/ot/ - Off-topic

Sometimes I read old threads and find a post or two where I have to wonder if it was me. Sometimes I can't even tell.
It's uncanny, how fleeting memory is. It's wonderful, how my voice blends among other anons. What a blissful feeling.

>>18200
Oh yeah, I forgot; there was two dead crickets in my room for like four days before the cleaning ladies, who barely spoke a word of English, bothered to remove them. I'm pretty sure that they were stealing soap from the hotel because I hardly got any extra soap like I was supposed to every time they replaced the towels. Every single fucking day they woke we up at like fucking six to ask me if I wanted them to clean right at that moment, which I obviously refused, and most of the time they didn't bother to clean while I was out for the whole day. No shit I wasn't going to want them to clean while I was still sleeping.

>>18217
Also, I bought a netsuke from a pawn shop without really knowing what I was doing. It's only after that I realized the horn was chipped and both the material(supposedly turquoise) and legitimacy of the item as a netsuke was questionable. That I acknowledge as my fault for trusting a pawn shop with no obligation to give me real items. The receipt said as much and to add to that made it clear that refunds were not an option.

I'm happy. I would avoid using Neptunia pics but I'm doing it for consistency now more than anything. I don't wake up all depressed anymore on random days over things I can't change. I've avoided becoming an emotionally driven tradcon who uses his feelings to justify the desire of controlling people (i.e. You can't have babies by yourself because it triggers me) and I'm a bit more optimistic, like actual optimism not the optimism people sometimes force because they feel like trash.

I've gotten bored with imageboards though, it's time to abandon ship. I might visit them from time to time, but I think I would be better off if I quit. I'm tired of /pol/ and /r9k/ bleeding into places like Lain. I was going to make my second New Years resolutions thread this year but that's been cancelled. Anyone else is free to take over.

Also, I stopped having waifus. At first it was just me memeing around but then I had actual waifus. I had like six or seven of them. I still like the characters and consider them to be enjoyable, use them for wallpapers on computers, etc but I don't consider them more than characters I like. The waifu meme for me was just something that was holding me back. I'm slowly losing interest in monster girls too since I no longer have waifus or fap to rule 34 now, and the main board for them (/monster/) is on the shithole 8chan and like most of those boards pretty bad.

If I had to express truly negative feelings, I wish if I was just going to sit on my ass for most of the day, I wish I had just spend it playing video games instead of shitposting or jacking off to waifus.

Another thing that has help, is that under the advice of another anon in a different thread, I've stopped berating myself. I don't call myself "monster girl faggot" anymore or any other variant of that. I also don't mock myself anymore for feeling things that are natural to feel. Like sadness over learning why your father isn't around. I respect myself a lot more now.

This post is to thank anyone who I've talked to or argued with. If you recognize some of the talking points and have talked with me, thanks. If you put up with me ranting or anything like that, thanks. Merry Christmas to everyone of you.

>>18223
>I've gotten bored with imageboards though
That's probably because you've only ever image boards to take out your frustrations, rant about your irrational obsessions and feel better about yourself by filling the emotional void in your heart. Best of luck to you, but please don't think that your usage of ubuu is all it's good for.

>>18224
>That's probably because you've only ever image boards to take out your frustrations, rant about your irrational obsessions and feel better about yourself by filling the emotional void in your heart.

True, while some of my usage of imageboards was for fun, most of the time it was to vent through ranting or even worse, "trolling" to ignore serious issues in my life. And now that I'm a lot happier, I'm going back to how I was before I seriously used imageboards, trolling, and waifus as a coping mechanism.

>Best of luck to you, but please don't think that your usage of ubuu is all it's good for.

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind whenever I come back to visit. Besides, I have newer and better ways to vent that doesn't affect a small community or even a large one for that matter. So maybe next time, I can just funpost without all the baggage I had, and that's for no matter what imageboard, forum or community I might find.

With all the talk of PVs and fan animation I got nostalgic again and decided to watch DAICON IV before going to bed.
Turns out two days ago /a/ uploaded a fan-made version of DAICON. Yume Nikki had its part there too https://youtu.be/G93bj1HARA4?t=142

What a miracle. It's been years since I've left 4chan but somehow I'm really glad that these things still exist. It's warming to see that even though time changes and the levels of faggotry the place has reached is suffocating there's still some of the ol' fun lurking around.

It's frustrating that I am the only guy with japanese knowledge I know of. I can't discuss or even ask about stuff, I just have to suck it up until I either understand something or forget it, because all the places to do so require accounts and I couldn't care less about filling anti bot captchas only to receive hal-assed replies two weeks later.

It feels pretty weird to see tons of people coming back to Yume Nikki related spaces. Hell, even Mt.kiki started posting nonsense on the YN wiki again.

>>18499
その感じ分かるよ

>>18561
はい、これが日本語を習う人によくあるもんだよね。しかも私にとって日本語で書くのはまだ大変だ。
漫画でもゲームでも意味が分からない言葉や難しい行が時々あって、意味の壁を飛び越せずに止まるシチュになるんだ。それは相手まだ見つけなかったからもっと勉強するべきだからまだ分からないけど、頑張るしかないでしょ。
名無しさんも頑張ってくださいね。

でも日本人相手いればいいな～

>>18562
僕が相手を見つけたと言えるけどさ、その人達の英語スキル高くないし日本語のルール説明できない…あと僕と同じ趣味が好きじゃない
まあ頑張ろうなー
>しかも私にとって日本語で書くのはまだ大変だ。
おいそんなこと言うな　名無しさんの日本語ええぞい

>>18564
いや、別に英語で説明してもしなくてもいいんだ。使い方とかどうしてこれがこの意味を持つとか、難しかったら他の言葉で分かりやすいになるように書きかえるし、ただそう言う事さー。もちろん私も英語に手伝うつもりあるけど、まぁ、ただ妄想だけだな。
それに大体日本人は外人ヲタに文法を教える興味ないよね。お互いの趣味が同じ物だったらいいけど、あまり少ないみたいね。

>おいそんなこと言うな　名無しさんの日本語ええぞい
それは本当にありがたいけど、それぞれの返信は長い時間が掛かるからまだ大変だと思うの。

>>18565
…だよな…
多分言語の勉強サイトを使わないならいいんだろうな。そこでヲタが好きじゃないのノーマルな人が多すぎるのさ(苦笑)でも僕が気難しいからこんな話を無視するの方がいい

こちらからの返信いつも遅いから気にしなくていい。名無しさんが返信してくれただけで嬉しいんです

>>18571
>そこでヲタが好きじゃないのノーマルな人が多すぎるのさ(苦笑)でも僕が気難しいからこんな話を無視するの方がいい
いや、私も見たことがあるのさ。幾つもの人がそんな感じだったから、そう言うサイトに参加する気はぢりぢりと消えた。あまり優しいし、楽しい所がないみたいけどもう探すのはやめたから分からないｗｗ。

もう遅いから眠るんだ。お話が楽しかったから、ありがとうなー。
おやすみなさい。

I've been thinking about the role nature plays in influencing humans. Just look at the word territory. A piece of land that you own by virtue of beating the shit out of anybody who goes in it that you don't want there. We can plainly see animals guarding their territory whenever we want. Now, imagine if the only animal on earth was humans and only ever was humans. Everything else, plants, fungi, etc. would still be there, just not other animals. Would we even have the concept of, "territory"? Did that concept, as we think of it, come from human's own behavior, or from human's observation of other animals? Maybe we would still have words like kingdom and country, but territory in the raw animistic sense might not be apparent to us just by seeing those tendencies in ourselves.

>>18583
Well technically, because we are a product of evolution, we wouldn't "exist" if there weren't any animals other than humans, because we wouldn't have been developed. Ignoring this point though, this animal-ish instinct of "territory" we carry is something we've had inside of us since we weren't technically humans but apes. It was born as a a product of necessity to protect resources from rivals. So I think that in the end it'd be the same, because human societies see other societies as rivals and would rather fight than to share the resources.
I do believe nature influences us though. There are cases were tribes in africa (or some other hot shithole like that) mimic animal rituals and those things ended being part of their culture. So yeah, definitely.

>>18584
I was thinking purely in hypotheticals. Basically, if humans were magicked onto the earth and everything was exactly the same, except there was no other animals, would humans develop concepts to describe animistic behavior? People would have no point of reference of what animistic even is. While it's true that humans probably would be able to deduce that they possessed these traits at one point, they might attribute it to simple primitiveness while refusing to degrade their current selves and acknowledging that those traits are inherent in them and remain even as they advance. Besides scientifically and before people get to that point, humans would have nothing scratching at the back of their heads telling them that they are similar in a way to these lesser beings. People would have no reason to consider it. Human's view of animals affect their view of themselves. So without animals, how do you think people would view themselves?

>>18585
Nobody likes strangers. They are unpredictable and have no explicit motivation to do right by you. I think things would be similar, although the lack of recorded precedent in territorial behavior might result in a world economic system with less emphasis on controlling land and more on controlling people, slaver nations like the ancient Suevi and the medieval Kongo, and nomadic pastoralists like the Sarmatians and Lakotah, would be the majority. The birth of civilization would most likely still be in river valleys, though.

god I''m such a fucking faggot.

I like hearing other anon's thoughts on random subjects. Sometimes it feels like I can't think for myself and I have to have someone else write out my own thoughts for me.

>>18603
I just like talking to people and hearing their opinions
>>18602
me too lel

god i wish i lived somewhere where it was cold or snowed.

>>18610
I love it until I have to drive in it/ the city decides to throw salt everywhere and make a permasludge wasteland

I'm really scared about my future and what I will do if I don't get the postgraduate education place I'm trying to get to, also having to move out of my home gives me great anxiety but I do want to succeed in life really badly.

On another note I cannot stand people who try to be "special" aka come up with illnesses for themselves and try to convince people that they really do have them through tumblr or something, it's just absolutely revolting.

If I told you that before filling this square with black, underneath I drew something beautiful and saved the file after hiding it, you wouldn't believe me, but it could be true. You wouldn't be able to say that i'm NOT a great artist

>>18615
Worked it back to the original. It's beautiful, anon.

>>18616
Yeah, well underneath that, there was an even better picture.

I don't want to reach the age of 40.

>>18620
I don't want you to, either.
t. hates you

I hate how selfish, pathetic, and cowardly people are. How they constantly preach about kindness and selflessness and then don't hesitate to turn around and attack people who don't agree with them. How people claim to be your friends and then drop you when you outlive your usefulness to them. How they won't even accept the most basic of criticisms of their behaviors. How they refuse to clearly communicate even simple things and expect others to work through the incomprehensible web of invisible social cues they put up. How they promise to put in effort and then flounce when things become too hard, or do only the minimum and then cop out at the first opportunity.

Sometimes I feel like the only person who ever tries to put in the effort to care about others. And I hate myself for thinking this way, because I know I'm being just as selfish, pathetic, and cowardly as everyone else. And yet whenever I try to be the better person, as kind and forgiving and committing as I want others to be, it seems that something always happens to prove me wrong and that I'm a fool for trying to believe in other people. And as time goes on I just keep seeing more and more evidence that people will never truly change, they'll always just be so selfish and completely wrapped up in themselves despite claiming otherwise.

I can only wish I could cease to care at this point about what others do, that it isn't worth the effort, but I just seem unable to do that. I can't stop hurting no matter what happens. Maybe I should just give in and kill myself already. Why bother trying if this cycle never ends no matter what I do? Why bother when everyone just consistently proves themselves as selfish and uncaring almost without fail?

(Feel free to ignore. I just want to get these thoughts out of my head for once.)

>>18622
Be the change you wish to see in the world sounds good on paper, but in reality it's hard to do it when everyone constantly pushes you to your limit, right?

It's okay. I feel the same way. However, it's best to try and look at things with an open mind and be forgiving. Be smart about it, of course, because some people really are shitty and will never change, but a lot of times people are just dumb because that's human nature. We're inclined to all try to be the one in the group who does the least because we're lazy, and the majority of our thoughts are selfish. (60 to 40 ratio if I recall correctly.) At the same time, though, being kind makes you happy, so I think it's good to be generous and do favors for people. Also, hang out with like-minded people so you don't get frustrated as much. And take breaks from the internet, everyone screams all the time here and your brain needs to rest. That'll help a bit.

I'm not very articulate, but hopefully my point gets across.

>>18622
Learn how to derive enjoyment out of life without other people being directly involved. I feel the exact same about people, but I accept it. I accept that human beings just are a lack-luster source of happiness. Get a hobby. Focus on yourself and enjoy life. Don't try to make other people happy. That's just a waste of your energy.

there's this like, franchise of porn massage videos that I have been watching. The narrator is super fey and into it for the gay videos, and with the straight and lesbian stuff he mumbles a lot and sounds pissed off. It's like he doesn't want to be there, and I enjoy that more than anything. It's like the lamest form of schadenfreude.

>>18622
you sound like someone i know. at least you can admit to yourself that you're probably exactly as awful as the people you're talking about.

the only thing i can really say is to have some respect for yourself and move on.

>>18624
Love does come from within, not without after all.

Happy fourteenth birthday Mado.

>>19070
I'd post some picture but my raid 0 just died and I lost all my YN image collection.
Anyway, Happy Birthday Mado!

I did not know what I did in the past few hours, I am confused.

Can a man pretend to be a fish? Can a man put on skin-tight diving suit and go in a lake and then wait for fisherman to cast their reels? Can that man then grab a hook and trick the fishermen? Then the man could reveal himself.
"I AM the man fish".

Ever since I was cheated on and fell into a depression with my only driving force being an unhealthy obsession with my now ex, I have not been dreaming as much lately and that kills me inside worse than the thought of my ex fucking someone else

>>19759
lol romantic drama

I've been watching Steven Universe since when it first came out. I've lost interest years ago, but I still watch every episode out of some sense of obligation and want of closure. I want it to fucking die already so I can move on with my life. I just watched the 44 minute special. I thought it was only gonna be ten minutes, when I saw the time length, I felt pain. It's hard to keep watching without pausing every twenty seconds and taking a break. I'm also currently watching Jojo and mp100. The contrast is crazy. SU doesn't even have fights. They just roll around and shoot energy beams. It's sooo fucking lame in comparison. I have a whole document full of ideas on how I would improve it. Somewhere down the line, i'd like to make comic based on my ideas and call it space dykes or something…

I've thought about the differences between Japanese and American animation before, specifically 2-d. Japanese animation has far greater overall output, it's average far exceeds the quality of average American animation, and the best Japanese animation is better than the best American animation. Even something like Disney has stylistic choices that don't appeal to me, like making all of the characters move around like they're made of jello. This is both unrealistic and a waste of resources. While Japanese animation makes the best usage of its resources and doesn't compromise on character design for the sake of budget, American animation opts to drag every aspect down rather than be clever about it. From what I could gather, the main root of the issue is the cost of living in America, but i'm not sure how well that explanation actually holds up.

In terms of storytelling, I'd say even something on the shakier side like Chobits is better than Steven Universe. It's knows what it wants to do and executes it like how you would expect from something made by professionals.

>>19776
These are my exact thoughts mostly, even the part about Disney. I didn't think I'd ever be such a weeb but moving on from American animation to see how much better the rest of the world is at it, you really can't come back. You'll never see something like Mob Psycho come out from there. The closest thing I can ever think of that compared to the quality of anime is Avatar: The Last Airbender and it was clearly a fluke that couldn't be replicated ever again.

I never understood the mentality of 'I hate this thing but I have to see it through the end to move on'. If I really can't stand something anymore I'll just drop it. It might be hard at first but it really is worthwhile, you can always find something better to replace it.

>>19776
On the average, most western plots and premises are more unique and creative in comparison to the average anime plot (either moe SoL romcom ecchi light novel/mangoes adaptation with self insert MC and a harem or the shounen boss of the week with power escalation). Western animation is also more trendy while most anime stick to a clear formula. Execution, on the other hand, is another matter. Most Japanese studios (and the people that make them up) have been longstay and have more experience with the medium, while western is as come and go as it can get. Most recent CalArts stuff is rather trash and focuses more on fulfilling social justice quota or appealing to children and viral media. On animation and style, anime still consistently ripoffs Disney while western animation is still dogshit and choppy.

I don't believe both mediums will reach an acceptable consensus (in the eyes of mainstream) due to demographics. Like how almost all anime characters are either lolis, teenagers or young adults because they're pandering to otaku, teenagers and people who can't let high school go. People eat both of these up, so unless the producers and the middle men meddle with something, it's unlikely for both to sell for the better.

>In terms of storytelling, I'd say even something on the shakier side like Chobits is better than Steven Universe.
I didn't like Chobits when it came out, and that was some 17 years ago. It felt like it simply gone nowhere except for the occasional "haha its okay molesting a robot" joke. I don't even know how it got to air on TV in the first place, ratings were much more strict back then. It had a sort of cool concept that could be explored more throughly, but it felt very much wasted by mindless pandering. I'd say the average /co/ shlock would be far more entertaining.

But at least anime with a promising concept have a lesser rate of being Kubo'd and hack written than western animation. Corporate meddling is insane here.
Even when it's written by a hack, at least its more visually stimulating. Inital D turned into DBZ with cars past Project D and it was still dumb, albeit formulaic, fun. JoJo is still retarded, and that's good. If any cartoon gets trolled on the other hand it turns into dogfood because there's nothing there to hold it back up, not even animation. The latest "turn your brain off" seasonal shlock have decent animation, so at least it's visually stimulating and makes time go by fast, depending on how willing one is to eat it up.

It would be great to see a more mellowed out animation with a real backdrop (no sci-fi chuuni shit, although I love it) simply dealing with office drama and what not. With none of the "it's anime, so it has to have this token aspect" bullpoop.

>>19777
It's fun to witness a trainwreck.

>>19777
>Avatar: The Last Airbender
That definitely was lightning in a bottle. Animation wasn't always the best, but the fight scenes were serviceable and the aesthetic worked. Even Korra pales in comparison because two of the creators lost sight of what made the original good and the third didn't even come back. I do have to give credit where credit it due, Gumball has done some impressive things. It's not fully 2-d though and i'm pretty sure it's produced in Canada, or somewhere else outside of the states. The humor doesn't appeal too much to me and I've only seen clips, but it does impress me with its variety.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqFJ5tiIJ94
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-4L_-fdxWs
>If I really can't stand something anymore I'll just drop it.
Normally i'd agree with you, but this has been sevenish years of investment and at one point I really did see potential in it. A tiny bit of the fight scene animation in earlier seasons showed some effort. Beginning of this clip shows what I mean. Different angles, shots, panning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FOUfsELtMk
For the most part, this is shot reverse shot. It's even lamer than these two characters first fight if you've seen that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UkdLY6lgGQ
Mob Psycho 100, beginning of the season, totally insignificant fight for comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZth3IJr8fw
>>19778
>On the average, most western plots and premises are more unique and creative
Nah. I get what you're saying, but when you look at total volume, that's just not true. There's a sea of generic slice or life/harem stuff sure, but the bulk of anime with interesting premises it larger than the total bulk of western animation, especially in the more recent past. Typical anime, especially long running stuff, does tend to stick to formulas, but those formulas are more interesting than western ones like generic, monster of the week action show and every lull zo randumbz + rellatable comedy like pickle and peanut, we we bears or whatever, and diet teen titans lite to me. Shounen, ecchi and slice of life, are the worst offenders of being boring and indistinguishable, but watching them isn't painful like Steven Universe and Uncle Grandpa. Fuckin High School DxD isn't painful to watch. Being bored is better than being in pain to me. Digimon Tamers is better than anything on right now.

>On animation and style, anime still consistently ripoffs Disney
I wouldn't say they rip it off. They initially ripped off a specific type of Disney comic and went off from there to make their own thing that has a lot of variety. The way they actually animate things differs. As another guy has said.
>American animation is characterized by very simple art and the animation itself lacks momentum: objects appear to move as if they lacked any mass and there is not a good distinction between solid and liquid objects as well, to me Disney characters look like they are made of gas when they move.
>What I find impressive in some Japanese animation is the physical realism of movement, specially in films like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. After watching a ton of anime I my eyes now hurt when I watch Western animation. Yes, they have a lot of frames but these frames fail to actually generate believable movement. Anime does not have much movement but when they move they actually look like objects in movement. In western animation they look like liquid flowing from one part of screen to the other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_V38bye0Js
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e05lkiHVaZQ
Gaps only grown when you look at recent stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jEAP3fq2Ew
>it's unlikely for both to sell for the better.
Don't care to be honest.
>It had a sort of cool concept that could be explored more throughly, but it felt very much wasted by mindless pandering.
Maybe give it another chance. It did explore themes about romance and technologies impact on it, for better or worse. It systematically explored sub-topics and developed an overall narrative that left me thinking. The biggest problem to me was the rushed ending. Before I was either annoyed by or indifferent to pandering type stuff, but not only am I now desensitized, but seeing it is cathartic because I know that kind of stuff wouldn't fly over here. Maybe that's juvenile, but that's my mindset.
>simply dealing with office drama and what not
Isn't that just Servant x Service?

There was this one guy who did seem to have decent chops, but he got sacked for trying to unionize nick animators. I don't know how badly that would fuck things up or if it would have improved things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7fR6gLQ2C8
The dialogue sucks though.

I wanna condense my point as much as possible.
1.Quantity
Look at what's airing now. Now look at the seasonal anime chart. Do that for every season, of every year, for 30+ years. There you go.
2.Average
I randomly picked Hanamaru Youchien.
For the American one, hmmmmm, how about…. apple and onion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO49cDOIxxA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsnxNdRFYLk
What about their ops?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnecMaTytT0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A9YzON11nw
I also looked at some truly bottom of the barrel stuff like Acchi Kocchi, that seemed comparable, but it's not average.
3.The Best
How good does it get? What's the highest quality anybody has reached? I don't really know where to start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZz2njtQP2Y
I don't know, this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHlqmwI-Bd0
????
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W19l3rt8HSI
Disney?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU-NDxiWz40

I didn't even look, this is just the first thing that came to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9q8gUA20kg
For movie animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm3Gm6q0qP8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJhpxYc_Uds

Tarzan does look very good though.
As for the star wars clip…
>The character designs are ugly and simplified to the point of being human only by courtesy. The background art is flat and unconvincing. This is supposed to be a serious, dangerous fight. Instead we see a couple of semi human forms flit around like demented moths. The animation may be smooth but since it doesn't tell the intended story it is useless.