I remember being 13 years old and watching Haruhi Suzumiya for the first time. I was in seventh grade, my mood having slowly improved after changing schools and even able to make a friend or two. I was fairly new to anime, having only been seriously into it for almost a year at that point and primarily using the then-new relaunch of Toonami and Netflix as a means of watching it. What Haruhi did was mind-blowing to me at the time. The very DIY feel of Episode 00, the concert in episode 12, the Endless Eight, the concept of Haruhi's closed space. I fell in love with every little quirk about the show and its characters. Hell, it was even the show that told me about the concept of moe! For that alone, I'll never forget it!
I remember being 17 years old and watching K-ON for the first time. I was in twelfth grade, spending my second year far away from my hometown as my family had packed up and moved away for elsewhere. The school I moved to seemed much more put together than the last one (the food was more diverse and OH MY GOD all the manga they had at the school library was insane, my old school never even thought about building up a decent library!) Just a few months before, however, the best friendship I had made in this new city had broken apart, and I had begun to lose faith in another friendship I made at the same time. I was already used to not having too many friends throughout my life, but these incidents still hurt as I went into my last year of high school much less optimistic and much more listless and depressed. The school was better, but it still felt like I couldn't truly connect with people and find a tight group of friends that did stuff together and understood each other. It was quite possibly the lowest point I had ever been in throughout my life. After having been charmed by the first volume of the K-ON manga, having read it during downtime on a school field trip, I spent a weekend marathoning the first season and used the second season as a relaxing after-school treat before finishing it off with the movie. It was a type of marathon the likes of which I hadn't done much of in since starting my descent into anime, as I had become more of a seasonal anime watcher. After finishing up the heartbreaking final episode and the film, I was taken aback and stunned that I could still love any anime, no anyTHING as much as I loved watching K-ON! By the end of my watch-through, I grew to love every single member of Hokago Tea Time, seeing their steady development over the course of 2 seasons. I was so engrossed that I felt like I was friends with all those girls by the end with just how lovable and fleshed-out they were. All the songs were great, the voice acting was superb and the animation was fantastic. This show had also started to fundamentally change how I viewed anime. I already liked some slice-of-life shows before K-ON, having already been a big fan of shows like Aikatsu and Lucky Star, but K-ON turned me to a slice-of-life and comedy fanatic and recontextualized the other shows in the genre for me to see them in a new light. It was these types of shows that I had begun to turn to more than ever before. I realized just how important watching shows about pretty anime girls in light, comforting scenarios really was for me, especially as I was leaving high school and entering college. K-ON wasn't a magical tool coming out of Doraemon's pocket to fix everything, however. No matter what, I still felt myself feeling more and more "out of things" and it didn't magically gain me new friends or anything like that. What it did show me was how effective anime could really be as a form of escapism, leaving your daily life behind for a while to cuddle up with a show at the end of the day even when you end up in tears at 3 in the morning wondering why you could never end up having as good of a relationship with others or as fun and fulfilling a life as a main character in a slice-of-life show. But I still can't thank it enough for how much happiness it brought me, even if the new approach I had towards certain shows can lead to sadness after I'm done with them. Maybe what K-ON taught me was how I appreciate anime in the way I do today.
I remember how impressed I was at the swimming done in Free Iwatobi Swim Club.
I remember constantly getting the Lucky Star OP stuck in my head during class.
I remember being shocked when Shoko tries to take her own life in Koe no Katachi.
I remember how warm I felt watching Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon while I was running up a high fever.
The tears rolling down my face watching episode 10 of Violet Evergarden.
The mix of soothing sensations and high-energy comedy with Nichijou.
The stunning action of Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid.
Finding out about Homecomings, a band that I now hold dear to my heart that created one of the greatest albums of 2018, through the ending credits of Liz to Aoi Tori.
When I think of Kyoto Animation, I think of memories.
I can safely say that of any of the major breaking-news tragedies I've seen reported on over the 19 years I've been alive, none of them had the personal effect that the story of 34 confirmed deaths in a fire at Kyoto Animation's head studio had on me. Yasuhiro Takemoto, the director of some of their finest works like Full Metal Panic Fumoffu and Lucky Star, alongside several other KyoAni talents, are still confirmed missing. I never believed that something like this could happen to a company like Kyoto Animation, and I'm still in disbelief now. The people there were magic at what they did, and KyoAni changed my life in so many ways. I can only hope that the dead are at peace and that the survivors can use all of their strength to carry on after this happened.
