During the week I watched my usual anime stream of shows. One of those was Chitose-kun wa Ramune Bin no Naka, or Chitose in the Ramune Bottle episode 15. A show that shows how a popular kid also struggles through his adolescence with it's own kind of issues due to the popularity of the others.
Usually in high school movies or TV shows we watch the lives of the popular kids as they are all enjoying their youth and have no issues or worries, and usually focus on the unpopular kids which get bullied by the strong ones, ignored by the girls and in general, outcast from the class.
We then see the perfect boy and the perfect girl always smiling, always around with friends and enjoying life without any hardship or whatever. This show focus on those kids, and this is no external drama, like hiding some family secret or any external cause that cause them to struggle. This is the analysis of the struggle of their own perfection, and how a perfect look might not mean necessarily a perfect life.
During the last episode where the main character get with a girl and help her look into her life at Tokyo university once she graduates. The main character opens up about his life and I had to say that was one of the most emotional pieces of anime I have seen in a really long time.
He start with his life in kindergarten on how he was everyone friend and he excel and felt fully happy. He was proud on how he excel on almost everything he put his will into. Was athletic kid and didn't need much to win. Then as he went on in elementary school other kids developed talents which pushed him to take extra effort to keep up. By the time Jr High reached he start to become an expectation that people expect from him. He had to be the perfect friend, pick up the slack and always delivered and when thing didn't go as planned, he was the first one to be blamed. Girls will declare to him and when he rejected them, they will get mad and start talking behind his back. They spread gossips about him and how all he wanted was to go back and be the superhero that could do everything for his friends. It was something that he missed so much and how by high school despite the challenges he has made his best effort to please everyone and keep himself as reliable as possible.
When you are so good that people expect perfection from you and when you get tired of that role, people are quick to complain and point out your flaws. That's the curse of the 'perfect' people. The image that people built in their heads from you is impossible to compete and no matter how good you are, you can't compete with the imagination of the collective. No matter how many times you smile, or how much you shrug it off.
After this show I really stop to think for a minute how true this recollection is and how relatable it can be. People's perception is usually limited and building a narrative about someone or something and believing it, has nothing to do with the actual reality of the situation.
Have you ever felt that, or been on that position? Did you feel that pressure to perform? Comment about it.
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