After a long hiatus, I'm finally back to Steemit World! This blog post is an entry to @fycee's "Share Your Favorite Anime Challenge". ありがとうございます ^^

(Warning: Long post ahead. I hope you, readers, will enjoy reading this and find something meaningful out of this. XD)

I've always been a fan of anime since I was a kid. Even though I've seen numerous anime series, I still have a lot on my list. New series keep coming and there's no way to keep myself updated. (I don't think I'll have the time to watch all of them with my busy schedule as an undergraduate student.)

Some of my favorite ones are: Kyoukai no Kanata (Beyond the Boundary), Kamisama no Memochou (Heaven's Memo Pad), Hyouka, Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (My Little Monster), Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatteiru/OreGairu (My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected), K-On!, Working!!, Akagami no Shirayuki-hime (Snow White with the Red Hair) ... and the list goes on. If a fellow anime fan would notice, most of these are slice of life genres.

Obviously, there are really a lot of anime series I came to love. But I'm not here to talk about all of them. I'll just focus on one which literally changed my perspective on romantic love. This was previously published on my personal blog last July 25, 2014. I revised some parts of it to keep it up-to-date.

Kara no Kyoukai (空の境界, lit. "Boundary of Emptiness")

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When I finished watching the series, I was overwhelmed. I understood why I was so attached to Kara no Kyoukai, why I admired Kokutou Mikiya and Ryougi Shiki. It’s because it taught me something I had misunderstood for years, something so precious that I failed to acknowledge for such a long time.

There was one kind of love that I did not know. I did not understand what it is and often despised it because of the environment I was born in. I did not understand what it really was.

The Three Types of Love

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Basically, love can be broken down into three categories: unconditional love and sacrifice, love of family and friendships, and the romantic kind of love that exists between a man and woman.

1. The best example of unconditional love and sacrifice would be God’s when He gave his only begotten Son so that we would be saved and given eternal life. It simply is the kind of love that does not require anything in return.

2. As a human being, we cannot live alone. We always need a family and friends to accompany us in our battles in life. This kind of love also exists among other people and is not limited to relatives and close companions. The simple act of helping others is an example of this too.

3. The third type, the romantic kind of love is the one that unites a man and a woman and is essential to a successful and happy marriage that lasts until they grow old. It was the type of love that I did not understand.

A Broken Family, Childhood Memories

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I am a product of a broken family.

When I was in elementary, we had to leave my father since he had chosen to live with a new family. I could say that we were a well-to-do family since our business was fine and that I was the only child so my parents did not have the trouble of having many children to support.

At first, I questioned that event. Fortunately though, I was able to accept everything until none of it mattered to me that much, thanks to my loving mother who guided me and never failed to show me that there are many possibilities. Also, I wasn’t able to build a strong bond with my father since he rarely had time for us so it really did not matter when we finally had to part ways.

I did not feel sad at all after accepting things as they were, maybe because I was just a child at the time. I simply coped with our new life and was able to lead a normal and happy life with my mom.

Heart as Cold as the Snow

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Then, before I knew it, my heart was already as cold as the snow.

I never had crushes on the opposite sex since in my eyes, they were all the same - men who aren’t responsible and only get attracted to women for superficial reasons such as physical appearance.

I was never touched by the stories my classmates told about their crushes and their love life. I always thought that it was a stupid idea and that nothing good would come from it. For me, all of them were the outcomes of not thinking things through before taking actions that would influence one’s future.

It emerged as a defense mechanism that my subconscious had created to protect myself from possibly having that experience in the future. I suppressed all possible emotions that would be unnecessary in the subconscious and even told myself I would rather become a nun and serve God than inevitably having to marry someone when that time comes.

You cannot imagine something you haven’t seen or experienced before.

I despised the “love” between two people, as I was not able to process it. I did not understand what it was because it was something I never witnessed in my family or any other person as far as I am concerned.

Most of my relatives in my mom's side have had failed marriages as well and my mom ended up being a single parent. So I concluded that what they have called “love” was a delusional thing that people think was real but actually was an illusion that needed to be shattered in order for the mind to function well. Romantic love, for me, was an unnecessary thing that only gets in the way of people.

How could someone possibly imagine a thing that he/she hasn’t seen or witnessed before? On the other hand, as SHIKI has said in the anime film Kara no Kyoukai, how could someone express an emotion he/she doesn’t have?

I continued believing that it was a rare thing that can only be achieved in a very small probability. I continued to tell myself that I should be responsible enough so that I could rely only on myself, as I grow old. I stopped believing that in a world with seven billion people, and believed that only 5% of the so-called love could be real and meaningful.

The society has also contributed to the inevitable perspective I have developed.

Acquaintances of mine who were in the same age bracket as me, 16 to 18 years old, entered into immature relationships and end up changing partners every now and then, only proved that the love they were all seeking desperately were simply idiotic and delusional.

That was until I have watched Kara no Kyoukai.

How Kara no Kyoukai Entered the Picture

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Kara no Kyoukai is a Japanese light novel series adapted into an anime film series. It tells the story of Kokutou Mikiya, a high school student who becomes curious about a classmate of his, Ryougi Shiki, an introverted mysterious girl who seems to dislike people. The story progresses as he discovers that Shiki has two distinct personalities, male and female. It creates a conflict and later on leads to an accident, that has caused Shiki to become comatose for two years. Their relationship develops as they solve mysteries involving the supernatural around them.

As an anime enthusiast that has watched a number of animes, I would say that Kara no Kyoukai isn’t for everyone. There are gory and graphic scenes that many people would not want to see, and there are themes that could not be understood at first glance.

To put it simply, KnK is a deep and thought-provoking film that requires your time and thinking skills to analyze every concept and theme to get to the core of it. It is not an anime that one would likely watch to relax and wind up for a bit after a day’s work. If you would like to do so, slice of life genres would be great.

The primary reason why I was so fond of the main character, Shiki, is that I could see myself in her. It’s not that I have murderous intents towards people and I am not an expert in martial arts or anything to be badass like her, lol. It’s because I can understand the things she told Mikiya (again, except for her murderous intents, lol) whenever they talked during break time in the rooftop and after school in the empty classroom.

She was always by herself and rejected people because as her male personality had stated, she could only express the emotions she has, and that was rejection. She did not like people because she did not experience even for once how it felt to have a friend. Mikiya was her first friend, because he was the only person who dared to come near her and make friends with her.

However, as time passed by and Shiki realized that she was becoming too attached to Mikiya, she warned him to leave her alone since she might end up killing him,which of course she could not do.

It was her defense mechanism to eliminate people who attempts to reveal her male personality, SHIKI, who was “in charge of her suppressed thoughts”, much like the shadow in Jungian psychology.

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Well, of course, since Mikiya was stubborn, he continued to follow Shiki and talk to her as he always did.

During this period, mysterious murders occur in their town. He somewhat thinks that Shiki has something to do with those, but refuses to believe that she may be the murderer.

He then sees Shiki in a situation where one would certainly think that Shiki is the suspect of all the consecutive murders in the town.

Still, he refuses to believe it and goes every night to her house just to prove that she is not the one doing all the killings.

When Shiki asks him what part of her could he understand, he simply answers that he has no basis for it, but he would keep believing in her.

It then leads to the situation where Shiki attempts to kill him but then fails to. She ends up being involved in a car accident that leaves her comatose for two years.

Shiki wants to make herself go away, thinking that she's undeserving of Mikiya's love and concern

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In the final film, the second half of the murder speculation, it is revealed that Shiki told Mikiya that she wanted to kill him because “it was painful to be with him” since he was showing her what she could never have. But because she could not bring herself to do it since he’s her dream, so instead, she would just make herself go away.

Everyday, after Shiki has become comatose, Mikiya always comes to bring her flowers and check how she is doing.

I was struck as to how faithful Mikiya was to Shiki. There would probably be people like that comprising only 1% of the world population in real life. I mean, I do not know anyone who can be so dedicated to a person, like him. He stayed with Shiki until she was discharged of the hospital and every night brings her food to her apartment.

He was very different from three-dimensional people in this world who would only choose to be with people because they need something from the other party that would satisfy them, that would fill their needs, something that was selfish and self-satisfying in its own right.

Mikiya was different because he loved Shiki without doubting her and stayed with her until the very end of the chaos they were in.

Even Shiki changed because of his love.

At first, she believed that she was a murderer and did not deserve Mikiya’s concern and love. All she knew was she found joy in the idea of murder even though she hasn’t murdered anyone before.

Upon finding purpose in life, she has come to accept her past and her current self because she knew that she had found Mikiya, the person whom she knows she can count on for years to come, and the person whom she truly loves the most.

She did not need a knife anymore, and all she needed was his hand - his hand that she wouldn’t let go no matter what happens in the future.

A lesson we can all learn from Kara no Kyoukai

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Kara no Kyoukai has portrayed that there could be that kind of love, even in fiction, that I believed to have never existed. It has brought a new image to romance that was not superficial as lust and something temporary as infatuation, but was deep and meaningful. It has given me a new vision of love that would change my perspective.

I only knew of love that was superficial and nonsense, and because it did not fit my standards, I rejected it.

I was wrong from the start. All those unpleasant things that I have been seeing were not love.

All those things that seemed illogical, delusional, and idiotic to me were not love. They were just meaningless actions that do not qualify as love. I shouldn’t have associated the very world “love” with those because it did not have to do with it.

Until now, I still don’t feel all enthusiastic about people having shallow relationships with the opposite sex because it is meaningless and empty, unlike what I've seen in Kara no Kyoukai.

I admit that I don’t have the business to be involved in other people’s affairs; I was only concerned of it for the reason of thinking and analysis of ideas.

This anime series certainly changed my mind and opened a lot of possibilities in this world that I had shut down years ago.

Kokutou Mikiya and Ryougi Shiki were the models for that kind of love.

After all, God made man and woman so that they would not be lonely and to support each other during the most difficult times.