tomoki-20

Hello users of animeforums.net ! I found and joined this forum a few days ago hoping to find new people to talk to about anime and manga, and, so far, this place seems great! I'm a bit out of practice on forum etiquette, and am generally oblivious to social cues, so if I make a social blunder please inform me! I'm not particularly good at talking about myself, so instead of talking about myself much, how about I talk about the things that interest me instead? My main hobby has to be talking about and discussing media. I like to take a stab at analyzing the media I enjoy, and then share my thoughts with others, hoping to hear their thoughts on the thoughts I shared. I sometimes like to write essays for fun about the things I enjoy, and with how my current revisiting of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009) I'll probably end up writing an essay or two related to that anime. Maybe I'll share it here in the form of a blog post? I did see that there's people who run blogs on this site. What an exciting prospect! I have many other hobbies, but I'll stick to the ones I feel are more related to media/pop culture since this forum's main focus is on anime. Listening to music is one of the hobbies sort of related to anime that I'd say I partake in the most. I don't really have any one favourite artist whose entire discography I'm fond of, so instead I'll list the first 5 artists I can remember whose songs are in Japanese that I like with with whatever song I like from them that can remember first while I'm listing them: Guchiry - Orthodoxia Takayan - Cheating is a Crime Deco*27 ft. Arthur Lounsberry - Backdraft AHUB - Walking Boy* seeeeecun - Riot Boy (* This is my interpretation of the title, it's not got an official English translation but that's how the title read to me the first time I saw it) If I listed more than 5 artists and songs, and didn't restrict myself to one language, I'd probably be writing this for hours on just that so I'll leave it at that haha. Other than listening to music, I'm also fond of reading novels. I'm really fond of The Apothecary Diaries, though it's been a little over a year since I last touched the series as half way through the ninth volume I found myself drowning in homework for my political science class I had been taking at the time and didn't have it in me to keep up with as mentally taxing a hobby as reading novels. Generally the types of novels that keeps me coming back for more the most are the ones with unreliable narrators, transmigration stories where the protagonist is really suffering the entire time, and comedy stories in fantasy settings. Some examples of what I mean by this: Debut or Die (a Korean Webnovel) has a main character whose narration is so incredibly unreliable due to how very very mentally ill he is. He's well and truly convinced that he's totally fine and an incredible genius and he's absolutely certain he's got the upperhand a lot of the time during the story, but when you zoom out a bit on the situation? When you get a brief glimpse of the points of view of the other characters in the cast? The MC in Debut or Die comes across as someone whose only not in a psych ward for those who are a danger to themselves because he lied better than he's ever lied when they did his psych eval. None of the people In Park Moondae's life look at him and think "this person is sane and capable of functioning in society without hurting themself" and that's been true since the moment they met him. Then the very next paragraph I go back to reading Park Moondae's insanity and he's just so charming and he's just so convinced of the lies that he tells himself that he actually convinces me that he's sane again! It's ridiculous! Park Moondae is also a transmigrator in the world of Debut or Die and let me tell you, the stakes may be high, but Park Moondae makes them even worse for himself in his insanity. And the tone of the story? It's so freaking funny. Even when you forget that Moondae is out of his mind you can get a good laugh, and when you do remember that part? His everything is just as hilarious as it is concerning. Other than light novels and web novels, I'm very fond of reading manga. I definitely have read more manga than I've watched anime. I won't list all the manga I've read, but generally I like the same sort of manga as I like light/web novels. My favourite manga are almost all fantasy comedy series, and the ones that aren't are usually comedies about really mentally ill people. Two series that I like that fit this rubric would be Yohaji (drama/comedy set in a school for youkai following a human teacher Abe Haruaki who is descended from Abe no Seimei and is mainly just about all the ways that this guy effects everyone's lives) and The Morose Mononokean (drama/comedy following two teenage exorcists, one of which has a huge debt to the other exorcist and is working as an exorcist to pay off said debt). Tamon-kun's B-Side is an example of those "exceptions" I listed. It's a rom-com following a girl named Utage, a super idol stan, and Tamon, the idol who she stans. The plot is basically Utage accidentally discovers Tamon's big secret of how his public face is totally different than who he is in private - a highly depressed teenage boy with very low self esteem - and decides that she refuses to let her idol, her god, wallow and suffer through mental illness. So she verbally harasses him into saying good things about himself and along the way the two of them start to fall in love all while Tamon's mental health and self image get progressively... weirder! It's still serializing currently and they've still got a long way to go, but so far I really love these two weirdos and their dynamic is hilarious. Anyways~ There's other media that I do like (video games, visual novels, audio dramas,) but I feel like I've gone on long enough so I'll cut this short. Does anyone else here have any shared interests to me? I know that not everything I like is very mainstream (well, mainstream for people who like Japanese and east asian pop culture), and I often don't find people who share my interests even when I'd go to school clubs for this kind of stuff, but I know it's not the most totally obscure stuff, so surely there's some of you out here who like these stories? If so, please sound off below! I'd love to find people who share my interests .

Up until a few months ago I used cash exclusively, which usually didn't cause me many problems, but when I moved to where I currently live, I realized I now have the problem of no longer knowing where I'm supposed to go if I want to withdraw cash. I've been living in my current city for ages now and I still have zero idea where I'm supposed to do in-person banking, so I just use the card for my checking account instead whenever I want to buy anything The real tragedy about being so dependent on card, in my opinion, is that when I see someone on the street selling paletas or cups of agua fresca, I have no way to buy myself a delicious treat. Like, obviously the street vendor doesn't take card, but every time I still run up to the vendor really excited because of course I want paletas, and it's only after I go to pull out my wallet that I remember that I don't have cash, and then I shed a single tear and must walk away dejected with no sweet treats . Even if the card is really convenient most of the time, not being able to get myself a delicious treat from a street vendor is way too big of a sacrifice to me. Once I find an ATM that works around here I'm never going to let myself not have cash on hand to buy treats from a street vendor, I refuse to keep doing this to myself!!

I've heard a lot of good things about Natsume's Book of Friends over the years, but I've never actually given it a chance before. The manga has been on my "to be read" list for years now, but I don't know when I'll end up getting around to it. It's just so intimidatingly long! I suppose there is one good thing about that though, if I end up loving it, there would be so much of the series that I'd probably be entertained forever just from it alone As for what I am watching right now. I'm currently revisiting Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009), and really enjoying the experience! I've only gotten through the first 2 episodes, in part due to how each episode so far has left me both wanting to watch the next episode immediately, and rewatch the episode I just watched at least 3 more times because everything about it was so very cool. In the past I usually let the second impulse win out, but these days I'm trying to instead choose the first path and opt to rewatch the episode over immediately moving on to the next episode. I've found that not moving on so fast to the next installment in a series increases my enjoyment of the things I watch and read when I go over things at least twice before moving on. It gives me time to think, and time to really savour the media. I think I might end up writing a blog post or two about the series by the end of this rewatch. There's just so many things about it that I enjoy! I think my favourite part of this series is the way everything feels so interconnected. That's the sort of thing that really draws me into stories, and FMA really is full of small interconnected details that weave together into this awesome tapestry. It's so great, I wish I knew more series like FMA in that regard.