i took a wrong turn in life and found myself here

Things I want in the next 5 years

“In my case, whenever I portray “fated love,” it’s always entwined with a supernatural phenomenon. By contradiction, I think that also indicates a cynical worldview of “without some kind of supernatural phenomenon, fated love can’t exist.” It’s fun to compare “5 Centimeters Per Second” and “Your Name.” with that kind of perspective.”

“It’s not that I like dark and sad stories; I just want to see moments where a person’s worth rises to a maximum, and that means the story naturally moves in a direction with “bad ending” elements. I want to portray a certain kind of sparkle, and the most effective way is to paint everything else black and make that sparkle an ephemeral one. Also, as for why I like lonely stories, it’s because they prove that a lonely life can be seen beautifully from the right angle. It lets you imagine that maybe your own life could be considered so precious. Besides, it already goes without saying that “a life where you’re blessed with companions is beautiful.””

“I’m surprised when people tell me they’ve never cried listening to music, and I’m surprised when people tell me they’ve never been jealous of characters in a really happy story, and I’m surprised when people tell me they don’t like something just because it has a sad ending… So basically, I exist in a constant state of surprise.”

“The most worrying situation to be in isn’t “not knowing something,” nor is it “not knowing you don’t know something,” but rather “not knowing you don’t know you don’t know something.” So people who are able to think about such things which they can’t see, can’t hear, and can’t touch should be praised.”

“There are many people who try to convince everyone around them they’re excellent, but it seems that there are rather few who actually try to make themselves excellent. People focus only on appearance, and with each desperate lie and exaggeration onto the pile, the value of truth is gradually lost - in fact, so is the value of value. Even if we have a group of people who are normally modest, if one should happen to let slip “I’m great,” another will feel like they’re being looked down upon and say “I’m great too,” and then another rushes to say (feeling it would be their loss not to sing their own praises at this point) “I’m great too”… In that sense, it would appear hubris is contagious.”

“Thinking about the things you really love takes courage. When we stop averting our eyes from “what I really wanted,” “where I really wanted to be,” “how I really wanted to look,” and think them through, we notice how many too-late “loves” we hold onto, like a crush that ended untold.”

“This is a really incomprehensible desire, but I want a girl with insomnia to board a train, and mistakenly succeed at falling into a sound sleep while I’m present to see it. To be greedy, I’d also want her to fall asleep leaning on my shoulder. I wouldn’t try to wake her; I’d let the train go to the last stop, and when she woke up, I’d say “CONGRATULATIONS!!"​”

“​"I’ll forget the taste of that 50,000 yen dinner, but I’ll never forget the taste of the rice ball I ate after that shipwreck.“ "I’ll forget the person I spent every night with in bed when things were going well, but I’ll never forget the person who simply held my hand when I was in the pits.” I consider this kind of attributional error another one of those beautiful human glitches.”

“A man goes back in time after a woman who was sentenced to death for murder asks him to give her the death sentence before she commits the crime. But he falls in love with the innocent girl who is to become a criminal, and instead kills the person whom she was going to kill. I feel like mass-producing “slightly intriguing summaries” like this is the ultimate training.”

“There are times, such as at the changing of seasons, when a “somehow nostalgic feeling” sounds in the corner of my mind, like a music box playing again after years of collecting dust at the back of a drawer. All I hear are a few notes at best, so it’s difficult to remember the entire melody given so few clues. Yet that’s the song I want to hear most - that sunken memory.”

“Songs that say “Sometimes the world is harsh, but if you keep trying, good things will happen!” aren’t useful to people who have it rough, are trying, and still have nothing good happening to them. In fact, nothing could sound more cruel. So I prefer songs that make you feel “Regardless of me falling on hard times, being unrewarded for my efforts, and having nothing good happen to me - this song is beautiful!””

new high school classmate: so what’s your name

This is Johnson, those idiots are fucking in the east wing again.

Whenever I visit a new town, I unconsciously wonder, “What would my life be like if I’d grown up here?” As a result, there are now possible “me"s spread all across Japan, living out their lives in the present progressive tense. The one thing I can say they all have in common is, they seem happier than the "me” who exists here and now. The grass is always greener.

An industrious girl keeps posting videos where, in hopes of reuniting with a childhood friend who suddenly broke contact and whose name she doesn’t know, she walks around her hometown talking about her memories. But the reality is that it was the girl herself who broke contact, and the videos are being posted from a device that doesn’t exist in real life… I’m eagerly awaiting the appearance of a virtual YouTuber with that concept.