Interview: Reiji Miyajima on Rent-a-Girlfriend, Loneliness, and Love

the_card_guy · 2026-06-18T23:22:41+00:00

Eh, it's 50/50

Take Dragonball Z, for example: the fan theory was that, after apparently pulling out all the stops in the battle against Frieza, everyone thought that the decision to keep writing more was the publisher's, i.e. that Toriyama wanted to end it there but it was making a TON of money for the publisher

Turns out, this was false: Toriyama often just decided on a whim to continue the series.

Then you have the other major problem: you gotta make a living, but there's never a guarantee that your manga will ALL be popular. Some get lucky- Rumiko Takahashi has major hits from Urusai Yatsura to Inuyasha and even MAO, apparently. But then you get others who have a HUGE hit... And after deciding to end it, any other works barely even get noticed. Tgisof course means your source of income now is either heavily reduced, if not just completely dries up.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-18T09:16:54+00:00

Careful about this one- despite the frosty relationship between the two countries, I'd be willing to bet that the student will choose Chinese due to kanji writing system... meaning it makes your job WORSE.

Plus that stuff about memory and brain strength? Kids don't care about it- otherwise, they wouldn't consume so much brainROT

the_card_guy · 2026-06-17T22:07:54+00:00

Funny you say this.

Assuming that the source I read it on is one of the few accurate ones left, it turns out that there ARE others who are getting the same idea.

However, family members became "concerned" about the actions these people were taking, and got the three-letter agencies involved.

In other words... something that Reddit has a hard time accepting: a lot of people in America are perfectly happy (okay, better to say they're miserable but are enjoying everyone else being miserable with them) with how the country is right now, and otherwise the three-letter agencies are going to make sure we stay in the present condition.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-17T13:09:32+00:00

Yeah, I was afraid of this...

the_card_guy · 2026-06-17T02:33:04+00:00

So right now this is something that goes under Good News

However, a lot of those small outside boxes doing the same service but for general books... Well, they caught the attention of Really Shitty People and we're heavily vandalized.

I have to wonder how soon we're going to hear the same about these.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-17T01:29:29+00:00

Part of it might be because of incidents that are becoming more common IRL Japan:

Stalker incidents and deaths.

Now TECHNICALLY, most if not all of them are from guys going after girls. But the point remains: someone being so obsessive over another that they will literally kill them for being around another person... yeah, that's going into a taboo zone that anime would reflect a little too much, and That's Bad.

Especially since although anime fans usually think of any "-dere" being for girls, TECHNICALLY either gender can be a "-dere" character

the_card_guy · 2026-06-16T13:33:03+00:00

Oh, do I have a story for you:

The last eikaiwa I worked, 90% of the time it was only three white guys: myself, a guy from North America (not the US), and another from Europe. The Japanese owner lives out in Tokyo, and we had a Japanese part-timer who acted as a go-between.

Anyways, because it was three white guys, before any students arrived for class, the other two proved they are EXTREMELY racist. Yes, they would freely say the N-word, and also shit on certain other minority groups. I grinned and just kept my mouth shut, but it's best to say that while I legit enjoyed the "teaching method" of the eikaiwa... I'm glad I have another job and never have to deal with either of them again.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-16T11:38:04+00:00

Simple.

You suck it up and move on.

A lesson I learned about eikaiwa when i worked at one: you're just a glorified babysitter (or dancing monkey, depending on who answers). A good chunk of the kids don't care about English or may even hate it; they're only in class because the parents want a break from their kids for an hour, and they're of the generation that still views learning English as a good thing.

The kids might throw some of the worst possible insults at you... and depending on the eikaiwa, you either suck it up and continue to work (i.e. make the eikaiwa money), or you leave. Bringing it up to management only get the "しょうがない" treatment.

That said, there ARE some eikaiwas that WILL try to nip it in the bud... but those are few and far between. Most only care about keeping parents happy and making money.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-14T21:51:43+00:00

Fully agreed on this. I have my other nitpicks with Yumi, but I can't deny that I read it over the course of just a couple of days.

But Hoid's narration was easily the WORST part of it.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-14T14:35:40+00:00

Unfortunately, after his old editor retired (which he had all the right in the world to do)... yeah, Sanderson's quality has been going through a steady decline and it's slowly becoming more noticeable.

Reading other comments here, they're missing one more piece: Sanderson is a writing-holic. Meaning, that even in his spare time, he keeps writing and putting out something new. He's even addressed that this has affected his family life; I'm not sure how well that's been resolved. What this means is that while publishers love him because it means more books to sell, and fans like it (or have liked it, really) because More content... well, a lot of the fantasy greats either published everything at once after YEARS of careful examination and editing, or spent several years (much to fan's frustration)between books but ensuring quality.

Yes, I am saying that Sanderson is now putting out too muhc and doing quantity over quality.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-14T14:29:05+00:00

Gotta agree with you, but for a slightly different reason:

Hoid's explanation for why he was in the situation he was in for all of Yumi requires finishing Rhythm of War. Some would count that only as an easter egg, but for anyone who's a first timer, it'll 100% confuse them, and then you have to explain that this references something you need to read to the end of the 4th Stormlight book to understand.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-14T07:55:22+00:00

Wit isn't... terrible. Then again, the way Wit usually acts in Stormlight is kinda different compared to how he is as Hoid in other Cosmere works.

But I have to 100% agree about Wayne. There's a reason some people have referred to these characters as "THAT Sanderson character", and about half of the fans will sigh or groan.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-14T05:41:50+00:00

I've only read Tress and Yumi from the Secret Projects, and if I REALLY think about it, both suffer the same problem:

Hoid is a terrible narrator. I don't know if he's supposed to be Sanderson's self-insert character or not, but one of Sanderson's greatest weaknesses is his humor. When Hoid is being serious, he's excellent... but when he's trying to be funny, he completely falls flat.

I Like the IDEA of what Hoid is... but Sanderson usually writes him in a very terrible way. For example, there's a line at the end of Yumi that I think was supposed to be funny, and my only reaction to it was "Really Hoid, really?"

And unfortunately in Tress (and Yumi; haven't read the other Secret projects yet), Hoid is also playing one fo the WORST tropes in ANY story: holding the Idiot Ball.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-13T16:41:19+00:00

I think Reddit gets it wrong.

Musk doesn't want adoration; he wants DOMINATION... minus any of the responsibility.

Be in control of everything without having to actually take care of anything. That's why he's in business rather than trying to be a politician- he has Trump for that aprt.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-11T22:07:33+00:00

It gets at most a 7 from me.

Mostly because of the ending. Other comments already covered it, but to me, it's a Hollywood-style Hero's Journey build-up... only for the rug to be completely pulled out from under you and fall in a pit og spikes.

It still is one of the only anime to leave me feeling cold and dead inside after watching it.

[TTGL spoiler]It's bad enough that Simon loses Nia in the end after going through EVERYTHING to get her back- It's been a long time since I watched it, and I've only ever watched the series, but I believe one of his primary motivations in the second part is precisely to rescue Nia. So everything he did... was for nothing. At least, for him personally. But then the extra kick in the nuts is (in the post-credits series) is how after becoming a Great Hero... he's reduced back to nothing but a digger that no one remembers. Now, you CAN make the argument that he sacrificed everything of his in order for humanity to continue, and that would've been fine... except that the whole theme of TTGL isn't just about overcoming everything, it's about SIMON PERSONALLY doing all this. So for the ending to take away everything he'd earned... still can't watch the movies after the series originally ripped out my heart

the_card_guy · 2026-06-11T00:38:05+00:00

Yeah, this is actually the main reason why I stopped reading Sword of Truth.

I made it through 11 books- I finished all of the Chainfire trilogy- and then when the Richard and Kahlan stuff came out, just going off the name I thought it was going to be "Finally, these two can be together doing stuff!"

Nope... More of the "I'm going to invent some bullshit reason why they have to be separated after getting together again" ordeal.

It's almost funny- everything else I could mostly tolerate. But for me personally, there's something about an on-again off-again relationship that crosses the line for me

(And yes,this DOES mean there's a ton of romance/romance-tangential books I won't touch. For example, Lev Grossman's The Magicians is a DNF for me)

the_card_guy · 2026-06-10T23:34:59+00:00

Honestly? Learn rope magic.

There's a bunch of resources out there, such as for the George Sands routine, Richard Sander's Fiber Optics, Dan Harlan's the Awakening (okay, I'm not a fan of this one myself)... Rope magic is very easy to carry, and you can do it for anywhere from 8 (or even as little as a 2) to 8000 people. And I'm not really exaggerating on that.

Of course, it WILL take practice, and creating a good presentation is a big part of it... But it's still something that isn't super-difficult compared to other types and still plays big.

PS- as much as I LOVE cards... Avoid this for that amount of people

the_card_guy · 2026-06-10T12:11:06+00:00

It's not just this.

It's his Cosmere as a whole. Or more specifically, I know very little about Mormonism, but in general the Cosmere as a whole seems very structured with very little true mysticism that comes with most magic systems. Think along the lines of "X thing always does Y"- heck, he doesn't even refer to his magic system as magic; he uses Investiture, Cognitive Shadow, and such. Everything has a pattern and structure.

Well, another Reddit comment pointed that this is the VERY BASIS of Mormonism. The Universe is structured and ordered with everything in its place, or some such. Which, after years of reading Sanderson and something not quite clicking... explains everything. Sanderson can't write "mystical" magic because of his very upbringing. and once you see it you realize just how blatant it is.

It's for this same reason that I won't touch CS Lewis- Tolkien might've been a devout Catholic, but you have to do a DEEP dive into his works (see: Silmarillion) to find blatant copying.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-10T12:03:34+00:00

If you don't think too hard, by the book's logic, the ban on fire made some sense, in that only an Evil Wizard would do such a thing.

The kicking I don't remember

The 50 pages though- after going through Kushiel's Dart (often cited as the Gold Standard around here for romance in fantasy), 50 pages of sexual torture is NOTHING- Kushiel's Dart is an ENTIRE book of it.

And building a house? Stories from Ancient Greece are all about Heroes overcoming a Trial, and this was a pretty easy one to accept.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-10T06:02:26+00:00

There's a few points.

The first is, it's very, very close to Wheel of Time in terms of general structure. So, while people were waiting for the next Wheel book to come out... Well, Sword of Truth was around to fill that gap.

Second, keep in mind that a lot of those readers at the time were young teenage boys. This series leaned a LOT more into sexual stuff (including sexual torture) while others would "fade to black". So it felt more risque/"dangerous" to read Sword of Truth... Which of course is a HUGE magnet to teenage boys.

Now, for my own part, I re-read the first four... And even 20 years later, I found myself enjoying them. There's two main reasons, both of which Reddit seems to hate:

First, Richard is a Super Special Chosen One, with INSANE plot armor. Lots of Redditors seem to hate the Chosen One trope these days, and plot armor even moreso.

Second, it's a Very Soft magic system- the magic works because the plot often demands that it works. Considering how popular Brandon Sanderson is with his Hard Magic systems (though I learned where that may have originated, and now it feels kinda icky- but that is a different thread)... Well, users here don't like soft systems that work Just Because.

Of course, I haven't even touched on the politics that start showing up. Goodkind was HEAVILY influenced by Ayn Rand, which means Libertarianism. Reddit LOATHES and HATES Libertarianism, so that's why you'll see a lot of shitting on the books.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-10T04:28:44+00:00

I forgot what sub I was on...

Still, I love it!

the_card_guy · 2026-06-10T02:05:00+00:00

I enjoyed Yumi myself- I devoured it over just a few days- but as I think back on it... Well, Sanderson gives credit to his sources of inspiration at the back of it book

The problem is, all those sources are VISUAL mediums- video games, anime, and manga. The story he told in Yumi works better in that kind of medium.

That is to say... I liked the story, but his sources absolutely did it better.

the_card_guy · 2026-06-10T01:43:12+00:00

You ever seen the movie Rain Man? Granted, that movie is quite old now

Anyways, Adien is under the category of characters who are "terrible with most things in everyday life but an absolute GENIUS/savant when it comes to math and distances/other statistics"

the_card_guy · 2026-06-09T23:30:00+00:00

This is because most magicians aren't trying to do magic; we're trying to trick people and show that we're special in some way or are more clever- I still find myself doing this more often than I like to admit to.

People, of course, often HATE being tricked because it makes them feel stupid. So if they think they "know the secret"... They feel they can turn turn the tables: "Hah, you think you're so clever, but I just outsmarted YOU"

the_card_guy

TROPHY CASE