we are acknowledging money exists in the homestretch. We're back, bb

I've been in a 日本語 learning slump and will need to work >>40 hours/week for the next few years. Is there any point in trying to learn if I can only squeeze in 30-60min/day? I can easily let making/using Anki cards eat that time, and that seems frowned upon... but immersion feels unproductive too!

this will get the kids off roblox and hooked on metroid

An advocate for small males in 2005 was forward thinking

Outside of the doctors, no character in Higurashi behaves with material interests in mind. It's unnatural.

I really don't understand why the story acts like "what if Jesus had parasites that made people his disciples" is profound. People get possessed by ideas all of the time. A parasite analogue only makes it less compelling.

damn, it's the voice in the back of my head when i vowed to plow through gundam

The belief that everyone is evil is at the heart of all cruelty politics. It doesn't matter if you believe forgiveness is possible if you never see anyone as human to begin with.

Beatrice isn't real, and yet she is. She is only real because Battler knows exactly how she is not real and chooses to believe in the best of her false identity. It's incredibly moving.

Hell, even Umineko's stance seems to be "for you to accept the truth from a false belief, you must thoroughly go through the hell of finding the holes in your false belief."

Takano constantly saying Jesus was never resurrected isn't indicative of R07's beliefs, but there's nothing in anything I've seen him write that indicates he takes any of this seriously.

Irie is a doctor devoted to the idea that people are fundamentally good and any evil in someone's heart is a deviation of a healthy brain. The New Testament believes all are born evil and should labor to be good. They both point towards the same path of forgiveness, but they're very, very different

this arc drags forever and then torches any societal critique the previous arcs may have had for the sake of saying "the political machine works in this world I created where everyone is emotionally intelligent and has upstanding moral character and selfishness is destroyed."

The original story is depicted as a critique on backwater nationalistic/tribalistic freaks who are willing to kill people, but the true enemies are backwater nationalistic/tribalistic freaks who are willing to kill people... from a different town!

It seems to me the intent was to paint this "actually, you should have faith in your fellow man at all times even if they're violent gang members" that is completely undercut by just having "violent gang members, but from the city" be the baddies

The absurd thing is the story asks "are the murders taking place by ghosts or the Yakuza." And of course you think, "clearly it's the yakuza." The grand reveal is "actually it's this group that is functionally identical to the Yakuza who are just slightly off screen in every scene"

The Yakuza Who Don't Do Anything was an awful turn. You have this grandma character who rips people's nails out in one chapter and then accepts death threats here for the sake of The Real Enemy not getting muddied by her antics. It doesn't resonate.