Comments on: Chibi no Nothing – Self Referential Explanation #96

By: badger11

badger11 — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 05:53:00 +0000

NHK hit a little too painfully close to home. While, I have no fear of going out and dealing with people, I’m loathe to actually do it. In fact, rather than commute to finish my master’s (granted its a two hour bus ride) I’m finisihing it over the ‘net. How’s that for being a hikikimori ;)? An interesting thing about writing is that people have to rely heavily on words as we lose the body language and inflections of the voice. Your comment about what we can’t say in words is why we created them reminded me of some debates I’ve had with friends in the past. Which is more important? The word or the event?

And I don’t think being a fanboy is odd or inexplable. Just look how people go crazy over some musician or actor. Or in my case, a Kanon fanboy. What’s inexplicable is wearing a cheese hat to a football game. Yes, been there, done that.

By: J.Valdez

J.Valdez — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:58:00 +0000

I would like more comments as well. Usually the remarks of visitors help me understand how they interpret the posts. One of the reasons I feel that I need to write an explanation post after the fact is because of the lack of feedback. I suppose it isn’t too much of an issue since this blog doesn’t have a huge readership.

Maybe I need more pictures?

The shows that I enjoy watching the most are the ones that cause me to really put some thought into the entire experience. NHK while being a little far out there had aspects to it that brought back some forgotten memories and events. The kind of things that make me knock on my head and say, “stupid.”

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 03:32:00 +0000

I wish that more of your regular readers would comment on your posts, especially these more interesting half-personal/half-editorial pieces that you do.

A common theme that resonates in Japanese arts is loneliness, or disconnection from others. The most prominent examples: Evangelion, the literary works of Haruki Murakami, the music of Ryuichi Sakamoto. The status of being a hikikimori, or NEET, is this theme taken to the extreme – at which point the disconnection is no longer simply a matter of metaphor or feeling, but is actual physical fact. It’s something that everyone deals with, although some can connect with the specific instance in NHK to a greater degree than others. The difficulty inherent in understanding other people creates an environment rich for storytelling – on that note, I wish you’d written more of your short story.