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For years I've watched and fallen in love with anime time and time again. Whether it was coming home after school and turning on the TV to WB11 and binging on Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh, or staying up at night on Saturdays checking out Dragon Ball Z or Ghost in the Shell on Adult Swim and Toonami. Anime has always been a part of my life, ever since childhood. And back then, anime to me was all fun with action-packed fights and card games. As I got older, I got to realize just how dark and traumatic the anime world had become. I got to understand the reasoning as to how often I found myself relating to these fictional characters.

Now I'm not denying it, but yes, as a child I was sheltered. Dealing with bullying in school became a constant I couldn't escape from no matter what grade I entered. I never got to experience a normal teenage life. I never got to experience the fun times of being a juvenile. For me, it was always just school and home. I never got to know what it felt like to just hang out after school and head to the movies or the mall. Nothing. So as I became an adult, this lack of socializing had impacted me in more ways than one. I found myself unable to mingle and was even told to by my therapist. It's become a difficult thing to manage. Considering I was always a "wallflower" and many of my millennial peers were more sociable and party people. That type of lifestyle was never suited to my preference. In regard to a social circle, I did have classmates who became my friends. Those friendships began fading by the time college began.

Despite the use of social media, everyone just either up and disappeared, fed me the usual "I'm here if you need me" line, "I'll always be there" sthick. Or just straight betrayed me. I was the outsider. The Loner. The outcast. Soon after, I came to the realization that I'm always alone. But the one thing that never left my side was my love for anime. Eventually, when the depression got too much to handle, I delved into anime. Binging for hours on end until the sun came up.
The anime I've watched became more intense, dark, grittier, and psychological.

I was a glutton for different genres and as soon as I was deeply immersed. I was hooked like an addict, and each episode, whether sad, tragic, or romance-filled. I was in my feelings, sobbing like a toddler.
I found myself relating to every character that deeply resonated with me as an individual. As a human being who endured a series of traumatic events. Someone who desperately wanted connection, but only ended up heartbroken.
These types of characters are known as "Comfort Characters", a term coined online by the anime fandom.
Comfort Characters are those fictional characters who you see you share a deep connection, whose life story and background coincide with yours. They bring a sense of safety and reassurance to you. They bring comfort to your life. There are comfort characters that you relate to, and can share their emotions right through the screen.

You see them as individuals who can relate to the emotions and personal struggles as you do.

You share their trauma, the sting of betrayals they felt. You share the same heart and passion. This level of comfort helps one even during the most difficult and stressful of days.

Some of my comfort characters have always been strong-willed, determined, feisty women that the majority would think of as weak.
Not the typical damsel-in-distress;
Although I've had comfort characters that were timid, weak unlikeables who ultimately received their justified character development and grew into fighters who stood their ground, not afraid to voice themselves.

Not going to sugarcoat it, but of course I saw myself in them.

With my own personal internal battles and trauma, this is where anime has always been there for me, more than those IRL 'friends' I had.

Some characters that suffered at the hands of trauma broke my fragile heart.

Like Guts, the main protagonist from Berserk. He was broken beyond repair, and what made it even worse was his backstabbing, lunatic of a former friend *coughs* Griffith, the most diabolical villain in anime history.

Ken Kaneki, from Tokyo Ghoul, suffered childhood neglect and abuse, and even an extreme case of trauma including fear of abandonment, physical torture, and death. His experience led him right down a path of disassocation and a fractured psyche.

Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail had her burdens as well. Despite her title as an S-class wizard and one of Fairy Tail's strongest. Young Erza was kidnapped by a magical cult and forced into child slavery. Suffering at the hands of severe torture. Erza found friendship. While leading the charge and caused a rebellion. She witnessed casualties and death. She was betrayed by a dear friend and forced to leave the others behind. She found shelter at the Fairy Tail guild, where she remained emotionally guarded, hence donning her signature armor as a metaphor for self-protection, and developed horrendous survivor's guilt.

Takemichi Hanagaki's trauma in Tokyo Revengers stemmed from a brutal case of time traveling. Forced into reliving the murders of those he loved in different timelines and was unfortunately unable to prevent their demise while repeatedly getting whisked back and forth from his present timeline to the past. This eventually determines whether his actions have either caused greater consequences or improved the life expectancy of his family and friends.

In Erased, Satoru Fujinuma's childhood and present life clash as he ends up gaining an ability to travel through time to prevent major accidents from occurring. His trauma causes survivor's guilt, grief, and memories of 15 years to be erased due to a comatose state. Satoru is thrust into the past to prevent the death of his mother at the hands of a predator whom his mother was investigating. This sequence of events sets off a chain where Satoru is struggling to prevent his classmates from being abducted by a child murderer, and at the same time he's tasked with also shielding his friend from child abuse at home.
Due to his tenacity, Satoru's search for his mother's killer in his past timeline ends up costing him his own life when he comes face to face with the man who would soon put him in a coma for 15 years.

Miyo Saimori, in My Happy Marriage, is placed into a world of both childhood abuse and physical abuse all because of who her parents were. Born into a noble household, but raised as an illegitimate child. Miyo is often brutalized by both her stepmother and stepsister all cause of her illegitimacy. While her family flaunts their supernatural gifts and wealth, they keep her in rags and treat her as a commoner/servant girl rather than their flesh and blood. She develops a people-pleasing personality due to her trauma response of "Fawning". Unable to say no or stand up for herself, out of fear of being beaten and hit. She is promised to the head of another noble house as part of an arranged marriage. Her would-be stoic fiancé begins to notice her behavior is not of a wealthy noblewoman and decides to take matters into his own hands. He learns of the Saimori's abuse towards Miyo and vows to never let her experience it ever again, thus providing her with reassurance, emotional security, safety, shelter, and unconditional love.

So as you see, no matter what the genre is of anime, every anime character has gone through their hardships and trauma. Though they may smile and shed a tear, their deep, troubling struggles are surfacing below in their hearts.

Something I have dealt with personally myself. I could gesture a wave, or flash a smile. But deep down at my core, the trauma is there, boiling like a festering wound. Just like them, I can tell people
"I'm okay" or "I'm fine"
but those are mere words.

I can appear cool, calm, and collected.
Though at my epicenter,
is a wounded little girl screaming in pain.

Trauma can range from many factors that may or may not be on the surface. Some traumas can be deep down at the core wound that was never present before. It takes months, and even years, for someone to truly be healed.

People on VR see me as having this cold-hearted exterior, unable to become vulnerable and purposely choosing to be a 'lone wolf', but what they fail to understand is how my trauma and life experiences have shaped me as an adult. I did not choose to be this way.

No one ever apologized to me for molding me into this.

I did not ask to be betrayed, abandoned, given up on, sheltered, friendless, and alone.
I was made to be this way by factors beyond my control.

Yes, my healing is still ongoing; but it doesn't mean I'm fully healed. Just like an anime character who has gone through their villain arc up until their redemption arc;

well that would have been me 100%.


But I skipped my villain arc because the pain was too severe and I just wanted it to end. So rather than trudging through despair, I went into my healing arc. It's a long, messy journey.
Nonetheless, if I'm healing, thankfully I will still have anime by my side.