Kids can be cruel and insensitive. Humans are like dogs: we have to be socialized. We're born animals.

So I admit that I was mean to my younger sister sometimes. She had different tastes in fiction than I did. By mid grade school I was already reading science fiction. Her favorite stuff is what I at the time referred to as "sob sob stories". I'd occasionally interrupt her in her room when she was reading, sobbing uncontrollably -- and I'd kid her mercilessly. (This when I was 10 and she was 8.)

There's a genre of anime like that. Or at least, there's a lot of series like that. Not all shoujo stories are like that, but that's the genre where you'll find this. I've seen a couple, and I never want to see another. (Princess Nine, I'm never going to look at you again.)

The goal of the writing is to try to maximize the hankie count among the girls who watch it, and they wring every sob possible out of the situation. Or at least that's how Princess Nine felt, and I'm sure it's like that for a lot of others. Like, for instance, Full Moon wo Sagashite. Here's the series summary:

Twelve-year-old Kouyama Mitsuki was devastated when she was diagnosed with a malignant tumor of the throat. She had made a promise to the boy she loves that she would one day become a singer, but her illness made singing impossible. To make matters even worse, two angels of death, Takuto and Meroko, appeared to Mitsuki and informed her that she only had one year left to live. This news provides an even greater motivation for Mitsuki to fulfill her dreams, and with a little bit of divine intervention, she begins her quest to become a professional singer so she can be reunited with Eichi before time runs out.

And from that they managed to wring fully 52 episodes.

For all I know they actually pulled out a happy ending. Maybe there was some sort of miracle that cured her cancer. Who knows.

What I know is that I don't have the slightest interest in watching the series to find out. I'm sorry now that I used to tease my sister about her sob-sob stories. But I also know that I don't like them -- even if they have happy endings. Experiencing such a story is sheer torture for me.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Never Watch at 07:15 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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