Wickett

I'm going to be brutally honest with you, and I'd like for you to consider that because life can be terrible and unfair, people providing a harsh and unwanted outcome as the end result is not always a rude or inappropriate thing to do. I don't know you at all, but I have zero reason to want you sad or upset. This is intended to be helpful, with the hopeful outcome that you can sit back and take a much-needed deep breath, and exhale with a new strength. It sounds to me like you are both in high school (correct me if I'm wrong of course), which means that neither of you have even a fully developed brain. For women it's earlier but for a guy it's around the age of 25. This of course does not mean that you have to be these ages to enter a serious relationship, but in your teen years in the high school time frame your mind and body is undergoing so many changes that it's impossible to keep up with it all. Serious romantic relationships at this age are very difficult and even more volatile. The chances of both of you being able to weather this part of your life together and come out a couple in love are very, very low. There are an innumerable amount of things that will happen in your lives over the next few years that will not only change your priorities in life, but also simply what you like and dislike. Things you may find out about her that aren't particularly things you'd want to deal with in a life long mate. All of this is natural, and good, because it encourages growth for both of you. Those ugly buds that produce a flower. This is where I'll begin the "I feel your pain part", because I really do. I spent a little over a year being the third wheel where my friend was dating a girl that I was head over heels for. She and I were close enough that if there were issues in their relationship she would talk to me about it. I don't think I can describe how much pressure my chest had after about 14 or so months of that. It was wrenching. It's like your mind has fixated on something and is dragging your body along with it and there isn't much you can do about it. I finally told her how I felt, and to no surprise the friendship ended. I thought I would be devastated, and at first it was quite the terrible ordeal. A few weeks went by and it began to make a little more sense. You either hang on to false hope while suffering in silence, or end a relationship that had become toxic to you with someone you would have never been able to see as "just a friend" anyway. Neither options are great and wonderful, but at least the second one lifted the dumbbell off my chest, and allowed me to move forward. When you are young you are learning what love really is. The same as when children emulate their parents with their toys and act out various household scenarios (playing house and cooking with toy kitchen sets, for example), we emulate adult relationships in our teen years. Coupled with hormones that make us super self-aware and doubting in our abilities. Not a fun combination. There is one thing though that never changes in this type of situation, and that is the truth about how you feel. You may not even be correct, but that's okay, that's what we have people around us for, so we can express our thoughts, feelings, and ideas to friends that we trust and let our bad ideas die and embrace the ones that positively affect us and those around us in the most equal measure that is possible. Tell her how you feel, and with polite boldness, too. Let her know she's special to you above everyone else in that school. If she's a worthy goal then it will proportionately be risky, as all worthy goals are. Your life is an adventure that should be embraced. Since we all like anime here, picture yourself watching you as the main character and for an entire season he just won't tell the lead female character how he feels. Frustrating, right? Be honest, with her and yourself. I learned a long time ago that telling the truth is a scary and yet fun thing to do, believe it or not. When you tell the truth about yourself and your feelings, you live with less guilt, doubt, and stress. People around you will also begin to respond to you as someone sturdy and reliable, knowing yourself and what you want out of life. See if she responds to that, and regardless of how it goes, face the next stage with courage, knowing that no matter what life throws your way, you've learned a very useful skill to make the next round a little less difficult. All the absolute best.

This is correct, there have been two different time periods in the last 10+ years that I needed to temporarily cancel Crunchyroll and it's very easy to go into your account now and cancel. Shouldn't be a headache. And some of you have really taken me back with Gogoanime, I used to use that site all of the time when I was younger, but it is for sure an illegal operation and is full of malware (last I used it) so I'd want to only use a mobile platform to access it. I ran back to Crunchyroll as soon as I felt like I could afford it again. On the rare occasion Netflix will stream an anime I want to watch but I mainly use Hulu and Crunchyroll.

I am very much hoping that the Police Tribe K-9 manga takes off and gets an anime ASAP.

In this regard I would say anime is the exact same way as video games to me. I have to already be sort of endeared to them, so vintage Bleach is still a ton of fun for me to watch but I'd say recent trends in animation (aside from the overuse of CGI of course) is preferable to my tastes. I realize this is not a specific decade but I'd say 2010 to present would be my favorite time frame.

Greetings from a fellow Kuroko fan.

The decline of forums and rise of social media made the internet much worse off. A long time ago I used Instagram for a few months but quickly dropped it and never looked back.

I had to go back and find the name but several years ago I watched Dimension W and actually enjoyed it a lot. I was able to find it through the opening song which is in my Apple Music library.

Edward vs. Father in FMAB. I have many favorite fights across multiple anime but the build-up and resolution of that fight was legendary.

I'm going back and rewatching Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War before I watch the final season. This is the only current anime I watch in dub anymore simply because of how attached I became to the English voice actors as a teenager. Thankfully it isn't nearly the worst out there. When I read the manga and watched the first two seasons the first time around, I felt like the pacing was insanely fast. I have always felt like Bleach makes a way better anime than manga being so battle heavy, but some of the scenes Tite Kubo had envisioned for this final arc are top tier for long time viewers like myself. I also read recently that Kubo was working with the studio to add some more context he had originally intended to include in the manga but wasn't able to due to health issues, so I'm looking forward to seeing if the end is a bit more satisfactory this time around.

Welcome to the forum. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Followed by several other Zelda games and a mix of oldies and newer games.

Iceland and Japan at least once, but I honestly don't know if I would ever have the money for me to be able to justify it.

It is a little darker but a personal favorite of mine, Attack on Titan. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood if you've never seen that. As mentioned above, Kaiju No. 8 and Vinland Saga are both top tier in my opinion and for completely different reasons so some good variety there. Honorable mentions you may have already seen but throwing out there anyway: Bleach Fairy Tail Kuroko's Basketball Samurai Champloo Highschool of the Elite

First of all, welcome to the States. Hope my country is treating you well. In fairness, what I had in mind when I wrote that was definitely not something I personally agree with. Cultures and even right down to the level of the individual and their approach to sexuality is, in my opinion, very intent based. There are people in this country who use sexuality to push political ideals, and I find that to be a destructive zero-sum game.

Can relate to the overall sentiment of where things are and the direction their headed, and that anime has always been a way to wind down with wholesome stories and characters that are fun to believe in/look up to. I personally believe that the single largest shift you're seeing, and I can see it as well, is the fact that anime is no longer a niche interest at all. It is way more mainstream across more demographics than it ever has been, so far as I can tell. This inevitably comes with advertising, a larger selection, and the need to pump out more and more content faster, so like all other forms of entertainment you'll eventually have a heap of regurgitated trash brought about by the desire for quantity over quality. As pointed out above, however, there are still some new anime that fit older themes, you just have to dig for it a little more. I don't have quite the disgust for blushing that you do, it would seem. I recently made it known in another thread that I have zero use for isekai and harem nonsense, not sure if that's what you're primarily referring to.

X doubt

This. We all know the primary reason for watching them isn't plot or originality but if you take away those two qualities you really end up with cute anime girls and an idiot male protagonist inside a dead narrative. Practically any other genre at least has the potential to be good.

Based on what I've always read regarding the ending, the author ended it exactly the way he wanted to, but he did want to wrap things up before its popularity began to fade. This would likely be the reason it had such an abrupt feeling to it. The overarching problem for me was simply the fact that the story was abstract as Picasso. Intentionally left largely open to interpretation is in my opinion a lazy approach from the word go. As you already mentioned, conspiracies within conspiracies, with the backstory supposedly revealing itself in the background along the way just created too much work for me to consider it good story telling.

Cruel Angel's Thesis is nothing short of art, but it's a shame it had to accompany such an anime.

So basically, it could have been good had it been different in almost every single way. With exception to the intro, of course. It's forever gold.

Did you enjoy S1? Because I had to fight to get through it.

JJK Evangelion Naruto My Here Academia Most of the time it's an anime that resembles the comics of the West and they blow up in the States. My Hero Academia is not a well written story in my opinion, but it's like anime Marvel here and people in the US eat it up.

I definitely disagree that Brotherhood was mid but I respect the take on JJK. It's an overhyped, unoriginal anime that is touted as mature and deep because of its darker themes. Darker themes not always equal deep. Never have. Evangelion was a dumpster fire of a mess. Some anime really do require reading between the lines, but when the entire story is supposedly between the lines or lurking somewhere in the background, I can't help but chalk that up as terrible story telling. It was such a waste of my time, other than to now have the ability to argue how bad it was.

I tried to read the Reddit thread but it looks like the link no longer works unfortunately. I will look into the anime, as I saw it recommended on Crunchyroll the other day and it looked fairly interesting. I would encourage you. however, to realize that due to the massive size of our country, the political/societal/religious views here in the States are all over the spectrum, blending various values at once happens frequently as well. I can assure you though, the vast majority of progressives in our country see absolutely nothing wrong with the sexualization of almost anything. I can clearly see, based upon your overview and thoughts on The Elusive Samurai that the average Japanese person recognizes beauty and art in things that a lot of Westerners do not, and I see nothing at all inherently wrong with that. I will certainly, at some point soon, give The Elusive Samurai a watch (possibly not the whole thing, we'll see) and let you know what I think. What I personally believe this boils down to is simply how two different cultures respond to such media. It's fun to compare these things, but ultimately, I don't believe either one is wrong at their core. I believe intent plays a large role in all of this, and the virtue Japan places behind some of its content is intended to have good consequences. This depends greatly. The left and right in our country have never been further apart, and core principles that used to somewhat hold both sides together they no longer have in common. The traditional sense of asceticism (though sometimes practiced poorly) is intended to help keep families strong, which is the foundation of our country since its birth. Plenty of people take this way too far in my opinion, but the idea is an outward thinking philosophy intended to better people and their communities. The progressive's approach, as far as I can observe, are merely a lashing out against that idea and the focus is on the self, a very inward thinking type of "I'll do what makes me happy."

My interest in this game has somehow diminished even more, especially after seeing that zombies trailer last week. There's nothing that isn't hot and heavy run and gun all of the time. Gone are the mysterious themes and sense of comical horror that used to make them so enjoyable.

You're right, a bit surprising to learn of such youth magazines, I personally don't agree with the approach but that doesn't come from a place of high mindedness at all. My only wish, in regard to this particular topic, is that young Japanese growing up can eventually enjoy the benefits of a wholesome marriage and family life. I consider such things to be paramount, and want the best for you and your people. I'm getting a lot of conflicting data on the divorce rate. Some sources say 1.2%, I've seen 1.7%, but other sites are indicating 35.5%. Obviously, I trust you know what you're talking about, but I've always had the impression that divorce was much more heavily frowned upon in Japan than the States.