Nogisak Haruka no Himitsu ep 03 – this is what everyone wants to hear:

“Even if everyone in the world becomes my enemy, I’ll be by your side.”

As a self-appointed “Otaku” westerner, it’s so very easy to think that this is something fascinating and interesting hobby that people can try to accept (I guess unless you’re in high school – but chances are the bullies like DBZ as much as you do). However, in Japan, having this hobby is a completely different story.

In a tightly packed, homogeneous society with enormous pressure put on everyone by everyone, liking “cartoons” or to put it nicely, animation, is not something that was accepted, until very recently when the Japanese government realized that it’s the face Japan is known for the moment.

In this episode, Haruka goes through a traumatic process in which she remembered how she was treated as an Otaku, a lover of anime.

I always gives a cynical review, but in this case, risking my street cred, I’d like to say I’m touched by this episode (I’m a sucker!).

Maybe you’re a pretty cool person. Maybe you have been a pretty cool person all your life (then you’re probably here by accident), but you do not understand the pain and traumatic sufferings by the unpopular, the uncool, the dateless, the lonely, and the unwanted.

For me, anime is a safe haven and even with language barrier, true otakus know one another other and can accept one another across just about any barrier. I’m not kidding at all.

Granted, in this story, an impossible scenario happens – a well-educated higher class girl becomes a lover of anime and the related things. The guy who discovers her hobby is actually an ordinary person who’s willing to accept her for who she is.

Returning to my cynical side a little, anyone can probably overlook her hobby because she’s so cute and nicely figured. But here’s the point:

That simply having someone who accepts you for who you’re, and even stands by your side no matter what happens, is precious and worth crying for.

What Yuto says in the show is simply touching.

As Dr. Akagi in Evangelion says: “He’s just not adapted to living.” Some of us are simply not adapted to this world, and maybe never will.