NHK ni Youkoso! is the first psychological anime I watched The Tatami galaxy is the second. The first one I enjoyed much more.

NHK ni Youkoso investigates lives of nerds; Why does one becomes a Hikikomori? the answer is quite simple: While there’s food, bath, a fluffy place to sleep and everything one might need, why should one quit being a Hikikomori and set foot into the cruel world? Why should a loser, an underachiever face the reality while s/he can hide in the cozy lies of Internet. “The real me is the online me, I’m a big man” but hey let’s face the truth: We’re not the lies we tell others and ourselves!

The real me is the one who struggles, the one who’s in pain, the imperfect one, the … I don’t know

The series also explores many other issues such as loneliness, the problems nerds always have had with girls, suicide, unfairness of the world and god. This is a must-watch!

Here are some quotes!

Now the second one, The Tatami Galaxy, with its special parallel worlds!

I’d never watched or read anything with parallel worlds, I was sure it was not parallel worlds but time coming back.

In each episode the young unnamed college freshman spends two years longing for a rose-colored life doesn’t make any progress and time comes back, in the next episode again he fails.

In each episode the boy is invited to grab the opportunity dangling in front of his eyes but he refuses to.

And here’s my favorite quote from this anime is in epsoide 9 :

You cannot use the word “possibility” without limitations.
Can you become a bunny girl?
Can you become a pilot?
Can you become a famous singer, or a superhero who saves the world with his powers?
No, I can’t.
Perhaps you could.
But if you keep focusing your gaze on that which is unrealistic, you never will.
The root of all your evil
is in always relying on one of your other possibilities to get your wish.
You must accept that you are the person here, now,
and that you cannot become anyone else other than that person.
There is no way that you can lead some worthwhile college life and feel satisfied.
I guarantee it, so have confidence!
There is no such thing as that rose-colored campus life.
Why? Because there is nothing rose-colored in this world.
Everything is all a bunch of colors mixed up, you see.

Check out this good explanation of anime!

Watching “Waking Life” I came across an interesting question:

There are two kinds of sufferers in this world: those who suffer from a lack of life, and those who suffer from an over-abundance of life. I have always found myself in the second category. When you come to think of it, almost all human behavior and activity is not, essentially, any different from animal behavior. The most advanced technologies and craftsmanship bring us, at best, up to the super-chimpanzee level. Actually, the gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche, and the average human is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved. Why so few? Why is world history and evolution not stories of progress, rather this endless and futile addition of zeros? No greater values have developed. Hell, the Greeks 3,000 years ago were just as advanced as we are. So what are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential. The answer to that can be found in another question, and that’s this: which is the most universal human characteristic: fear or laziness?

Searching for answers, here are some answers from net:

It’s the laziness that gets me.
If I didn’t procrastinate, it would be amazing what I could do.
How many Plato’s and Nietzsche’s have been forgotten; their legacy lost? Even worse, how many have been repressed and actively tortured for their ‘heresy’?
Laziness is definitely a symptom of fear; fear of unrewarded effort, fear of failure, fear of what’s outside, fear of rejection. All things that keep people in front of the TV where life is safe and empty and you can hide from the world and hope nobody notices.

Most of us aren’t taught to think like the philosopher, the saint, etc. We are influenced by the media, impressing our parents, and peer pressure. If we can’t get beyond those things, how can we learn to be introspective and self-knowing, and learn the things we need to know to make this life more valuable to live?