AN ANIME EXPLANATION
Oh, the sadness poor communication brings! Our couple may be doomed!
XX. Spring Break and the Start of Third Year
Throughout the period between March 14 and the start of the third year of high school our couple’s friends will find themselves in a depressing and confused state. They will speak to the hero and heroine individually and will discover that both believe they were rejected after clearly and unmistakably confessing their feelings. As they interrogate the couple they will review the words each claims to have said, find them clear and unambiguous (those odd dual meanings to clear sentences apparently only exist in the context of a confession, when recounted later they vanish, Japanese is odd) and grow increasingly confused. (At this point, after spending an entire year trying to shepherd their dear friends into the relationship both clearly want, it will be an interrogation. The friends are kind of over it by now.)
This is yet another potential failure point for the relationship, and a very dangerous one. If the friends are sufficiently fed up to play the elaborate manipulative drama game needed to spark a second confession (apologies to Rex Stout), or the hero or heroine too in love with the idea of unrequited love to try again, the affair ends here.
If; however, the friends care deeply enough to determine that the boneheads are mutually mistaken about what happened, and skilled enough to maneuver the lovers into giving it another shot, the Third year may just start with the couple actually going out!
This is vital because the end of the third year of high school in Japan is when the students take University entrance exams; once those exams are finished the student emerges into adulthood with their entire future path graven in stone and no further changes are permitted.
XXI. Third Year 1st Trimester
Our couple enters the third year actually in an acknowledged relationship. The relationship is new to them and they will initially try many exciting things for the first time. (No, not those things, get your mind out of the gutter we’ve got a ways to go before we get to anything beyond a G rating.) The first weeks, in fact probably all of the first trimester, will be taken up with such newly available pursuits as bringing each other elaborate bento, walking to school together, eventually maybe holding hands (although that may have to wait for Summer Break.) There will be texts exchanged, and maybe, if the couple is especially daring, actual calls. Assuming the couple is in the same home room, efforts will be made to sit beside each other.
As the trimester advances the Heroine will begin to display a bit of dissatisfaction, which the Hero will attribute to various causes, before finally, as summer approaches, realizing that she wants him to ask her on a date. This will produce anxiety. It may seem odd to our faster paced western way of thinking but agreeing to go out is just a preliminary step. A separate conversation is required to actually arrange a date.
XXII. Summer Break and a Date
There are a number of possibilities for the first date, and they are not too different from dates in other parts of the world. A scheduled meeting in a public location (train stations and shopping centers are good choices,) followed by some time wandering around window shopping, or even actually shopping, with a meal or snack dividing the first activity from the later main outing is the general form. This meal or snack is the moment for either the first indirect kiss, if the couple missed out at the earlier opportunity, or for a more deliberate second indirect kiss, ideally including one or the other of our sweethearts feeding their beloved a bite from the initiating party’s spoon or fork.1
Following this meal or snack the couple should proceed to the main entertainment of the date. Movies, arcades, or even bowling alleys are possibilities here, but what is important is that this is the moment at which the couple, who has not rushed things by holding hands on a walk to school, should self-consciously decide to hold hands. This is a key indicator moment! If the couple awkwardly takes each other’s hand, and a few steps later, without verbal communication, adjust the grip to interlace fingers, the relationship is true love.
XXIII. Cultural Festival
Our lucky couple will now advance their relationship by spending every free moment as Slave volunteer labor for their home room or club’s entry into the cultural festival. There are several possible entries here depending on whether it is club or home room based, but since the club tends to be the harem type route and we are focused on the ordinary couple route, let’s stick to the home room type entries.
There are really only two choices here. First, if the hero and heroine are in different home rooms in the new school year, one or both will put on a performance of Sleeping Beauty allowing great angst about someone else kissing the heroine awake, and resulting in madcap hijinks to get the Hero on stage with Heroine at the climactic scene. Second if the Hero and Heroine are still in the same home room the class will host a Maid Cafe. The Maid Cafe choice is best for this as apparently every Japanese boy longs for a maid, and every Japanese girl longs to call her boyfriend, who she otherwise bosses around to an unhealthy extent, master while wearing a costume.
The Cultural festival also marks the return of an antagonist who has existed throughout, but only appeared on stage long ago at the beginning of our journey, the dread Student Council. The friend group will have their work cut out for them finding ways to allow the Hero and Heroine to be in the same location during the festival as the Council assigns one or both tasks that involve hours of labor in isolated locales.
It might appear to a casual observer that the Festival is attended by hundreds of romantic couples enjoying the event as a date, but that is an illusion. Each Festival houses at most one couple per booth, and the Student Council fulfills its goal of protecting students from impropriety by assigning members of couples duties to separate them during the sexually charged atmosphere of a school festival.
Assuming our friend group is successful in thwarting the Council’s evil plans, our couple will at some point find themselves in the same location, probably breathless from running around the entire campus for hours. This will allow them to have a meaningful conversation as they sip their beverage of choice purchased from one of Japan’s ubiquitous, and extremely well stocked, vending machines. No, not those machines! Those are not on school grounds, they are in the red light districts, and that’s an entirely different, and much faster, version of romance.
Whether the Sleeping Beauty route, or Maid Cafe route, was chosen it is virtually guaranteed that a dramatic moment will arise. This is the first opportunity for a proper kiss, not lips to lips, that is very forward, possibly even obscene at this stage, but gentle lip to cheek contact, possibly with a head turn to a point just shy of actual lip to lip contact, is proper at this stage.
The Festival will end shortly after this point, and the class or club will go off to an after party, probably at a karaoke place. This is the first moment at which our heroes really relax into their relationship. They have passed the early hurdles and now are truly a couple, and their friends will notice this and generally be happy, except for the boy with an unrequited crush on our heroine, and the girl with an unrequited crush on our hero. They will try to appear happy, but will inwardly be resigned to lifelong misery.
****
4. Interlude the Fourth
Again I remind my audience that it is important as we follow this relationship from beginning to baby not to get too involved with our couple. Emotional connection will just leave us unhappy as this process seems interminable to western sensibilities. Accordingly I have broken it up into several parts to allow my audience to digest the material in more manageable lessons. This also allows me to turn one really long submission into multiple shorter ones to help with the lack of content being submitted.
****
- Note, it is possible for the feeding to be done using chopsticks, this is acceptable; however, should you find yourself in this situation it is very important not to chicken out and try to take the food from your lover’s chopsticks using your own. This is a serious breach of etiquette. ↩︎
Where the giant robots at?
*Ducks
Wrong slice of life…
I wonder if I can write a slice of life in a non-real setting 🤔
Where are the giant ducks? duck robots?
Mechaquackzilla is quite the devastating foe.
If you can think of it somebody has made it.
You mean Mama Duck?
No.
They are at sea fighting kaiju as they should be!
agreeing to go out is just a preliminary step
Time to start thinking about getting ready to consider formulating a plan.
Best laid plan
/Men/Mice
This is the first moment at which our heroes really relax into their relationship.
It took long enough.
The must be posted:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yem_iEHiyJ0
Those are not on school grounds, they are in the red light districts, and that’s an entirely different, and much faster, version of romance.
Now I have a slightly modified version of Cinderella in my head.
Ella the Cinder, brothel keeper and vigilante.
Paging Mojeaux
No cinders allowed, Japanese prostitution is a very clean business, it involves much soap.
*scrolls up, ogles Japanese maids, adds soap suds*
My bunk awaits.
as this process seems interminable to western sensibilities.
More like excruciating.
Can we substitute 4-H for Student Council?
I can identify with 4-H, Student Council was for the townies.
I would let those pretty maids clean my house. IYKWIMAITYD
WEBSITE BUSINESS: KK has reported trouble commenting. Anyone else experiencing this, email me at: my handle (at) this domain.
Nice try, Fed.
I’ve been having sporadic issues for about a week, but usually the second attempt works.
Interesting. I am using Brave on IOS and Windows and Linux. No issues.
My only gripe is constantly getting logged out.
Metoo
Howdy!
If set in Tokyo there is a least a one in three chance of:
Hachiko Statue
For all the dog loving Glibs.
BTW – the absolute bizarreness of the Maid Cafe can’t be understated.
Visiting a Japanese Maid Cafe to Meet a Famous Maid💜 | @Home Cafe AKIHABARA | Chimu
Subs are available. I picked this one because it’s not some western Japan streamer with how weird or amazing this is, but simply a first person interaction with how the service works.
Marketing works.
I now want some Arby’s.
Why does the video autorepeat? It makes me notice details I’d otherwise ignore. Such as the excessive ink on the arm.
There were arms?
Bare ones even.
Bringing back hot girls to sell things is a trend I can get behind. I will gladly volunteer to be this generation’s Alberto Vargas if necessary.
I’m still craving a Carl’s Jr Tex Mex Bacon Thickburger.
That’s because you’re a rat of very discriminating taste.
Looks like another Nazi.
Compares favorably to what we are told middle class courting was like in the U.S. and Britain 125 years ago.
Where two people who have spent months or years barely getting to know one another one day decide to spend the rest of their lives completely devoted to each other?
Via mail order. Lots of Western marriages were done via the US Mail.
Even today many marriages are done by mail, particularly with foreign women
I’m told the return postage can be a bitch, however.
No Refunds!
See The Harvey Girls. (I’m sure you have, 4x.)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038589
Or Rachel and the Stranger.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040720/reference/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhA3oTUVDKw
The humorless prudes will always be with us
Some critics saw the wordplay as a nod, either unintentional or deliberate, to eugenics, a discredited theory that held humanity could be improved through selective breeding for certain traits.
Marcus Collins, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said the criticism could have been avoided if the ads showed models of various races making the “genes” pun.
“You can either say this was ignorance, or this was laziness, or say that this is intentional,” Collins said. “Either one of the three aren’t good.”
——-
Shalini Shankar, a cultural and linguistic anthropologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said she had problems with American Eagle’s “genes” versus “jeans” because it exacerbates a limited concept of beauty.
“American Eagle, I guess, wants to rebrand itself for a particular kind of white privileged American,” Shankar said. “And that is the kind of aspirational image they want to circulate for people who want to wear their denim.”
The best way to preserve democracy is to enforce rigid ideological conformity.
The article says they want to divert some of their revenue to domestic violence programs (whatever that means). I’d say they should amend that to promoting mental health and education.
“Some critics saw the wordplay as a nod, either unintentional or deliberate, to eugenics”
Some critics are idiots. Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one. Most of them stink.
To me the story is more about how many “experts” we have that contribute nothing to society other than causing division, and how they have an outsized voice.
I think I’ll post that on X too.
Ask the people complaining about eugenics about Planned Parenthood.
Odds that Shalini Shankar is a Brahman and is fully invested in her racism?
99%?
100%
Hmm, Maybe I should seek out some of the odd nazi nostalgia,/a> stuff from Japan for my next deep dive.
apparently I don’t consider this link less than the surrounding text.
Wait. MTV still exists?
That or the ones that make themselves look black. That was such a weird trend. YouTube pretty much banned videos of that so I can’t produce a decent link today.
They have always been with us. The difference is people started listening to them and putting them in charge.
I hope we are now on the downside of that trend.
Speak for yourself, you prissy little dweeb. I would love to believe that this ad campaign was a deliberate, “Go fuck yourself,” to people like you.
Mixed drinks
The canned cocktail maker High Noon is warning customers that some of its vodka seltzers were accidentally labeled as Celsius energy drinks.
——-
The recall was initiated after High Noon discovered that a shared packaging supplier mistakenly shipped empty Celsius cans to High Noon, it said.
No illnesses have been reported to date.
Oops.
American Eagle’s new logo
“The Maid Cafe choice is best for this as apparently every Japanese boy longs for a maid”
It sounds like Japanese men need a maid. Was Neil Young thinking of Japanese men when he made Harvest?
https://youtu.be/bORW_YEmHwY
The best part is the words the maid uses to refer to her customer or employer is “master”.
It’s also the same set of words used for “husband” as well. It was interesting watching the feminists in my introductory Japanese class digest this.
Danna
だんな【旦那, 檀那】
noun
1. master (of a house, shop, etc.) (from Sanskrit “dāna”)
2. husband (familiar language)
3. sir, boss, master, governor (used to address a male patron, customer, or person of high status)
4. patron of a mistress, geisha, bar or nightclub hostess, sugar daddy (see also: パトロン)
5. alms, almsgiving, almsgiver (orig. meaning; usu. written as 檀那) (see also: 檀越, 檀家)
Shujin
しゅじん【主人】
noun
1. head (of a household), proprietor (of a store), proprietress, landlord, landlady (see also: ご主人)
2. one’s husband
3. (one’s) employer, (one’s) master
4. host, hostess
Specific to the maid cafe
Goshujinsama
ごしゅじんさま【ご主人様, 御主人様, ご主人さま】
expression, noun
1. master
2. Your lordship, My lord
3. husband (see also: ご主人)
There were lots of details on honorifics that I never understood or attempted to use. I was having enough trouble determining real and performative anger, actual answers vs face saving , etc.
Sir is and was used in English for quite a while in the same way. In family settings by children and sometimes wives. I don’t think that should or could fly much these days with wives.
“Face Saving” is a vile, toxic practice that needs to end.
You deserve your shame, own it.
UCS in many cases the “face saving” is simply a pretext to allow somebody to refuse politely.
Think “no thank you” versus “no” when somebody offers you something.
We need to bring it back.
This past two weeks have confirmed to me that the Greeks were right. Women are too emotionally unstable to rule.
Lady Margaret would have begged to differ with the honorable member.
These people are like pandas.
Beat that tin drum, little wind-up monkey
For those who recognize the reality of the climate crisis, it’s been a difficult week. On Tuesday, for example, Lee Zeldin, the head of Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, appeared on a conservative podcast and announced that the Republican administration is moving ahead with a radical anti-climate plan.
——-
This move came on the heels of Trump’s Department of Energy releasing a related report that not only downplayed the threats posed by the planetary emergency, it also suggested, incorrectly, that efforts to address the crisis would be counterproductive.
On the surface, the obvious problem with the Energy Department’s report was its radical rejection of the scientific consensus, which is bolstered by overwhelming evidence from scholars and researchers from around the world. The less-obvious problem is that the document appears to have misrepresented the scientific research is relied on to draw its conclusions. NOTUS reported that “at least 10” of the scientists referenced in the report said their work had been distorted.
OMG, they want to alter a rule put in place in 2009! So destruction. You’d think that rule had been engraved on a stone tablet and handed down somewhere in the mists of prehistory.
You can’t question the approved consensus. That’s not how science works.
The science was settled!
That’s why we need tens of billions of dollars in climate research grants!
“radical anti-climate plan”
Fire up the smoke stacks! Dump barrels of toxic waste into streams! Seed the clouds with coal dust!
*Heads to garage to release 20 gallons of Freon
I was hoping they would repeal the epa mandated diesel emissions standards.
Sadly no.
Pounds, not gallons rj
As for why this matters, the problem is not just that Team Trump obviously can’t be trusted to present accurate information to the public. NOTUS’ new report added:
These mischaracterizations could have far-reaching implications should this report be finalized on the Federal Register. The administration’s review could eventually be used as the evidentiary basis for undoing the last 15 years of federal climate policy. The Trump administration’s efforts to take apart every rule that sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions are expected to face court challenges. Should it reach that point, the administration will likely need to show that it seriously considered the scientific evidence.
Our high priests put a lot of time and effort into creating those articles of faith. You can’t just rip them up and toss them in the trash!
They can put their articles of faith right next to the fiberglass windmill blades in the landfill. The long lasting legacy of the Obama green mandates and subsidies.
https://www.americanexperiment.org/bloomberg-wind-turbine-blades-cant-be-recycled-so-theyre-piling-up-in-landfills/
Wind turbine blade log cabins! They’ll last forever!
I’m having difficulty coming up with a sufficiently cutting and scornful remark.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/tavern-owner-opening-members-only-social-club-in-albany/ar-AA1JBiQg?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=6243f3d5531d421c85ccbebf95c16e49&ei=12
They should name the private club “Other Peoples Money”
“Grifter’s Gulch”
My naming vote is “Dissonance”.
Nice of them to group themselves together in one place…
I know right…
By the way, advertising to the world that you are making a private club where business can be done and connections made is stupid. It sounds like a honey trap to me. Will it be filled with bimbo and bimbettes with hotel rooms nearby full of cameras?
I know of a private cocktail/whiskey bar down in Columbus, but I’ve never been inside.
“I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me for a member.”
I belong to a private bar that serves whatever I want at any hour of the day or night! It has no dress code or code of conduct and the clientele is very exclusive. Unfortunately the membership includes my worst enemy.
“I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”
“I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have R.J. for a member” is what I normally hear.
I like cutting and frying mini sausages in that octopus shape. Never drew on the face though.
From the ded thred: took the train through Hiroshima but never stopped. Did spend some time in a pre war garden in Tokyo or Osaka that detailed some of the bombing damage to the garden. Felt a little surreal to be standing in that place as a tourist given my grandparents that I knew personally were in WWII (granddad was transferred out of a ship stationed at Pearl Harbor earlier in 1941 to attend schooling). My dad had a business trip where he woke up in Tokyo on Dec 7 and experienced a similar sense of surrealness.
Wind turbine blade log cabins! They’ll last forever!
ooh! Ooh!
*frantically waves hand in the air*
Can we use them to build a border fence?
We could make nitromethane power boats and Rat Fink hot rods from them and do wacky races?
That is an excellent suggestion.
https://youtu.be/5LafXrKNVss
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/natsuyasumi-dake-no-sideseat-passenger-seat.html
“This is going to be the most important political and social venue north of Manhattan,” said Shapiro. “We’re bringing back the old-school power — but with a modern twist: young, trendsetting, high-end, and unapologetically political.”
Only the finest farts will be sniffed.
OT: It’s gotten exhausting talking to a lot of my friends on the Left. Every day on their socials or in conversations they are breathlessly going apeshit over Trump, the situation in the Gaza Strip, climate change, abortion, and all the other hot button issues. I feel like anything that is even remotely contrary to their world views, it’s the worst thing that has ever happened.
Especially the women who are Left, I’ve basically either unfriended them or muted them on the socials because it gets old. It’s also pretty galling that these women who are probably some of the most privileged women compared to the rest of the world are constantly casting themselves as some victim of the misogynist capitalist caliphate and are one law away from being forced to wear a red dress and a white bonnet.
Same.
There are some women at work that bring up orange man bad when we discuss legislative changes. It’s unbearable. How can they feel safe talking about it? If I had started spewing Biden bile in public at work I would’ve been fired.
A couple years ago, I was at a job where almost everyone in the accounting department got along and even hung out after work. A great environment despite the overall place being terrible to work at. Anyway, at lunch we somehow got on some conversation about politics, and I immediately shut that shit down. The young lady who was a couple of years out of university, said that we should talk about politics more at work to create awareness and to confront some people’s internalized misogyny and racism. I told her that doing this was the easiest way to kill morale on the team and I’m not going to let that happen. She stewed but never mentioned it again.
Ed:
In a work chat channel, someone decided to bring up politics. Half of the channel left it within an hour.
Shapiro told NEWS10 that the club doesn’t have an official name yet, but they’re surveying for possible names and might include “Green” in name.
“Green With Envy” sounds about right.
“The Green Machine” Nostalgic feelings while also being a completely literal description of what is going on inside.
Plus it would have a theme song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-MSfd2S7lo#ddg-play
constantly casting themselves as some victim of the misogynist capitalist caliphate and are one law away from being forced to wear a red dress and a white bonnet.
Any day now there will be a law requiring them to submit unquestioningly to the sexual advances of any stranger, no matter how vile or degrading.
https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1950983824508063810
Fauxcahontas falls down.
Fauxcahontas falls down.
But not down a long flight of expanded steel grate stairs. What a gyp.
I remember the magnificent grift-fest* that was the MGM Casino in MA. Next to be harvested: Waymo.
*Seriously. It was something out of a Rand short story.
-IIRC, it was $50k (non-refundable!) to get the instructions on how to apply.
-The application for had it’s own non-refundable fee.
-Each proposed location had to be applied for separately.
-After the state picked a winner, explicitly by how much each of the casino companies promised to spend each political subdivision had an opportunity to block the proposal if they thought their beak wasn’t sufficiently wet. These cunty/city/etc shakedowns were covered in the media wiht no pretense that they were anything other than extracting money. This was seen as a good thing.
They utterly raked Wynn over the coals as well.