional anime, compare it to Kimi no nawa and their magical travel through time, here you are in an scenario so real you or anyone could be on it, and the way they show it makes you really feel you are on their shoes. You could had been in an scenario like that, but for me, no show has ever described it so perfectly and clean as koe no Katachi did.
I dunno, I could
man this was way more wholesome than expected, loved it!
Well, I thought about a video essay themed as "why anime is the most psychedelic art form", and you pretty much summed up it here. When you take psychedelics, you would then study Jung and Buddhism, as people do. And here's you, watch anime and find all the influences there.
I would say that this stuff is very common in a certain genre in the west: horror films. Like The Shinning being a manifestation of the Hotel comes from the violence that came into evil spirits. You find this all over supernatural horror. Maybe it’s not exactly the same, but I see so many similarities.
I've had this tab open for almost a year now, and I've been putting off watching this one. I wanted to give it the attention it deserved, and it was an absolutely fine video, I love metaphors and seeing the psychology in media
This is one of the most impactful videos for me that you've released. I'm so happy to hear you talk about anime, I truly, truly am so happy to hear you address these themes I've never been able to express. Thank you so much, Daryl!
Nailed it. Always been obsessed with the way anime manifests the psychological aspects of its stories. Not only does it do this. It leans hard into it. It's not shy. It is what it wants to be in a bold manner that I absolutely love. DBZ, for example, may be simplistic. Childish. But goddamn. There is something so powerful about a character literally transforming into a more powerful version of himself when overwhelmed with feelings of righteous anguish. The catharsis in witnessing that is worth it.
Holy sh** it's here! Amazing video Daryl! Super happy that you had a great time writing it because damn it was super fun to watch. This also serves as a reminder for me to go and re-watch some of the mentioned animes and even pick up some new ones.
Thank you for making such banger content, regardless of what the topic is. Be it gaming, wrestling or anime - you always make it fun, interesting and entertaining. Here's to hoping that we soon hit the next milestone for a Psych of Play on Dating Sims! Stay awesome.
This video was awesome! I’ve been writing a novel and haven’t had much success explaining scenes that change based on the unconsciousness of those in the scene itself. Watching your video opened up so much insight. Like you mentioned, growing up with strong individualist tendencies make explaining collective communal manifestations in fantasy or sci-fi hard to explain. Thank you for this!
These ideas of spirits gaining power from belief exist in Western media too, but typically these types of spirits are good rather than evil. In the classic Peter Pan play Tinkerbell and other fairies gained power from the belief of children. It also shows up in "The Guardians" movie for both positive and negative with Jack Frost and the others gaining power from belief while "Pitch" gains power from fear. Assassin's Creed also plays with the idea a bit. Changing enough people's minds is enough to physically change reality.
On another note, I'd like to mention how similar the ending of Splatoon 2's DLC is to Evangelion's ending.