Justice is a common theme in the majority of your Shounen anime. Although, at times, it can be confusing for us of NA to understand exactly what justice is. For a better look at what Justice, as we define it is we take a look at some form of dictionary definition:
The quality of being just; fairness.
1. The principle of moral rightness; equity.
2. Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness
1. The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
2. Law. The administration and procedure of law.
Normally, when we think of justice, we think of the majority of these based on our own opinions of what is honor, standards, law, and fairness. However, in anime it’s slightly different.
In anime, each side good and bad have their on view of what fairness is. For instance, in One Piece the Marines believe that anyone who does any kind of evil is without a doubt a very bad person requiring punishment. That is their absolute justice. However, on the other side Luffy belives in what you would think to be a more common sense of morals and fairness. That is his justice.
That is a kind of a bad example, so I’ll use some super robot examples. Say some bad guys are fighting against the good guys. From the good guys point of view, the “bad guys” are without a doubt evil and deserve their punishment. This is their justice. The evil guys however, aren’t exactly as evil as we think. See, in their eyes the good guys are evil and deserve THEIR punishment. This is their justice. So you see battle reflects around both sides definition of what their justice is.
The point I am getting at here, using simplistic examples to not make a fool of myself, is that I think a lot of people don’t look at how awesome and deep some mecha and to a certain extent shounen (jump) anime series are. On the outside it may look as if two fighters are fighting each other and that fighting is cool, but there is just so much going on between the two that it makes the fighting extremely emotional. All of this for shows targeted at children between 13 and 18. Amazing, really.
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