MANIME: MANLY LESSONS FROM ANIME’S RISING OF THE SHIELD HERO - TOUGHNESS VS ROUGHNESS

Why Anime?

What makes anime such a compelling genre for so many people? If you look at those who enjoy anime, you see a broad selection of people who range in age, diversity, and economic background. However, they all come together around anime. Why is that? It is the power of the stories that are in anime. We often see characters who develop and grow in the shows through adversity. They do this by making and learning from both good and bad decisions. This makes them human and helps us relate to them.

My son and I are big anime fans and enjoy watching shows together. We also love helping men grow and develop to be who they were designed to be in this world. One day we thought, “Why not bring these two together?” This simple statement was the beginning of MANIME (copyright pending). MANIME is our term for combining the anime we love with lessons we can learn from their stories. Does this mean we get to watch anime shows as “research?” Of course, it does! (But not the kind of research that Jeriyah does.) But that isn’t our only reason for doing this project. We are combining entertainment with teaching to help more men understand and grow in their potential. We often learn our most powerful lessons from stories, so why not use some of the most powerful stories in the world today? So join us as we begin the MANIME journey- we hope you learn how to be a better man from it.

Naofumi Iwatani is the main character in the anime “Rising of the Shield Hero.” He is a regular college student who gets sucked into another world by a book he read in the library. He finds out that in this world he is one of 4 “cardinal heroes” brought to help defend the world from an impending threat known as “the waves.” All the other heroes have their weapons but Naofumi only has a shield. He’s not even allowed to use a weapon. He is only allowed to use his shield. This sets him apart from the other heroes and forces him to get creative in many different ways. (Spoiler Warning: We will be discussing season 1 in detail so if you don’t want any surprises ruined, go watch the show and then come back.)

In this post, we are talking about how men need to learn the difference between toughness and roughness. Toughness is a necessary characteristic to be a successful man. We all have to have an element of toughness if we want to accomplish things in our lives and our jobs. The danger is we can mix up toughness with the unhealthy attribute of roughness (and not just because they rhyme.)

So let’s define these two character traits:

Toughness: Your ability to stay the course and endure hard times. It involves facing people and problems that are a threat with courage.

Roughness: Seeing everyone as an enemy to be defeated. You have the attitude “Me vs Anyone who doesn’t agree with me.”

The reason so many men get toughness & roughness confused is they can both come from the same dilemma: enduring hard times. Facing difficulties can build up our endurance or feed a bitter mindset. To make sure we develop toughness and not roughness, we have to understand some key principles:

Hard Times Hit Us All

When Naofumi came into the new world, he had a great attitude and a genuine desire to help. The problem was he got taken advantage of and betrayed in about every way imaginable. Here is a quick list of what happened

• He had a beautiful woman volunteer to assist him when no one else did

• She acted like she would be a help, but didn’t tell him a lot

• She tried to get him drunk and tried to seduce him (Naofumi was strong and didn’t drink or take advantage of her)

• She stole all his stuff while he was sleeping and then told everyone in the royal court that he tried to rape her. (Which in that society is a crime worse than murder, because the kingdom was a matriarchy where women were seen as more valuable)

• No one believes Naofumi’s pleas of innocence because the girl who betrayed him turns out to be the king’s daughter!

• The other 3 heroes shun him

• The king blacklists Naofumi as scum

Naofumi is starting in this kingdom with no money, a terrible reputation, no allies, and no weapons- all because a chick wanted to use him to get on a different hero's good side.

As you can see Naofumi has it hard. He later finds out that the entire kingdom has hated the shield hero for hundreds of years. Nothing seems to go his way. He gets angry and acts pretty bitter (who could blame him!)

Many of us can relate to his pain in one form or another. We may not have been betrayed the same way, but we have all faced betrayal. We may be going through hard times we aren’t responsible for, but we have to pay the price. Many men go through this-and when they do, they have a choice to become tough or rough.

The reason many men choose roughness is they struggle with the inner battle during hard times. We see Naofumi battle his own inner rage at betrayal. Our inner battle could be different. It could be hurts from our youth or any time when we have been devastated. Many of us battle on the inside with the pain and grief of those situations and if we let them control us, they will push us into developing a roughness that acts as a defense mechanism.

Many of us recognize this in other people. We’ve all seen the “bitter old man” who has rejected everyone and has less patience than a hungry toddler. They are the guys who sit around and tell anyone who will listen how they were wronged and how life is against them(over and over again). They have developed an attitude of the “lonely, burdened man.” This attitude causes them to isolate themselves because they think no one else understands what they have been through.

If we aren’t careful, we can all easily become that guy. All we have to do is focus on our pain, and we’ll get there eventually. How we handle our hard times says a lot about whether we will become tough or rough.

We Can’t Let The Past Define Our Future

Our past is a reality. No matter how much we want to wish it away, it still happened. We cannot change the past but we can make a conscious decision to not let the past define our future. If we give the past power over our future, we deny the opportunity to learn from our past and grow into better times.

Though Naofumi wasn’t perfect, he did a great job moving forward and creatively dealing with the problems that other people left him with.

• A merchant won’t buy his goods for a fair price, so he hides these small, low-level monsters under his coat and uses them to “inspire” the merchant to give him what his goods are worth.

• He can’t use any offensive weapons, so he goes to find someone who can wield a sword for him.

• The kingdom won’t give him a fair stipend of coins to use for equipment, so he becomes a merchant and starts earning his own money.

• He has zero connections, so he begins the hard work of making alliances with different vendors, merchants, and even soldiers.

• His reputation is negative amongst the elites and the residents of the capital city, so he begins building a good reputation amongst the common people and those of the rural communities (even though he wasn’t necessarily trying to become popular, he became revered as the “savior of the heavenly fowl”).

None of this would have been possible if Naofumi stayed in the past. The temptation for us to stay in the past can work in different ways for us today. We can try to escape through the many virtual options we have available. We can isolate ourselves and become workaholics to escape. We can replay our wounds over and over again and let them paralyze us.

Naofumi wanted to run back to his world but that wasn’t possible. To go back, all four heroes had to die. He couldn’t isolate himself because he didn’t have a weapon so he needed people to survive. Naofumi decided to do what he could to change the future.

Through Naofumi’s story, we see the reality that moving into the future requires battling with our past. If we decide to move ahead and build a future this doesn’t mean we won’t still work through the grief of past pain. The pain of our past is something we must assimilate into our lives to build a future effectively.

The key to overcoming is the daily decisions to build the future no matter the feelings you have about your past.

Difficulties Develop Us

The interesting part of Naofumi’s journey is the hard times he faced grew him to where he became the most self-aware and resourceful of the four cardinal heroes. His toughness isn’t a one-time decision in the show- it is a constant uphill battle.

This is relatable because life doesn’t give us any off-days. There are always tough situations, social barriers, random problems, and annoying people in our lives. We can let those obstacles build up frustrations, discourage us, or make us bitter, but the good news is that we don’t have to choose that path. The lifelong process of facing and overcoming obstacles can work for our good as it did for Naofumi.

Muscles get strong in our body through resistance. The same thing happens in our lives. Certain emotional, mental, and spiritual muscles only develop as we face resistance. This is how we develop the toughness we need to live a thriving life.

The other three heroes had it easy with full support and freedom to do what they wanted. We see in later episodes that their lack of development causes them to do dumb things and hurt those around them. They also never developed strength in fighting because they never faced any strong enemies. We need to remember this as we walk through hard times because that resistance is making us stronger.

One of the greatest ways of growing toughness and minimizing roughness is honestly evaluating what we’ve been through, where we are at, and where we want to go. The process of reflection, planning, and walking the path to a better life can get complicated. Thriving Man coaching is all about helping you navigate those barriers and taking steps today to develop into the man you want to become. Our one-on-one coaching sessions, digital courses, and free resources like our podcast or PDF are all designed to help assist you on your journey. You don’t have to grow alone.

Toughness vs Roughness Evaluation

We can find where we fall on the scale of toughness vs roughness by asking ourselves two questions.

1. How do I treat the people around me?

   1. If you are treating everyone around you like an enemy and tend to isolate yourself, you’re pretty high on the roughness scale.

   2. If you are treating people around you like allies and are open to collaborating, congratulations! You’re probably high on the toughness scale.

2. What do I spend most of my time focusing on?

   1. If you focus on your problems and replay the pain you’ve been through over and over, you are on the fast track to becoming rough.

   2. If you are typically looking at solutions and opportunities to overcome barriers, you’re getting tougher!

The good thing is every day allows us to choose toughness over roughness. We can have terrible thought patterns, but we don’t have to stay in them. There are a lot of great resources out there to help build better mental and relational habits. Books like Winning the War in Your Mind focus on mental growth and self-talk, while books like Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud focus on how to have healthy relationships with other people. Remember every day is a new chance to go from survival mode into living a life we can be proud of.