Animated Talks: “I Watched that Anime at the Perfect Time.”

Hey Animated World!

Have you ever found yourself saying the following phrase?

“Wow, I watched that anime at the perfect time.”

This happens somewhat rarely to me, however, I truly feel grateful for when it does. Sometimes it seems like the anime you’re watching correlates to events happening in your life. I just completed Steins;Gate last week, and had such experience.

No… sadly it is not because I’m working on a time machine. Let me elaborate.

I’ve talked lightly about this topic on animated before. I’m currently in the works of my senior engineering design project. Although the project has been very fun and interesting thus far, it has not come without a few bumps in the road. We are currently working with the fire department to increase the reliability of their radio transmissions. Our project is very much a real world scenario project, which is very much a two sided coin. Or like 11 sided…

The pros from the project is, we’re getting firsthand experience to engineering in the real world. Holding meetings with other engineers and the fire department, applying for required licenses, testing in real buildings are very much great experience to be having at such a young part in our career. However, I won’t lie, it can be extremely intimidating and overwhelming at times. Especially when you’ve been proclaimed by your team members as the team leader. To put it in the most basic terms, some groups are worrying about making a product durable or better. Our group is trying to do the same, however, with the motivation of it could help save a life.

Anyway, that’s enough background info, on to the main story! Like I said, I’ve been watching Steins;Gate, an anime I have put off watching for a very long time. An anime I even started at one point, but put it on hold after the first two episodes. I’m not sure what drove me back to it, but I had realized lately I hadn’t been watching much anime. I’d pretty much only been keeping up with Fate Apocrypha. In fairness though, most of my attention has been on Fire Emblem Warriors and Super Mario Odyssey.

As I’m going through Steins;Gate I started getting hooked after the ‘banana experiment’. I’d be studying till midnight then stay up watching four to five episodes. As I neared the anime’s final episodes, I started realizing something ironic. It seemed like whenever the great ‘Hououin Kyouma’ ran into another obstacle in his experiments, my mind kept wandering toward my senior project. Again, it has been one fun project, but has very much had its bumps. Sort of like how Okabe’s experiments were going. Fun at the beginning, until you realize the magnitude of certain situations. My favorite part of the anime is when Okabe begins to question himself as a scientist. Sometimes you just need a good Mayuri slap-in-the-face back to reality to get your head on back straight.

(Kurisu slap can also be applied.)

I found myself so far into the ‘loopy-ness’ of this project, that when this small event happened in the anime it sort of stuck with me. Sometimes, you just need that slap back into reality to get your head on back straight to continue experimenting. I found myself saying, “wow, I could have not watched this anime at a better time.” To see Okabe fail and concur his experiments was something I needed to watch going through this senior project. It gave me some realization to get my head on straight, get back up, and continue experimenting stronger than before.

On a side note, I even have my own jacket I’ve deemed my ‘lab coat’ in tribute to some Steins;Gate lessons.

I’ve had this happen only a few other times with other anime I’ve watched. I don’t want to say they’ve necessarily ‘spoken to me’ in a way. However, sometimes you just finish watching an episode and say to yourself, “man, I needed that.” My most memorable, other than Steins;Gate is probably Toradora. Another I put on the back-burner for quite sometime. At the time, to keep it short, I was struggling with sharing feelings. Sure enough, Toradora was the perfect anime for the time. Not sure if its just me, but I’m sure their are some who can relate.

Sometimes you just find an anime at the perfect time. 🙂

-Animated

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