Tonari no Jii-san - Ch. 24

[MangaDex]

 

[MsW0lf]

“Drinking the water makes people believe that they and their loved ones will go onto great careers and fame and praise. Sure they have unsightly parasites and will be eaten by a giant mutant, but they don’t know that and they’re happy. Isn’t that better than living boring bumpkin lives in a nothing rural town?”

 

[biologist]

Yuki will be taken into Velvet room in the next few episodes.

 

[zeroto7dan]

man, that teacher is just relatable, specially if the issue is consider "normal" or "culture" within the family, circle of friends, or community. the teacher choice to just let it be, the mc choice to tackle it, and last choice that no one pick yet is to leave the town behind.

 

[Al_Azif]

Time to pull a Marche.

 

[friendly]

A good demonstration of the ways humans can act. So long as you don't see it, you're Letting Things Be Happy. Instead of. You know. Being responsible every single time you keep letting it happen.

 

[MsW0lf]

man, that teacher is just relatable, specially if the issue is consider "normal" or "culture" within the family, circle of friends, or community. the teacher choice to just let it be, the mc choice to tackle it, and last choice that no one pick yet is to leave the town behind.

It’s also about responsibility for breaking the illusion. Imagine, all of the people in the village suddenly realising what “reality” is. Her best friend realising she isn’t going to be an idol and, instead, she has huge hideously deforming parasites ballooning her head. Entire families realising that they sent their children and friends off to be eaten by a grotesque beast with smiles and waves. And all of the responsibility for that heartbreak on the shoulders of whoever broke that spell. The teacher doesn’t feel like he could shoulder that burden. How could a school girl?

 

[ACEG]

This debate point in this chapter reminds me of The Wild Duck, in a way.

 

[HCO]

man, that teacher is just relatable, specially if the issue is consider "normal" or "culture" within the family, circle of friends, or community. the teacher choice to just let it be, the mc choice to tackle it, and last choice that no one pick yet is to leave the town behind.

Perception is reality

 

[sssr]

The butterfly story is a classical Chinese philosophical parable from Zhuangzi. However, the teacher is either deliberately or ignorantly misrepresenting the actual conundrum. The end question of the parable is "Is Zhuang Zhou dreaming of becoming a butterfly or is a butterfly dreaming of becoming Zhuang Zhou?"

In other words, the original parable allows both solutions. The human bounded by human limits may seek freedom like a butterfly, but similarly the unbounded butterfly living pointlessly may seek boundaries to become human. The real seeks the unreal, but the unreal may similarly seek the real. Both seekers are equally valid.

 

[gundulgondrong]

fucking boomer preaching non sense
if the girl's dream is to destroy the illusion, then you should let her do it, just like how you let those bloated people die because of the illusion.

 

[EchoGirl]

“Drinking the water makes people believe that they and their loved ones will go onto great careers and fame and praise. Sure they have unsightly parasites and will be eaten by a giant mutant, but they don’t know that and they’re happy. Isn’t that better than living boring bumpkin lives in a nothing rural town?”

yeah being 'delusional' is one thing but turning into a monster seems not worth the price unless it's also some kinda matrix situation

Tho i wonder how ppl get chosen. or ppl who stay in the town forever are happy being in the middle of nowhere or just miserable or so. But we did get visitors from out of town so ppl are allowed to live i guess

that said i'd think there'd be some ppl who would end up finding out on social media but i guess that kinda thing would get buried with all the other 'supernatural blogs'/conspiracy theorists

 

[yaixe]

Oh this mf.

I’m worry about the baseball boy now.

 

[Arexty]

If the means of escaping reality to a world of detached bliss come at the cost of complete self-destruction then yes, Sensei, I think an intervention is justified. Just reframe the causal problem as drugs instead of parasites and see the consequences. China fought the Opium Wars because of that and there are countless meth cities around the world analogous to the town in this story, just with more more buildings that resemble the ruined train station.

Moreover, Sensei is neglecting the issue of informed consent, letting innocent people become surreptitiously infected by a pathogen is dangerously close to replicating the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or the experiments of Imperial Japan's Unit 731 during WWII (the latter parallels I'm sure the author is already sensitive of).

Having said all that, if I were offered the opportunity to upload my brain one-way into a VR Catgirl Harem Slow Life Fantasy Simulator I'd jump on that waiver form...