To Come to See Your Glasses Kick Butt, Kaoru Mori Style!

“I can see. I can see. I can see!”

To my fellow glasses wearers, have you thought about how important wearing them are to you? Despite being a target of ridicule at times, your glasses can bring out the best in you. In one of the short stories in “Kaoru Mori’s Anything and Something”, we take a look at a young girl who regained her confidence after getting a pair of glasses. It comes at an interesting time where perception of people wearing glasses is changing for the better.

“To Come to See” covers a young girl named Yucchi who has terrible eyesight. She becomes depressed after noticing how her vision started to affect her school life. At the behest of her teacher, Yucchi decides to get glasses. She buys a pair of thin, oval-framed prescription glasses and becomes enthusiastic that she can see things properly again. The ending of the story has her being noticed by a boy named Shimada. Who can’t resist a girl with sexy specs, right?

Here’s a fun fact: glasses do kick ass. They allow you to see things from a whole new perspective. You become more aware of your surroundings. Glasses also generate an impressive aura as you appear smarter and more trustworthy to people. Yet stereotypes about those wearing glasses still persist. Kids believe that other kids who wear them are not good-looking and are not worthy to talk to. There are cases where children decide to make it a goal to not wear them as they get older.

However, glasses are becoming more mainstream in popular culture and wearing certain types of glasses can make you look physically attractive to someone. It also helps to have a support group that doesn’t generalize. Yucchi had peers, family, and a teacher that see her for who she is. Even a small, confident group in a large pool of many can make the difference in making a smooth transition to trying something new and not be harshly judged by it. 

As someone who wears prescription glasses to this day, my eyesight deteriorated at the age of 9 because I was always playing video games way too close to the television. I groaned at the fact that I had to wear glasses because I didn’t want to be made fun of and be called “Chinese Steve Urkel”. However, after wearing them, it wasn’t so bad as I got to make friends who saw the fact that I was actually an interesting person to be around. Or maybe because I wasn’t super-nerdy to the point of awkwardness. 

So, my megane comrades, what experiences have you gone through after donning spectacles? Have they been good? Bad? Funny? I would love to hear how your “eyes” have been opened even more with regards to adding a facial accessory for the better. (Also, check out Kaoru Mori’s “Anything and Something” and her other works. A Bride’s Story is AMAZING.)

As Helen Keller once said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

Keep calm with glasses on, everyone.