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Halfway point. Nano goes to school :) The two worlds collide.

I'm pleased to hear that. I didn't realize it's been a year already. Time goes by so fast, like the Nichijou sequence. Gotta go fast!


By the way, you're still early in the series. As the series goes on, I think it becomes even better, in my opinion. Hopefully, you'll feel the same way as I do.

Hey, sorry if I'm bothering you. If I'm being honest, I only commented because it enticed me that you've started watching Nichijou. I'm glad that you're having fun with it. Tell me if you've found your favorite skits/segments yet hehe. As you probably know, I love Nichijou! Personally, it's my favorite comedy series, maybe alongside Golden Boy, even though they're vastly different comedy type-wise. Nichijou is more innocent and chill but surreal sometimes, while Golden Boy is dirty and lustful, to put it mildly, but of course educational haha.

Anyway, if you have some more thoughts in your mind regarding our last conversation overall, not just social psychology, take your time and feel free to pour it down later. I'm more than happy to hear it. I'll just add shortly here. As a fellow introverted person myself, I'm more introverted, I think. Generally, I feel exhausted sometimes to socialize with other people, whether offline or online. So, it's pretty clear for me, as I personally need to recharge myself with alone time, if you know what I mean. Have a refreshing day! :)

I hope you're having fun with it hehe.

There is certainly a diversity of perspectives regarding any show, but particularly shows that do not cater to the common person. The thing is, if you find the show pretentious and are unable to appreciate it, I think that person is better off avoiding arthouse shows altogether. Not being able to understand or appreciate avent garde shows doesnt make you a worse person, and understanding them doesnt make one an intelluctual, it is just a matter of preference, which is why I agree with you that pretentious being used negatively is quite annoying.

Except for some really really poorly made shows, most of these "pretentious" shows just require more time and effort for you to dig beneath the surface and connect with their themeing, its just some people who do not enjoy doing so. Personally, I am willing to see what themes and creative ways each series has to offer, and I totally agree that many of these experimental works divert from the norm of storytelling and thats what makes them a masterpiece.

You're right, what is pretentious is indeed subjective. That is with a lot of things in anime, and my apologies for stating it like a fact, since everyone appreciates media differently. However, what I meant by pretentious is not mutually exclusive from that thing being interesting. I dont think Sonny Boy has a complex set of characters or an overarcing team, but it gives itself incredible complexity through its story arcs, which are often not clearly connected to each other. That would be "assigning more meaning that what it would typically be worth", as pretentiousness would be defined. However, the fact that it is pretentious in this sense makes it highly interesting to watch. Sure, maybe it is an overcomplicated way to explain something simple, but if it got me thinking, what could be bad about it?

I think the first half of Sonny Boy is more focused on power, the nature of control, for example the baseball game episode was really really weird but also intriguing. Moreover, it speaks to more grand themes such as war and loss. The second half is more personal as it covers death and what it means to live, but most importantly, the need to move forward and live life.

I see, you'll definitely love Mushishi and Yuru Camp then. I'd say aria is not so much relaxing as it is wholesome and uplifting, but certainly belongs in the same genre and category of greatness.

I am a big fan of the works of Mamuro Oshii I have seen so far, such as Jin-Rou and Angel's egg. He is a master at constructing atmosphere and using symbolism to tackle deep philosophical issues. Thank you for the information regarding Patalbor, I was wondering if I was supposed to watch the tv series first too. I will keep that in mind.

By the way, I see that you are watching Sonny Boy. Personally, I am quite a fan of the show despite how convluted and frankly pretentious it could get. It is a show that demands your patience, understanding and deep thinking

I think she was meant to take a passive role in the show, pushed around by her circumstances and being constantly lost. But as you mentioned, she keeps a positive altitude and has a good banter going on with Araragi, which I get never tired of listening to. I love how she is one of the few characters that begins in a terrible situation [while other characters often create their own downfalls/ missteps], yet she is able to keep up a positive alttiude. Even when the law of the world in the "void" thing swallowed her in Shinobu Time, she came back as a master of her circumstance and many others as a God, suitably replacing Nadeko.

For sure, I am aware of patalbor and I am quite interested in trying ghost in the shell, particularly the standalone complex series.

What are some Iyashikei you have personally enjoyed so far? Or is this a new genre for you

Thanks for the compliment! I am glad that you also enjoy the big three Shaft shows (Monogatari, Sangatsu and Madoka Magica) and am interested to check out Ghost in the shell in the future particularly, as well as Eva. I am trying to expand into the sci-fi/ dystopian genre, and I already have watched Lain earlier in the year, which I see that you have enjoyed.

Hachkuji is quite the underrated character in Monogatari and it is unfortunately partly because of the stigma that surrounds her given what Arararagi does to her as a "gag". While I didn't enjoy how the series tried to play it off as a joke, Hachkuji as a character is written so endearingly, and her story arc is a powerful statement to overcoming oneself, much like all the other Monogatari characters.

If you enjoy slice of life, I am sure you would enjoy Aria, great healing show. Kino's journey takes on a more serious tone with its psychological elements as well as philosphy, but seeing that you enjoyed Haibane Reimei and Lain, it shouldnt be a problem for you

Hello, it's nice to see you again. I'm doing fine. I hope you're doing fine as well over there. As per usual, I'm still continuing my seasonal anime watching. The difference with the last time is I have finished Kimi ni Todoke S3 now. Recency bias or not, I think this is my favorite season of the anime. So, you can say that I had a good time.

Nice hehe :) As I already mentioned, that was just a flash of thought that came to me, and I decided to write it. Why did I mention this? Because you mentioned that you were interested in my thought on the topic of social interaction, and I think this process of deciding is also connected with one of the key differences aside from the instrument itself (voice and body language to text) in how we perceive communication between in-person and through text. Through text messages, there's looser impulsive tendencies, whether we decide to communicate it or not in the end. For example, (this is a joke by the way, as this is done purposely lol) "Arararararagi-san, sorry, I stuttered." Yes, there's a typo in the text interaction, but compared to in-person interaction, you have more time to think before you speak. This variable alone creates a lot of nuance, in my opinion. But overall, I definitely agree on a lot of your points regarding the topic. So, I'll just elaborate further on what I think about it in more tidier way, below hopefully.

As I mentioned above, I think there are 2 major factors, which are the instrument of communication and the time. But first of all, I'd like to establish that communication requires at least 2 parties involvement if you omit any mental/metaphorical way, like communicating with yourself by having inner thoughts and so on. You can have more than 2 people, but essentially there are active and reactive, or giver and receiver (correct me if I'm wrong or missing something, by the way). Both of them are interchangeable, as social interaction is usually in perpetual motion unless it's like chaos in some useless debate when both become active information by screaming at each other lol. There's also a third party, which is an observer, but I won't focus on here. These are important, in my opinion, because 2 parties mean there will be 2 different perspectives.

From the active perspective, text interaction definitely has time adventage and expression disadvantage over in-person interaction. Why? Because of the asynchrony nature of text interaction and the limitation of expression of text interaction with only text, compared to in-person interaction with the expression of voice and body language. In my opinion, the interesting part is about the nuance that I talked about above, which is actually because we are human beings. In the text interaction, because of the looser time, which seemingly an advantage has become disadvantage. You have more time to think about pouring your thoughts into "the perfect text", which isn't easy to begin with, yet the more time to think itself equals more worries/anxieties. The expectation of less mistakes. Does the sentence make sense? Do I express it well enough through the limitation of text? You know, because of its limitations, the chance of misunderstanding also grows larger. And there will be a lot more questions in your head, so I understand your sentiment about being easier to talk over in person.

On the other hand, in-person interaction has less time and relies more on flow and impulsivity, as I already talked about above. There's also seemingly an advantage over text interaction with more instruments of expression, thanks to the voice and the body language. But is it an advantage? Because actually, in-person interaction doesn't start with words alone, like text. You already face the interaction the moment you meet face-to-face with the person of interest. The appearance, the tone of the voice, and the body language can lead to social awkwardness. All things considered, we get the opposite side of text interaction, which is less chance of misunderstanding due to more expressions, but we also increase the level of social anxiety. So, on the other hand, I also understand if someone prefers text over face-to-face interaction. As we know, people are complex, and each brings their own individuality with different comfortabilty. There will be clear empirical and logical advantages and disadvantages, but the complexity of humans oftentimes brings illogicality. Therefore, there will be a lot more nuance and vagueness in the conclusion.

From the reactive perspective, it's also interesting. First, if you don't mind, I'll start with the premise here. In my opinion, I believe people are inherently judgmental individuals even on subconcious level, which isn't a bad thing necessarily. Some people take it too far and too vocal, but as social beings I think it's actually important for our self-awareness and alertness. You mentioned that you feel being less judged with face-to-face interaction over text interaction. Yes, I understand everyone has different subjective comfortability, but I think they both are actually the 2 sides of the same coin. They both judged relatively similar, in my opinion, with the difference being the expression of communication itself. The text interaction for the text itself and the in-person interaction for the person themselves. Because in-person has a real-time feel to it, the active and reactive information is really similar, with the difference being to form the information and to respond the information. To iterate myself, I think in-person interaction actually has more variables to judge from appearance to voice, thus heavier, in my opinion. I think the fascinating part is because of the more exposure that happens in in-person interaction. The openness counteracts the seemingly more judgmental, making it less presumptuous compared to text interaction. The text interaction led to more assumptions due to more unknowability.

Sorry for the long answer in regards to the social interaction topic. If I'm being honest, I had this push and pull in my head, whether I answered it shortly or just why not? I hope you don't mind it haha. I'm not an expert by any means on the matter; they're just based on my understanding and experience as human being.

It seems the only game we intersect is chess, and you're not particularly interested either, but if someday you're more interested, maybe we can play together online once at least. All in all, I'm happy that you finished your PC building. I hope it will last long and healthy. Electronics is one of the fastest-growing markets. Like maybe every year you have new upgraded stuff. I imagine yours will be the same as well, not every year, of course haha.

Regarding sports, instead of just following football, I also used to play it and lot of other sports as well. Nowadays, I barely play any sports. Although I still pretty routinely do some exercises 4 times a week. Nothing admirable; just to keep myself fit. I only do normal exercises without any fancy equipment like Saitama, you know, with more variety but with a lot less quantity for around 45 minutes each exercise day. Hopefully no baldness, but maybe I don't mind if it means I'll be able to defeat an enemy with one punch hehe :)

Oh yeah, I see that you rewatch a lot of stuff. I don't use the rewatch feature simply because I like my stats, like days watched, to be cleaner and more accurate (I understand accurate in this case is relative to each person). In reality, I also have rewatched a lot of anime. But generally I only rewatch the anime I really enjoyed, like my favorites, for example. I don't normally rewatch something that I dislike or just mildly like for the sake of remembering stuff that I forgot.

Have a nice day! :)

Hey, no worries. I'm just glad you spent some precious time and thought to reply to me. I don't know, but the longer gap between these asyncrhonous messages feels nostalgic. It feels like we're long-distance pen pals communicating through an old-school paper letter in our present reality of an ever-digitized world. It takes time to deliver. There's a sense of longing, if you know what I mean. Excuse me, I'm not trying to be pensive, sophisticated, or anything lol. It's just an interesting feeling that flies through me.

That's cool. I've never built a PC before, but I figure that will be intricate work to do. I hope yours turns out well. I'll keep that in mind, so if later down the line I want to build my own PC, maybe I can ask for your expertise, if you don't mind. If determined by percentage, how much progress is there right now toward completion? More than 50%?

Speaking of video games, I'm not a huge gamer myself, and reading about all of that about you, I'm probably less of a gamer than you hehe. I'm currently only playing some simplistic mini-games occasionally, like Chess, Classic Tetris, and Super Auto Pets. I wonder if you play any of them. You probably know about chess and tetris. For Super Auto Pets, it is a very simple strategy game about basically cute animals headbutting and murdering each other haha. Yes, I also used to play more video games when I was younger. I've played some sports games (FIFA, Football Manager, etc.), sandbox/building games (Roller Coaster Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, etc.), adventure story/fighting games (Naruto game, etc.), and more. FPS and open-world games also enticed me back then, but I just never got around to them excessively. The feeling regarding an open-world game is pretty understandable. When you're aimless, it can feel tedious. Personally, it's a similar feeling when any type of grinding happens in any games. This is a little bit of a left-field question: I enjoyed sports/football games because I also like and follow football (soccer) in general. Do you like and follow football or some other sports?

Lately, I've had an urge to play Roller Coaster Tycoon for nostalgia purposes. I generally like to create and have creativity in general; that's why I used to play sandbox-type games. I also like story-driven games, but I never got around to them either. For some reason, I enjoyed them enough through the playthrough of someone on Youtube, like Doki Doki Literature Club and Detroit: Become Human. In my current state, I personally prefer something relatively short, and not entirely, but on the passive side. If you have some recommendations, hit me up. I know you haven't played Omori, but I think it's the one you mentioned that intrigues me the most. Or maybe Undertale, Hollow Knight, or others? What do you think?

As I've already said about some of my pieces of mind regarding Monster, I'm just going to say: Enjoy the ride and your journey on Monster! I haven't watched the original Astro Boy except for a few clips, but if you want to see Atom more, maybe you should check out the original Astro Boy because Atom is literally the main character there hehe :)

Nice, the only older series I'm currently watching is Wolf's Rain. I almost finished it, and the ED has been stuck in my mind. It's composed by Yoko Kanno. You probably knew her, as she's a renowned Japanese composer. Take a listen; it's quite mesmerizing, in my opinion. Other than that, I'm actually following a fair amount more seasonals than usual. I'm currently following 10 seasonal anime plus later Kimi ni Todoke S3, which has yet to air. From this summer season anime, I think you're probably going to enjoy Shousimin Series if you're looking for one. It's from the same author as Hyouka; that's everything you need to know hehe. And by the way, Mononoke Movie is also airing this season, but I don't think I'll watch it in theaters, so I have to patiently wait around a year to watch the non-theater version. I think this season is the most I have followed seasonal anime to date.
Oh, I see, so you're waiting for the full series release for Monogatari, as that is also an excuse for you to rewatch the franchise maybe hehe. Do you like rewatching in general? Some shows are just fun to rewatch to re-experience them again and/or gain new perspective, especially through layered shows. Speaking of Monogatari, it reminds me that I haven't been able to continue the series past Bakemonogatari, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I plan to, but I feel like I need the right time. When? I sincerely don't know haha. As you already mentioned about watching it on a whim, spontaneity is sometimes what makes things bright. It's not rare that we overcomplicate things.

May you have a light and uncomplicated day ahead of you! :)

Nice, I'm glad to hear that everything's great on your end. We need a break from time to time to rejuvenate our minds after hectic lives. I hope you'll enjoy the summer and feel the rejuvenation, even though personally, I'm not the biggest fan temperature-wise; it's flamingly hot. At least the clothes dry faster, on a positive note.

You have a lot of anime on your list, so it's no wonder you feel overwhelmed haha :) But Monster is an excellent pick. Personally, it's one of my favorites, if not my favorite anime. For me, Monster has a really engaging story. I suggest you clear your mind and just immerse yourself in the story. I must say though, the first 4 episodes are quite fast, after that, the pace of the story is really slowing down generally until the end (I'll also add that there will be a few occasions with prolonged recaps because this is a relatively old-styled series). I guess you could say the first 4 episodes are the premise or prologue. The meat of the story is after that, and there will be a lot of 'deviation' (not really) from the core story. Occasionally, it gives you room to breathe, but ultimately, they're actually tied together, whether through the plot threads of bigger pictures or/and thematically. I think you've experienced a little taste of it from watching other Naoki Urasawa's work, Pluto, right? For example, on episode 1, you followed the mystery of serial murder through the perspective of Gesicht, and on the second part, you immediately changed perspective through North #2 and Sir Duncan with no presence of the MC, Gesicht whatsoever, a literally different story. The narrative of serial murder goes from the hunter (the detective part) to the hunted (the victim of murder). Also, theme-wise, tie about robots and humanity, memories and dreams. And so on. Okay, I feel like this example has become too lengthy, and I think you already get the gist of it. We can talk more specifically and in depth about Pluto if you want lol. These styles of writing are actually one of the things that I really like and appreciate about Monster/Naoki Urasawa. They methodically took their time to write an incredible story to begin with. All in all, I don't want to hype Monster too much, because these are also the same reasons some people call Monster rather a slow burn and possibly boring series. There's also another chance that you simply don't enjoy it for some other reason. After all, we all have different tastes and preferences.

Pardon me, it feels like deja vu. I think I realized that we've already talked, or I specifically already talked about the 'slow' part of Monster when we talked a bit about Frieren before. I already typed it, and I'm too lazy to restructure it as they actually bridged me talking about Pluto lol. Oh well, I hope the iterations above about Monster don't feel meaningless. They're just very general and surface-level because I don't want to get into spoiler territory anyway hehe. In my opinion, there's a lot more interesting stuff and nuance about Monster to talk about, like the philosophies, characters, etc. If you're interested, we can discuss it later whenever you start the series; hopefully you enjoy it. I'd love to hear your opinion on it, but you don't need to feel obligated to. Monster is quite a long series, as you already mentioned, and that needs some commitment.

By the way, do you plan to watch any seasonal anime this season? I noticed that the sequel to Monogatari series is airing right now. You must at least feel the thrill and excitement hehe.

Have an enjoyable summer! :)

Happy birthday! :)

You're welcome! :)

You're welcome :) How's everything going over there?