Kokoro Connect continues to amaze me.
Episode 11 marked the beginning of the third arc. After the painful, but deep “unleashed desires” arc, I was surprised at how much this episode engaged me. I expected a denouement, perhaps, but instead saw the start of an arc that appears to be a little less painful, a little funnier, and little more Aoki and Kiriyama packed, and equally interesting.
As the members of the Cultural Research Club regress into miniature, younger versions of themselves and then return to their normal age, they are bringing with them the pains of their past. And along with those pains, perhaps they’re bringing regrets as well.
So I’ll ask you all – what would you tell your younger self if you had the chance? Is is something about being fearful, as with Inaba? Does it have to do with a relationship, as with Aoba? Or is it about finding yourself, like with Nagase? Or might it have to do with an activity you used to participate in or a promise you made, as with Kiriyama? Or would it be something else entirely?
If you could give a piece of advice to your six-year-old self, your-eleven-year old self, or your fourteen-year-old self, what would you say?
I’ll get this started.
I would speak to my 11-year-old self and I would tell him this: “Don’t be so scared.”
I wasn’t scared as in frightened and hiding from my shadow – but I always feared the spotlight and being embarrassed. I would do anything possible to avoid it. And because of that, I missed out on a lot of experiences and friendships.
Nowadays, I pretty much just have it, despite my trepidation. If I had done the same throughout adolescence and into my college years, I’d have had richer times and deeper experiences.
Be weird.
When I was younger, I was quiet and unassuming. I generally just went about and did my business. I think this is a lesson I’ve learned from anime. School is really the only time you can try stuff out and be silly in general. As responsibilities pile up towards adulthood, I’m sure things will get a lot more restrictive. In the same vein as Suzumiya Haruhi and Hiruma Youichi, I want to do things that are fun regardless of how comfortable I am doing so.
I still think I could work on this a bit but I think my earlier school life could have been so much more interesting with a lot more friends if I had taken myself out of my comfort zone and trying to discover new things in life.
That’s a good one. It’s true that as we get older, we become more restricted. We can certainly be “weird,” but because such a huge chunk of our time is spent in a professional setting, we just have fewer and fewer opportunities to do so.
My 6 year odl self would hear “It’s okay to stand up for yourself”. I didn’t when I was a kid. When I was six, I was hearing how I was fat and stupid from my dad (and what kid feels okay speaking up to a parent at that age?), and I was so intimidated by being bullied by everyone in elementary school that I just…. let things happen to me. I let my feelings be broken time after time. Now I’m better about it, but I still have issues with timing and who I speak up against. Things like that really do take practice.
🙁
That’s tough to hear. I don’t say such things to my children, but I still feel awful after I snap at them. Adults sometimes are too forgetful or just too mean to consider what impact words have on a young child.
I think at a certain age, kids know that they lose their temper and that others around them do as well. It’s when mean things are said purposely that there’s a problem. My dad had a stroke before I was born, so a good section of his brain that regulated what was okay to say to whom disappeared. He can learn – slightly and with great difficulty – but I didn’t have the nerve to tell him to stuff it until I was 16, and I’m still dealing with how he purposely said those things to me. My mom occasionally snapped, but I barely remember any of those incidents and most of them were my fault to begin with 😛
I think it’s easier to deal with that sort of thing when you can write it off as how they are, and just cut them loose. Not so much when part of it really isn’t under their control. That makes it a lot harder to come to terms with. I’m still trying to figure it all out.
Wow, thanks for sharing. That sounds like a very difficult dilemma, but it’s encouraging to see you actively trying to work on that relationship. I admire that.