Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni - Espisode 18

**First a litte note. I was told by a friend that had she not known me beforehand that she would think I was an asshole based on my previous blog entry on the ladder theory. I just wanted to give my response to that. Of course it is not surprising that that kind of response came from a female. All the ladies claim that they have "friends" that are guys. REALLY?! So ladies, let us do a little test. Are you relatively attractive? If the answer is no, read my previous post in more detail. If the answer is yes, then we can move on to our test. Imagine this situation, or actually do it in practice. Invite a guy that you believe you are "friends" with over to your place. Chill for a while and do whatever you do as friends. Then excuse yourself to the bathroom. Come out of the bathroom completely naked and tell your "guy friend," "Lets have sex right now, i'm really horny." Now, think to yourself if you are imagining this situation, how will the guy respond?

1. "I'm sorry "insert your name," I really enjoy being your "friend" and do not want to ruin our beautiful "frienship"; therefore, I am not going to have sex with you.
2. The guys jumps your bones before you even say "i'm really horny".

Sorry to any of you ladies that got a little surprise from your guy friend. Anyway, that's life. I don't think there is anything wrong with it either. This is the way humans were made biologically. There really is no way to fight our human nature, so lets not be too upset that guys and girls cannot be friends and lets just work with that. It will make it a lot easier for us guys, if girls realize this and in a perfect world the "friend ladder" will disappear.

As for me sounding like an asshole when explaining the ladder theory, sorry. I'm just explaining in the most blunt terms the interactions between men and women. Of course I don't believe that the ladder theory explains male/female interactions completely, but it does give a pretty good overarching framework.

On to the actual point of this post. I just found out that the style of anime that I like actually has a name. It's called Seinen anime. There are two types of anime in general, Shounen and Seinen. Shounen anime is that is targeted specifically for teenagers. Some example of Shounen anime include, Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, etc. Seinen anime, on the other hand, is intended for a more mature audience with its psychological, sexual, philosophical, satirical, or violent themes. Basically, Seinen anime requires a deeper analysis and a more intellectual and curios mind to appreciate. I'm not going to give an examples of this type of anime, since this is what I watch and I'm sure I will blog about various such animes, starting with this post (If I ever get to it, because apparently writing in a blog is a bunch of fun and I can't stop babbling hehehe).

HIGURASHI NO NAKU KORO NI - EPISODE 18

Woohoo! I actually started watching this show once before because I read good things about it being very dark. When I first started it, it seemed a little childish to me because whenever the characters were angry or excited, they would flash to look like little children and make weird faces. That turned me away very quickly.

This is an example of how the characters look normally.

These two pictures are examples of when the characters turn to childish looking and really quintessentially anime-looking.

You see how that might be a turn off for someone who is interested in viewing more mature anime. After giving up on this one, I watched several other animes and came to a loss of what to watch next. I kept reading around, finding that almost everyone interested in Seinen anime was praising Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. I thought I would give it another try. After suffering through the initial childish moments, the anime finally breaks through into what I like. The childish moments came less infrequently and the really interesting story took over my interest.

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, from what I can see at this point, is a series of stories, surrounding the same situation, where the situation is changed a little and therefore the results play out differently. Each time to a tragic end. It's very interesting for me to see how one character's position in the story changes and how the events play out completely differently than before. In one story one character is the killer, while in another story a different character is the killer. Same story, different motivating factors for each story, similar results. Very Cool. 

I'm all talked out, even though this post was about Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, but it mostly was about other stuff. I don't wanna make myself write though, so I'm gonna end this while I'm still enjoying this. I wanted to leave with an funny scene from this anime.

This may appear as a intimate scene between two beautiful green haired girls; however, the Shion (cowgirl position) was strangling Mion (on bottom) merely 15 seconds before. They are twins for clarification.

The Ladder Theory

Throughout my life, my views on male/female interactions have been constantly evolving, starting from the naive and inexperienced view as a very young kid: that girl have cooties (is that how you spell it? I don't even remember). To in middle school when I finally realized my family jewels feel good to be played with, and would probably feel even better if they were played with by some girl. At that point, I was not too concerned with the societlal implications of the gender interactions. Then in high school, my view changed again, when I actually had my firsts of everything: girlfriend, kiss, "first love", sex. The measure of self worth became not only dependant on my grades, friends, material possessions and all that bullshit, but also on the most important thing to a man: how many bitches he fucks. Which brings me to my newly discovered awesome quotation:

"A woman's test is material. A man's test is a woman...if a man could fuck in a cardboard box, he wouldn't buy a house." - Rabbi Dave Chappelle.

So yeah, I now I'm thinking back and wondering "why do dudes care so much about sex, apart from the obvious physical pleasures?" Is it because society treats men that have had a lot of sex better? Is it because you are more liked when you have a lot of sex? Do you have better friends? Or is it because the increased risk of getting an std or a baby makes life more thrilling? You get the point. 

It was not until several years into college, when I started becoming a real human being, when I started realizing certain fundamental truths, at least as fundamental as it gets, about male/female interactions. Most significantly, guys and girls cannot ever be friends, except for a very few exceptions that I'll discuss later. Then one day I was reading some guy's blog and I came across the magnificent ladder theory. Which coincided with my beliefs pretty accurately and even developed them further.

Here is my little summary of what the ladder theory is about. If you wanna read about it in more depth click the link the previous paragraph.

Lets start off with a few definitions:

1) Intellectual Whore (IW): A man that a woman keeps around strictly for intellectual or entertainment purposes, completely uninterested in him sexually: he is a friend. He probably wants to bone her, so he pretends to be her friend in hopes of maybe one day getting ass.

2) Intellectual Pimp (IP): A woman who keeps several IWs around. Basically 99.9% of all women. 

3) Ninja Bitch (NB): A very mean girl, but specifically, an IP who realizes she's in the IP position and abuses the priviledges.

4) Cuddle Bitch (CB): A guy who gets the priviledge of cuddling or spooning with a girl he's interested in, but nothing more. A case of settling for less and a common cause for blue balls, since typically guys in this situation actually want to have sex with the woman and aren't being assertive of this desire.

5) "Kiss Of Death" (KoD): A statement or action from a woman to a man telling him that she is in no way interested in sex or a relationship with him. 

Now the fundamentals of Ladder Theory:

When you meet someone, whether you are a male of female, you make a quick mental rating of that person. This is the break down for the decision:

And here is how each sex's ladder is constructed:

Of course these ladders require a bit of an explanation. Well, the men's ladder is pretty much self-explanatory. I guess the saying about men "fucking anything that moves" is not too far off base. Just one clarification for men: the abyss is for women who men would never fuck. To clarify this point, these "abyss women" are so ugly or revolting that you would rather shoot yourself in the leg than to have sex with them, or they have "AIDS" written on their forehead (but then again, what are condoms for).

For the women, it is imporant to note that there are two ladders, the "friend ladder" and the "good ladder". The good ladder is of course the ladder of men that the woman wants to have sex with. There are many rules for the woman's ladder and I am going to list out of few of the most important ones in my opinion.

1. A woman never lets a man know what ladder he is on.
2. Attempting to jump from the friend ladder to the good ladder results in failure, the deep fall into the abyss, 99% of the time. 
3. The higher up the friend ladder you are the longer and more painful the fall is. Pretty much the highest point on the friend ladder are the guys who are the "Cuddle Bitches". Be aware!
4. If you hear these phrase you are surely on the friend ladder. I'm sorry my friend.

• "You're like a brother to me"
• "You're like a big teddy bear"
• "I feel like I can talk to you about anything"
• "You're so nice"
• "Can you help me with my homework"

Judging by this, it seems like a lot of problems can be avoided by "declaring as soon as possible to a girl that you will not be friends under any circumstances. You can explain that she is too attractive or you can be blunt and say you don't want to bend your "friends" over a table and fuck them, but would rather play poker and go to the races with them, thus disqualifying her from friendship."

I would also like to discuss some of the hidden variables of the Ladder Theory:

• Drunkeness: Of course when drunk we do things we wouldn't do otherwise. Usually when sobriety sets in, there is a return to the tenets of the ladder theory. In most cases, it should be noted, repressed Americans use being drunk as an excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway, so one should be very careful in applying this variable.
• Loyalty: Friends of significant others are not special cases. They are not friends, but rather "virtual friends". Guys rate these girls according to the ladder along with every other girl in the world. Just a special note for you guys, "if your friends girl offers you a piece you should hit that shit, because he shouldn't be laying up with no ho. Ideally you should tape it also, because most guys will believe the person they're fucking."
• Desperation: What desperation does is shift downward the line of quality that one would consider for fucking. There is a line on the ladder that is the quality of the last person you were fucking. Since one of the purposes of life, if not the purpose, is to move up the ladder, you want someone above this line. Sometimes you can't find someone above this line. This leads to a virtual shift in the line downward as one gets more and more in need of a fuck.

The whole "friends" thing:

There are only three cases where a guy and a girl can be friends.

1. The guy is gay
2. The guy doesn't find the girl attractive
3. The guy already has a girl that is higher on the ladder than the girl in question

Some special cases:

• Cuddle Bitches: It fucking sucks to be a cuddle bitch. Why you ask? Well, being a intellectual whore is bad enough, but imagine having blue balls at the end of the night on top of that.
• Friends with Benefits: First of all, "Friends with Benefits" is a misnomer. If a girl is fucking you, hooray!!! for you because you are on the good ladder, therefore you are NOT a friend.
• Female footstools:  These are girls that guys use to get to other girls that higher on the ladder. 
• Exes: OK, the patter here is that you break up, you attempt to be friends (god knows why? unless you continue to fuck after breaking up), then you realize that you cannot, and slowly grow more and more distant with each other

Well, this is my first attempt at blogging. I thoroughly enjoyed spending over an hour writing this. I hope that with time the speed with which I write and the quality will improve. If anybody got offended by the Ladder Theory, get fucked. It's obviously true and I haven't heard a better theory.