I just finished reading _In the Mega Church_ by Ryo Asai. Whenever I try to organize my thoughts after reading a book, part of me sometimes feels like I need to come up with some completely original take—something no one else has said before. But this time, I’m going to ignore that impulse and simply write down what I genuinely thought about the book. First of all, it was a really good book, and I completely understand why it has been selling so well. This was actually the first Ryo Asai novel I had ever finished, and I flew through it surprisingly quickly. It’s not the kind of novel where huge dramatic events happen or where the story keeps throwing bizarre twists at you, but it was so easy to read that I just kept turning the pages. At the center of the novel is fandom culture—the idea of having someone or something you actively support and devote yourself to. The book looks at it from three different perspectives: someone who is about to enter a fandom, someone who has already left one, and someone on the management side whose job is to encourage people to become more deeply involved. What looks good or bad changes completely depending on where you are standing. Of course, that is true far beyond fandom culture, but what impressed me throughout the book was how beautifully these different perspectives were put into words. Again and again, I found thoughts I had vaguely felt but had never been able to articulate, as well as perspectives I had never considered before. I think that was one of the main reasons the book felt so effortless to read. From here on, I’m going to talk about spoilers, so if you’re planning to read the book, you probably shouldn’t read the rest of this entry. One part that really pulled me in was a discussion about how women can spend hours talking in a café, while men tend to have fewer spaces like that. The idea was that women are often able to talk without the conversation needing to have any particular purpose, whereas men are more likely to need some kind of reason to meet up with friends in the first place. Apparently, that difference becomes even more obvious as people get older. The same thing can happen within families. Women may talk simply because they want to talk, without necessarily having a specific point they are trying to make, while men are more likely to think, “So what are you actually trying to say?” Men tend to look for a purpose. But the book doesn’t frame either tendency as better or worse. Instead, it suggests that being able to have those seemingly purposeless conversations is actually a pretty remarkable skill. That really resonated with me. When I was in university, I sometimes asked my girlfriend things like, “What are you actually trying to say?” and expected a kind of logical structure from our conversations. Looking back, that feels incredibly immature. Even now, if I had to sit down and talk with, say, my in-laws, I honestly think I would struggle to come up with anything to say. I would automatically start searching for something meaningful to talk about. I don’t think I’m suddenly going to become someone who is naturally good at meaningless conversation, but I do think I’ve become a little better at recognizing that ability in other people as a genuine skill rather than dismissing it. This novel gave me a lot of moments like that, where I became aware of ways of thinking I had never really tried to understand before. Another line I found fascinating was, “In a country without God, the best way to control people is through stories.” That idea runs through the entire novel. The people on the management side of fandom culture carefully create stories around the person being supported in order to deepen the fans’ emotional investment. It is no longer simply about buying something. Once a story is attached to the purchase—once spending money becomes part of “supporting” someone—the way people think about that money changes. It made me notice how common this is in everyday advertising and marketing as well. Once you start paying attention to what kind of story a product or company is using to draw people in, the world around you starts to look a little different. The question of perspective also comes up repeatedly in the novel. We are often told that we should broaden our perspective, but is having a wider perspective always a good thing? When you are trying to make a major decision that could change your life, for example, perhaps you actually need your perspective to be somewhat narrow. If you listen to every opinion around you and consider every possible reason not to act, you may end up unable to decide anything at all. There may be no answer that is unquestionably right from every possible angle. If you are so determined to be as objective as possible, and so afraid of being criticized, that you keep stepping farther and farther back in order to see every perspective, eventually you may find that you yourself have become distant from everything. And from that position, it becomes difficult to act at all. In order to believe in something, become deeply committed to something, or simply choose one thing over another, people may need to narrow their perspective to some extent. At the same time, that very tendency is what allows people to be manipulated through things like fandom culture. In other words, “seeing the world as broadly and accurately as possible” and “believing in something strongly enough to act” may be surprisingly difficult to reconcile. The wider your perspective becomes, the harder it is to reduce things to simple ideas of good and bad. And if you keep considering every possible position and every possible outcome, you may eventually lose the ability to choose anything for yourself. Maybe that is why people need stories. In order to choose something and move forward, perhaps we sometimes need to narrow our view a little and say, “This is what I believe.” That kind of story can save someone, and it can make life richer, just as fandom can. But what makes this novel unsettling is that, for someone who understands that part of human nature, a story can also become a tool for moving and controlling people. You may believe that you chose to like someone entirely of your own free will, and that you decided to support them entirely on your own, while the story that led you to like them in the first place may already have been carefully designed by someone else. Narrowing your perspective can make you happier, but it can also make you easier to manipulate. What stayed with me most strongly was that the novel never presents either side as the correct one. It shows both at the same time.

My next trip abroad is going to be Georgia! I’m leaving in about two weeks, so I feel like it’ll be here before I know it. I’m planning to travel for about two and a half weeks, which is a pretty long trip for me. I think of Georgia as one of the most Asian-feeling parts of Europe, with beautiful nature and towns that somehow remind me of Switzerland. On the way there, I’m also going to spend a night in Shanghai, China, which I’m really looking forward to. It’ll also be my first trip abroad in about a year, since I went to Mongolia. I don’t know if it’s just a coincidence or not, but somehow my solo trips abroad tend to happen around turning points in my life. When I went to Cambodia, I had just broken up with my girlfriend. When I went to Mongolia, things weren’t going well with my new girlfriend, and I was exhausted from wondering whether we should break up. It was also right before I moved out on my own for the first time. And this time, with Georgia, I’ve just broken up with my girlfriend again, and I’m about to make my second big move—from Osaka to Tokyo. Every time I travel, there seems to be something going on in my life that I need to think through. While I’m abroad, I spend a lot of time reflecting on those things and trying to figure out how I really feel. Maybe part of the reason I plan these trips in the first place is because I want some time and space to sort things out. Either way, traveling alone gives me a lot of time to face myself and think about my life. And somehow, by the time I come home, I always feel much clearer and more refreshed.

It feels like a lot of things in my life have been changing lately. Right now, I live in Osaka, Japan’s second city, while working remotely for a company based in Tokyo. However, starting next April, I’ll need to go into the Tokyo office much more frequently. Because of that, I’ll be moving to Tokyo around December, just three or four months from now. It has only been about ten months since I started living on my own in Osaka, and now I already have to move again—this time to Tokyo. The possibility of moving to Tokyo had come up several times before, but I stubbornly refused. I hate crowds, and more importantly, I had a girlfriend in Osaka. But by pure coincidence, my girlfriend and I officially broke up recently, and then yesterday, I was told by my company that I would need to move to Tokyo. What strange timing. Until now, I had always hated the idea of moving to Tokyo. But somehow, this time, I can see it as a small turning point in my life—and that makes me feel a little more positive about going. Of course, moving takes a lot of time and energy, so I’ll have to brace myself for it. Still, I’m actually a little excited about this new chapter. The painful part is that moving always costs so much money, though...

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be compatible with someone as a person. I’m generally the kind of person who can get along with almost anyone. But I also think there is a separate question of whether or not I truly click with someone. If I had to draw the line myself, I would say that getting along with someone means being able to maintain a relationship with them, while truly clicking with someone means being able to be myself without forcing anything. When I think about what it means to be myself without forcing anything, it looks something like this: - I don’t spend too much time after meeting them wondering, “Did I say something weird?” - I don’t have to adjust my opinions to match what I think they would like to hear. - Even when we disagree, it doesn’t feel as though the relationship itself might fall apart. - I don’t feel pressured to say something funny or keep the conversation going. For me, how much I do these things seems to vary quite a lot depending on the person. None of them are necessarily bad. When I meet someone for the first time, or when I still don’t know them very well, these things almost always happen. But with someone I truly click with, those walls tend to come down quickly, and I gradually become able to be myself without trying so hard. With many people, however, those walls remain no matter how many times we meet. Of course, the more easily you can get along with anyone, the harder it may be to distinguish between “I don’t dislike this person,” “I can get along with this person without any problems,” and “I genuinely click with this person.” Still, this is how I define compatibility for myself. I also think the biggest key to reaching this kind of relationship is whether our smiles and sense of when to laugh are in sync. More broadly, it comes down to the way someone listens. When I’m talking to someone who only laughs when something is genuinely funny, I find myself pausing for a moment before saying anything. If that happens in every conversation, it becomes exhausting. It creates a negative cycle: I become less comfortable saying what I really want to say, and as a result, the other person probably becomes less comfortable too. That doesn’t mean someone has to smile constantly or laugh at everything. It is simply about the way they listen. When someone smiles, I find it easier to talk to them. I relax, and I gradually feel able to say whatever is on my mind. So perhaps the people I truly click with are the ones who can laugh even at the silly, unremarkable things I say.

I spent the whole day at a tennis tournament. I went with two friends I met at tennis school. We played singles matches in the morning and doubles in the afternoon. There is something interesting about making friends in a place completely separate from work and the rest of my usual world. One of them is moving to Australia next year and also has a fascinating job. He always has so many stories about things I know nothing about, which makes talking to him really interesting. The other has a job completely different from mine, and his lifestyle and interests are also very different from my own. That makes spending time with him interesting too. One of the main reasons I started playing tennis six months ago was the chance to meet people like this, so I’m really happy that it has actually happened. Starting next week, I’m planning to skip tennis school and rent a court with them once or twice a week after work instead. By the way, I got absolutely destroyed in my matches.