Your Favourite Anime Character Might Be Trying to Tell You Something

Yesterday Dave sent me a reel of one of my favourite anime characters, Vegeta, talking about discipline and mindset. It came at exactly the right time as I was second-guessing going to the pool. Not after that though - I made sure I went, haha.

Then today I saw another reel, this one by @theanimewan, and it stopped me in my tracks.

The idea was this: most people watch anime asking who would win or who's the strongest, but the greatest characters were never really about that. They represent something deeper - a philosophy, a fear, a wound, a desire, a way of confronting life. That's why two people can watch the same show and love two completely different characters for completely different reasons. The character you love often reflects the thing you're quietly trying to work through in yourself.

For this creator, that character was Vegeta. He talked about spending years feeling like he had to prove himself - capable, intelligent, worthy and no matter what he achieved, it was never quite enough, because his worth depended on other people recognizing it. And that's exactly Vegeta's struggle too. His pride pushes him toward greatness, but because that pride is tied to surpassing Goku, it becomes its own prison. I can relate to this!

The turning point, he said, is the moment Vegeta finally admits Goku is number one. Most people read that as Vegeta giving up. It isn't. It's the moment he frees himself from comparison. He realizes Goku never trained to prove he was better than anyone - he trained because he loved becoming better. And that's the lesson: there's a real difference between "I need to become better, so people finally see my worth" and "I already know my worth, which is why I owe it to myself to become better."

That really landed for me. Vegeta has always been my character and so has Bakugo from My Hero Academia. My kids tease me for it: Mum, you always love the angry and loud ones. But I think what I see in them isn't the anger itself it's the drive underneath it. The pride. The fuel. It's also quite funny how spirit answers questions too because literally the day before finding the reel above I had this very discussion with my children "I wonder why I resonate so much with these characters" - we know how that answer came about 😊 (spirit is always listening).

It made me sit with something honestly: is comparison still alive in me? Do I still feel like I am not enough? Or worthy? Because what he described in Vegeta is exactly how I grew up feeling - like nothing I did, or who I was, was ever quite enough. I'm learning now that I already am enough. I can still aim to become the best version of myself for my own journey, and that doesn't mean I wasn't enough to begin with. It's a strange, almost pendulum-like feeling, it can swing either way in a moment. Watching athletes shine, for example, can be inspiration or comparison, and the line between the two is finer than I'd like to admit.

Have you ever noticed this in yourself? That fine line between wanting to grow and quietly measuring yourself against someone else?

It's still something I navigate daily. I'm more aware of it now, though and funnily enough, this exact lesson found me in the pool last year too. I even wrote a little story about it, called The Oak and the Acorn (you can read/listen to it here). The Wise Weeping Willow's words were:

"The greatest race is not against others, but the one within. When you release the need to compare, you unlock your truest power."

And here I am, a year later, sitting with the very same lesson all over again ❤