Welcome to my Otaku Life Blog. It’s a slice of life blog where I talk about what I have been up to lately.
I’ve been reading a poem called The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. I don’t know if I liked it that much, but then again, I don’t like poems in general. Anyway, I’m not sure I enjoy poems that moan about how modern life is boring or meaningless. My usual reaction is, “Okay, so what now? What are you going to do about it?” Writing a poem about it doesn’t seem to make anything better. Many of the videos I watched about the poem made it seem boring and depressing.
Why aren’t there any poets—who aren’t state-appointed propagandists—who can write something positive about the achievements of the modern world? I guess people just want to hear their complaints reflected back to them. I’m just sick of it. I am worried all this negativity has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy for Europe. My music playlist is filled with nationalist songs from all over the world, including the soviet union. Not because I like any of these countries, but because they are not defeatist.
I also read the first book of Paradise Lost, which so far seems to be about the defeat of the devil by God. It seemed like all the good lines were given to Satan, so I guess we’re supposed to identify with him. I looked into the background a bit, and John Milton was an anti-monarchist who collaborated with Cromwell’s Puritan republican dictatorship. In Paradise Lost, God is referred to as a monarch by the devil, and at least in the first book, we only really see the Devil’s perspective. Given that Milton himself fought against a monarchy, it sounds like he associated his ill-fated opposition to the British King with Satan’s rebellion against the King of Kings.
I’ve also heard that Paradise Lost might be a kind of Gnostic text, or at least popular among Freemasons and other secret societies. I heard that from the “Predictive History” channel. I can’t remember the exact details, but the idea was that God lied to Adam and Eve, telling them they would die if they ate the fruit, but they didn’t really die immediately. In other words, the gnostic implication is that both the devil and humans were punished because God was afraid that humans would reach his level. I don’t think Milton even claimed to have had a revelation, so I’m not sure if I should take any of this seriously. It just seems like fan fiction about what the Devil might have thought, and if Milton didn’t claim that this is what the devil really thought, then what is the point of all this?
I don’t think the pagans will like this book either. Book I of Paradise Lost also attempts to integrate native European mythologies into Christianity by claiming that all the native European gods were fallen angels. There’s always some plausible deniability about whether Milton is taking the Devil’s side, because Milton basically says that the devil is just coping. But there’s no doubt the Devil seems heroic and noble because he’s going against destiny and fate. And, as I said, Milton was an anti-monarchist, and the Devil repeatedly calls God a monarch. Make of that what you will.
Another thing: a lot of the time, the spelling is weird. But if you listen to an audiobook—there’s a good one on Librivox I’ll link in the description—it’s much easier to understand what’s being said than when you read the text.
Satan gets all the best lines, “like better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven,” but it’s clear he is coping. The reason I say this is because the demons consider if the fact that they are still alive and kicking, is all according to God’s plan, but then they go right back to coping. Through some convoluted logic which makes no sense, but is rhetorically effective, basically about how it would be cowardly to ask for forgiveness, they seem to want to counterattack. It’s like the devil has to deceive himself with his copes first, to deceive his underlings first, and Eve later on.
Pandemonium, the capital of hell, sounds a lot like the generic Demon King’s castle-city in jrpgs and isekai anime, even more than Tolkien. I liked the little detail that demons can downsize themselves to the size of dwarves to fit inside the hall where they are going to have a meeting. I was less impressed with the idea that demons can change their sex. It seems like a low-hanging fruit to go there.
I also read the first chapter of a textbook—An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory by Andrew Bennett—about beginnings in literary works. The conclusion was that you can’t really decide what the beginning of a text is because of inter-textuality. Sometimes there are things like “pre-texts.” By which they mean things like an introduction or the title—things you see before the main text. The main idea was that every text is based on other texts, so your initial reaction isn’t necessarily the most important or organic. When you read other texts that may be referenced, and then come back to the original, your interpretation changes. Also, when you re-read a text, knowing what happens later affects how you feel about earlier events.
I’ve also been watching an anime called Blade Dance of the Elementalers, a light novel adaptation. Honestly, I’m enjoying it more than anything popular or considered “good” these days. I watched Gigguk’s video about the last season, and while everything looked good, it also seemed soulless. Just people showing off their animation skills. The most interesting recent anime is probably Orb: On the Movements of the Earth, which is about heliocentrism. But the problem is, I now know the whole Galileo affair wasn’t as black and white as it’s often presented. Knowing the historical context isn’t exactly accurate in the show, puts me off from watching it.
Another anime, Nukitashi, might be interesting. It’s a fan-service anime based on a visual novel about an island where everyone has to have sex, but they don’t want to—played as a comedy, I think. Gigguk didn’t really talk about what it’s about, probably because you can’t show that stuff on YouTube. Anyway, I’m finding this old light novel adaptation more enjoyable than anything airing right now. Maybe I’m just tired of “good” things.
I also had a stupid debate—well, not a debate. I’m part of an anime club, and someone asked if I liked Attack on Titan. I said I liked the first three seasons. It was funny how people reacted just because I didn’t say I liked the whole thing. Maybe I’m just addicted to having a minority opinion or being an anime hipster.
I need to think more about why I like some of these old light novel adaptations. In Gigguk’s video, he showed a screenshot of similar-looking protagonists and made fun of them, saying they all look alike. I could identify some of them from different shows, and I’m sure he could too. His point was that if you hadn’t watched the shows, you wouldn’t know they were different characters. But first, you could tell because they don’t look exactly identical—the art styles differ. Second, why does the opinion of someone who hasn’t watched the shows even matter?
I guess what I like about these light novel anime adaptations is that they feel very pure. They still have… I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m saying or if I can combine this mess into one video.
The novel I published on my website got about 700-800 views. Not many comments, and I got a one-star review, which is fine—it’s not that good of a story. I really want to get back to novel writing, but right now I’m stuck in editing hell. It’s a pain. I almost wish I could pay someone to edit it, but I can’t afford that.
On a friend’s suggestion, I’ll probably try to upload an audiobook version of the novel I’m working on. It’s not very good and unnecessarily political, but I just can’t keep politics out of my mind. I’ll probably edit this into one post, even though it’s a giant mess of ideas. Maybe a friend of mine can help with the audiobook for the first few chapters. After that, I could continue myself or pay him to do the rest—which would have been possible if my car hadn’t broken down. I had to buy a new one, annoyingly. God, I hate car salesmen. My old car is probably headed for the scrap yard because the engine is gone. Whatever you do, don’t buy a Peugeot. I learned my lesson and bought a Japanese car this time—a small one. It’s a red 2020 Toyota Aygo X. I like small cars. Maybe I’ll add a picture if I blur the license plate.
I think I did well in my last video by adding Toram Online footage. I’m thinking of using these videos as an excuse to play Toram Online. I’ve also been watching a lot of Japanese YouTubers as part of my “immersion” into Japanese. Last week, I found out about AJATT (All Japanese All The Time) by a guy named Khatzumoto. I’m trying to do AJATT—emphasis on “trying.” So I’ve been listening to Japanese people play Toram Online while I do other things.
I also went to a screening of Gachiakuta where we watched the first eight episodes. I didn’t really like it; it felt like it was just going to be a series of battles. I don’t like the way powers work in a lot of shonen manga, including this one. Basically, everyone has a unique power, which diminishes the plausibility for me. It makes it hard to take the setting seriously. I feel like if people had superpowers, it would make more sense if everyone had the same kind. Having different powers only makes sense because it’s more interesting for a story, not for a plausible world. It undermines it for me, though I get that it’s hard to have everyone with the same power in a story.
I also didn’t like how transparent they were about the protagonist being special. It’s not that it makes it harder to self-insert, but if the protagonist is going to be overpowered, just start the story with them being overpowered. Don’t pretend they’re weak—it feels like a waste of time. I’ve seen so many stories where the protagonist suddenly finds out they’re strong; I just want them to get on with it. So, I ended up complaining about that anime anyway.
Maybe I like the other anime because it’s unashamedly trying to appeal to otaku. The characters all seem like good people. We haven’t seen any antagonists yet, but I feel like some might change sides later. I generally prefer when everyone has a good motivation, even if they’re not doing good things. I know that’s not how real life works, but I watch anime for how things ought to be, not how they are.
There’s also a lack of things included just for shock value—not just edginess, but moral shock. At the start of Gachiakuta, the protagonist is betrayed by everyone, including his love interest, and thrown into a pit. I didn’t like that setting change and twist. It reminded me of Battle Angel Alita, except the setting isn’t as dark—people have tinted hair and tattoos instead of robot arms. It’s “crap above and crap below,” so I don’t really see much contrast. But I didn’t like the setting change, even though I did something similar in my own novel, where the protagonist is thrown from one setting to another until the story actually starts. Maybe I should cut that out, but I can’t be bothered—I just want to keep adding to the story.
The setting change reminded me of Attack on Titan, which is partly why I stopped liking it. It changed what the story was about, and I wasn’t as interested in the fake politics or the whole debate about who the Marleyans are supposed to represent. I don’t care about that discussion and don’t want to talk about it anymore.
So, that’s the end.
On Europe.
I’ve lived in Europe for over 20 years now, and I guess I have some thoughts about that. I haven’t lived here continuously—there was a period of about eight years when I lived in another country, Sri Lanka, to be precise.
I faced quite a lot of culture shock when I first landed there, and to a certain extent, I still feel it for a few weeks when I go back from time to time. But this isn’t about my feelings toward Sri Lanka.
I’ve only lived in two European countries, really: Italy and the UK. Well, if you consider Scotland and England different countries, you could say I’ve been in three places. Even in Italy, I lived in Tuscany, which is kind of in the north. So, I would say these are just my thoughts about Northern Europe.
Initially, my feelings toward this continent were that it is a very rational and fair place, where people are not bound by traditional superstitions.
What prompted me to make this post is the current news about Greenland. Whatever you think about it—and not just Greenland, but also Ukraine—it just makes Europe look weak, dependent, and like a bunch of little Italian city-states being bullied by larger powers. The only thing European leaders could do in response was to talk tough in front of the press. I don’t feel things can continue like this. Something will have to give. I’m not sure what should happen, which is why I wanted to reconsider all the feelings I’ve had toward Europe over the years to understand this century of humiliation which the 21st century is turning out to be unless Europe changes its course.
At first, I thought the people of this continent were fundamentally rational. My taste in architecture even leaned toward modern, commercial architecture because I had a hopeful vision of the rest of the world emulating this continent as an example. The United States wasn’t even really in my mind; I thought it was just a cultural extension of Europe and its ideals. Just a backwater, a poor copy of Europe.
I believed in social welfare and its potential to create opportunities for people to get ahead. I didn’t make a hard distinction between the state and the private sector; it seemed normal that people would open businesses and that the state instead would create large infrastructure projects, like motorways. I used to really like the idea of motorways and basically anything that was modern. I associated modernity—both cultural and technological—with Europe, and it seemed obvious that the rest of the world should follow in Europe’s footsteps.
Of course, I used to believe in myths like the “Dark Ages” which have since been debunked. Now I wonder if such myths are necessary, and if my quest for truth has destroyed any hope along with those narratives of progress. At least if not in the dark ages, maybe we should believe in possible Renaissance or Risorgimento. Perhaps those are also an illusion— maybe you can’t achieve progress through the mere illusion of it. One of the most pathetic and annoying things is to listen to is a nationalist boasting about the achievements of his failed society.
I guess I also had an almost colonial mindset. I wouldn’t have been against European states going around the world building large infrastructure projects. But funnily enough, it’s China doing that now, while Europeans can’t even manage to build such large infrastructure projects in their own continent at a reasonable pace—just look at HS2 in the UK. My vision of Europe has moved from one of progress to one of stagnation.
I also used to associate Europe with free speech, freedom of the press, and the free exchange of ideas. But now it seems those things were never really possible. I do not want to suspect that they were the illusion of an ideal foisted on Europe by the Americans for their own benefit and at Europe’s expense but some ideas are always going to be politically unacceptable, namely those ideas which undermine the current ruling class.
I also didn’t really see any potential issues with feminism. It made me uneasy because it looked like a special interest pushing society into factionalism, but it seemed to me that even if there were issues, reasonable discussion and compromise were possible. “Reasonableness” or rationality is another thing I associated with Europe.
I guess another association was equality—social equality and equality of opportunity. I didn’t really see the social issues brewing under the surface, though, when it comes to those issues, it seems the rest of the world is now following Europe’s lead. Basically, during my exile from Europe, I almost believed that Europe had figured out the key. I was not completely ignorant because of the internet of the issues tearing apart Europe, but I thought it was just a temporary crisis of confidence. Where is the future? Will Europeans let others define that for them?
What else did I associate Europe with? Freedom, reason, prosperity, cleanliness, beauty, order. My opinion on all these hasn’t been completely overturned. There is a kind of order in Europe you can’t find elsewhere, but it’s a stultifying order. It feels like Europe has been torn apart by outside powers, yet I don’t think those powers have anything to offer Europe either; only false visions of what Europe used to be. Even those who want to defend Europe not for the sake of some foreign power don’t have any ideas except to turn Europe into a kind of continent-sized open-air museum. Or worse yet, they literally escape into mythology to lick at each other’s wounds by talking about Homer and Arthurian legends.
I also failed to see the class divisions in Europe when looking at it almost from the outside. It seemed like Europeans had sorted out those kinds of issues. I’m talking about certain sections of the population being removed from civilised society, basically stuck in the corners in a kind of sub-human lifestyle with no way forward, with no growth. It wasn’t something I noticed before. Perhaps I was being unreasonable by projecting these expectations onto Europe.
But there are some good things. When people get into positions of power (maybe more true in the UK than in Italy), it doesn’t go to their heads as much. In other places I’ve seen, when people get a little bit of power, they treat others like dirt under their shoes. There’s less of that here. But on the other hand, sometimes when you’re talking to people who work for companies or the government, it doesn’t feel like you’re speaking to a human being because they have to follow a procedure. If you say something outside their script, they don’t know how to answer, because if they did something not part of organisational policy, they would be in trouble. Basically, the rules are absolute, but they are only there to avoid responsibility, to save their own skin, not out of a sense of fairness. Basically, there is no point in patting each other on the back about how great things are in Europe.
The other side of the kind of order in Europe is that, as an individual, you are powerless in the face of procedure. At the same time, you see people in the lower class who don’t live by these procedures at all but somehow survive on handouts and drug abuse, as if to serve as a kind of example to scare you about what will happen to you if you stop working for a visibly stagnant society.
I don’t know what the solution is. You need rules; you can’t have a society where anything goes. But at the same time, it’s the little things that leave you without a choice. Even when it comes to freedom in Europe, it’s a kind of limited freedom in practice. A freedom that exists only for a rhetorical purpose.
I wanted to talk about how my perception of Europe has changed over time. Mind you, this isn’t about what Europe actually is—I have a limited frame of reference, and this is purely based on my subjective experience.
What I initially associated with Europe, having been born here, was freedom, modernity, prosperity, reason (or rationality), and maybe basic equality in rights and duty. I believed this was a mostly reasonable place, a continent of citizens rather than subjects, underpinned by reason, and that the rest of the world needed to follow in Europe’s footsteps. I did not perceive a lot of the issues I see now. Maybe what I thought Europe was never really existed.
But I’m kind of wondering if it would be better if people could believe in those myths, because believing might be the first step to making them real. Of course, it can be obnoxious to listen to nationalists talk unrealistically about their country, and it’s always easy to make fun of that. But I feel Europe is lost without any notion of progress, and it’s just being pushed around by other powers like Russia, China, and the United States. Nothing came of the Greenland thing, but I feel there’s a disconnect between the vision of Europe’s ruling intellectual class and that of its people. The only way to mend those ties would have to be something visible and grand in scale… Something revolutionary. A huge infrastructure megaproject that would rejuvenate this ageing continent.
Even to create the illusion of progress, things need to at least move in that direction. You need some kind of signs of progress—like, I don’t know, large infrastructure projects. It feels a bit idiotic to be making grandiose suggestions like that while walking in a park (well, actually it’s a skateboarding place). Maybe I should take a picture of this for the background.
Just as I used to have faith in Europe, Europeans need to have faith in Europe again. The problem is that too many people have been left behind on too many levels, which is why I don’t think anyone can take the idea of progress seriously. I’m reminded of the anime Eden of the East, but in the end, they didn’t really come up with a good solution either, except for escaping into subculture.
Thinking back about Paradise Lost, I wonder if it was Milton’s way of coping with a failed political project he believed in by escaping into mythology, into the over-analysis of mythology. I’m kind of disappointed. I don’t think the answer to what Europe is or should be can be found in mythology. I find people who analyse mythology for morals and for what a civilisation should be kind of questionable. That’s probably my problem with Nietzsche as well—another European thinker, for all his talk about the ubermensch creating his own values, it’s just a recycling a pagan values
Maybe the reason I’ve become disillusioned with Europe isn’t just the reality of it, but also that I’m disappointed by the ideas I’ve tried to read. It just seems like endless divisions, references to the past, and nostalgia. I don’t think the answer is to be found there. The answer is… I don’t know where it is.
Paradise Lost audibook:
