Lest I look like a chud, I’ll make sure that whenever I ask “So, you watch anime?” that I immediately follow it up with “Did you know that in that Little Witch Academia episode where the non-humans at the magical academy unionize and strike, that when Akko joins the non-humans (respect), that the kanji on her headband are based on a style of typography called gebaji? The word gebaji derives from gebaruto, from German Gewalt. In Japanese, gebaruto generally refers to violence perpetrated by leftist student activists in the '50s and '60s. Their protest signs used a distinctive style of bold, angular, ‘common man’ typography, and this typographic style is to this day associated with or used as shorthand for leftist particularly student activism. Gebaji is also known by other names, such as Zengakurenmoji — you might recognize the name ‘Zengakuren’ from their role in the famous riot at Sanrizuka in 1985. Anyways, here’s a photo of a younger Hayao Miyazaki at some kind of labor action of the union for Studio Toei. You can see that he’s wearing a headband just like the one Akko wore. You gotta love a union man, eh? By the way, have you seen the, like, anime music video created by the Japanese Communist Party? Heck, do you watch any donghua, for that matter?”

Yeah, I first ask what they watch before responding in the affirmative. It’s always something like AoT or isekai stuff, which isnt something I want to engage with - well, Escaflowne and The Twelve Kingdoms were cool, but not really part of the modern isekai trajectory.

One day, someone will say “Land of the Lustrous”, and I will be delighted.

I have a Gundam icon