Next - Archive - Icons - Previous 5/31/26 End of the month. This was the first month in some years that actually felt like it moved at a normal pace. A whole lot of stuff happened. Maybe that's part of it. Still sick. I think I might have bruised a rib again, from all the coughing. Not too badly though. It only hurts when I raise my right arm up or cough a lot. It's not like that one time when I broke one of them and it was so painful I actually though I might be dying. Might be the worst pain I've ever experience. I've actually broken and bruised my ribs a bunch of times over my life. The times when I've broken one, it's usually the SAME rib. If you were to feel across my ribcage, you can actually tell which rib it is because it didn't heal exactly even. That time it was excruciatingly bad, once it was almost entirely healed, I then rebroke it at work by getting slammed against some heavy machinery due to something jamming elsewhere, but despite being a much more dramatic event, that didn't even hurt that much and I continued working through that shift. Looking back at when I worked at a warehouse and some of the injuries I got and near missing I got into, I'm amazed I didn't do. There were definitely a few "oh shit is this it" moments. Like the one where I ended up with a concussion shortly before I finally quit (for reasons not even related to the injuries). Haha, I still have bruises on my face from all the blood that spilled everywhere but didn't actually break the skin when I was going in for interviews. The blood just stayed behind the skin, swelling up and kind of spilling downward the right side of my face past my eye into my cheek. I thought blood was going to be everywhere, but I just got a big old egg instead. The opposite of a time when I was a teenager and the spot right above my eyebrow got nicked by someone else's shoe while jumping on a trampoline and blood just gushed out all over my face to the point I couldn't open my eye from all the blood. When I went to the bathroom to clean up and check it out, it was all from like the tiniest cut ever and I didn't even feel any pain from it. Bodies are weird. Some interesting things. DFOS opened up for people to use. I've been monitoring this project mostly to see what the hell it was actually going to be. The people behind it have written a lot of interesting articles about the state of the internet and what's gone wrong and how it could get better. I do not agree at all with their ideas about what "cozy" internet is (shit like Discord? LMAO) or how it should be "fixed" with walled gardens. But I wanted to see what they would end up making. And I'm honestly not sure what I'd describe it as beyond an unfinished private chat where you can upload files. (I guess a mildly more organized and aesthetic Discord?). And they already have stuff in place for charging people to chat without having much of anything else going on yet. For some reason, they also went with an OS theme. I have no idea why. I suspected this entire "movement" was people taking advantage of current, real discontent with the internet to sell themselves as the (PAID) solution to these problems. Sure, you can use this service without paying, but damn did they get that pay option up fast. I personally prefer the old style of LJ/forums where you had both public facing parts and more private areas to address different needs of a community/person. For some reason, all modern stuff usually focuses on JUST one or the other (fully walled off, or must be ENTIRELY public no matter what). It's like even solutions have to be in these extreme binaries that didn't used to be exist like that. Overall, I don't expect this project to go anywhere and while they may be pretty good writers, I don't think their ideas for the future of the internet are all that sound (nor as universally wanted, as they seem to be falling into the "this is what makes me comfortable, so this must be what everyone else wants" thought process). Others I've looked at recently were Cozy Talk, which feels very Twitter-y/Tumblr-y in terms of crowd and function. The rooms remind me of the communities on Tumblr that seemed to be attempting to mimic a mix of Reddit/LJ communities, but like on Tumblr, just get used like a chat/blogging space with a theme rather than an actual community. There's a "radio", but it just linked to a couple of specific YouTube videos that are all bland rather than feeling like a real internet radio experience. I've definitely seen this done better elsewhere. Aesthetically, it's nice and faux-retro (retro as in not quite right, but looks right to people who weren't actually there kind of way). I do think it's nice to look at and it's great that there's a least several color themes that aren't white on black, black on white, and black on blue/white. The creator of the site was talking about possibly making a software version, and I am curious what that could turn into (esp. for potential private use). I may keep an eye on this one, but presently it's basically just a shouting to the void kind of place. The last place I checked out was Rhyme, which is supposed to be a Reddit alternative, but "less toxic" by removing some of the things that make Reddit very toxic. Their approach to themed spaced compared to Reddit is interesting, and it's a no porn allowed kind of place, which I think most places should be by default. (Don't know how the hell we got to the point that wasn't. Porn should stay on porn sites, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not going to sit here and let porn addictions intentionally conflate porn with general adult/mature content either.) As soon as images were allowed, there was some dude immediately posting pics from OnlyFans and putting slurs in post titles. I flagged them and their account was removed relatively quickly for it being a new site. (Don't know if it was because I flagged it or they were already going to take that down.) But yeah, I saw on Reddit when there was a post up advertising for it that someone was immediately bitching about it not being a "free speech" place and "censoring" people's thoughts. And yeah, that's what you get when you don't moderate places, slurs, porn, and prostitution. It's always been wild to me people expect they should get to do whatever they hell they want in ANY space they enter. Like you, the owner, should have no say in what someone coming into your metaphorical house does. I wonder if these kind of people act like this in public. Imagine going to someone's house and being like "you can't tell me what to do this is 'merica!" They'd just throw you out. Because it's a private space. Go build your own place. There's honestly plenty of places for that already, actually. As far as Im concerned, a community can't form and build a culture unless there are some rules, customs, and guidelines in place. Others were mad about it not being part of the Fediverse, which is largely just replicated all of the worst parts of Reddit and Twitter, from toxic behavior to being filled up with bots everywhere. I see the Fediverse much like Linux. I would love to love it. It's never once impressed me though. It just continued to disappoint no matter how many chances I give it. Personally, I don't think Rhyme will get big though. It's only in beta, but it's lack of trying to be toxic and not having big dopamine hits and trying to focus on more quality content means the average person will not use it. Because they don't want that. They want to shout into a void and get attention and get their dopamine fixes. It's why I don't think the current analog/going offline more movement will ever get big either. You have to want to leave these bad spaces and bad behaviors, because you can't really force someone out of an addiction. And that's what it is, an addiction. But I do think it's good some people are trying to make spaces not replicating that to make a better community. I hope, though I doubt they will take off, they can at least grow a consistent cluster of people coming back. Tildes never got the kind of growth Lemmy did, but whenever I look at stuff over there, it's so much more positive than Lemmy. Old school internet communities never were big. Part of what made them cozy is there was just enough people for it to be engaging, but not too many people that you felt like you couldn't get to know most of the regulars either. In places where there's too many people, it's like it just turns into a popularity contest. When Reddit had that one big Reddit exodus happened, I remember Tildes got overwhelmed with sign-ups for a while, but now that that's all calmed down, it's pretty much back to how it was before that. Because the people fleeing Reddit weren't fleeing Reddit, just a current (minor, LOL) issue and still wanted every bit of the worst part of Reddit. Out of all the fedi shit, I remember kbin had the calmest vibe to it out of the ones and the nicest aesthetics, but that still got toxic pretty fast and then that went down. Mbin, it's replacement, is really no different than any other shitty Lemmy place, aside from looking better. Blue Sky turned to shit the very SECOND it became public. This addiction to these toxic spaces and behaviors is why big rushes of new Neocities users always brings in loads of drama (because they're used to drama being the only way you really interact with people to form connections) and why most of those people end up back on the shitty social media spaces they were "leaving". Because they need their fix, and they're not really ready yet to actually change anything meaningful about themselves. They bring the bad wherever they go, and if the space will not tolerate the bullshit, they don't change. They go back to where they can do the toxic behaviors. There was always drama on the old internet, but you really could just avoid most of it. You knew who was a wanky dipshit. But there was definitely better, genuine interactions. I remember on Aeclectic's old boards, there was a thread for getting replacement cards if you lost a card in your tarot deck. People would tell you what companies would send replacements, if they charged a fee, etc, or would send you one themselves from a deck they didn't really use anymore. I don't know if US Games still does this, but I do remember they once sent me a deck missing a queen and from advice on the thread, I knew who and what to send in an email about it. They shipped me another card within the week. There was a traveling deck that was getting passed around by users too. Feedback threads on deck creation with art critique. Study groups. History research groups. Enabling and de-enabling (argueably the more important of the two) threads. The threads about customizing deck, from painting to trimming to artificially aging. All kind of stuff. I learned how to artificially age a lot of different materials because of that thread, and different techniques to use. No bullshit fake stuff that looks pretty on Tiktok but doesn't work. Just actually good advice. I've notice though young tarot collectors don't seem to customize stuff anymore? Whenever I get a new deck (rare these days, but still), my first thought is "to trim or not to trim?". I mean, it's mine. There's no reason to keep it exactly as it was. Back in the day, I used to sell trimmed and modified decks on Ebay if I got bored of them and the modified ones usually sold faster than the non-altered decks. Now Ebay's mostly filled with Temu knockoffs of the real thing but with thinner cardstock. IDK, in a way, it feels like the actual culture part, the part that matters, has been withdrawn. People are replacing connections and culture with standing back and watching others make "perfect" stuff to feel like they created and then arguing with each other to feel like they had a conversation. Fashion and music are divorced from sub-culture, and old sub-cultures are fully commodified and and turned into costumes. It's like everyone is attempting to live while not living at all. I know there are people out there who aren't caught up in this, of course. But with the internet, you would think it would have become easier to make these connections. Somehow, it did the opposite. It's like the Tumblr community thing. They tried replicating something that worked on LJ--personal blogs and community spaces, yet the users were so used to treating the site like a place to vomit up their shower thoughts, the community spaces looked the same as the blog spaces. Largely useless, mostly chat-like. Tumblr blogs don't even really feel like old school blogs, most of them don't anyway. It's twitter but with most pictures. Occasionally, one user might put in a lot of work for a specific thing, but will eventually get burnt out from being the only person around doing anything meaningful while everyone else just reblogs their stuff. Reddit is the same way. Eventually, people putting in effort get bored/burnt out by their own communities when only a few people are doing anything and everyone else is either contributing bad jokes/quips or bad faith arguments. I hate Reddit and Tumblr both. I usually keep tabs on their "alternatives" not looking for an actual alternative to them, but to see what could be growing somewhere. Every now and then, the "alternative" suggestions are actually very different from the main thing and the person is clearly just looking for any eyes to come see their project. So far, I've stayed disappointed for the most part. But I keep looking anyway. 5/25/26 The Kemp money came in recently. I was surprised I got the full amount. I know a few of the times I didn't and I know one year my parents just never got it when they were supposed to. Spent a lot of it on stocking up on food, human and animal stuff. I still have a good bit of dry food for emergencies, but I've been slacking for a bit on adding back into my pantry supply. With the shortages coming, it's time to get back on that. I've bought 32lbs of our favorite rice this week. I'm going to keep stocking on essentials like that for as long as I can. Our dryer is also finally fixed. So no more laundromat trips or having to hang dry everything. We switched entirely to hang drying after a couple weeks. Laundromats are really expensive. On the brother stuff, my brother is back to pretending he's super disabled again. He literally has no diagnosed issues and he's been to a lot of doctors. Any doctor he visits longterm eventually tells him to get lost because he's obvious malingering, just like my mom. That's a whole story, but he's absolutely NOT any of the things he tells people he is. He's literally been banned from a hospital before for this kind of stuff and taking up doctors time and resources for no reason. There was a time he faked a suicide attempt. How do I know he faked it? Well, after he was checked in when claiming he swallowed a bunch of pills, I was left to go through his stuff to see if there was anything useful to tell the doctors and to collect up any dangerous items like knives, belts, etc. So, my brother never deletes his history on any device. Straight up was googling shit like "how to get disability money", "how to quickly get diagnosed with a disability", "how to fake (specific) disability to get money" and a bunch of reddit NEET threads about people who successfully pretended to have things like autism, ADHD, etc to get disability payments so they didn't have to work. Like step-by-step actions with lists of symptoms to pretend to have and how to act in front of medical professionals. Straight up scamming resources from actual people with disabilities who need that money. There was so much of it. There were threads on how to fake being suicidal and fake having attempted suicide to start a "profile" on yourself of needing resources to avoid working. And he didn't delete any of this stuff. He quickly realized while he was there though that he already fucked up by pretending he swallowed pills and claiming specific drugs were what he swallowed. As you might have guessed, the doctors quickly sorted out he did not in fact do that because his stomach was empty of anything but spaghetti. They transferred him to an in patient place for a few weeks, and he kept extending it thinking they would eventually give him some diagnosis and he legit thought he'd get disability money a month after leaving without even filing one piece of paperwork and just saying he had a whole host of disorders. When he was discharged, they made a point to put in his files that he had not been diagnosed with anything and they didn't recommend he needed any further care. The only suggest was he could keep going to group therapy if he wanted, but he needed no meds and did not have any severe symptoms. I'll never forget the one psych he went to when he was about 20 who kicked him out of his office and told him, "There is nothing wrong with you. You are just a lazy, entitled asshole!" when my brother got upset the guy wouldn't give him a diagnosis for anything and label him too ill to work. I'm not even joking when I say he has a long pattern of doctors straight up telling him he is full of shit, about mental and physical illnesses and telling him to get lost. My brother rotates through illnesses and disorders he pretends he has to feign to my parents he shouldn't be made to work or go to college or even get a GED and he should be left a ton of money or whatever, or that the state and feds should pay for him to sit around playing video games and watching loli vtubers all day. Currently, he claims he has autism, ADHD, and dyslexia and that it's to such a degree he will never be hired anywhere and he won't even be capable of trying to study, much less pass the GED test. If you're wondering, yes, my brother has actually been through the process of being tested for autism. Twice. Both times the professionals were like "nah, not autistic, not even close". My brother prepped for one of those trying to memorize symptoms. Still failed. He's really bad at acting. As for why he won't work or go to school, it's not anxiety. For the times he saw professionals regularly for various anxiety-related issues, any who saw him for more than six months would eventually become disgusted with him and call him out that he clearly had no anxiety issues at all. He was faking, and not very good at it either. He faked having an ED once too in hopes of getting disability payments. When they were going to actually force him to do some treatment, he was "cured" of all symptoms overnight and never acted like that again. He was just hoping they would give him some slip of paper saying he couldn't be made to do anything and then give him money for it. This has been his life since turning eighteen, TBH. Just rotating through things he fakes having in hopes one of them will finally lead to him getting NEETbux. There was a time he tried to convince some doctors he had a severe, mysterious stomach ailment that was so terrible he couldn't work from the pain. Test after test, the only thing they could find was mild acid reflux issues and told him to just change his diet. Then this problem went away because doctors refused to test further. For those thinking he might legit think he has all these illnesses, no, he doesn't. I mean, obviously from the search history incident, he clearly doesn't. He's trying to scam a way into disability money. It's so disgusting because it's already really hard for people to get those payments and they're not very much. And here he is trying to suck up what little resources there are because he thinks he's "too good" to be made to work. One time, he told my dad that my dad was a failure because he should have made more money in life because my brother deserves more than what my father is able to afford. Straight up told my dad he was entitled to having a richer father. He told him this past the age of twenty-five still fully living 100% off of my dad while demanding my parents buy him more things. I asked him, "Do you think you're a prince?" and he said "I should be". You can imagine my reaction to that. This is why I used to have the Koenma page making fun of the absolute wild, dumbass shit my brother would say. Sometimes, I consider bringing it back. He's also upset he didn't get any Kemp money. But the money's only for people who paid state taxes for the last two years in this state. You had to have made money to get it. One time, he told me it was too late for him to get married. He wasn't quite thirty yet and the too late reason was because he was starting to go bald, which he blamed on my father. I was like um plenty of women don't care that much about that. I would think your personality would be a bigger issue. He told me no, the only reasons he wouldn't be able to get married were his hairline and his bank account. I told him there were career women out there looking for a househusband and he said normal women wouldn't want one and also he would never help care for a child. And career women are only career women because they sleep their way to the top, so he wouldn't be a cuck and marry someone who's cheating on him. And it's like, you know, you've brought up an additional reason you will stay single, but you don't seem to grasp what it is. But I guess he'll always have his anime loli waifus. I swear he says cuck more every year. My parents aren't leaving either of us any money. Like I've said before, they're leaving this manchild for me to deal with when they're dead. And he views that anything they leave behind should be his, because he "needs" it more. (He doesn't even know how to pay bills and actively refuses to learn.) This is, of course, their fault. They've created this mess. But he is such a loathsome person it's really hard to want to help him. He's very similar to one of my greatuncles who was an asshole his whole life and lived at home and got gifted the house over his sister (my grandmother) because he "needed it more". He didn't want to learn to pay property taxes though and quit working part-time once both his parents were gone. He paid no bills and sat in the dark until he owed a ton of money in taxes, then sold the house for $1 to a stranger. He refused to give it to anyone in the family. He gave away most of my great-grandparents things to strangers too and abandoned my great-grandmother's dog on the streets instead of giving the dog to my grandmother, who offered to take him in as soon as she had passed away. After he made himself homeless, she took him in for a while and he just sat around eating up all their food, making the house dirty, refusing to work because "you can't tell me what to do', and drinking all day off of money my grandmother gave him (he blew all his inheritance already). Eventually, my grandfather put his foot down and said either you get a job, or we're dropping you off at a homeless shelter. My great-uncle said he would rather be homeless than work and my grandfather is an evil husband to put his wife in a position to make her own brother homeless. My grandfather was like, okay, so you made your decision. You're gonna be homeless. He dropped him off at the biggest shelter in the state with the most funding. My great-uncle got kicked out of there for not following the rules and kicked out of several other places, then bummed off of kind women who felt sorry for him that he abused until they kicked him out. Eventually we lost track of him. Since no state people have ever come to any of us about him, we've all assumed given the amount of time, he's dead and buried in an unmarked grave in a paupers grave somewhere. There was another male relative like this futher down my dad's line where this was basically his story too and the parents enabled it until their death, then the remaining siblings were left with the choice of putting up with him or letting him fend for himself. That guy also ended up homeless in the end for being such an asshole to his siblings. Why is this recurring?! But this seems to be my fate, and I'm like well, he'll either need to get his shit together or damn, I guess I gotta be the bad guy. Supposedly, one of my male cousins and one of my female cousins is also like this, one from my uncle and one from my aunt. Shit, I hope I won't have to be dealing with my cousins too. Sorry, other cousins, you'll have to deal with your own siblings. I'm not taking up that shit for sure! I'm gonna be honest. I legit think my dad has NPD too, but he's just really functional. I wonder if there's been several of these in the family and these lazy siblings are the non-functional ones. IDK how well you could get disability payments for being too narcissistic to function though. Can't imagine that would go well with a judge. 5/18/26 Looks like it's going to be a light month for entries. I've been occupied with a lot of stuff. Did another interview today. Yeah, I don't think I'll be following up on that one. Some places, you just get the vibe and you're like, oh hell no. The LB/YT experiment has been coming along. It managed to help me refind something I saw on XHS once that I couldn't find again, haha. Still tweaking it to be better. I'm getting some junk in waves, but I'm being very aggressive with not interested and straight up blocking according to the rules I set for the experiment. Dropped some books off at the library we initially signed up as our main and it's so empty of actual books in there. What is there is like most used brick & mortal bookstores, full of the bottom of the barrel junk absolutely no one ever wanted to read kind of crap. We went to another library that turned out to be even closer to the house (I don't know how I missed it before) and they had a lot more books and much better ones too. I checked out five books to read: three short story collections, a poetry/prose collection, and a novel. I think I'll just keep going to that one. The biggest library in the county is mostly the biggest because it holds most of the counties records and they count that in its "book" number. A lot of the space of the library has been converted into "makerspace" junk of empty counters with no books. You can tell that was some gimmicky corporate bullshit. So many books thrown out so libraries could add 3D printers patrons weren't even allowed to operate and had to pay for to use or pay for supplies. Money, money, money. They really thought 3D printers were going to be hot shit, but all they're mostly used for is novelty trash gifts no one wants. At one of my previous jobs (ed related), they had us buy these stupid expensive robots for STEM shit that no one knew how to use and ZERO kids had any interest in and this really expensive 3D printer NO ONE EVER USED. No one even knew how to use it and no one was ever trained on it. No supplies were bought for it. Meanwhile, they were penny-pinching us on hours and all kinds of bullshit. Such a waste. I love how the push for STEM stuff has always been done by people without STEM degrees just throwing bullshit at the wall to blow through a tight budget instead of...IDK, doing any research on anything. So much of the education field is corporate/business snake oil, terrible textbooks, and garden variety woo (learning styles, personality types, magic songs for education, all BULLSHIT, gifted kids are PSYCHIC lol remember that shit...it was still in teaching textbooks the late 00s and beyond, I could go on honestly...) Libraries often have the same problems of falling for obvious bullshit anyone familiar with whatever is being sold would see a mile away, but our current world revolves around pingeonholing everyone so we're easier to make suckers out of. Don't want any polymaths! They might smell the bullshit! It's my opinion every human on earth should strive towards being a polymath, for their own protection. Made some good progress on a story I was stuck on for months because I hated where it was going. I think I'll be able to get through that part pretty soon so I can move on to much more interesting chapters in the story. I kept wanting it to go a different way, but that's just not how the characters are leading it. It's gotta be how it's gotta be. I'm still sick. Still coughing from time to time. That's about the only real symptom left, beyond general tiredness. Mao is taking forever to get to the other characters. I forgot how long that took. Finally, next week we get Hyakka, Kamon, and Sana! 5/8/26 Finally got around to archiving last month. I've been...busy. I'll get into that in another entry at some point when things are more settled. It's been quite a week. The other day, I finally sat down and read Maison Ikkoku. I don't care much for Rumiko's early stuff. The characters and plots drive me up the wall. It's like LOUD NOISES ~titties~ ACTION. But a lot of people have said this one was a really mature work with lots of adult themes and good het romance, possibly the best het romance in manga. So, I figured okay, maybe this one's different like a lot of her shorter works. Hahaha, no. LOUD NOISES ~titties~ ACTION. That sums it up. Lots of sexual harassment too, even from the main character and so much creepy leering from so many male characters toward the romantic interest. There's just something so specifically slimey about this manga. And that's not getting into all the times the regular ass dog is used for sexual comedy and I don't mean in the haha dog humping someone's leg kind of way. I'm sure it was mostly for shock value more than anything, which feels like a lot of her early work can be summed up as loud, sexually charged, violent shock comedy. (Haha, I'm not even trying to make a Lum reference there.) There were some bits underneath it all that were interesting, but there's just so much ick in the whole thing that it's hard for me to enjoy. For all the fanservice on women, you can definitely tell a Japanese woman wrote it though. The adult women feel very much like they could be at home in a nihilistic josei. Reminds me of the dynamic you'd see in CLAMP stuff. Girls are wild and strong and powerful, adult women are subdued and submissive or evil, unless they're kinda skanky maybe then they might have a little bite but it's because they're not "proper" women. A lot of women in CLAMP don't feel very powerful in their own right, and I feel like a lot of josei hits that same thing too. I'm sure it's something to do with Japanese women feeling the pressure of society, and that not fully hitting during the teen years or the teen years being nostalgicly seen as a freer time and all, but it makes for a depressing read how many women in a lot of Japanese media seem to be moved more by the men around them and the plot than being active forces. I don't remember what josei this was, but it sticks out in my mind. This dude was basically badgering this woman, and is the ultimate endgame romance, and there's a point where after he pushes for a lot of interaction between them where she's mentally thinking "I guess I'll have to have sex with him eventually" and it's like...you...you know you can just...not do that, right? So creepy. And yes, of course she does. I find a lot of josei works I've read struggle to come up with happy endings even with an obvious way to do so, and even when they do, oh here's a special extra chapter that undoes the happy ending. Because a lot of these women really, really need to go to therapy. A lot of other female characters are just "mom" types. There's a baby, so out goes the whole personality. Not josei related, but damn poor Videl in Super. One of the many reasons GT was better. Videl still had a personality despite having a kid! Back to Maison Ikkoku, I was told the ending was really good, amazing, blah blah blah. The ending is just and everyone lived heterosexually ever after, babies babies. That's it. It literally goes sitcom ending style, "and here's the random character this character is paired off with, and here's how many babies these two had, and here's the babies for these two", etc. I mean, yeah, it's at least a happy ending. But it's the most bland, predictable one possible. But hey, it's a lot happier than whatever the fuck most josei shits out. I'd give it a 4/10 in terms of ending. It feels so sitcom-y. Actually, the skeevy stuff aside, this whole manga feels like a sitcom that would air in that 7PM time slot. I tried watching the anime because some people said they toned down the fanservice stuff, but it was actually more obnoxious to watch than to read. And there was still loads of skeevy fanservice. I don't necessarily mind some fanservice, but goddamn the amount of time in just the first episode dedicated to the "camera" view staying focused on women's asses. Not even impressive asses either though, which was kind of funny. Damn, Miss fanservice for the series got a pancake ass going on. Like you made me stare at this ass for that long and there ain't even anything going on back there either? Why? Speaking of her, I did think it was hilarious that this woman is just perpetually nipples out at home. This part didn't skeeve me out because it's not really done in a weird, leering way. She just don't give a fuck. And I mean, dudes get to be shirtless. If a woman wants to walk around topless, I don't see why not. She's technically wearing a nightie, but it's see through and the manga and anime's like yep, everyone can see this lady's nipples all the time. Building mananager shows up, tits out. Guests over, tits out. Actual landlord, tits out. At some point, it's not shocking because it's so constant you just forget about it. I didn't dislike all of the characters. They feel mostly really dated at this point (and one dude is just disgusting with his sexual harassment and creepy behavior) and the skeevy parts of the fanservice is gross. It's not sexy, it's just weird most of the time. I didn't find the romance itself all that mature or interesting. It never goes anywhere too deep, because it focuses more on comedy. Overall, it reminded me most of Ranma, but was definitely more tolerable to read through. God, Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura are some of the most obnoxious pieces of manga/anime I have ever attempted to read or watch. I was pretty sad when Rinne ended up leaning more into being a comedy series. I just don't think Rumiko is good at comedy, and what good is in her comedy works is strangled by her really terrible comedy. I love that Mao barely has any at all. In the early part of the series, where you can tell she hadn't sorted out the vibe yet, there's some attempts at comedy and they land poorly. Since the series has gone in a completely serious, dark mystery direction, it's been so much better. The Inuyasha manga was always better than the anime also in part because there is less comedy and a lot darker elements in it. Post season two, the anime just tones things down more and more and adds in lots of "comedy" that's not really there. (A lot of people's complaints about Inuyasha are primarily anime-only, or were significantly less common in the manga.) Of course, there's the elephant in the room with Yashahime. God, creepy shit aside (I don't even need to say what), you can tell that plot was made up by the anime staff. It has all the problems of the shitty IY movies and the shittiest filler episodes. Just pure trash. And clearly a few people on staff are pedos. Been thinking about how Rumiko specifically required there was no upskirts with Kagome, and then the mangaka they got for Yashahime changed Moroha's outfit specifically so he could do upskirt shots of her. Disgusting. I do wonder how much of the ick fanservice Rumiko really wanted in her works. She was a woman working in a male dominated field writing mostly for boys where she wouldn't have had to much power yet. Kagome herself has some nudity in IYs manga, but I've noticed since at least Rinne, a lot of the fanservice and nudity with girls has been heavily pushed out of her works. Given the thing with Kagome in the anime, I wonder if she ever really wanted any of that stuff in there and that was just part of the how you survived that industry. Who knows. Mao cerrtainly didn't have gore toned down in it, so it's not like her works overall just became more kid-friendly. Recently rewatched Excel Saga too, and wow, that really did not age well. The last episode especially just kind of made me sick. Looking back at some other popular works in that time period, there's a whole lot of "comedy" from that era that's really not aged well. Didn't think I'd sour on Excel Saga, but I've kind of avoided a rewatch for a while out of nostalgic reasons. Also, another LOUD NOISES kind of show right there. So much anime comedy from the past is BEING REALLY LOUD and then EXTREME SLAPSTICK VIOLENCE with some boobies thrown in. That really was just THE formula for a long time. Alongside weird pedo shit being everywhere. I remember when I was in my twenties doing a rewatch of GTO and I just stopped right at the start. Holy shit. Adult man becomes teacher because he wants to see underage girl panties. Gokusen was another tossed in the garbage one. There's so much you don't think is weird when you're sixteen because you aren't old enough yet to understand why it's messed up yet. Feel like my pool of watchable anime will continue to dwindle as I get older. Haha, I say with my K Project section of my site. Sigh. I don't remember where I heard this or if I saw it as a commment when someone was describing anime they liked but having to make caveats about the occasional weird shit in it and it was something like "why do you sound like you're in an abusive relationship with your anime". And that's over the top, but damn. So much stuff is like "hey this is a fun show with great animation and interesting characters you just have to ignore the UNDERAGE PANTYSHOTS and PEDO relationships and RANDOM INCEST but other than that it's really good". Sigh. Of course, even the "wholesome" stuff isn't safe, when you dig into the history of a lot of those directors. Surprise, more pedos! I've gone way off topic. Anyway, Maison Ikkoku sucks ass. Next - Archive - Icons - Previous