Lessons Learnt from the Pokemon Anime

"Isn't anime just Asian cartoons?"

"Why are you still watching anime? Aren't you a bit too old to watch that?"

Hi, my name is Pang and I am writing this blog about the life lessons I learnt from watching anime for my university marketing assignment, but I would genuinely like to share the few life lessons that I have learnt through anime with the readers in hopes that they would have something meaningful to take away after reading this blog.

The questions above have been directed at me countless times when I mention that I like watching anime to people I meet. At first, I always felt embarrassed when I told people that I enjoy watching anime as I know people would judge me as being 'childish', 'nerdy', 'geeky' and a new term used to describe anime lovers nowadays - 'weeb'. However, after finishing so many series, I realized that anime is so much more than just a 'cartoon', the stories in each series often carry a meaningful message that the writers are trying to convey to the audience.

I am sure that most of you have seen this iconic duo at some point in your life (If you have no clue at all, you are either really old or you've been living under a gigantic rock your whole life). I am talking about Ash Ketchum and his trusty partner, Pikachu. This was the first ever anime I can recall watching when I was just a small, clueless kid. At the time, I was just fascinated with the world of Pokemon and fantasized living in the same world as Ash (who wouldn't, am I right?). As I grew older, I slowly realized that Ash was actually a bad ass and I began to respect him even more as a character.



Don't give up when you lose
We all know that Ash sets out his journey to become the Pokemon Master from the very beginning. In order to do so, he had to face many challenging battles and enter the Pokemon league to have his shot at becoming the champion of the region. Throughout the years and years of battles with his Pokemon, the title of champion has always been within arm's reach. Although it was sad at the moment he lost, he would always quickly pick himself back up and move on to face the next challenge with his head held high.


This particular trait of his has always stuck with me throughout my whole life. Whenever I didn't do well in a exam or lose a basketball match, I would always try and tell myself to move on from the losses and think of ways to improve myself when the next challenge arrives. Sure, it hurts when you put so much effort in something and the outcome does not meet your expectations, but wasting time feeling sorry for yourself would not improve the situation in any way. Just keep pushing forward and eventually you would get to the destination you set out for.




After 22 years of losing and getting back up, all his efforts finally paid off when he finally won the Alolan Pokemon League this summer! Ash was in disbelief as well when he finally became champion, as if a giant boulder was lifted off his shoulders for the very first time. This moment really touched the hearts of all the Pokemon fans around the world as we get to see our hero accomplish his dream for the very first time in 22 years. This just goes to show that losing is just a process that allows victory to taste much sweeter. I learnt that as long as you never give up on yourself, you will eventually succeed no matter how hard the task may seem. You can only rely on others for help so much, but in the end only you can help yourself to get to where you want to be.


Thank you for even reading this, my next post will be about the Lessons I Learnt from Naruto.