Anime is well known for eliciting intense emotions. Some shows, like the late great Akira Toriyma’s Dragon Ball series, fill our hearts with a sense of impenetrable pride and indomitable strength. While others, like Kotaru Lives Alone, somehow destroy me at a molecular level while simultaneously healing deep childhood trauma I thought only a very expensive therapist could remedy. On a few occasions, some live action films were able to alter my brain chemistry here and there. Underworld still brings nostalgic goosebumps to my arms whenever I remember scenes of Kate Beckinsale stylishly terminating Lycans. All of these feelings are wonderful and all but I am here to talk about a feeling a bit more ambiguous. A primal urge that is so core to our species that every one of us feels it deep in our slowly evolving monkey brains. I’m talking about the need to be cool, and how to drip or drown.
“Drip? What is that?” If you know you know, and unfortunately if you don’t… Well, I’ll do you this one solid. To drip is to be so covered in sauce that it is metaphysically oozing off of you. Simply put, to drip is to have an overflowing amount of swagger typically displayed through a strong sense of fashion and charisma.
The Young and The Sauceless
Having defined that for you, let me give you some context as to why you should trust me to be your Commander-In-Drip. Back when I was a sauceless cub, editing Gears of War montages and Black Lagoon AMVs to Linkin Park, I regularly rocked cargo shorts and Abercrombie collared tees. This might not sound too bad at first. However, coupled with medically prescribed NewBalance 608s (before they were cool) and braces that could easily be mistaken for barbed wire, I was not in a very dripped up position. I was, in fact, drowning. Unable to combat the verbal massacre that teens of the early 2000’s became so well known for, I did what any able-minded teen would and asked my mother for fashion advice. From there, I only have faint memories of the loud sound of velcro from my EchoUnlimited jean shorts and the even louder sound of being laughed out of first period science. Tired of getting roasted to ashes on every bus ride, I stopped looking for insights from the real-life figures in my circle of influence. Instead, I turned to the screen to give my prepubescent brain the inspiration it needed. I absorbed everything that made characters socially magnetic and began trying to decrypt the elusive formula that is sauce. Through countless hours of research and viruses from pirating sites, I emerged victorious! Not to say I am presently the best dressed person on this side of the Mississippi or that panties magically appear in my hands Kazuma style, far from it. But I did learn a thing or two about what makes some characters so damn cool. Here I will break down one of my most important findings from over the years, in the hopes that this may reach the eyes of a fellow dripless denizen lost in the sauce.
Confidence That Can Pierce The Heavens
Before we can even begin to try on new fits and threads we first have to go over what is likely one of the hardest lessons to grasp. Something we’ve all been told time and time again. No matter what you are wearing, if you do not have confidence, your clothes will be wearing you. This is to say that no amount of cloth can hide the stench of self-depreciation. And boy did I reek of it. At many points in my life, I’ve struggled with the ability to believe that I was even remotely capable of becoming anyone of worth. My peers always seemed like they not only understood how to exist but how to excel at it, driving me deeper into this oppressive belief. No matter what outfit I put on, when I looked in the mirror that awkwardly disproportionate, strangely prematurely stubbled face was staring right back at me. What made this twice as difficult, and thrice as unfair was having a best friend who, for some odd reason, believed I was already the coolest kid in class. Nothing alters a kid’s brain chemistry like someone having unabashed confidence in you for no conceivable reason. Unfortunately, this was something my sunken brain could not conceptualize or accept. Nothing could possibly drill through the universal truth I had created and centered at my core. I was convinced that somehow, this kid who has done nothing but be nice to me had to be either utterly confused or plotting some sinister prank. That is until, the universe, as if exhausted by my idiocy, sucker punched me with a show so brightly lit by its own confidence I had no choice but to finally open my tightly shut eyes.
Gainax’s Gurren Lagann was and still is nothing short of gospel to those who need to be dug out from any existential pit. The 2007, 27-episode anime is next to impossible to distill into a few short words. I could not possibly adequately capture the absolute heat that comes from a show about a man, a mech, his crew, and their fight to end cosmic oppression by drilling a hole into reality itself. What I can do is attempt to share with you how watching this show gave me the ability to believe in myself, and subsequently learn how to “put that shit on”. Tuning in to Gurren Lagann for any amount of time you’ll immediately be punched with Gainax’s (now Studio Trigger) signature zany art style. That punch will be followed up with one of the most iconic characters of my time, the bro himself, Kamina. Kamina is the literal embodiment of everything cool and has the drip to match. Nothing goes as absolutely hard as a no shirt, torn cape, exuberantly stylish glasses-wearing protagonist whose main goal in life is to reach new heights by helping the weak. Even at a young age I could tell that this character was everything I wanted to be, but just knew I couldn’t. There was no doubt in my mind that I had far more in common with his dorky sidekick Simon. Just like me, Simon couldn’t do much more than stare directly into the shining star that is Kamina. Every single time Kamina spoke, I just like Simon was electrified into action.I could, and probably will write a long article about all of the heart-pounding quotes that burst from Kamina’s mouth. “God gave us eyes at the front of our heads so we can look forward to the future." slaps so damn hard that I consider getting it tattooed on myself daily. I just knew that if I kept watching this show and listening to this man as though he were preaching universal law, I too could be a man of his caliber. There was just something nagging me about how he was talking to Simon. “Why does he keep talking to Simon as though he is the cool one?”. A familiar feeling crossed my heart and even more familiar thoughts: “He isn’t the cool one”, “he is not the strong one”, and “I am not worth such high praise”. If you’ve watched Gurren Lagann you know what happens next. We are then left with Simon as the main character. He and I both feel utterly destroyed at the loss of our symbol of hope and manliness. Unlike Simon, I did not have a whole world to save so I could take an emotional break, or so I thought. Of all the chest-pounding quotes from the now departed big bro that echoed through my head, a couple were just slightly louder.
"When I feel weak, or when I lack self-confidence, I remember Simon's back as he dug tirelessly. I wanted to become a man whose back would never break. That's what I thought."
I felt like I was missing something. “How could he have been so confident in Simon?” my middle school brain painfully pondered. This thought gripped me for the rest of the series and really the majority of my adolescence. Yeah for sure Simon ended up being a big hero, and of course, Kamina turned out to be right about him. “But how on earth was he so sure?” I shrugged it off and proceeded to absorb every other lesson that came from Kamina, Simon, and Gurren Lagann: Help others, don’t look back, be strong in the face of oppression, and wear cool sunglasses. While the last lesson became medically imposed, later on, the rest I wore like a mask. Inherently knowing I was missing something vitally important. Still, my reflection in the mirror was something I sought to avoid, regardless of my newly acquired love for the color red. I carried on like this until a year-long falling out with that previously mentioned best friend came to its emotionally climactic conclusion with these words: “When I felt alone you were always who I wanted to be”.
Shocked to hear this come from a friend I deeply idolized. And knowing well that for young boys in the 2000s saying something so emotionally charged would usually solicit a slur being hurled in response. Instead, my brain displayed the vibrant imagery of Kamina’s indomitable smile. This image was definitely not followed by a stream of tears. What did follow was a rekindling of our friendship and a recontextualization of what it really meant to be “cool”. “No matter what you went through you always kept going”, I felt Kamina himself possessed my best friend directly. Quickly I realized that at the core of our conflict was what caused me to miss the entire point of Gurren Lagann. I was blind to the concept that people like pre-episode 27 Simon and I could possibly be worthy of “cool”. Kamina believed in Simon not despite being a bit of a scrawny dweeb, but because he was and was still a deeply dependable friend. Simon had what any man of worth should have, strength in the face of their own weakness, confidence in the face of their own doubts, and pride in the people who chose to be by his side. I was simply incapable of understanding that being cool doesn’t mean having the flyest gear, or sickest sunglasses. And so, I hid and refused to acknowledge any conflicting thoughts. And thus, in refusing to acknowledge the source of those thoughts I had failed to acknowledge the love and pride my best friend ceaselessly bestowed upon me.
The first, and undoubtedly most important, key to drip is to know that regardless of what you have on you must first equip self-love and dawn it as a permanent spiritual undergarment. Only then will you be prepared to see your reflection accurately enough to discern whether you are drowning because your clothes suck, or because doubt is anchoring you to a sauceless existence.
In the future, I hope to continue to share my findings in anime, sauce, and the drip that defines us. Until then, let’s see you grit those teeth.
