/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>46939801
I have little brain juice left so I'll keep it shorter. The question about the battlefield you can approach from different perspectives.

1) Naturalism
The naturalist says that only matter exists. Therefore, if spiritual entities exist, they must have a physical form. But what is that physical form? We don't exactly see kami walking around. But we do carry around the ideas with us, in our brains. This is effectively the argument of the meme being in a similar type of competition as the gene, the typical Richard Dawkins thing. Our brain carries patterns and those patterns can replicate themselves. Some patterns are better at replicating themselves, others are better at preserving themselves, and mutations in those memes will eventually cause the fittest of the memes to rise to prominence.
These memes can cluster into coherent systems that replicate as a whole, just like animals are coherent clusters of cells that replicate as a whole.
Spiritual entities are thus competing for "brainshare", the number of bodies that they can inhabit. The method of competition is using/abusing our psychological and physiological nature to best catch our attention.
But think of viruses. Sure, in the short term, a virus is extremely capable of replicating itself by abusing another cell's genetic architecture. But this also causes the host to die, or the host to violently retaliate. Therefore the most successful memes are actually those that cooperate in harmony with our psychology. So the best Gods are those that are the best for humans. Think of the anon talking about Kanako: a god doing what is good for humans, but ultimately only because she wants faith.

2) Phenomenology
The phenomenologist says that only (all) experience exists. Therefore, all phenomena and experiences relating to spiritual entities must be real. And if those experiences are consistent through time, and common for many people, then the source of those experiences must also be the same. Our experiences must therefore come from our interactions with a common entity. I couldn't really say what those entities are like because as I said before I never had direct interactions with them (and I am grateful for that). But what they would be fighting for is much more sinister than just your brain. They are effectively fighting for your 'attention', which is in fact the object of your free will. Free will does not manifest in the movements of your body, but in the choice of what you direct your attention to. And there would be many parties that are interested in deciding for you what you should be directing your attention towards. Think the extremely obnoxious practices of advertising, but on a cosmic and spiritual level. That is what we're dealing with in this age of occult revival.

>>46934842
>I remember you posting your displacement experience before.
Aye, I forget the thread but I know it was a similar one to this. I tend to only be active on /jp/ for relatively short bursts of a few days or maybe a couple weeks.
It's clear I've had some impact on some though, considering a meme (>>46816049) I casually threw together is still doing the rounds here.
>That's actually a really scary one.
Is it? I'll admit there's a real possibility that I don't have a full appreciation for the paranormal, given that for as much as I enjoy research and the attempt to understand it, my practical relationship with it has always been, I guess you could say somewhere between cordial and casual? I'm not exactly religious, for example, but the small handful of times I've actually bothered to pray for something, I've gotten results, albeit typically in slightly roundabout ways that exchange short-term inconvenience for long-term benefit. It might be called impious but I tend towards thinking of whatever higher power(s) may exist as more like business partners than something to be worshipped.
>I once spitballed about the idea of "information organisms"
Memetic organisms doesn't sound too far-fetched, frankly, although the questions of what the basic framework in which they would operate in remains.
>really visceral biological metaphors have been brewing along with some high-flying spiritual ones.
As above, so below. The microcosm and the macrocosm. If these things are "alive" in any sense of the word, it's natural to assume, then, that they would ultimately follow the proclivities universal to ALL life, the primary one being hegemonic expansion. Gut bacteria in an interesting analogy, though considering the dynamic, it seems to me much more like two sides of a coin than a direct hierarchy. One can presumably exist without the other, but at the apparent cost of something indescribable, but crucial to the human experience.

>>46897233
fucking meme word filter. Her real username is in the filename, before "2023".

>>46840780
>Pondering how the touhou characters might perceive their representations in our media and how it still fits with the touhou canon is always an interesting mental exercise.
Yes, there are certainly some depictions which would probably be seen as upsetting.
>No, but their discussions on what life would be like with a possessive Hifuu waifu had me enthralled all the same.
Yeah it was really cute.
>>46840780
>Makes me wonder which Youkai/Gods would be beneficial to worship and for what benefit.
My current best knowledge/intuition regarding the matter is that if it's a god in game it's a god in...real life, I suppose. My experience is that it's less about worship for benefit, more like they want to teach you and if you listen you will develop a sense of reverence and the desire to worship.

That said...I have experienced things that are more direct favors too. For example, a couple of months ago I was struggling with some fears relating to my health. I had an extremely intrusive and clear mental image of Chimata appearing to me while I was trying to meditate. This was at a point where I didn't really see them as gods yet and this was actually kind of a big turning point regarding that. Anyway, for whatever reason, I ask Chimata if I can return the difficult feelings I am having to nothing. I feel a strong sense of affirmation and the image of her vanishes, as do the emotions. The emotions in question never again resurfaced in me with such a strenght. By this point I had been struggling with them for months.

In general I think if you read a bit about the various gods you probably will pretty quickly infer what kind of things they can give to you.

As for youkai, I haven't really felt much resonance with them. Since they represent more monstrous aspects of Gensokyo's spiritual ecology, I would tread very carefully. That said, of course a powerful youkai might also be a powerful teacher. They just might enjoy fear more than worship.
>We might be onto something here, somebody get /x/ on the line.
There's no need to call them. I am constantly studying more about these things, including getting back to studies of western esotericism (ie. magic). I have plans for building a long-term, mutualy beneficial relationship with the spirits of Gensokyo. I'm already working on something like that, it will just take much more studying.
>>46840945
Oh hello. Since you made yourself known, I would like to thank you for the advice you gave to me. It worked fantasticaly well.
>collected real world versions of some of the objects that represent them or that they use in official Zun art as a proxy
I think I'm getting into this too, plus crafting things on my own. A local thrift shop has the weirdest thing on it's display window. It's an odd clay container, made to look like a japanese building of some sort where the "roof" serves as a lid. I don't think it's a religious object per say, but I can't help feeling like a kami could live there.
>Being incessant about drinking isn't just a meme; beer, tea, or otherwise
They really liked sake when I offered it. They also liked instant photographs as offerings.

thats an ironic meme post and not real soul also its a midwits attempt at humor which admittedly isnt bad the setup is pretty basic but the vocab is reasonably well used so despite being 120iq still gets a thumbs up from me

>>46749785
>babycry crying again
the meme is real

>the megubitch meme is real
Holy shit

>>46674393
>This thread makes me feel weird in an uncomfy kind of way.
Feeling like that in front of these things is both silly and normal at the same time, somehow. Funny how the human mind, after all the efforts to scrub out these things, still responds to it.
>Have I stepped into something... strange?
Did you pass into fantasy?
>tfw I rediscovered my poetic side over a year after getting into touhou
That's lovely.
>>46677083
>Why not?
>inb4 'it's silly'
The dangers of going silly really boil down to two very real things and one that is hopefully only a hypothetical and a metaphor taken too far.

First danger of going silly is becoming silly in front of others. Because we live in a very materialistic culture and because the spiritual scene is a notorious magnet for schizos, tryhards and posers talking about these things is a really fast way to becoming seen as a weirdo. The meme is that /jp/sies are used to ostracism, and that might be true, but it's also possible to become the weirdo among the weirdos. And going to "the spiritual scene" as someone who has started from "hey I noticed this one video game series everyone says is made by an alcoholic lolicon pervert has a lot of real life mythological inspirations and a strange spiritual quality to it" will get you laughed out.

The second danger is becoming silly yourself. This stuff is a rapid transit system to a complete la la land if you can not keep your orientation, wits and moral core. This will annihilate your worldview and rebuild you. Some of the spiritual practices put you into literal altered states of mind, even without any substances involved, which mind you, many of the people involve. The spiritual scene is full of pseuding, manipulation, predatory "gurus" and completely delusional people. But there is genuine, vast insight below all the crap and you have to somehow dig it out while retaining your integrity without becoming some kind of esoteric racist, exploited thrall of a cult, total egomaniac or just flat out insane.

The last and silliest danger is that the most silliest of notions, that there are actual, real spirit entities out there is real. I can't make up my mind about this. I can have three different opinions about this during a single day. If there are real spirits, I think we are completely SOL as humanity. Banishing them with salt or iron or spells or prayer would be the biggest cope in world history. Or perhaps I just lack faith in humanity or divinity and I'm too afraid of forces that are most likely just extremely elaborate projections of human cognition.
>>46677347
>I say not to think about it because I want to trick you into thinking about it.
Haha nooooo I'm just a silly little guy making his silly little schizo posts! It's not that talking about this stuff earnestly feels too bizarre and sincere and crazy either haha!
>Hopefully enriching your life by giving new meaning to things you enjoy, creating thought patterns that lead to feelings of appreciation and connectedness
It really is beatiful. The apreciation and connectedness part is especially wonderful because you can only go so far before you start feeling yourself more apreciative of first yourself, then others, and that ideally would lead to greater connections with other people. Ideally.

>>46667211
>or they post literal meme shit they consoom from mangadex, most of which don't even have a novel version
I know this is most likely the weekly venting session, just this time not focused on translations for whatever reason, but I still want to interject with some real discussion.
I do find it really interesting how the vast majority of "DUDE HAREMS/ISEKAI LMAO" not only make comprehension mistakes of basic aspects (which results on things like the MC somehow dying yet "reincarnating" with their current body as if it was a summon) but most importantly, tend to be either manga originals or adapted straight to manga from a WN, usually the former.
And I do find it interesting, because requiring to bypass the LN editorial process when LNs already have almost no barrier of entry provides the context with quite the implying implications.
>Name_3.jpg
All right, sure, I have used this argument myself sometimes so may as well own up to it.
>転生コロシアム～最弱スキルで最強の女たちを攻略して奴隷ハーレム作ります～
>異世界で配信活動をしたら大量のヤンデレ信者を生み出してしまった件
>異世界サムライ
And who can forget the legendary classic.
>異世界転生者殺し -チートスレイヤー
I'm not calling these inherently bad, and I'm not saying this phenomenon is exclusive to manga originals however the "DUDE ISEKAI LMAO" phenomenon (what I can only call postmodern writing revolving around the vague idea of "isekai tropes") does seem to more commonly and more strongly happen in manga originals and adaptations with no LN.
And ">implying" indeed, these outnumber the amount of (translated and up to date) LN-to-manga adaptations even if you filter out all the chinese and korean stuff, so these are the most likely to get seen by people just randomly and passively consoom whatever they find on their manga aggregator.
Therefore the far more likely source of examples for the kind of person that just speedreads a bunch of manga, hears about this "narou" thing, then starts complaining about it.
Who hasn't heard the complaints of all LNs being just something buzzword wish-fulfillment something something about a NEET that gets truck'd and gets the god given mission to beat a demon lord then going back to earth? But those saying this never really mention any examples, at most you see "close enough" examples that aren't even close because this postmodernism trend only assumes those stories exist, but are their own thing entirely.
It's legitimately a bizarre yet intriguing phenomenon that it's as hard to explain as it is interesting, especially if you aren't a JOP LN reader and haven't already read non-postmodern stories (even if they are comedy ones like say, evil lord or kagejitsu) to see what the non-postmodern side of this coin looks like, doubly so when translations tend to carry this flippant tone into series that aren't meant to be such.
This entire thing it's like manga readers collectively managed to gaslight themselves, and I don't blame you if this just sounds like complete schizobabble to you (frankly it is), but when you do notice, you REALLY do notice.

>>46660056
what's eye rolling about posts like these is that it's always the exact same talk
>poster A makes blanket statement
>poster B asks for examples
>assuming poster A doesn't run away or double down on the generalizations, they post either "take that" examples intended to spin the strawman (whoreharu in this case)
>or they post literal meme shit they consoom from mangadex, most of which don't even have a novel version
>poster B points out what i just did
>poster A starts doing reverse mental gymnastics by claiming poster B is moving the goalposts or claiming x doesn't count (it really doesn't, in the same way i can't claim jewtube shitposts prove all western cartoons/film are shit)
>assuming poster A doesn't do that, they finally start posting real media like say, arifureta
>poster B starts pointing out MCs in those do in fact face adversity
>poster A starts complaining it's not sufferingslop so it's bad writing, and this part will continue with increasingly more absurd examples of sufferslop
>given enough time the mask of poster A will slip and you will find out they are either just looking for reasons to shit on japanese media because it's japanese, or they are parroting shit they treat as fact due to hearing it so often from their peers, or both
>continue pressing poster A and you will find out this misconception comes from speedreading too much manga to the point everything starts to feel like a blur to poster A, which is a pretty big problem when adaptations are already inherently dumbed down
>triple down on the conversation by asking for specific "trope" examples and eventually poster A will confess a lot of that mental paste doesn't even come from japanese manga but from gookshit

>>46632748
the meme is real >>/jp/thread/46521428#p46525538

>>46594768
This proto-normie got a cheap sex doll for a meme and ended up shocked at how close it is to the real thing, he also talks about how it's better than the real thing in some ways. Make of it what you will
https://youtu.be/aulIO-2_AXI?si=7EoQzXgzQExSxOSs

>>46587241
>>46587270
The real anti-japan agenda is how databases used by online dictionaries are being actively sabotaged by the west because they are actively trying to stop as many people as possible from learning Japanese.
These days you will get definitions that are either comically dry or outright wrong, exactly to push the "Japanese is too dry/robotic" meme.
For example look up 岩石 and 岩根 if you don’t believe me, pro tip: they aren’t synonyms.
You think it’s a freaky exception? It’s not, look up 降雪 and 天華, or 強風 and 一陣.
Again, they aren’t synonymous, or they are in the same sense “trees” and “delightful grove” are technically synonyms, in fact the rocks example isn’t even a synonym, not even close.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg by the way, look up 前, 先, 嘗て or 往 if you want to see how fucked up things have been for a while now.
Do yourself a favor and throw your EN > JP dictionary bookmarks in the trash where they belong, and bookmark kotobank,jp, because the sabotage has gotten so bad that throwing words at a JP > JP dictionary and using MTL on the result gives you more accurate definitions with far more depth than whatever garbage the west is trying to feed you.

>>46559163
My impression is no.
The whole otaku world seems to be shrinking and getting more boring. There's not a lot of super nerdy/niche stuff nowadays outside of extreme fetish content and lolcows (basically the same as here). They move from one big seasonal anime to another, like Frieren, and otherwise obsess over some gacha aimed at men in their 30s and 40s. The most striking thing to me is how routine it is. Now it's like oh here's the new seasonal anime that gets a ton of fan art which no one will care about by next year, we all understand this but we participate anyway. Here is the new FOTM character with bigger titties than the last girl, go make your meme art now to boost your followers. There was a real sense of dynamism and excitement back in the 00s, like otaku stuff was always evolving & no one knew what it would look like in a couple years. In a way it was like a movement, stuff like Haruhi really felt important, it impacted some people permanently. Current anime and vidya feel so discardable, you binge one & forget about it.

Japanese internet is a bummer. There's almost an atmosphere of depression on futaba because nothing really new or interesting happens anymore, but they don't know what else to do.

>>46557352
lol i thought that was a meme image plus ai but maybe its real it wouldnt be surprising some cringe djter wears the adidas track suit
maybe djt is actually full of mentally ill weirdos and it wasnt just jokes

>>46511421
>Where does one draw the line between 1) an entity capable of gathering belief and 2) any series of ideas personified through our cognition?
Where does one indeed do so... (I have no answer here)

But I suppose you can either think that there are gods that just have this quality of being able to gather faith, or then you can think that gods are like...some subset of egregores, and "faith" can be almost any kind of attentions that reinforces belief in them.
>I fear that our notion of what is respectful and isn't is heavily influenced by the sensibilities of Abrahamic religions and modern society
Yes, of course, but I think it does depend largely on the nature of the deity. What is respectful to them is...up to them to decide, in a way. In this particular way I would research on how deities are portrayed in various east asian religions, with shinto being of particular interest. This is on my to-do agenda.
>>46511432
>I'm unsure what do you mean by old path
It was a figure of speech, "any old" path depencecy. Sorry if I was unclear.
>simply misguided in as much as it's not necessarily 2hus they want.
Yes, absolutely. The 2hus can simply be agregates of some particular features or ideas they have particular respect or particular need for.
>Can be just a lust permutation, too.
It can. But I would like to get people thinking a bit more about their desires and what it really tells about themselves and what they may need. (or not) Might be just my own projection, but as I said, a lot of guys think with their dicks when it's really some else part of their being trying to talk to them.
>That's not an unreasonable disposition
I'm extremely cautious with this kind of stuff and very hesitant to commit any belief or another, but I think "this thing represents ideals I want to work towards" can work in both spiritual and wholly materialistic, psychological sense.
>I still have done nothing
Oh anon, who knows, maybe you have stopped someone from trying to summon their oomukade waifu and getting devoured.
>There is little I can help you with
I disagree, at least on the level that I found our discussion rather constructive and you have forced me to better articulate my ideas to both myself and others.

Also, I want to say at this junction that as much as I regard working with explicitly demonic entities really bad idea, I think trying to work with the youkai is probably a very bad idea.
>>46511499
>John Constantine effect
I'm actually not familiar with this at all.
>coming face to face with one of the "characters" in the distance
That's fascinating. Do you feel comfortable telling which one it was?
>Gensokyo isnt a zoo, it's a wildlife preserve
Interesting idea. That does have some fascinating extra implications. People do frequently go missing in national parks, a kind of wildlife preserve of it's own...
>>46511527
>How sure are you that this isn't Childhood's End tier scenario?
It's been ages since I read that, but as far as I remember humanity did not have much of a choice in that one.
>>46511550
>In an extremely terrible age for that morally wise, at that!
What are the particulars that make you feel like we live in a particularly morally bankrupt era? We have witnessed countless previous eras of abject poverty and cruelty and wanton rule of the strongest. We may not have progressed *that* much, but we do live in an age where we have the luxury of being able to think about these things. Is it some individualism thing?

And ultimately, whatever the zeitgeist may be, we simply may have to start thinking about these things. "Reality is thinning" may soon not be a meme anymore.
>>46511683
>Many youkai kill, many dont. Many have fucked, many havent. Many have taken human partners in marriage or been patrons, etc.
Perhaps it simply is that these entities have divergent characteristic and interests, much like the fae folk were described as being sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly and sometimes, yes, even taking human partners. I believe from what I've read certain youkai in japanese mythology are exactly like this.
>>46511753
>No, you think you are in this situation, as you sit between protection systems
Hence we should proceed extremely carefully, if at all. But if "they" are indeed real, they seem to have some interest in getting human attention. What these motives might be obviously needs to be researched much more vigorously.
>>46511879
>The gods are not your bootlicks, human.
Indeed they are not, but what exactly are they? Above us in some way, yes, but still somehow very interested in proper respect and form and ritual and principles to live by?
>>46512716
>Quality post, really like this one in particular
I actually kinda regret it a bit myself.
>but all the rest of the strange discourse is pretty nice too.
Strange discourse is a nice way to put it. I actually laughed when I came back to this thread. We're all completely deranged, aren't we?

>>46412853
Sanaefag here. The shota thing got old real fucking fast. I can get the whole “Sanae is a slut” meme since she has been shown to be ditzy, but the shota thing isn’t funny.

>>46406655
The funniest part is that it only benefited Alice, Marisa took a massive downturn.
If we compare screen time then in the OGabusefic you have Marisa being a main character that got tons of screen time to the OGhanafic where she was a strong side character and angled to become a major character again.
Alice on the otherhand didn't even exist in either and became a meme early on, now she's a side character and only Shinki and Dolly's presence kept her with any staying power despite not having a real writefag.

>>46392799
>JMdict
The real anti-japan agenda is how databases used by online dictionaries are being actively sabotaged by the west because they are actively trying to stop as many people as possible from learning Japanese.
These days you will get definitions that are either comically dry or outright wrong, exactly to push the "Japanese is too dry/robotic" meme.
For example look up 岩石 and 岩根 if you don’t believe me, pro tip: they aren’t synonyms.
You think it’s a freaky exception? It’s not, look up 降雪 and 天華, or 強風 and 一陣.
Again, they aren’t synonymous, or they are in the same sense “trees” and “delightful grove” are technically synonyms, in fact the rocks example isn’t even a synonym, not even close.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg by the way, look up 前, 先, 嘗て or 往 if you want to see how fucked up things have been for a while now.
Do yourself a favor and throw your EN > JP dictionary bookmarks in the trash where they belong, and bookmark kotobank,jp, because the sabotage has gotten so bad that throwing words at a JP > JP dictionary and using MTL on the result gives you more accurate definitions with far more depth than whatever garbage the west is trying to feed you.

>>46252366
>>46252374
>>46252382
>DUDE THE RED TRUTH IS THE SAME THING AS THE ENTIRE STORY NOT BEING REAL AND THAT WE NEVER KNEW THE CHARACTERS OKAY XD RED WORDS ISN'T POSSIBLE IRL SILLY GOOSE XDDD
Umineko takes itself and it's setting 100% seriously besides Ryukishi autistic number meme moments until Chiru. Witches are real, Magic is real, if you didn't believe this off the bat then you never read Higurashi secondary retards
>>46252384
I read BOTH VN's unlike you who only watched the Higurashi anime secondary scum. and Yes Umineko DID ruin Satoko because Ryukishi was so fucking butthurt his gay love story to his dead gay lover was hated after it finished it's garbage story he decieded to sabatoage and get back at his fans with Higurashi Gou

>has Mea as main girl
>fucks a vspo slut as a side chick
>Is Bae's oshi and appeared at her birthday live and made the mating press meme real
>now gets a new kusogaki in his harem
He can't get away with it /hlg/
How can we stop him from WINNING?

>has Mea as main girl
>fucks a vspo slut as a side chick
>Is Bae's oshi and appeared at her birthday live and made the mating press meme real
>now gets a new kusogaki in his harem
He can't get away with it /hlg/
How can we stop him from WINNING?

>decide to fall for the Reiko Nakamori meme and download some of her stuff
>JUC-780 looks kino and is available in 1080p on supjav
>open rapidgator link
>its alive
>real-debrid decides that rapidgator is "unavailable" purely for this link in particular
AAAAAHHHH AAAAAAHHHH AAAAAAHHHH AH AH AAAAAAJJJJJHHHHHH

>>46174414
Almost every hot JAVfu has fucked a blacked guy, blacked is still regularly coming out, both amateur and pro, check blackedjav.com... when a trans films comes out the troons pass so well it is shocking they are not real women, and yet you still think that browns and blacks have no influence on Japan. There was that meme video of a random drunk Jaoanese woman saying she wants a guy from Nigeria, and wants big dick, to a white guy's face. Korean women are also heavily lusting for black men. This is what the average Japanese woman finds sexually attractive in a realistic manner.