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happy happy birthdayy

yo long time no chat, dunno if u remember me much but how r u? my sleep schedule is still messed up too haha

Hey, I wanted to apologize for never replying to your question some time ago. I highly doubt you're still interested in knowing the answer so that's not what I'm going to do now; just wanted you to know that I'm really sorry. I'll be honest here: your question had caught me a bit off guard and I never knew well what exactly to answer. It complicated me more than I thought it would and I never managed to get to an answer that could leave me fully satisfied and was fully accurate. Tried multiple times but could never achieve that; nothing I could come up with ever fully convinced me. It looked relatively simple and easy but it really wasn't, because it required thinking a lot in order to get to the right answer and it entailed a self-knowledge exercise, so it wasn't really a question with a straight and immediate answer, and I also never wanted to reply just anything short and basic.

That's why replying was taking me so long, however eventually I felt I had taken so long that I thought I had already reached a point where the right opportunity to get back to you was already gone and you weren't interested anymore, so there was no point anymore in doing so. Though this obviously meant I had left you talking alone, and that's why I wanted to apologize now, for which I suppose it's never too late. I've felt really bad for this, and you may certainly have interpreted this like I had forgotten or I was ignoring you but trust me that's not the case, I always had your question in mind, it's just that I felt I had missed the right moment to reply to it.

I hope everything's going well in your life, and my best wishes for this new year.

Yes, in fact it has changed a lot. And you're right in that it wasn't just because, though also it wasn't due to one particular, specific reason or life-event, but more like a result of a gradual process in time. But in general everything mainly boils down to the fact that I started to feel or realize that well... I was already a bit too old for this site.

Probably the 1st concrete symptom of this took place in past January when one day I started to feel physically strange for too many days, almost a month. And by strange I mean abnormally weak, fatigued and nervous, with my heart beating abnormally fast out of nowhere, my hands shaking for no reason (I couldn't write down a thing well), losing weight very quickly and all this without ever being really sick (no fever), among other minor symptoms. I knew it couldn't be covid because I didn't have its main symptoms, but I took the test anyway and it wasn't. Went to the doctor and after several exams, we discovered I was suffering from an intense hyperthyroidism episode, a condition that disrupts your metabolism and body energy regulation, making your body work more active than what it should in repose. Good news is that this was something treatable and after some weeks of constant medication I pretty much was back to normal again. However, this only physically speaking. This hadn't been just a common flu or cold you forget like nothing happened once its over. No, this had been something else; I had really never felt so damn awful and fatal in my entire life. So much that it actually scared the shit out of me. The kind of stuff that you don't forget and leaves a mark in you. And as such, it made me start thinking (or to be more precise: realizing) two big things: i) no matter how much you can live your life thinking you're still 20 full of youth and vitality, truth was I was getting old and my body wasn't 20 anymore and ii) your own health is one of your real treasures that you can never take for granted.

I wouldn't say all the changes my profile has gone through in this year were "due" to this single event, but with all certainty it was what kicked-off the process. I wasn't the same person anymore after it, in the sense that I started caring more about some things and less about others (eventually, this profile), and inevitably made me start feeling this wasn't my place anymore, even if I probably may be exaggerating. It's not like I don't care about it anymore at all (clearly I still log in, I still update my list and I even went supporter); it's only that as of now I'm not placing much importance and I don't want to give signs that I care much about it and about people around here knowing me more by sharing info beyond the basic one the sections already provide (which is already enough). I'm still interested in anime and my list, but not so much when it comes to sharing additional personal info, and I don't want to give the idea that I do. Tags, personal rankings, scores, graphs, music and so on, I started to feel I was in a stage of my life where I was just too old for all this. It wasn't overnight, as not so long ago I was still sharing some stuff, however nothing ever definitely convinced me, and finally I just opted for an entirely empty bio. Also took the decision to lower my scoring scale to the "controversial" 1 = didn't like/didn't care and 2-10 = did like/care in some degree, because I didn't like anymore the idea of giving personal value to what never really had it or lost it in time, and I can't bother anymore to differentiate what just didn't work with me. I'm aware this is going to make me look to some as an edgy, unlikeable individual, but I really don't care. I can't care.

Maybe I'm acting too prejudiced here, in the sense that sharing much "trivial", "silly" info in a profile doesn't necessarily have to be something exclusive of younger people, and doing so doesn't make you an immature person unable to identify what really is important in life and what isn't, however facts are that the MAL's current active userbase is predominantly zoomer now and I as a millennial naturally feel kinda...displaced, so I'm not comfortable anymore by profile-acting the same as the current everyone else here because that makes me feel like I'm not recognizing that, if I explain myself well. It's not anymore like when I joined when there were still a lot of active users close to my age by then.

Anyway, I'm sorry for having gone too long with this, but I hope I have satisfied your curiosity. I'm also sorry to read from you that you're still struggling with motivation, since I believe you're right in the stage of life when, despite this sounding cliched, you have all your life and opportunities ahead; lack of motivation tends to happen later when those opportunities are each time less and less and pretty much most of your life is already defined and settled with the range of life possibilities significantly reduced. I've always sucked at giving advice and cheering-up people, but I hope you can manage and everything goes well for you.

@ My dinner with André: Nope, dunno that movie.

@ Politics in Joe: I see more of socio-historic elements in Joe. Regarding the video, extremely interesting. Japan just like Germany had it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction and left-wing extremist terrorism in the 1970s. I have vague memories of that time, I was in kindergarten when the German version happened but still. The reason probably is that both societies were dominated by what the "greatest generation" in both countries, with the key difference that unlike the US version they hadn't won WW2. They actually were guilty of a lot of war crimes, and their children hated the way they swept that under the rug. This mixes the usual youth rebellion with a major earthquake in society. A lot of old and conservative values were questioned and removed, such as criminalization of homosexuality, abortion rights, equality between man and woman in marriage and so on. The changes really were fundamental.

@ Charles Dickens: I've actually read Oliver Twist in school in English as part of my A levels. Like Joe it's not "in your face" style. The new thing here is that lower class issues are given literary attention at all, before literature was either fantastic or had rich and noble protagonists. So I'd say you underestimate the powerful act this is in a conservative society like the late 1960s and 1830s were were, respectively.

Hi there! Long time. I'm doing fine, and you?

Last Exile: Yea, that's an adult war story in a sci-fi steampunk world. Good but not great.
Documentary sections: Yes, they are in the EN dub, I really enjoy the extra info.
Studio Pierrot: There are a handful of anime not in the WMT series but feel like it, e.g. https://myanimelist.net/anime/2828/Ie_Naki_Ko as well.

No, it never was fully broadcast in Germany. Even now I have to watch it in English dub because a German dub (which exists) or sub can't be found anywhere. I know it was big in France and Spain, which which we shared most other "Euro Anime" with (Maya, Heidi, Sinbad, Vickie, ...) in the 70s and 80s. But not here. I've literally watched all dubbed anime broadcast on German public TV in the 1970s, if you are curious: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime_und_Manga_in_Deutschland#Anime-Filme_und_-Serien_kommen_nach_Deutschland

The reason is a bit weird: It was licensed for German language by East Germany in 1988 and dubbed. From 1982-1988 no West German TV station had picked it up. Then the dub was somehow lost in license limbo after unification in 1990. It stayed there until Nickelodeon picked it up for Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2013. At that time it wasn't a success, so they stopped broadcast (except for Switzerland) after episode 17. => Except for East Germany, the complete dub was never broadcast in "united Germany". Today it can be found in Amazon Prime's catalog, even the pirate sites do not have it complete.

Another example of an anime which was big in France but not in Germany is Last Exile.

I think you are in a phase where you discover all those phases and evolutionary periods movie went trough in the 20th century. Any art form is a mirror of it's time and cinema is no different. Because like anime it's popular culture and a big money industry that influence is visibly stronger than in more "protected" arts such as writing and painting. You will find a lot of time capsules, your journey just has begun.

Regarding very old, silent and black/white movies I've forced myself trough many of them. It's very satisfying, but honestly it's also quite a piece of work. Buster Keaton and his comedy are important, no doubt. It's a difficult decision which old movie to tackle because it's so much work to read and think into an era long gone, so I personally did it fairly late in my "studies" of cinema.

Here are some "very old" movies I'd think are genuinely entertaining still today, beyond academic and historical value.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_(1931_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_Potemkin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Will
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)

I'd personally not spend too much time at the roots initially, and rather start in the late 1960s and 1970s with "New Hollywood" movies maybe. Bonny & Clyde, Paper Moon, The Godfather and so on. That period produced genuinely entertaining yet still artistic movies and is a gold mine. I.e. breadth search over deep drill until you have a vague but complete picture and can do informed deep drills in periods and styles that appel to you most.

Spartacus went trough production hell because of "artistic differences" and if I remember correctly Kubrick didn't direct 100% and didn't make the final cut. It's a classic 50s style historical "sandal drama" (as we call it in German). And as such it's one of the better ones, so it's worth watching. Especially a scene towards the end ("I am Spartacus!") made movie history and is very memorable.

The other remarkable thing is the cast. Almost a Hollywood who-is-who of the 1950s, everybody won an Oscar or two. Different era, no internet and stars were gods. Probably a good thing to read about a few of the mains and key supporting actors.

> Those 3 directors I barely know by name
If you want a fun ride and understand not only Japan can do a "wtf did I just watch", then just watch Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange" :) Each of his movies is very different atmospherically and thematically, there is one thing connecting them. Kubrick is the weirdest perfectionist to ever make movies, took him more than 5 years between each movie on average to prepare. He just wasn't able to create a non-perfect movie. That is what connects him with Kurosawa, but the latter is a bit less perfectionist.

> Odd Taxi
Yup, instant classic, gave it 9/10. AOTY 2021

> Tarantino
Ha, the Pulp Bug has bitten, I knew you can't be immune :D Next stop: Coen Brothers' "No Country for old Men". Basically Tarantino for intellectuals.

@Flanders: Yea, it's short, and I can't compare to the book or the WMS version because I haven't seen/read either. I don't think it's overly forced, it's historical tragedy about class injustice. There were a lot of them in the late 19th century as the situation was really dire, existing injustice was boosted to the boiling point by the effects of the industrial revolution and urbanization. Each country / language had their own classic literature about that, in the UK Charles Dickens, in Germany Gerard Hauptmann and that's simply the Belgian version. Jack London is contemporary, but I think he's only indirectly a political writer like the others, because his answer is nostalgia and call of nature. He's not shy of showing poverty and misery, but it's a different type. In any case it's an important era in literature perfected and picked up later by the likes of Berthold Brecht. Lest we forget, this is an anime version and anime always adds a little cheese :)

@Wind Rises: One of the really overlooked Miyazaki movies, glad you found it. The fun story here is that I sometimes watched anime with my then 75 year old dad, and that's one he really liked a lot. Very mature and low key story full of greatness.

@Live Action: I'm very boring here I guess, the classic mainstream giants of intelligent independent cinema. Best director of all time goes to Stanley Kubrick. Runner ups Akira Kurosawa (Stanley's twin separated at birth in terms of style) and The Coen Brothers. Best work, respectively, would be 2001, Seven Samurai, and Fargo. Again a pretty boring taste :)

Happy 18th man. Welcome to legal adulthood

Happy BDay

@Berserk: As you know I never read any manga, but even from the bad adaptions (the CGI ones) i see how great the material is. I'm one of the few people who watched all anime of Berserk, 1997 show + movies + 2012+ TV seasons and liked them all.

@Flanders: DoF is a 100+ year old novel from Belgium, and super-sad and melodramatic. It also has strong social commentary. It's famous outside it's anime adaption in the Dutch language literature and a time proven classic. There's a 50 eps TV version and that movie cut, which is really a good version. It's a quick watch of 1.5h only and the movie compares in narrative style to Ghibli, especially the Takahata directed ones. You can watch it "in between" quickly, and I'd be curious how you like it's catharsis. Certainly a heavy hitter in that area.

Speaking of Catharsis and Takahata: Anne of Green Gables isn't shit either in that field.