"}One of the best things about anime is that it\u2019s often unafraid to go for broke emotionally, by which I don\u2019t just mean that the emotions are pushed to heightened extremes, although that\u2019s obviously part of it. But the main thing is that in anime reality is made to mirror the emotional state of the characters. Take one of the standard anime ending types, the psychosexual apocalypse (like in Evangelion). In a psychosexual apocalypse everything that can be wrong is wrong. Not only is the main character alone and needy and having a complete mental breakdown, all of their friends are being brutally murdered plus the bad guys are about to win plus the universe is about to end plus it\u2019s all due to a the protagonist\u2019s innermost thoughts being projected onto the rest of the world. The emotions of the main character (which hopefully are grounded in something more relatable and down to earth) match the rest of the story in a quite literal way. It may/should also make sense within the plot, but that\u2019s secondary. And it\u2019s not just downer endings. Over the top physical destruction/mayhem can reflect feelings of dominance or righteous anger, for instance.
You seem to get less of that in Western media. (Perhaps because it\u2019s harder to do in live action than in animation and there\u2019s just not that much adult Western animation?) I can think of counterexamples. In Antichrist, the world very much matches the deteriorating relationship between the characters, on a somewhat smaller scale. (Which is fine. The anime examples I gave were very obvious, but that isn\u2019t strictly necessary.) And \nat the very least in any decent film\n\nthe music, cinematography, etc. will match the emotions of the characters. But mostly Western media doesn\u2019t bend the reality of its worldbuilding to reach greater emotional heights. \n(Surreal psychological films like Antichrist being the main exception I can think of.) \n\nYou might place a lonely character in a small town for some additional resonance, but that\u2019s about it. In a superhero movie, the world may be about to end, but the heroes remain quippy right until the very end. In a straight drama the characters may reach tremendous highs or piteous lows, but the world itself is a static given. Neither of those are bad, of course, they just leave a gap which the emotional maximalism of anime fills.