"That is one of the tricks of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, and often it comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. Perhaps this is why  so many fail to recognize opportunity." - Napoleon Hill.

"The spirit of determination to live through tragedy by transforming contradiction into a new set of values—instead of letting it ruin you." -  Tow Ubukata, creator of Le Chevalier D'Eon.

Many people complain that education has failed to teach young people useful skills that prepare them for later life, but the skill it has most failed to teach is a positive, resilient, and independent mindset, which can find opportunity in every failure. Perhaps this may be somewhat incompatible with a standardised form of examinations based on credentialism. Still, perhaps the two ways of thinking could be balanced. You wouldn't need to remove the standardisation, which makes mass education possible, if schools focused more on teaching kids how to maintain a positive mindset conducive to success in the face of hardship. I think that it is seeking this hope that people become engrossed in anime and video games rather than any kind of "escapism," however due to a lack of guidance to start their thinking they sometimes fail to put that hope into action, and fall to the propaganda that they are just engaging in escapism, concluding that dreams and ideals are just unrealistic (at least for the likes of them). It is natural for things and people to often follow the path of least resistance; conscious animals have the potential to outwit this tendency at least temporarily, as one may observe when a cornered animal fights back. However, a human, and above all, a man, is dependent more on his thoughts and learning rather than direct instinct for survival, which is why the cultivation of positivity and action is necessary, as opposed to a low resistance rationality, which is just abject despair and fear masquerading as cool reason.