one thing i really love about humans is that we laugh when we are alone. there is no one to show our delight to, no one who we must perform for, no social cue to politely pick up on, and yet, when reading a book, watching a movie, seeing something funny happen outside the window, we laugh. we laugh not because we have to or because we have learned to, but because it is our natural reaction to joy. we laugh because we want to
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We are just normal people doing ✨(extra)ORDINARY THINGS✨
Wash every bowl, every dish as if you are bathing a baby- breathing in, feeling joy; breathing out, smiling. Every minute can be a holy, sacred minute.
Where do you seek the spiritual? You seek the spiritual in every ORDINARY THING that you do every day. Sweeping the floor, watering the vegetables, and washing the dishes become holy and sacred if mindfulness is there. With mindfulness and concentration, everything becomes spiritual.
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How did the Shibuya Incident and the onset of the Culling Game affect the civilians of Tokyo?
Most of the textual evidence that I've been able to find comes from the first half of chapter 137.
Two pages are spent showing the lights going out over a decent chunk of the Kanto area, which is appropriately creepy but not informative.
Three pages of disembodied speech bubbles over damaged skyscrapers, which is a great way to get across the vibes of distant jujutsu (and possibly mundane) authorities arguing about how to handle a crisis and actually provides some information.
Four pages of a lonely kid scrounging for supplies in an abandoned store, which transitions into a brief action sequence. The latter is useless for me; the former shows us the Culling Game status quo, which is helpful, even if it doesn't explain how we got there.
Also, Chapter 160 shows that residents of Sendai City were moved out of the Culling Game barrier when the game properly started. But that seems incompatible with what we see in Tokyo, and there obviously wasn't a Shibuya Incident in Sendai.
That's not a lot of data. I'm going to focus my analysis on the speech bubbles, because that's where almost all the relevant information is. And where better to start than some of the first speech bubbles on the first page? Those explicitly state:
At least ten million cursed spirits were released into Tokyo during/after the Shibuya Incident
The status of high-ranking government officials, specifically "the acting prime minister's office," is unknown to whoever's talking.
"The 23 wards are almost completely destroyed."
For people who don't watch as much anime as me, I should clarify: Those wards aren't magic barriers or anything. The urban core of Tokyo (corresponding to its 1936 borders) is divided into 23 tokubetsu-ku, usually translated as "city" or "ward". Without getting into the administrative weeds, "the 23 wards" informally refers to Tokyo the city, as opposed to Tokyo the prefecture (which is full of ordinary towns, villages, and cities).
Look, it means Tokyo was almost completely destroyed.
It's not clear what this means. "Destroyed" is a vague adjective! The buildings are mostly intact, as we see in both chapter 137 and the rest of the Culling Game arc. And there are a lot of survivors, as I'm about to discuss. I guess the infrastructure got wrecked?
Anyways, survivors. The speech bubbles discuss evacuation plans for "roughly five million residents at minimum". For comparison, in 2020, Tokyo's 23 wards had a population of 9.73 million; it would have been slightly lower in November 2018, when the Culling Game arc takes place.
So on one hand, they're expecting millions of deaths; on the other hand, they're expecting most people to get out of the city alive.
Despite the 23 wards being "almost completely destroyed."
It's not clear how those evacuation orders would work. But apparently, the speech bubble people just accept that they will get most people out of Tokyo if they try. Despite the normal problems with evacuation orders, how those problems escalate if you try to evacuate over 5 million people at once, and the fact that cursed spirits outnumber humans in Tokyo.
The second and third pages focus more on stuff like the Japan Business Federation getting pissed at them, whether the public should be informed about cursed spirits, the possibility of foreign intervention, and how all of this affects the value of the yen. That does a pretty good job of characterizing the speech bubbles, but it also obfuscates what the civilians are dealing with.
This might be a good time to mention that Gege Akatami seems to have some pretty optimistic assumptions about where these five million refugees will be living. The speech bubbles discuss extreme measures of where they could house the five million refugees—anywhere with basic infrastructure, like campsites, ghost towns, and love hotels. I'm kinda curious how many ghost towns have functional infrastructure, but I'd rather clown a little on Akatami for thinking that recreational campsites and f*king hotels are last-ditch evacuation locations and not the best-case scenario.
(I'm starting to get the sense that Gege Akatami wants us to worry about the consequences of his villain's plots and not their setups. Well, I'm not outlining any fanfics set during the plot's consequences!)
So the sense I'm getting is that a bunch of stuff got busted, and a bunch of people were killed by cursed spirits and curse users, but most of them got out there alive and were housed in love hotels and ghost towns. Which is...not much.
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Into the Timeless Romance Of "Maison Ikkoku"
"Dive into the Timeless Romance of Maison Ikkoku: A Tale of Love, Laughter, and Second Chances 💕✨ Takahashi Rumiko once described Maison Ikkoku as 'a story about ordinary people living in a shared house, filled with laughter and tears.'
She says:"Maison Ikkoku was relatively easy to create. That’s because my own personality is in some ways like you added Kyoko and Godai together and divided by two. Sometimes I’m indecisive and sometimes I’m selfish (laughs)." And indeed, this beloved manga transcends the bounds of time with its heartwarming narrative and relatable characters.
In Maison Ikkoku, we follow the journey of Yusaku Godai, a young student residing in the chaotic boarding house Maison Ikkoku, and Kyoko Otonashi, the beautiful and enigmatic manager of the establishment. As their paths intertwine amidst the backdrop of daily life, misunderstandings, and comedic mishaps, a tender romance blossoms, fraught with obstacles and second chances.
Takahashi's masterful storytelling brings to life a cast of characters so vivid and endearing that they feel like old friends."
Below:Not only Yusaku and Kyoko,there are the other two tenants of Ikkoku:Akemi and Mr Yotsuya.
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Nancy B.
Today, Nancy speaks to us about how God called her into her ministry, her podcast Ordinary People Extraordinary Things, and why you need to tell your story.
Tell us a bit about how you grew up and your childhood: I grew up on an acreage in rural Iowa with my mom, dad, sister, and brother. My dad owned his own business (and still does) doing carpentry work. By watching him build spec houses and…
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