Japanese Reading Report: 09 March 2025

２ちゃんねる化する世界

This week I finished the second major chapter of the book. The most interesting point made this week was basically: Anonymous forums don't really behave the way they do because they strip away your name, it's because they strip away your identity. As the author points out, we engage in nameless interactions with others every day. You rarely identify your name with store clerks, with other commuters, with strangers on the street, and you usually don't care about or ask for their names, either. But you are identifiable and you can identify others; your clothes, your sex, your race, etc. all create an identity which defines you, and that creates a context for others to interact with you. Identities also help people to take responsibility for their claims. Anonymous people can just as easily spread virtuous or malicious information without any affect on their identity or reputation.

I do think there's a minor counterpoint and, interestingly, the book has vaguely mentioned these websites, so they should be well aware. Sites like Facebook and Twitter (currently X) have countless fully named and identified people, but they are just as emboldened to spread misinformation and hate as anyone else. It's clear that there's something else going on. I hope the book will address it.

カードキャプターさくら

Returned to some simple, entertaining, Card Captor Sakura. While the show is fairly predictable and no-nonsense, I've been finding the task of watching 3 episodes a day more achievable than most other things lately (though I've still failed to meet that goal this week).

This week's episodes included: A cheeky double who develops a tender side; a new teacher who has become a mainstay, but who is also wrapped in several mysteries; an iconic scene (I saw out of context on YouTube a few months ago) that has spun out into several scenes that just couldn't make sense with the edits made to the original English release; an episode straight out of a children's storybook; a cute episode where Sakura got to hang out with Yukito; and an the start of the second half of the series, which comes with a new OP and ED.