#steinsgate

"Barnes won his goal, because he wanted to be a business associate of Mr. Edison, more than he wanted anything else. He created a plan by which to attain that purpose. But he BURNED ALL BRIDGES BEHIND HIM. He stood by his DESIRE until it became the dominating obsession of his life-and-finally, a fact.
When he went to Orange, he did not say to himself, “I will try to induce Edison to give me a job of some soft.” He said, “I will see Edison, and put him on notice that I have come to go into business with him. He did not say, “I will work there for a few months, and if I get no encouragement, I will quit and get a job somewhere else.” He did say, “I will start anywhere. I will do anything Edison tells me to do, but before I am through, I will be his associate.” He did not say, “I will keep my eyes open for another opportunity, in case I fail to get what I want in the Edison organization.” He said, “There is but ONE thing in this world that I am determined to have, and that is a business association with Thomas A. Edison. I will burn all bridges behind me, and stake my ENTIRE FUTURE on my ability to get what I want.”

He left himself no possible way of retreat. He had to win or perish!

A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which
insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against
a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into
boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave
the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the
first battle, he said, “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we
cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice-we win-or
we perish! They won." - Napoleon Hill, Think & Grow Rich

Nostalgia is contagious.

I came across the opening to #Haruhi for the twentieth anniversary of the anime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbDnGNzP5cs.

And even though I didn't watch anime when it aired, I still felt a pang of nostalgia... but how much of that nostalgia is real or simply because of those comments sections on videos like this, talking about how they can't believe it has been 20 years, or how they remember being in middle school when this aired. Or people making the point about how they are high school aged, like the characters, implying that it is unusual for someone so young to be watching Haruhi. I see the same kind of comments on videos related to #SteinsGate. One comment read: "Future generations should make sure this anime is not forgotten!"

For some reason this rubs me the wrong way, like I didn't really learn anything except waste my time reading nostalgic posts by a bunch of people who have decided they are on their way out, so I have in turn decided to block all youtube comments on my laptop for now to contain this contagion of nostalgia everytime I visit somewhere related to an anime I like which was not released in the last few years. When I open a comment section on anime, I want to see thoughts on that anime, not some autobiographical detail about the commenter's life when they watched the anime. Personal blogs like this are a better medium for that, but maybe the death of blogging/personal sites explains why people tell their life stories on topic discussion sites like YouTube.

In any case, as I was rereading TGR today, I came across this passage I have quoted above, about the necessity to burn all bridges behind you in order to have the requisite desire to move forward. Nostalgia is one of those bridges that prevents people from moving forward. I have observed that certain anime appealed to me at certain times in my life. Basically, it is impossible to recapture those feelings because even if the anime has not changed, I have. And yet it is possible to overstate this change, to pretend you have moved so far forward that you are beyond your previous self.

I rewatched the #Akira movie, and finished reading the manga last night (or this morning, depending on what 3-4 am counts as). The manga has its issues, mainly that the last two volumes are kind of drawn out, but out of curiosity I decided to read the reviews for the manga on MAL. It was full of people who originally read it in the 1990s being shocked, that on re-read, the manga wasn't as good as they remembered, praising the artwork, and yet faulting the story with very vague and meaningless criticism like the characters have no depth/don't change except for Tetsuo, the power-scaling makes no sense etc... I will not deign any of these with a response but has it not occurred to them that rather than the manga not being as good as they thought that they are no longer as good, or discerning as they were in their youth? Or perhaps is it that Akira glorifies the youth which they no longer have which ticks them off, leading them to accuse the manga of pandering to youth (i.e. why doesn't this thing not aimed at me anymore, not pander to me anymore?). It is quite sad to see the decline in people's tastes preceding even cognitive decline with age.

If blocking comments doesn't work then I am willing to stop paying attention to old anime altogether, as I refuse to be dragged down, but let's hope it doesn't come to that. Although I don't think I can get onboard with JuJutsu Kaisen and Frieren, there is still much good work that is being done, and where it isn't then that is just an opportunity for us to do it ourselves now rather than being passive observers of a passing timeline.

I started two episodes of #TatamiGalaxy today... I remember almost nothing except the ending and the fast talking. Oh, and the ending song, of course. I believe that I will find this anime a lot more satisfying this time.

I think I didn't really understand this anime the first/last time I watched it because I watched it towards the end of my high school years, and it's set in college. It's the same: I can no longer enjoy ecchi anime like MM! in the same earnest way that I could when I was a middle/high schooler. There are works like that which are aimed at a certain demographic, and to have an emotional effect, I have to watch them at the right time, at the right age. Gender plays into this as well, of course, although I think those ecchi romantic comedies had something in them for girls up to high school age as well, because of the romance. I wonder if I will come to be unable to earnestly enjoy "evergreen" works which I have always thought were good, but it doesn't really matter. I will just keep on finding new works of art that I find relatable and enjoyable.

I have also become a lot more amenable to the idea of time loops thanks to Steins; Gate. I think as a high schooler, I became dogmatically obsessed with the idea of character development, that the whole point of watching a story is to see the characters develop themselves from the beginning to the end to become better, and to be inspired to do the same and emulate what we saw on screen as viewers. Perhaps I was reacting to accusations by persons of low intelligence that implied that art escapism prevents people from living fulfilling lives by by allowing them to live vicariously through fiction. I do not want to waste any time refuting this but I will just say that this is to put the cart before the horse, to blame fiction for reality, is truly a delusional mind's way of escaping from responsibility. Or in other words, they are so bitter about their own lives that seeing happy, uncynical fictional depictions hurts them.

#SteinsGate was also probably the first anime about college aged adults which I enjoyed.

I don't know whether to dread or look forward to it yet, but I guess the next stage would be to get into anime about middle aged "ojisan/obasan" characters. As Japan's demographics get older there will undoubtedly come a time when there is a market for anime like this. While it is sad of course that I and Japan are getting older at about the same rate, I am happy that I will be able to experience new types of works, new experiences.

Of course, there are also stories which start with the protagonist as a child and end with their death... but that feeling of eternity, of endless summer, is unique to youth... Of course, if I were to objectively measure my early youth, it was more boring because I was less free, but would I go back if I were given the opportunity? I know I would, because experiencing so many things for the first time is what made that time special to me, even if my experiences do not exactly fit into the mould of youth set by others, they were undoubtedly precious to me. But rather than to sorrow about what is gone now, I take it as a sign that I can find more precious things to me now, today, and tomorrow.