About to do a major overhaul of my profile! For now, I'm focusing on catching up to the anime I missed out on while I was away, but the update will come soon. For now, apologies and hopefully you find what you were looking for here :))
To provide some context for my banner (from left to right):
Also, feel free to add me or recommend me some anime/manga based on my lists. That's why we're here anyway. And don't be afraid to comment on my shit taste :)
"I lie all the time. Who cares if you know something, but you say you don't? Forcing something out of someone without permission is worse." (Hikigaya Hachiman)
To open an introduction with a quote about falsehood is rather unsettling to the reader, don't you agree? "Should I trust his words? His ideas? Does he even exist to bring with, or is "he" just a product - a virtual realization - of one's idle stirrings?" The lines begin to blur, and unceasingly continue, until you are left with at the end is more questions than when you started.
"Who is he, really?"
I believe that unease is the best way to describe meeting me and talking with me in real life. My interests span a lot of topics - from logic and mathematics to religion and existentialist ramblings. I rarely speak, but when I do, I have a policy of letting them have it as it is. Reality is limited by what you can perceive, expanding your boundaries and accepting the seemingly unreal as the truth is what I aim for in my conversations and in my study.
I want to disprove and to be disproved.
I chose Hachiman as the virtual representation of myself because he is a character that not only I share some of my ideas and virtues with, but also I look like him and walk like him in most instances. We even share the same philosophy when it comes to coffee and we both have an adorable little sister to boot. I do not possess an ahoge or have a harem of admirers at my side, however.
Shame on me.
My Myers-Briggs personality is an INTJ and I am a Libra (since apparently pseudo-intelligent and pseudo-scientific classifications, respectively, matter to people). I am taking up medicine and have changed my desired specialization on numerous occasions. Initially I wanted to be a neurosurgeon (no, this was before I watched Monster, but Dr. Tenma is a relatable character) but now I have my eyes set on being a plastic surgeon since a person's perceived beauty and its fragility - all at my mercy of my hands - is rather an appealing thought.
And no, I have not yet watched Cells at Work. I am already knee-deep in the medical sciences as it is - why force myself off the deep end?
To end, why anime? Firstly, I am much more fond of visual media rather than text. Makishima states that a book's physicality gives it character - I agree - and for that reason (dealing with a book's character while digesting it) is one of the main reasons why I dislike books - as it would lead to uncalled-for biases. Next, visual media stimulates me more than text by accessing more of my senses and not just relying on inference and imagination. Lastly, the western cartoons that I have grown up with (South Park, The Simpsons) have gone down in quality for the past seasons that they are merely a shell of their former selves. Plus, the first anime that I watched since my childhood, Your Lie in April, was able to resonate with me on many levels that I just had to keep on going.
Thus, here we are. Enjoy your stay like you enjoy your life - while you still can.
My rating philosophy is very simple as I try to put my enjoyment first when rating titles - I follow MAL's recommendation of "10 - Masterpiece, 9 - Great, 8 - Very Good, ... , 1 - Appalling". I find using the 10-point scale more relaxed as compared to AniList's 100-point scale (optional) but less inclusive (meaning: 10s and 9s get clumped together, same with lesser pairs) than when using 5 star ratings. "But technically, you could just give a 4.5 for a 9, etc., right?" Well, the way I think of it, since you're using decimals already, why not go all out and use the 100-point scale? It's basically the same thing - just multiply accordingly. All things considered, I just prefer the 10-point scale.
In my personal opinion, straying away from MAL's rating suggestion (10 - Masterpiece, 9 - Great, 8 - Very Good, ... , 1 - Appalling) may cause confusion to some; as newcomers might come and try to watch something to their liking and assume that most shows are good to very good (since the 7-8 range is the common rating for anime in MAL) but come away disappointed. Granted, it is their loss for the misunderstanding of the fact that users of this website simply overrate things with disregard for the suggested interpretation as is it is just a suggestion, after all. Would I recommend removing MAL's suggested interpretation? Not a chance. But would I let the common user/newcomer be aware of rating statistics? Yes. Pushing for MALgraph's integration - thus providing quick statistics at the right places - into MAL itself would be a great step towards overcoming that obstacle. Plus, it would look nice as well.
Mathematically speaking, the true average in a 10-point scale (1-10) would be 5.5, not 5. So it makes sense to have most of your rated anime as 5s and 6s. However, should 5.5 be the true average rating in a 10-point scale? Hardly - and I say that since it is much easier to churn out bad anime than good anime. Thus, a good representative graph should be skewed towards 1 and not 10, thus lowering the average to about 4-5. I think that if you watch all anime for the sake of rating and not elect to watch shows that you think will appeal to you only (thus inflating your ratings), your average rating should be close to that. A rating higher than that probably requires watching more bad anime and/or a revisiting and possible revision of your rating system; and vice versa.
My MALgraph for anime looks like the one below for now; I am actually working on lowering my average rating since I have a tendency to watch anime to my liking (I know, awful right?). It sounds counterproductive at first but for me, watching bad shows makes me identify and understand the good points even more. Bad shows and their bad qualities serve as foil to good shows and their good qualities. I also did not include here my manga MALgraph since I don't read a lot of manga and don't update the manga section (I am actually up-to-date on some of those - OPM, MHA).
Been lurking on your profile for a bit here and there for sometime and finally pulled the trigger to add you. Love your layout and I'm p interested in chatting about different shows with you whenever you want!
Found this amazing edit (in the style sorta of a highlight reel/introduction) of Satoshi Kon's work and thought you'd like it as a fellow fan-- https://vimeo.com/286182145 :D
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