This is the way.

It’s called the Peter Principle.

“Science fiction” is kind of broad, most anime has elements of science fiction because the medium (i.e. not being real) lends itself to more fantastical ideas. I upvote others recommendations for steins gate and cowboy bebop, here are some offbeat recommendations.

If you like emotional anime, I really enjoyed Plastic Memories. The last couple of episodes especially really hit me, the running theme of the agency having non-human employees is kinda interesting.

Serial Experiments Lain is a psychological horror thriller type thing with very heavy sci fi elements. Considering it’s from the 90s, it’s commentary on the internet is surprisingly relevant these days. A bit artsy and kind of disappears up its own arse sometimes like Eva, but really interesting regardless.

Wonder Egg Priority is kind of sci-fi, tbh I don’t know where sci-fi ends and fantasy starts, but I really enjoyed it. Just forgive it for the fucking dire ending, I think they ran out of budget, which is a shame. Kind of a “monster of the week” setup with cool action. Killer soundtrack too.

Finally, Eden of the East is a series I’ll always recommend. A mystery/thriller series where a group of people have access to a concierge that can basically do anything and they have a vague mission to “change the world”. Borderline sci -fi because of the heavy use of technology as a plot device. Also has an underwhelming ending, but the rest is top tier.

Yeah that’s pretty much it. Family members have titles like we use “mum” or “grandma”, everyone else gets name + maybe an honourific, pronouns are rare.

They put the pronouns in when they translate to English so it doesn’t sound like everyone’s talking in third person, but don’t do the reverse with sublings! Infuriating.

I don’t know if it’s that hot because it seems quite polarising, but the 4 episodes of FLCL I watched were the biggest waste of my time and I don’t understand why anyone likes it, let alone rates it as a GOAT.

The argument is done to death, but watching dubbed anime is not a crime. Dubs will never be perfect because of the need to translate concepts that don’t translate, and match lip flaps. But the trade off is being able to glance away from the screen and not completely lose track of a scene, and a more relaxed experience because you don’t have to read. If that’s the trade off you want to make, go for it, most dubs are pretty competent these days, it’s not like the days of the DBZ “big green” dub.

My hot take is that some dubs are “too accurate” these days. One that irks me is characters calling siblings “sis” or “bro” because that’s how it works in Japanese and they’re trying to be faithful. No-one talks like that in English, they use the sibling’s name. The dubs imo should take more liberties with the source material to make things feel more natural. They already do this with “itadakimasu” before character’s eat, that gets translated into all sorts of “saying grace” or “let’s eat” type phrases. Imagine translating that literally to “I humble receive [this food]” it’d be crazy. <\rant>.

Yeah this is basically my take. The fact that another poster didn’t really connect with it and gave it a 7/10 is kind of the point, I’ve liked some anime and given them a 7/10 so if you don’t like it and give it that score it’s gotta be objectively pretty good. If you do connect with it, it’s the complete package, a relationship I have more with AoT than FMA.

Worth watching, but only watch in English if you think you can get over the dubious dub. After a few episodes it mostly stops bothering you, but it’s probably better to watch in Korean with subtitles if you’re sensitive to that.

The real issues? Social anxiety, general guilt and regret about the past, the acceptance and occasional pain in knowing that I’ll never have a partner.

But the situation has been the same for about a decade and I’ve moved past the point where it bothers me other than acute episodes. I’m fortunate enough to have a good job and enough money that I don’t have to worry about housing or food, and aside from work I can basically do whatever I want (the positive side of “no partner”). I have hobbies and am going to start traveling soon and work keeps me busy, so I don’t really have grounds to complain.

Also, at some point if you’re not dangerously depressed, it just becomes a part of life and the new baseline. I feel “meh” at the best of times aside from when I level up on OSRS, and having that kind of pessimistic outlook does have some advantages. I don’t really panic when something goes wrong because everything is shit anyways, so the boiler breaking down or w/e is just another Tuesday. Makes life much more chill then the rollercoaster of being an optimist.

Not inherently, but I’ve been in communities where everyone is weirdly positive in the name of being “non-toxic” and it resulted in people generally not voicing dissenting opinions, which is pretty similar to an echo chamber.

I no longer frequent those places because it all felt a bit artificially happy like a kids TV show.

Windows 11. Don’t @ me, I don’t have the mental or physical energy to deal with Linux. I’ve never had a Linux install that’s had close to everything working, there’s always a device (network, sound, graphics, usb toaster) that doesn’t work and attempts to follow people’s instructions to fix it either make it worse or just do nothing.

Maybe I’m just useless or unlucky, but I’m due to die in a few decades and I don’t have time to deal with that nonsense when Windows does everything I want it to.