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Important Lessons Akame ga Kill! Taught Us

Important Lessons Akame ga Kill! Taught Us

1/22/2016 10:52:10 PM

Warning! There are spoilers ahead!

Akame ga Kill! ends its epic 24 episode Toonami run on Saturday, February 20, 2016. With only one month left to enjoy the ride, we decided to take a look at the important lessons this mature anime series has taught us about real life.

Lesson #1: You Don’t Have to Know Someone for Very Long for Them to Touch Your Heart

The running joke is that Akame ga Kill! is like a spinning wheel of death, and the critics say that the show kills off characters before you have the chance to get to know them. However, character longevity isn’t the only factor in “getting to know” them.

Caring Sheele and charismatic Bulat had a lasting impact on Tatsumi and the rest of the cast. The importance of that impact is a prevailing theme, all the way to end of the show. In real life, it’s not always how long you’ve known an individual that matters, it’s how much their brief presence influenced the course of your life.

Lesson #2: Don’t Settle for Just Any Job

Wave and Tatsumi are two sides of the same coin: country boys who ended up in the capital looking for work. While Tatsumi was “lucky” enough to be rejected by the military, Wave was able to ascend to a job working personally with the capital’s most elite fighting force. In the end, both young men eased into jobs designed to purposefully take life. Not all occupations are created equally, in life and in anime.

Lesson #3: You Can’t Accurately Judge Everyone Based on Your First Impression of Them

Whether they’re a bright eyed rich girl with a hidden murderous streak, an arsonist with a heart of gold, or a self-proclaimed sadist looking for true love, characters are never really what they appear to be in this series. Like life, the characters in Akame ga Kill! perfectly capture the duality of human nature: the beauty of contrast, and the horror of having your expectations slashed to pieces.

Lesson #4: Enjoy Every Minute With Your Friends. You Never Know When They’ll be Gone

Akame ga Kill! would be an absolute macabre cluster of death and despair if it weren’t for the moments of sheer joy and laughter you get on the rare occasions Night Raid gets to relax. Whether you’re laughing at Lubbock’s adorable attempts to get glimpses of the girls, wondering about Akame’s voracious appetite, or simply giggling as the group enjoys bantering together, it’s a gentle reminder that friendships can be fleeting, so enjoy every second of the small moments.

Lesson #5: Bad Things Happen When Justice is Blind

General Esdeath’s personal unit, the Jaegers, is technically upholding the law by fighting the resistance, albeit with some fairly brutal and bloody tactics. One of Night Raid’s greatest assets is their hyperawareness that their work, even though delivered with justice in mind, is still murder. The Jaegers, Seryu in particular, lack the awareness that true “justice” is more than just upholding the law of the land.

What Will YOU Remember the Most About Akame Ga Kill!?

This show is going down in Sentai Filmworks history for multiple reasons, but its value as a story alone is immeasurable. With memorable characters, and equally memorable life lessons, which parts of Akame ga Kill! will YOU remember the most? Let us know on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr!