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Allo to you as well, sorry for the long wait. I've been hospitalized for a while so I couldn't answer. But thank you for friend request nonetheless! I hope we can get along.

It's funny you dropped Gankutsuou at episode 17 because I also thought about dropping it around the same time. Though I think I fucked up my enjoyment of the show by watching 14 episodes in a day. I was really liking it the first 10 episodes or so, but I must say, the art looks pathetic. The art of Gankutsuou proves that there's a difference between artistic style and bad art.

I may watch Vivy some time in the future, but I have some other stuff to watch first.

Kafka is spectacular. I can't think of another author quite as good at describing self loathing, alienation, shame, and depression. He lived a very sad life, but in a short period of time he gifted the world with absolute genius! It's sad he didn't achieve greater fame in his own lifetime, but Kafka wouldn't have cared even if he did. He was convinced his writing sucked and requested to have all his works burned upon his death. Another interesting aspect of Kafka is that his brand of absurdism mixes pitch black comedy in with his portrayal of senseless cruelty. He would both laugh and cry while reading his works to friends. The trial actually has some hilarious bits. Sure, the court system is a nightmarish bureaucracy where people carry out cruel and nonsensical orders without ever bothering to question anything. However, it's also pretty funny that they meet in an attic at 6 AM in the morning and just expect the accused to know this. Also the judge's book of statutes is just poorly drawn pornography and the judge is allowed to throw lawyers down the stairs until he gets too tired to continue and only then are lawyers allowed into the court.

Murakami is very hit or miss. He gained a lot of fame outside of Japan largely for being quirky and weird, but he's not well liked by most of the literary establishment. He's certainly above Stephen King/ JK Rowling tier, but I can't imagine him ever winning the Nobel prize. My favorite Murakami book that I've read is Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I also enjoyed Hardboiled Wonderland, but not quite as much as Wind Up. Poor Murakami gets a lot of abuse on my book club Discord. Although part of it is just anger than "Normies" in America will read Murakami, yet non-Japanese almost never read Soseki, Akutagawa, Dazai, Kawabata, Mishima, etc. This of course isn't Murakami's fault.

I've not read any of Ishiguro yet, but I'm interested!

Muchas gracias por compartir. Estaré al tanto de esa conferencia, aunque ahora estoy viendo "Rome History" de Yale del profesor Freedman. Apenas termine con eso, me veré esos videos.

Espero estés bien.

Oh, you added City Hunter the anime to your list. Have you watched City Hunter (1993) starring Jackie Chan? I watched it when I was a kid and I was really surprised when I found it that it's based on manga.

Also, this is mostly unrelated, but make sure to get the most out of anime while you can. Most people assume it isn’t a phase for them, but even if you don’t stop liking it as much, life happens. If you’re young like most active members of this site, you won’t have as much time to watch stuff later with responsibilities and competing interests for free time as you get older.

If I could redo it, I would have been a lot more efficient with my time back then. I would have spent more time watching different series and less time discussing and arguing on forums. Not that it wasn’t fun at times, mind you. I just think I would’ve gotten more overall out of focusing more on the entertainment itself and less on discussing it. A lot of my conversations were pretty vapid anyway. Only a handful were really interesting/worthwhile in retrospect.

It’s been years since I tried watching it (it was a seasonal at the time), so my memory isn’t as sharp as it once was. The tl;dr is that it frames abusive relationships as healthy and is extremely insensitive in its handling of Kousei’s mental trauma. I was pretty fired up about it for a long time.

If you’re looking for something more detailed, I had a pretty long discussion in the thirteenth episode’s discussion page with several other people at the time. That episode was a case-in-point for me from what I recall, so it should be pretty illuminating.

NHK is an anime I respect although I don't personally enjoy. I think it's definitely a bit more flawed and imperfect than its portrayed online, but it still reached millions with depression in a meaningful way and was a solid effort overall.

I’ve actually not read anything by Borges yet, but I’ve been meaning to get to him. I recently finished Rudin by Turgenev, which I really enjoyed. Then I listened to the Poetic Edda on audiobook because I’ve always found mythology amusing. BTW, how was Anna Karenina? Did you enjoy it?

Buenas disculpa, ¿Puedo hacerte una pregunta?. Es sobre Max Weber, solo quiero saber si es verdad lo que dice. Por favor.
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Hello Excuse me, can I ask you a question? It's about Max Weber, I just want to know if what he says is true. Please.

Not in full. My philosophy background is actually not too strong.

Vaya, me la pones un poco difícil. Sinceramente no soy muy versado en Poesía. No tengo problema a que me digas "Inculto" ni nada, creo que es algo que tomaría por sentado.

Igualmente, y para responder la pregunta, diría que los grandes: Quevedo, Juan de la cruz, Borges, Neruda, Vallejo, Lorca, Benedetti, Dario.
Poemas como Los heraldos negros, Poeta en New York ,Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, los recomendaría.

Perdóname por no saber tanto de poesía. Claro me enseñaron métrica, ritmo y demás pero nunca pude practicarlo y por eso no soy versado en esas cosas. Reglas como Hemistiquio, Sinalefa, Dialefa, Pareado, ritmo Trocaico y Yámbico entre otros. Son cosas que nunca los pude comprender del todo. Así que espero me perdone y yo también espero mejorar en mi conocimiento de poesia… Y mi gramática también, dicho sea de paso.
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Wow, you make it a little difficult for me. I'm honestly not very well versed in Poetry. I don't have a problem if you telling me "Uneducated" or anything, I think it's something I'd take for granted.

Likewise, and to answer the question, I would say that the great ones poets: Quevedo, Juan de la Cruz, Borges, Neruda, Vallejo, Lorca, Benedetti, Dario.
Poems like the "Heraldos Negros" (Black Heraldos), Poeta en Nueva York (Poet in New York) and "Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada" (twenty love poems and a desperate song), I would recommend them.

Forgive me for not knowing so much about poetry. Of course they taught me metrics, rhythm and so on and that's why I'm not versed in those things . Rules like Hemistiquio, Sinalefa, Dialefa, Pareado, Trocaico and Yámbico rhythm among others. These are things I could never fully understand. So I hope you forgive me and I also hope to improve on my knowledge of poetry… and my grammar as well.

Medical school is hard, but not in the way you might think. You don’t need to perform big brain math on the fly. If you can get through organic chemistry, anatomy, genetics, and all the college classes you have to take as a pre-med student you won’t face any concepts you can’t grasp. However, you’re expected to absorb a LOT of knowledge like drinking from a firehose. So that means you won’t have a lot of spare time to go grocery shopping, prepare healthy meals, exercise, pay your bills, clean your apartment, etc. You really have to carefully plan your days and never fall behind. Some people are naturally really good at that while others are best off finding a room mate to share responsibility with or just practice living alone and having a full time job first. For me personally, the leap in responsibility and planning was difficult and I wasn’t quite as mature as I thought I was. I went to medical school about 7 hours away from any family or friends, had no room mate, and went from having a girlfriend who took care of me in college so I could just focus on academics to being all alone. So I rushed into it when I should have taken a couple years to mature. Always make sure you’re ready for the next step in life.

Dostoevsky’s best novel is Brothers Karamazov so if you were to read only 1 it would have to be that one. However, if you’re planning to read a bunch of his stuff I would start with either Notes from the Underground or Crime and Punishment.

Take your time to find out what you want to do. Sometimes you change plans. I started out as a biochemistry major. Then I ended up majoring in psychology and minoring in chemistry. I entered medical school only to burn out in my 3rd year due to stress (long story there) and worked shitty odd jobs for the next 3 years including pharm tech at Walgreens, cashier at Walmart, and Kroger cashier. Then I went back to graduate school to get a degree in Applied Behavior analysis and work with children with autism. I graduate this summer and I really love my job for the first time at age 33. I was raised Lutheran but I'm honestly pretty agnostic at this point. I would like to believe in a God but faith is difficult.