The "Masuda" study seems to be 梅兹 - often read as Metz, but that's because the entire bubble is taken to be in Chinese by MTL (since he's speaking so "scientifically").
Umezi (plum bunny) is a Japanese reading for the kanji pair, it seems, but more relevant would seem to be that when I make a search for 梅兹 1989 study this very suspicious link comes up on top:
https://www.researchgate.net/public..._in_37_Cultures_Behavioral_and_Brain_Sciences
Since it also came up pretty early while I was making open searches for 1989 studies in the field of romance and inter-human relationships (like this summary:
https://www.themantic-education.com...cross-cultural-study-on-mate-preference-1989/ ) I would lean towards it being what he was trying to reference when he dunked.
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Edit: Also on the final page - I'm reasonably sure one only gets to see the Christmas sunrise once every 12 months, not once every 12 years.
Either way, thank you again for your hard work.
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Edit to the edit after reading the beginning of the next chapter: Ok, the 12 months/years thing seems to be something special about the occasion (probably that cleaning session they were talking about) and not the actual sunrise, so nevermind that bit. Still thank you for your hard work though.
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Post Ch. 87 edit: With the information found in that chapter, the "Masuda" study is revealed to have been Sandra Metts (et. al) extremely relevant study
`I Love You Too Much to Ever Start Liking You': Redefining Romantic Relationships
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0265407589063002