Today’s deck is the Tarot of the Little Prince.
I have a very specific grudge against The Little Prince. In sixth grade our teacher wanted us to read it, but for some reason the reading was always stalled, I feel like we went through the stuff about the hat that’s actually a snake that ate an elephant for forever.
The deck itself is nice enough despite the asymettrycal backs.
Today’s reading is very hopeful for the new year. It feels like it’s asking me to celebrate how I managed to keep my boundaries and independence, not to mention my goal to go to bat for that.
So I woke up utterly Destroyed.
Not just because I spent way too long dressed up in a million layers of clothing while I waited in the lobby, but also because Nagano is still a mountain, I was basically taking a hike all the while exploring the area.
Some friends were in Nagano but I was taking it easy so I had to decline. I found a small burger joint close by and the girl manning the counter was striking conversation.
She asked me how long I’ve been in Japan and it dawned on me that this year is my SEVENTH year here…
Funnily enough, because the new Japanese calendar started on Year one, I can say I’ve been here for as long as the Reiwa period has been around.
Having fueled myself with the fittingly called “Refuel Burger”, I headed out in hunt for a temple. According to Google maps there was one relatively close… and it didn’t lie to be fair, but it’s less of the festival sort of temple and more of the “break it and get cursed” sort of temple.
I kept walking to a different supposed temple only to find a parking lot with no temple in sight, and at that point I was getting tired so I decided to head back, but on the way back I decided to take some pictures.
This is Tama, her name comes from her colors reminding me a bit of Tamarind. I actually got her all the way back two years ago with Sumire, but I hadn’t taken her out.
The main thing is knowing her vibe, for the longest time I couldn’t nail it but I decided to look for it today.
There’s definitely a vibe, just gotta put it in focus.
I spent the rest of the night dissociating, simultaneously on my phone and the laptop. So instead let me talk about something random on my head today.
I was remembering OniAi that 2012 anime that got lost in the post Oreimo shuffle that had a girl that looked too much like Youmu Konpaku.
Despite, again, being part of the post-Oreimo gold rush, I remember liking it a lot. A thing I found particularly fun was the fact that the girls had a lot of autonomy, like how Nasuhara was more into Akiko (the little sister in question) than into the main character.
One detail that soured the thing for me though was the fact that the last episode closes with the reveal that Akito and Akiko aren’t blood-related. This is something that always feels like a copout because it’s like “you insisted on that love despite everything? congratulations! your reward is no moral problems with the whole thing”. But in looking it up, apparently that reveal is supposed to be shown early? If so, that actually makes the whole thing better, because it’s no longer “we reveal this at a point where it undoes all the moral tension” but “we create tension by leaving implicit that if this were to be known the main character would have no excuses to stop himself from reciprocating which can’t happen for any number of reasons”.
Also the opening Self Producer is a banger, a very early 2010s banger.