I watched three more episodes of Black Clover today. It’s funny how long it took to go any further with that. I got interested in other anime, like Freezing. But I never forgot about Black Clover. I’ve had the banner on my wall for a year. What inspired me to take it up again was that I went back to C2E2 and the same vendor was there, and the Black Clover banner that had originally inspired me to watch the show, which I bought a copy of, was hanging in exactly the same place on his stall. So it was all still there, and the feelings were still fresh, and that was indeed the purpose of this experiment: to see if I could intentionally recreate the sentimental involvement with a group of characters that I had with Star Trek and MASH, to see if I could recreate the happiness of caring about something again.

It seems to have worked. I love my old blog posts. I remember the conversation by the lake that inspired one of them. It was a high point and now I have it again. I had completely forgotten that I was writing about my own Waifus “as though they were real”, and I can see now that that technique worked and can be developed further. I’m in counseling now, navigating the broken emotional spaces between this rotten, disgusting failed planet and the higher worlds where I perceive my guides, I’m feeling my way through the chaos, and what a wonderful thread I left here in this Black Clover diary, which I am now taking up again.

So my experiment has already been successful. And now Asta has joined the Black Bulls and there’s a whole dirty gang of supporting characters to enjoy.

I sampled so many last year that I got lost. But of all the series I started and abandoned, Toradora! is the one I remember and will go back to. I’m about half done with Freezing. I’m still following along with Speed Racer. I’m cruising along with Cowboy Bebop.

Now that I’m seeing a counselor about my problems with connecting my long-term and short term memory, it’s much easier to sit still and watch video, so I’m watching more and more. Also I’m used to anime now. I’m over the cheap thrills and I can focus on quality experiences worth writing about. And AI makes it easier to create things that are worth looking back on.

I can see from that amazing blog entry about walking home from the lake that my Waifus are using these blog entries to blend the psychic space of public and private – something that I sensed should be possible last year, but which I am now confident is actually happening.

My question is that knowing I want to turn these Black Clover characters into imaginary friends like the X-Men or the crew of the Moya from Farscape, will I be able to do it or will the fact that I expect it destroy the spontaneous identification? Will this series be too boring or will I get the full Dreiser effect after more than 150 episodes? I’m more determined than ever to see this through.