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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL9hTWniYNg

I think some people got married, but I can't be sure.

Kaiji is the only real waifu.

i read it this afternoon!
i was like 'AWNNNNNNN' the whole time!
it gave me that 'i wish that happened to me' feeling!

hehehe!
how are you?

teheheheh thank you!'
if you like them too give me a hug!

"There's a gentle, winnie-the-pooh type feeling in her work" in Iwaoka, Hisae page. Best definition ever.

Looked at your favourites, read through your lists... Your tastes in anime are pretty damn cool. It's unusual, but the stuff you seem to enjoy seems to be a mix of my intrests and that of my roommate, Seasonreaper (who commented below), which I find pretty interesting.

Also loving that you're sticking to tags and not numbers - I used to do the same, as numbers don't really say anything meaningful, but just sort of succumbed to scoring stuff. Shame on me!

After having a look through your lists I must say you have some fantastic tastes.

I mentioned Tokyo Story because it just occurred to me that it has sort of a yuri ending. Not really, but compared to how most Ozu films go, it's basically a yuri ending. I've seen it a few times and never realized that before. Yes, that line toward the end is also what I remember first whenever I think of Tokyo Story. That may be true of most people, however; it's a famous scene. Did you know that the actress who played Kyouko is also called Kyouko? I certainly do like the film, it's one of my favorites, and rightly regarded as a masterpiece in the history of cinema.

I am a Buddhist. I like Yuanwu and Yunmen, if you've heard of them. I also like Zhuangzi, who wasn't Buddhist, but might as well have been. I always look for a Buddhist sensibility out of fiction; it's distressingly rare in anime, considering the country is supposedly 85 percent Buddhist. My aesthetic ideal is essentially for every character to be (or act like) a Buddhist monk. I hold asceticism in very high regard. I'm very prudish, and I hate anything vulgar or sexual. Asceticism doesn't just mean forms of moral austerity like celibacy and temperance, though -- there's also an asceticism of feelings. This is why I tend not to like things that are over-the-top emotionally. I prefer more stoic responses to suffering. My favorite film is Why Has Bodhidharma Left for the East, which was made in South Korea in the 80s. It presents a very different picture of grief from what we see in Ano Hana, and in the vast majority of fiction. Toward the end, the beloved master of the young monk Kibong dies. Kibong does not weep, or wail and scream about the unfairness of life. As he carries out the funeral rites -- taking the corpse into the woods and burning it -- his expression remains entirely impassive. Throughout the entire night, until morning, he remains seated beside the fire as his face becomes covered with the ashes of his dead master's burning body (image). There is really no emotion at all in that face. And yet, I think it portrays the immensity of death and loss more truly and plainly than any other work has ever managed. Whenever I see people falling apart over tragedies, in real life or fiction, I can't help but think of that scene. Are we really doing anyone a service by going to pieces like that? It's not like Kibong didn't care that the master died. It's not like he didn't feel sad, or miss him. It's just that he understood death, or rather, he genuinely wished to understand death, not to rail against the injustice of it. I believe this is what fiction should try to help us do -- see death for what it is -- instead of giving us false balms or letting us revel in self-pity.

I don't judge based on objective quality or necessarily enjoyment. It's all about whether an anime or manga (or book or film) knows what the deal is. Most people don't know what the deal is. Sometimes I suspect that nobody knows what the deal is. But sometimes in fiction, usually only briefly, you get that unshakable confidence in something being ordered exactly as it must be, in a perfection that not only justifies itself but justifies all of life. That's when you feel with certainty that least somebody knows what the deal is, and that makes everything all right. That's the quality of perfection that a flawless 10 represents. I get disappointed a lot. I get my hopes up that finally someone is on board with my way of doing things, but my expectations just get dashed. How am I supposed to describe these expectations in words? How am I supposed to explain the way a perfect world should run? I could talk for 100,000 years and never even come close. But I know it when I see it, and when I do see it, there's never been anyone in history more content. That's the reason I've devoted my life to fiction. If we're being honest, what is actually done in the realm of fiction doesn't even scratch the surface of what could potentially be done, and should be done. It's cool that people like Harry Potter and Twilight, and go around dressed up as the characters, and argue over which fake people are in love with other fake people. I'm glad they're involved with the works. That's as it should be. But Harry Potter doesn't deal in the highest strata of creativity. It doesn't invent new sorts of greatness on every page. You know why? Because no books do. Because people are inadequate as shit at telling stories. They're boring. They keep doing the same boring things. They think they can get away with listless, empty characters. As thin as a piece of paper! No one knows how to make up a real character. In 12000 years of people telling stories, Kajiwara Sora is the only sufficiently great character ever to have been invented.

The moral of the story is not to ever ask me about Buddhism or fiction if you don't want to read like 2500 words of nonsense. I would keep going, but I have to go to a wedding now. I'll just defer once again to Garamond from the book Foucault's Pendulum: "Manutius doesn't publish a book unless we're sure of its quality, and quality, as you know better than I, is an impalpable, it can be detected only with a sixth sense."

My ratings aren't harsh so much as they're simply on a different scale. I used to rate according to the way most people do, where 7 is mediocre and 6 is bad. That leaves 8, 9 and 10 for series you actually liked. What's the point of having three shades of differentiation for good shows and seven for bad ones? It doesn't really matter that, say, Ghost Hunt was significantly better than Mokke. I didn't enjoy either. That's why I changed all my old ratings, moving anything with a 6 or below down to my "replacement level" at 2. (I left open a basement spot at 1 for Doujin Work). This opens up a 3 to 8 scale for decent to great shows. Then I skipped 9, to make a perfect 10 more transcendent.

Of course, most people don't know or care about any of that. They just look at my list and say, "He gave Trigun a 6? He's an idiot." Well, in fact I loved Trigun. Trigun kicked all sorts of ass. I think I used to have it as a 9. At one point I had Aishiteruze Baby as a 10, immediately after I finished it. That's kind of funny to think about now.

Takasu Ryuuji is a great guy. It doesn't seem that revolutionary an idea to actually give your protagonist a personality, yet standard protocol seems to be to skip that. Toradora was a series that brought me back to watching anime after I had stopped for a while. Minorin is such a lovable nut. She's more than just a nut, though. In the anime they left out this scene from the light novels:

Her hands opened up like the statue of the Buddha, her expression conveying a sense of peace. Her eyes half-open, her gaze seemingly looking upon the people of the world with comfort and pity. Minori had attained enlightenment in the middle of the road, chanting "BrightBrightBright", literally describing the brilliance that was emanating from her figure, and spread her legs to support her body weight on her toes.

I had high hopes after I read that. Unfortunately she doesn't turn out to be Avalokitesvara in disguise or anything like that. Well, it's a shame, but isn't that the way it always goes. The only ones to truly walk the path of buddhahood have been Minakami Mai and Kajiwara Sora.

At their very first meeting, Kankuro told Miki, "To villains, I have no name!" Guess Miki took this to heart.

Have you seen Tokyo Story?

I'm presently about a half-hour drive from North Wales. I've lived in this area my entire life, except for college. We used to go to games at Veterans Stadium fairly often back when the Phillies sucked; now that they're good you can't even get no tickets. My brothers used to get into all sorts of altercations, but I'm more mild-mannered and very little of interest happens to me. I do remember one game where the entire family sitting behind us left in the third inning, because of us. I still have no idea what their problem with us was, though. My oldest brother wasn't yelling or cursing or anything (for once). We weren't being obnoxious in any way. I guess they just hated the look of us.

I did give Ano Hana a 4, but 4 is really not a bad rating from me at all. 'Death Note' got a 4. I don't think any anime would be ashamed to look itself in the mirror and say, "I'm as good as Death Note." Hell, I gave EVA a 4. They should be clamoring to get a 4. All the shows I really hate are bunched together at 2. Anything above that had something going for it.

I can understand your reluctance to assign numerical ratings, but I cannot sympathize with it. I've been quantifying my subjective experiences since I emerged from the womb. When I was 8 or 9 I kept a list of every movie I'd seen, along with how many stars I gave it. I've made countless "top 50" or "top 100" lists in my life -- best songs, best albums, best books, best films, best baseball players, best anime characters, best titles of Wallace Stevens poems. It's an illness, really. Still, there's a certain pride in awarding a certain work your highest honor. Not pride in yourself, but in the work itself. "Congratulations. You earned this."

I can stand romance in fiction if, any only if, I really like the male counterpart beforehand. However, it's extremely rare that I like any male character more than very slightly. If it's somebody like Kiriyama Rei from Sangatsu, Aizawa Ayumu from Zettai Shounen, or Takanashi Souta from Working (who shares my taste in women), then I'm not likely to be annoyed by any romantic developments, and may even be vaguely pleased by them. Still, I generally think romance is stupid. I thought that when I was 10, and I think that now. The characters I like will overwhelmingly tend to not be even remotely interested in it. Romance is really the scourge of fiction, in my opinion. Nothing ruins a good story faster. What makes yuri different? I don't know. I'm probably some sort of deviant.

Are you on Twitter? I want to tell Yotsuhara Furiko that she's a genius, but I don't have an account.

By the way, there actually is a reason Miki can't remember Nishiyama Kankuro's name, but we don't find it out until the seventeenth volume of the manga.

Ano Hana was really cool and unique and refreshingly realistic for the first few episodes. Toward the end it sort of devolved into a soap opera -- "I've secretly liked you forever", and so forth. I can't stomach romance (that isn't between girls). At this point, if I see "romance" among a series' associated genres, I'll skip right over it without further investigation. I also don't take much to very emotional scenes. I think there are more subtle and poignant ways to depict suffering and grief than just having everybody fall apart and cry.

Although, having said that I hate romance and emotional scenes, Sangatsu no Lion has all sorts of emotional scenes with people crying and screaming, and it's by Umino Chika, author of famous romance manga Honey & Clover. Yet, Sangatsu no Lion is perhaps my favorite manga ever. Except for Sketchbook. So who can say.

Yeah, the Mariners aren't much fun to watch these days. In fact the current Mariners are one of the worst offensive teams of all time. Ichiro is still racking up hits, though. My team is the Phillies.

Well, as far as misogyny, Kanamemo was the major offender. More innocent shows like A-Channel also have a bit of it. There's a certain lack of respect for the characters as human beings rather than mere puppets of amusement.

Judging from the comments on your list, there don't seem to have been many series you really, really disliked. Perhaps you're good at finding the positives?

Do you still like baseball? I probably know more about baseball than any other individual subject.

I ignored Yuru Yuri because I knew I would hate it -- more punishingly dull slice-of-life "comedy" with misogynistic overtones. Some time later, on a whim, I picked a random episode and started watching it. It turned out to be a total riot! The same thing happened with G.A. Art Design. I watched the first thirty seconds of the first episode, thought, "This is garbage, plain and simple", and stopped watching. Luckily, for some reason I decided to revisit it. Who can say? Superficial judgments don't tell you much. Some shows just have heart.

Meanwhile, the cast of Yuru Yuri appear to have become the unofficial mascots of Yuri Hime.

I can't believe you would recognize that photograph. That is astonishing to me.