Anime characters are as happy as they're made to be. I'd like to pretend everything we see is a glimpse into another world, another reality, or universe... but I'm not that crazy. Characters from the more happy types of SoL anime typically don't have the sort of depth in emotions to warrant these questions. They tend to have very flat personalities and what you see is what you get. If they look happy they are happy.

thanks for posting such a wonderful image, really fantastic. thanks

>>22657
>If they look happy they are happy.
this is part of why i enjoy anime so much, i find it all to be much more genuine than anything irl.

people are never honest, they have ulterior motives for everything they do even if they say that they dont. if somebody loans you some money, its not because theyre trying to help you out. theres always another reason like they want a favor in return, they want you to be indebted to them, even if they dont ask for a favor they want to make themselves look good to everybody else watching and put up that front, hoping that everybody will now think that theyre a selfless do-gooder. Not in anime, in anime the characters do what they do exactly what has been written in. if they smile its because they are genuinely happy, if they cry its because theyre genuinely sad. if they ask you to be their friend its because they want to be friends, not because they are trying to use you. if a 2D girl laughs at your joke its because she thought it was funny, not because shes purposely trying to look cute to ensnare your heart and bring you under your spell. in a sense, 2D is more real than the real world

Sometimes, I can't make myself watch anime (especially SOL) or read visual novels, because all of the characters are friends and are having so much fun and it just makes me feel very bad and sad.

>>24920
>>22657
To me, 2D is like a thin cross-section of reality, where concepts we see in reality are distilled down into a pure and potent form. The idea, whatever it happens to be, is usually familiar and identifiable, but its presentation in 2D escapes what is generally possible when dealing with things in 3D. That's why I choose to see anime as a sort of window into an ethereal realm filled with ideas in their most perfect and pure forms. Clearly this place doesn't exist in the same way reality does, but I view it as an equally "real" realm we can get glimpses of through various pursuits of the mind and imagination.

>>24934
> distilled
Great choose of word! The simplified drawing stile expresses sentiments very clearly, almost leaving the observer hungry for more, and connects them to the situation without mixing in the ever present angst and emptiness every human shares in any situation. Watching anime is like reminiscing. Everything is filtered to core elements, washing away mundane worries, you wouldn't remember a month or a year after.

> pure
Possibly one of the most loaded words in the community. It's almost funny how addicted anime fans are to real life events, while they can't enjoy them in the watered down form of painfully swallowing moment by moment in their very own present. Ah, don't feel insulted, just reflecting here.

>>24931
I do that too but with romance. It hurts so much and I can never enjoy it ever. But then it means I'm watching almost nothing.

>>24942
I don't watch romance either(because I hate it) and I still find that I am never lacking things to watch, most anime doesn't have romance.