I know, shocker — but hear me out.

While my friends are out partying on a late Friday night, I'm at home staring at nothing but moving animations on a bright computer screen. Sad as it may sound, I'm actually really happy during these moments because they give me a chance to relax and rewind from the day.

I typically keep that between my close friends who know me well. There's a stigma against people who watch anime and they're often not taken seriously- simply dismissed as "weeaboos" or diehard fans who get irritated by even the slightest mistakes of jargon technicalities. Of course, these people exist, but they also ruin it for the rest of us. It's hard to be taken seriously when someone tries to explain anime in a meaningful way because the name itself has been automatically assigned as a joke.

One thing that anime does that I genuinely love is that it makes many exaggerations in character expressions. Characters are usually drawn in a cartoon style with exaggerated features that accentuate their personalities. For instance, children may be given larger eyes to give them baby-like features and accentuate their cuteness. When a character in a movie is mad you can usually tell more by the sound of their voice rather than the look on their face but in anime, you can tell through both extremes.

Character faces will be contorted in all different types of crazy proportions to accentuate their emotions. When they're shocked, they can have a shadowed expression, when they're in pain they can have literal arrows shooting through them; when they stubborn and annoyed, they can have their faces puffed up; when they're angry, a fire will fly through the roof of their heads. Of course, all of these effects would look silly in real life but that's what makes anime so amazing. It's able to recreate a world where the pain we feel in real life is often exaggerated in hilarious ways.

While I love seeing the comedic side of anime, there's also a surprisingly tender side to it as well. With high artistry, animes can remind me of the simple but easily forgotten things in life like familial love and friendship. Some of the beautiful scenes include a reunion between parents and children or an understanding between two friends or lovers. Some of these moments are able to convey unbearably painful emotions to me because they put me in the position of the characters and allow me to truly empathize with the character with snippets of similar pain from my own life.