Michael, you don't have to read every single entry.  Especially the day it comes out.  You're not going to unlock the secrets of my mind, and it's hardly Pulitzer-worthy writing (not that I like books that have won Pulitzers.  Not fond of reading social commentaries, though I seem to write an awful lot of them).

Anyway, I had iTunes on shuffle, as always, and a sera myu song came on.  And the title translates something to like, everyone has someone who loves them.  And it's particularly poignant in that particular myu because of the weird side-plot with the kittens (there was one that was obnoxious).  But it reminded me of all the people who talk about SM and how it teaches these important values to kids.  I totally agree, by the way.  In some ways, it's the archetypical anime.  But it came around the time having heroines rather than heroes was becomining popular (let's face it...Tuxedo Kamen got into as much trouble as he got Moon out of.  And while he looked a lot hotter getting them out of trouble, his one-liners were awful and he had basically no powers), and I think it kind of advocated feminism at a time when it wasn't really around that much.  We talk about feminism as a college or older crowd.  How many 5-year-old feminists do you know?

But while it advocated girl power (admittedly, running around in short skirts and heels was a bit counter to this feminism thing, but hey, you can't have everything), it constantly drilled into young, impressionable minds this idea of love, justice, and peace.  You need the first two to have the third.  And you've got these eight teenagers giving up their lives for that.

A lot of anime, I think, gives the protagonist a personal vendetta.  Naruto, Bleach, FMA...let's not even get into Pokemon and stuff of that caliber.  They all have something they want to do, something that drives them to do what they do.  It's not often that the protagonist sacrifices because it's the right thing to do.  Sure, you've got Uranus and Neptune with their 'this is something only I can do', which is true (truer than they'd know...), but really, it comes down to them understanding duty.  How many kids understand duty?  Responsibility?  We know to say sorry when do stuff wrong.  We know when we're supposed to do our chores, we should do them or risk punishment.  But I think doing something because it's the right thing to do, even if you don't get any thanks for it...that's really hard for most people.  Even stuff like charity, where you're technically toiling away for someone who perhaps won't ever thank you...there are some things inherent in any successful charity that make it so it's not without reward.  Fame...you need to spread the message.  If you're good, you get lots of attention, and therefore lots of donations.  Plus, you tend to get paid in larger charities.

Fate/Stay Night...even though Shiro drove me crazy, and hell, so did Saber...(the music came up, by the way, I'm not totally random) Shiro's always advocating his sense of justice.  He was a chauvanistic, almost misogynistic dick in some senses, but I think it was just because that's how he was raised.  He wanted to protect everyone at cost to himself.  Hopefully, he's just bad at articulating it, and he's not really like, you're a girl, you can't do this.

Anyway, the point is, there are some anime out there that are worth showing your kids, I think.  SM...god, there are 200 eps, but it was so worth it to get to ep 200.  Sure, I could've skipped probably 100 eps and not missed much, but there's this sense of closure when you get to the end of 200 and they finally, finally have a happy ending.  Of course, each season ends on a happy note (though with some foreshadowing to the next season), but ep 200 was just The End.  Everyone who should be together is together (okay, no they're not.  The Inners need to get together), the greatest force of evil has been diverted, and they can look forward to living basically forever.

All those good life lessons, and no blood.  What more could you ask for?  Other than maybe some better attacks.  Chibi Moon's attack was lololol.  One of Moon's heart-shooting attacks was like, omg wtf too.

It reminds me of that poster you see sometimes in classrooms: all I need to know in life I learned in kindergarten.  Or something like that.  Might be quite true.  Who needs calculus?  Sharing's way more important.

*sigh*  There's a very good reason why we don't share data in lab.  At least one group always has fucked up data.  And that messes up everyone else's data, and now I can't make heads or tails of anything.  -_-;