Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From Anime
This originally appeared in Nannichuan, the newsletter for members of Cal-Animage, Beta Chapter, located at the University of California-San Diego. Permission has been obtained from one of the original authors, but others could not be reached. If you took part in the original publication of this document and have objections to our reprinting it, please notify us.
No matter how many times you rebuild, Tokyo keeps getting destroyed in a massive fireball.
War sucks.
You can have too many women.
Smart people wear glasses.
Music foreshadows plot.
The less you care about sex, the more opportunities you'll get.
Inversely, the harder you try, the less you'll get.
When you die, make a long speech, and don't finish the last sentence.
Snow means love.
The best teams come in fives.
In space, you can hear everything.
There's always room for flashbacks!
When in China, listen to your tour guide.
If a girl falls in love with her brother, somewhere down the line you discover that they're not blood related.
The good guy has the blue glow.
Speak quietly, pilot a big mech.
Believe in goddesses.
Teachers have excellent aim with small objects.
Vengeance with a mallet is the sweetest revenge of all.
Honor is sexy; villainy is irresistible.
Women are attracted to losers; men are attracted to anything.
The coolest weapon is still the sword.
The hero is never really mad until they hurt his girlfriend.
Female androids are sexy; male androids are... male androids.
The green-haired alien girl will always betray her people for the man she loves.
School uniforms are cool only when the collar is open.
All high school kids in Japan have parents that are away on extended business trips.
A show without sexual tension isn't worth watching.
Love knows no race, species or logic.
If it's homemade but tastes bad, grin and bury it (discreetly).
Never trust a huge corporation.
"Baka" does not mean a student going for his baccalaureate degree.
Romance never comes simpler than in a triangle.
Never fall for a girl who names her mech with a French name.
Never fall in love with a psychic.
You can never have too much hair.
Sweating is a sure sign of stress.
Daydreaming leads to accidents.
Martial arts experts do their best fighting when silhouetted against the moon -- especially if they're on the roof!
Everyone wants to conquer Japan.
The cute, fuzzy creature isn't what it seems.
All major villains either want to take over the world or blow it up.
Cherry blossoms mean nostalgia.
Always take gravity into account.
Settings and faces are self-generating.
Losing your temper can be therapeutic.
There's nothing sexier than high heels on a mech.
Even the bravest of souls can be made weak and helpless by the sight of a cute little puppy or a kitten.
You can never have too many subplots.
If she sings, she's doomed.
You can do anything to the human body as long as you hit the right pressure point.
You always remember the sad endings.
Double suicide is romantic.
Outrageous vehicles only make the hero cooler.
Consuming enormous amounts of alcohol daily will never have ill effects.
Nothing delays romance like unruly neighbors.
Fancy ice cream is for girls only.
The most virtuous character will die.
Hot water has innumerable benefits.
No matter how much blood is lost, no one can die by a nosebleed.
(The same theory applies to vomiting.)
The secret for an impossibly tangled love triangle? Put them all in the same house.
The girl with the curly hair is always the seductress.
The guy in the baseball cap is always more powerful than he seems.
All demons/monsters have enormous genitalia.
All young children can pilot mecha -- you just need to give them a few days.
It is possible to incorporate martial arts into any aspect of life.
The psychic girl is the one with the really cool mark on her forehead.
The oldest sister is the nice one; the youngest sister is the brash one.
When someone paints up their face, they mean business.
Everyone in Japan has excellent singing voices.
Quivering eyeballs means she's in love.
Disappearing eyeballs means she's upset; add a sudden change of background and she's really upset.
The martial arts expert is always defenseless against a slap from the girl who loves him.
Food is a powerful motivator.
A moment of truth is always punctuated by a sudden gust of wind.
When women are sent out to fight the bad guys, there's always a hunk busily
watching over them, often in secret.
The longer it takes to say what your punch is called, the less effective it is.
The more possessive a woman gets, the less likely she will end up with the man of her dreams.
The two-foot-tall geezer is someone to be feared.
No matter how big the mech/labor/mobile suit is, if it runs around the corner, the guy chasing after it loses the trail.
The rival in a love triangle is always a better cook.
Reincarnation is a tricky business.
The Tokyo Tower has many interesting uses!
Extraterrestrials, demons, time travellers, etc, all want to alter the course of history by letting Oda Nobunaga win.
When proposing, always use some unusual metaphor, preferably referring to food.
The fate of the planet rests in the hands of the seemingly normal high school student.
The heroine must lose and/or shred her clothes while transforming into something to fight the bad guys.
When a man and a woman tumble and fall together, his hands will always end up on her breasts.
A haircut is always a traumatic event. So is the first kiss.
When being hit on the head, it's the most natural thing in the world to tuck your third and fourth finger in while keeping the others extended.
True evil can never be destroyed, only banished to some nether realm where it awakes after a few hundred years.
Love conquers all -- when it's a teenage girl doing the fighting.
"Morning" coffee is the best kind.
If a boy and a girl grew up together as next-door neighbors, then they're made for each other.
No fight is complete without someone being slammed into a wall.
An "indirect" kiss is the next best thing.
A girl interested in stealing someone else's boyfriend will politely inform her rival first.
The coolest guys wear their hair over one eye, Veronica-Lake-style, or better yet, don't let their eyes show at all.
Evil wears many tentacles.
BY LAURA LUCHAU, RICHARD LIN, AND LEE ZION
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