That scene in episode two certainly felt unnecessary, maybe a service to the horny viewers. They manage to keep it somewhat believable, where most other shows typically fail to do so. I think the overly interested in the younger characters’ romance teachers is weirder than that scene, though I’ve met people like that and they aren’t even exaggerations.

Maybe I just relate to the MC. There’s a reluctance to romance that takes me back. Most other anime I’ve seen way over exaggerate it, or don’t play on it at all.

I appreciate your explanation.

I really enjoyed I Parry Everything, weird to see it so low or not even ranked in categories it makes sense for. I also watched No Longer Allowed in Another World and it’s way weirder to see it at the top of so many lists. Maybe some of the charm is lost in translation or I just don’t appreciate the play on tropes as much.

Makeine is great so far, half way through about to binge the other half. Lovely art, generally avoiding the gross tropes that turn me off with these types of anime. When those tropes are visited it still manages to frame things in a believable way. I need to get my wife to watch it for her take, but it feels like the girls are represented respectfully as their own relatable characters and not strictly some object for the male viewers to desire. Probably still not totally there, but feels nice to see some growth in that direction.

Curious if anyone can compare Makeine to Days with my Stepsister, and Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian. Both of those shows have some face value ick that’s keeping me from starting them.

Obviously absolute speculation on my part, but if they were truly doing what I suggested intentionally, part of the plan would need to be plausible deniability to avoid anti-monopoly issues, and also public sentiment nightmare. Killing your favorite shop out of incompetence doesn’t win good will, but you will still go there. Doing it out of malicious intent could have people in other states joining a boycott.

I’m in management, participated in the acquisition process of the company I’m at being acquired. At least at the 150mm/year revenue level there’s no one doing the shit I’m suggesting, no one is so competent. Cash on hand is bad , acquisition is an obvious way to deal with that. You’re spot on about skills though, 95% of management at every level is totally incompetent at the work required to actually do management shit. All the competent people leave as soon as they can because the work just got way harder and the money doesn’t follow.

Perhaps they realized it would be cheaper to stop the growth of a superior product. Especially when that superior product would likely require more types of costs that would eat corporate level profit. More higher paid employees that can’t be mechanized.

Status quo is incredibly profitable, assuming nothing threatens it. That’s why big business does everything they can to increase the barrier of entry, and happily overpays to buy out successful competitors, with the leadership of the competitors having enforceable noncompetes for the model.

You can encode base 2 as base 10, I don’t think anyone is saying it exists in binary form.