Somewhere between the beginning of the first episode and the end of the final one, an anime becomes more than a show.

It becomes the laughter we wish we could hear every day, the promises time was too cruel to allow, and the characters who seemed more real than those around us.

Maybe that is what makes us so attached to fiction. We will always know it is not real, but somehow we still feel like we have lost a part of ourselves once it is over.

And as the credits finally roll over the end of the show, the characters go on with their lives, happily oblivious to the fact that, to someone, they were more than just a story.

Isn't that ironic?

To be just a picture for everyone else, while being the most memorable experience of someone's life.

Perhaps that is what keeps a story, a character, an anime, or even a person, alive forever.