I gotta recommend One Piece, my all time favorite. It’s about goofy ‘pirates’ who sail from island to island liberating them from fascists or stopping attempted coups, or fighting the CIA. The biggest problem in the one piece world is that everything was built to support a ruling class of disgusting inbred billionaires who do things like take slaves. There is a literal revolutionary army named “the revolutionaries” lead by a guy based on Che (he looks like che, his boat was named after che’s boat) who’s main goal is to destroy that billionaire ruling class.

The beginning of the show (like first 4 arcs) are more about introducing characters, but every arc after is about the above. The tone is like if Tom & Jerry had a plot. Despite how it might appear it’s not like a typical power scaling battle shonen, the fights are not the main point, though later on they do end up emphasizing fights a lot (in the anime, the manga is better at keeping fights secondary).

The show isn’t without issue though. It portrays trans, gender fluid, and queer people in a very mean way. They’re all still part of the ‘good guys’ but a lot will be drawn as like hairy men wearing dresses. There are better portrayals like one inspired by tim curry or one inspired by Jim carry (with the best voice actor ever if you watch it subbed). This issue gets a lot better later on though. This story has been going for 25 years, in the last 5 years or so it’s gotten much much better.

Another issue is it’s portrayal of women. Almost every prominent woman looks the same. They have the same-ish face and exact same body. They’re frequently scantily clad. No matter how important they are to the story, no matter how well fleshed out their characters are or how heartbreaking their story is, the author will still find a way to make them dress in underwear or something. I realize a lot of this was because of his editors. It doesn’t become a problem till later on when he gets editor after editor pushing him to draw them as scantily clad as possible. The author has warned other authors that the publisher is full of perverts. The anime makes things more gratuitous than the manga.

I do recommend reading it over watching it due to pacing and artwork though. They are remaking the anime right now even though the anime is still ongoing. The remake is supposed to address the pacing and art.

Finally, a good use case for bitcoin

As a Chinese-American, sadly I can confirm that in my experience, most Chinese-Americans are pretty brainwashed by Western propaganda and hate/are ashamed of China or being Chinese at some level. Personally, I love and support China and the government but I’m afraid to openly admit that. Once I just simply said “I got friends in China” and a (History) teacher whipped his head around and screamed “WHAT!?!” And gave me the most evil glare. I’ve had a college professor literally tell the class that Chinese people have no concept of love.

I don’t know how internalized the propaganda actually is for Chinese Americans, or if they’re just simply afraid of vocalizing support of an “enemy” country while knowing that every person surrounding you has an insane irrational hatred of China and all chinese people and literally want blood.

The plea deal probably: agree to be an imperial propagandist or die in a mysterious accident.

It sounds like they’re not just admitting to this, but admitting to creating thousands of accounts on all US controlled social media platforms since 2001 to influence everyone.

Why are they admitting this?

Why is Reuters claiming that propagandizing Americans was not allowed when, I believe, the patriot act gave them permission to do just that? And it’s very obvious lots of users on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube etc all glow so bright you could light a city?

I feel this is sort of a damage control thing. Admitting to something they perceive as less horrible (with lame justifications) in order to continue hiding the larger campaign being performed on the English speaking internet. Like a sort of “ok we’re bad, we did this thing and we admit it, there is nothing else we’re hiding ok?”

I recall operation songbird (?) was this exact thing?

I don’t have any sources, just what I remember. So please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Also why is the military the ones doing this? Does the CIA outsource their dumber operations to the military?

And once again why are they even admitting to any of this?

I beat it a while ago. Feel assured, you are playing correctly. The game wants you to use and abuse it’s items and systems.

The game was decent, not my favorite but I enjoyed it and do not regret paying near full price.

I won’t survive and that’s fine with me, I’ve lived long enough. I want to take a couple formerly-rich parasites out with me though. Leave the place better off than when I arrived.

If I could, I would move to a communist country though.

Honestly surprised Hawaii is so low. Maybe it’s because so many of the native Hawaiians and locals got pushed out.

I don’t want to be in this country

One Piece : I gotta post some spoilers to talk about it:::: large plot spoilers The main characters dad is literally based off Che Guevara and is always portrayed as the side of good. His ship is named Granma, same as Che’s. He’s the leader of a force named the revolutionary army. His second in command is named Invankov: queen of the kamabakka kingdom which is an island of gender fluid people who can physically change genders any time they want thanks to Invankovs hormone powers. They go around liberating islands from the world government and freeing slaves.

The main character and his crew embodies freedom and I’d say communist ideals but they never really explicitly say so.

There is an arc where they must dispose of a king who was hoarding doctors for himself. It feels like a metaphor for socializing healthcare.

In most of the arcs after the introductory ones, they team up with natives to force out occupiers who are displacing them, or straight up enslaving them.

One of the first long form arcs they fight what’s basically a world government funded NGO who is trying to coup a king in the Middle East by controlling the resources (water).

They fight the CIA of their world.

There are consistent themes of freeing slaves throughout.

The world government is controlled by disconnected incestuous billionaires that all gave themselves the title of “saint”

There is a villain who is liberal coded, who creates a Disneyfied kingdom using fear.

Another is libertarian coded who occupied a land that he turned into a weapons manufacturing island.

There is an alt right coded villain who also turns the occupied kingdom into a weapons manufacturing island. ::: It’s a big commitment due to length.

I love the absurd art style (aside from every woman looking like the same character and some portrayals I found insensitive or offensive) but a ton of people have a hard time getting past how goofy it looks. Characters can look ridiculous and proportions mean nothing. Humans heights seem to vary between 1ft - 30ft tall.

The absurdist and cartoony nature of it can be off-putting to a lot of people but personally I love it and wish more things were like it.

There are a lot of problematic elements throughout that you’d need to look past and just enjoy the overarching message.

Same here, Jerboa crashes when I try to login.

In no order:

One piece - I’m a manga reader but I’ll tune into the anime for emotional parts. I’ve been a fan of this for about 23 years now. I always recommend the manga over the anime though.

Chainsaw man - I’m a manga reader, I loved seeing it animated, but I think they sort of messed up releasing only 1/3rd of the first arc for season 1. If they finished the first arc in season 1 I bet it would be in everybody’s top 10. I always recommend that everybody just read it.

Haibane Renmei - this is a real piece of art. This is a cozy slow burn with a real emotional wallop for people in a certain headspace. This one genuinely made me a better person.

Serial experiments lain - hard to explain without spoiling it. Super good, super 90’s. Amazing vibe that I don’t think any others have gotten close to replicating.

Mob Psycho 100 - about a psychic boy and his conman father figure. feel good with a good message and a good boy. The characters are fantastic and the animation can get really crazy good. It has some of the best animation I’ve ever seen. It has a lot of genuine emotion put into it.

Frieren - about an near-immortal elf after the journey has already ended. this one is still airing, but I’m loving it. I like the chill vibe and interesting story. I love how emotionally mature it feels. I’m not a fan of over the top anime emotions and enjoy how down to earth and realistic these characters act.

Restaurant to another world - I like watching fantasy people/creatures eat and enjoy our foods.

Akira - although the movie is about 1/3rd of the story with the ending slapped on, it’s still very fun to look at. I wish they had given this story a trilogy of 3x 3 hour movies instead of cutting out characters and only covering the beginning of a wild story. I always recommend people read the manga.

Made in abyss - the author is a weird pedophile but the story and world are so intriguing. It makes me feel dirty watching it but I need to know what’s at the bottom of that damn hole. I’ve been reading it as well and that just makes me feel even dirtier.

Outlaw Star - A rogue with a gun that shoots magic bullets and his weird crew vs a magical taoist space pirate and his weird crew vs. Cyborg brothers all after the greatest treasure in the universe. Its a weird mashup of themes and genres and somehow it all works.

I’m primarily a manga reader and actually watch very little anime. Making that list was actually pretty difficult and my list for favorite manga would be pretty different.

I’m not sure if I’m fit to answer this. I’m demisexual, which is considered to be on the asexual spectrum.

The answer for me is no. I smile awkwardly at everyone. I can tell when someone is traditionally attractive but I just feel nothing. I become nervous if it seems like they’re up to something or are emotionally unstable or they have a lot of power over me or if I feel that other people are watching my interaction and judging me. Sometimes I get nervous cause I have those intrusive thoughts like “bite their nose, imagine biting their nose!” Similar to when your driving and you think “swerve into incoming traffic!”

I tend to mentally categorize people as cartoon caricatures in my head and there are certain caricatures I tend to like more because they match with caricatures from media. When I meet someone that matches a caricature architype I like, I think that’s as close as I come to finding someone attractive without knowing them, but I don’t act any differently when around them.

There was one time where I did feel instantly ‘attracted’ to someone. It was the strangest thing, I saw them and somehow got this intense and assured feeling that they would be an important part of my life. (She’s my SO of 12 years now.) I didn’t smile awkwardly (more than usual) at her or feel nervous. I just spoke to her as normal and then 2 years later I told her that I believe we would make a good couple due to several factors like political beliefs. It was not very romantic in hindsight. More like a scientific conjecture lol.

I hope that meandering ramble helps answer your question.

If you like dramas I’d say ‘better days’ is good, it was pretty popular in China on release. I had to pirate it and download subs from some website but it’s doable.

2d animation: Link Click - I cannot recommend this enough. Its touching, it’s emotional, it has intrigue. It doesn’t fall into typical annoying anime tropes. There is a 2nd season but I haven’t watched it yet. This is a series but I feel like it’s episodic enough that you could kind of view them as short interconnected movies. They have complete story arcs in the episodes.

To be hero- I think this was made for Japan(?) I believe it’s a Chinese production but everyone speaks Japanese in it. It’s goofy and entertaining and touching. This is a series too buts it’s very short and the runtime of all the episodes combined is basically the same as a movie.

Legend of Hei is cute and has high paced action.

Big fish and Bagonia is beautiful like watching a painting. Some people love it but personally it put me to sleep. I still recommend it if you read the synopsis and it sounds like your cup of tea.

If you like 3d animated movies I’d suggest White Snake, I liked it far more than its sequel Green Snake. Green Snake is on Netflix but white snake I had to pirate. The movie does have strangely fast pacing but I love the story. Its action packed and has touching moments while looking beautiful.

I can loosely recommend that one nezha movie on Netflix that looks like some final fantasy thing, it was ok. I’m not really into super hero type stuff so portraying nezha that way felt kind of weird.

Jiang Jia I think was made by the same studio that made a different ne zha movie or maybe white snake? Not sure, but it’s competent. The thing is, they made it feel like an origin story for some future super hero team up thing similar to that ne zha recommendation above.

Sci-fi like others mentioned Three body problem is good but I think the books are much better paced. The show just drags on and on.

Pirate pimsleurs. It will not teach you to write or read but it’s pretty descent at teaching you to speak and listen. I speak a dialect of Mandarin but cannot understand a lick of Mandarin. Pimsleurs got me listening and speaking Mandarin at around a children’s level in a couple months. I think writing and reading come easier once you can listen to it and speak it, at least it does for me. Make sure you’re in an area where you can actually speak out loud.

36 here

Hawaii (an outer island), from when the pandemic started to now bougie alt-right and lib mainlanders have been moving here en mass and gentrifying everything.There is a lot of brain drain as kids leave for college on the mainland then are unable to return because everything got so gentrified. It feels like the native Hawaiians are somewhat making a comeback culturally and economically, but all the big native Hawaiian institutions seem to bend the knee to their colonizers and be 100% lib aligned and pro imperialist. I used to hear more chatter about Hawaiian independence and anticolonialism, but those voices seem to be gone lately. My coworkers have been going further and further right and are now openly racist, homophobic, and transphobic. They used to be apathetic. It’s crazy since all of them are minorities and one is closeted.

Every day I daydream about moving to China. There are too many barriers to making that dream a reality though. I wouldn’t want to make my SO feel isolated and illiterate. If only there was a socialist country that primarily spoke English.

They’re priming their audiences. They’ve been suggesting that a Chinese economic collapse would directly cause an American depression.

That’s what they’ve decided to go with to deflect blame once the panic of another American depression hits. The bourgeoise knows the general audience is racist enough to accept those evil Chinese commies are causing their problems no matter how many backflips the logic has to do for it to connect. They’re scared to accept blame, they’re scared it won’t work out like 2008 where they all got off scott free so they need to sow the seeds of their alibis before it happens.

I expect them to publish a bunch of totally fabricated stories about China collapsing and pulling America down with them once America sinks into a depression. Better to scapegoat an entire country and allow citizens to take out their rage on the Chinese ethnic minority living in America than to take an ounce of blame. Hmmm sounds familiar.

Not trying to throw shade at the AO3 crowd lol. I’m honestly curious and hope you can explain, what about cultivation + bl makes it the winning formula? Specifically why is Untamed so popular? I tried asking various AO3 types if they could explain the appeal of their favorite ships but they just straight up refuse to tell me why. The only hints I get are from the YouTuber coleydoesthings.

I have tried watching untamed and I just couldn’t figure out why it got so crazy popular.