So Perfect

The concept of perfection is a tricky thing, for both the perception and pursuing of said perfection. When people are met with someone they perceive as "perfect", in some aspect or subject, it's quiet common for them to drop everything and give up. This type of abandoning of something in the face of perfection, only really happens when they are in similar fields as the so called model.

This type of subject is being covered in two anime of this season and it is something that has caught my interest simply because they both showed up around the same episode number. The two anime I mention are Medaka Box: Abnormal and Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo, which both cover the subject in quiet different approaches and that is something worth the discussion, based on how the characters grow and work out differences.

Smack down, Demotivate

Introduction to the character Rita Einswoltz slowly establishing a broken down and discouraged woman to Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo. Her main reason for being in this state was Mashiro. Rita had seen perfection and didn't think she could compete against her and dropped art altogether. As a result, Rita is trying to push Mashiro into moving back to England and continue to purse her painting career; mainly because Rita finds that Mashiro is wasting her talent on manga and should be doing something greater.

Not truly understanding how selfish Rita was being, Ryuunosuke Akasaka stepped up to bat and knocks some sense into her. Obviously it came as shock, but that was that push to she needed to overcome the slump Rita was in for so long.

As for Medaka Box: Abnormal, the extent that demotivation played was Medaka making many of the scientist and researcher around her just lose all hope. Since she could figure out even the most complex problems so easily, the adults just felt inferior to the likes of Medaka.

Lift up and Inspire

A lot of Medaka Box, both the first and second season, is based on encouraging the happiness of others because that is the way Medaka works. The over-the-top ways she tries to help other was sparked by Zenkichi. At such an early age, he was the only person to teach Medaka something, with it also being the purpose she lives for.

In the later episodes of Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo, around the time they worked on a student festival project; everyone of the cast used their talents together to make something great. That kind of stuff is what you want to see in any kind of project because it is a bunch of passionate people feeding off of each others' input and making something great or at the very least, something with heart.

That's All She Wrote

You can get a whole range of character traits from this kind of conflict between characters. Different kinds of "perfect" people, along with the people interacting with said characters.

All I can say for this is I like to see worse in people and sooner or later they learn from the mistakes in thinking they had; one of the ways to see this type of progression is to have a character that is considered perfect interacting with normal people. The one exception to this is when characters follow or rely on the perfect character without objection, sort of like Kirito from Sword Art Online, but that's another topic for different time.