Today, I do my last blog entry about philosophy and anime, before I start to seem like some sort of obsessive fan. Moving on... Today we feature Gaara no Sabaku, Haku, and Kakashi Hatake. Next week, we move on to another popular anime...Shaman King...well...maybe not hugely popular, but it's full of philosophy.
Gaara at first glance seems like your normal everyday rebellious preteen. Except...that's not eyeliner on his eyes...that's a sign of insomnia, not sleeping in his case for at least six years (he's crazy!!!) Anyway...this lack of sleep isn't what caused him to think that way he does. That was due to the fact that since the age of 6, he's been hounded by assassins sent by his father! This caused him to believe that one can't trust anyone in this world, even family. Add to this that he was created as the ultimate fighting machine by his father and you get a very solitary young man. Finally....he taught that being spoiled, eg. being give what you wanted, etc., equaled being loved. But after the incident that changed his life: that being that the last assassin he killed was his father, made him truly coldhearted, not caring who he killed. He believes that it is his purpose to kill and nothing else. But you can't really blame him... His father was the real culprit here.
Haku (no last name, seriously) is the very epitomy of innocence in the manga and anime. He believes that one should be loyal to the end to your master. But more importantly is Haku's belief that this person must be special to you, which ties into the last two parts of his philosophy. The first is that if you are protecting someone special to you, you become the strongest person you can. This is something every child and parent who has ever protected their parent or child can identify with. And the final aspect of Haku's philosophy is similar to Zabuza's, in that ninjas are nothing more than tools and that ninjas must be willing to sacrifice themselves for their missions and friends. This is exactly true, according to later revelations to the qualities of a chuunin ninja, which include courage, dedication and willingness to sacrifice for a mission. In short, Haku would have been an incredible ninja, if not the best next to Naruto, Sasuke, Gaara and some other impressive genin that year...
Kakashi Hatake seems to have a philosophy of "Do what you want whenever you want" as we see with his reading of porn in public, wearing his mask constantly and saying flippant remarks to his comrades in the most serious of situations. But in reality, he believes that ninjas who don't follow the rules are lower than trash. This ties in to his childhood, where he was a stickler for following orders and not veering away from the mission's goal. But after the death of a close friend, Kakashi gained a new addition to his philosophy. Ninjas who don't follow the rules are lower than trash, but ninjas who don't help their friends are lower than that. This shows us that even though Kakashi may see rude and obnoxious, he does want to help people...just not in the same way we expect.
