Japanese Reading Report: 02 March 2025

２ちゃんねる化する世界

To start this week I continued the section about the largely-2chan-fostered "Free Tibet" movement and general message board culture in the late 00s.

There was an interesting moment where the authors discussed how the Free Tibet movement was supported on both the Left and Right, but how almost all followup movements through 2chan were Right-led.

I'm currently in the second main section of the book now. This section is about how 2chan was 'stolen' from its creator by an American called Jim Watkins. There was a little chart in the book that showed the shift in ownership and geography of a few different image boards. It displayed 2chan, 2ch.sc, futabachannel, 4chan, 5chan, 8chan, and 8kun. Some of these were direct successors of others, some were spinoffs. It's kind of a mess.

There was basically one moment where I actually felt like I read something semi-profound. On page 77 the author, explaining why 2chan existed at all writes:

日本人には本音を書き込む場所が必要だ。
It's ultimately not even that profound, but it felt like the first time the text was expressing an opinion (a little bit ironic given the quote).

君に届け

The first episode was an 'episode 0' and recapped the Kurumi subplot that concluded season 1. For that reason I'm kind of glad I put off watching this season for a few months. I worried that I would have trouble picking up from the middle of the story, but it didn't end up being a problem.

The real first episode was probably the standout for the season for me, which is kind of unfortunate because I actually didn't care for it for the first half. The plot centres around the not-uncommon romance trope where a female character (in this case Sawako) wants to give valentines day chocolates to the boy she likes (in this case Kazehaya). In true Sawako fashion she has trouble finding the right time to make it work, and, surprisingly she actually never finds the time to make it work. The episode ends with failure, and it kind of sets the stage for the following few episodes which all involve Sawako and Kazehaya's relationship backsliding rapidly.

But, as the genre decrees, the pair figure out their relationship just in time to give the season a few episodes of breathing room for it to settle and feel worth it.

Overall I wasn't super impressed. I think the first season made a better point because it had the advantage of establishing Sawako's struggle, but it also gave more attention to side characters and it was fun to see them develop and struggle alongside Sawako. Season 2 felt a little bit too focused on Sawako's story but, because it felt like it was already pretty settled at the end of season 1, a lot of the plot felt like the author had to fabricate new problems that simply didn't benefit the story. Even Kent felt like a wasted opportunity. Ah well.