Introduction

There are times in my life when a mistake turns out for the better. This post is about one of those times.

Two Saturdays ago, I was on YouTube. I was trying to do some programming, but I couldn’t find the motivation.

So I was on YouTube, which I realize is not great, but I’m not perfect.

YouTube has had poor quality lately, so I was just scrolling, and I came across a suggestion that YouTube has often put in front of me: Bank Refuses Black Man to Enter, So He Buys the Bank and Becomes Their Boss.

Now, I haven’t ever watched it because I assumed it was a movie recap (it is), but I clicked on it this time because I wondered if it was a true story (it is), and I like true stories (history).

So I watched it. It was fine. I like the story.

But the important bit is that one of the videos suggested afterward was an anime recap: In This World, People Are Rated by Their Beauty and the Ugly Are Sent to Jail.

From there, it was easy to go to the next one: Scumbag Parents Sold Their Son to a Demon in Exchange for Money.

To this day, I have no idea why I clicked it. The word “Demon” should have put me off, but the thumbnail looked innocent enough that it didn’t.

Regardless, it was intriguing. How would a boy survive in a demon’s world? I guess that’s why I was curious.

So I clicked it, and as far as I could tell, the anime was clean because the recap was clean.

I watched more and more recaps after that. Anime just seems more interesting than whatever drivel Hollywood is putting out these days.

But I didn’t dare watch anything but recaps because I had heard that things can get dirty in animes. It was a good plan because at the time, I didn’t even know about the “harem” genre of animes.

Which is why I innocently came across a recap for The Quintessential Quintuplets.

I also innocently came across a recap for Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai.

And then I innocently came across a recap for Komi Can’t Communicate.

Well, I kept watching recaps, and in time, I watched enough recaps to realize that there is a “harem” genre and that I might want to avoid it. I also got a read on what sorts of animes might be clean, and which would not be.

Those three animes that I listed were my favorite recaps, and I decided to watch them, knowing that the recaps listed nothing I objected to in my media, except swearing.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t watch Komi Can’t Communicate because it’s only on Netflix, and I do not have an account, nor do I plan to get one. But I was able to watch the other two on Crunchyroll.

So I watched all of Bunny Girl Senpai and The Quintessential Quintuplets, and I watched just about every recap of Komi Can’t Communicate that I could find.

Tugging Heartstrings

People who have known me when I was younger have thought that I was heartless or otherwise unfeeling. Or perhaps that I am complicated and messed up.

They were right. But there was a reason.

This reason is why all three of these animes tugged my heartstrings.

Komi Can’t Communicate

This anime was easy for me to connect to.

First, while I don’t have a communication disorder like Komi’s, I have another communication trait that people look on even more poorly: I’m blunt.

Plus, I am a plain guy that happened to marry a beautiful woman and was hated for it.

But there are two scenes in particular that cut me to the core.

The first is where the main male protagonist, Tadano, realizes that Komi struggles to speak, and he suggests that she write what she’s thinking on the chalkboard instead.

She does, telling him that she does struggle, that no one’s ever noticed, and that she really wants to socialize, such as having lunch with people, but she has never been able to.

Then she apologizes, urges him to forget that this happened, and goes to leave when…

Which allows her to “have her first real conversation with a friend.”

It’s a moment with gravity and emotion, something I haven’t seen in any Hollywood movies lately. And it’s beautiful, for many reasons.

But it’s beautiful for one in particular: Tadano’s sacrifice for it.

In this scene, he’s accidentally slept in class, overslept, and made himself late for gym class. But he only ever mentions that when he wakes up. He doesn’t mention it ever again, but instead, he selflessly focuses on Komi who was basically crying next to him when he woke up.

When she’s about to leave, he doesn’t just shrug and go to gym class, he meets her at her level, writing on the chalkboard to her instead of going to gym class. He commits to helping her find 99 other friends, too.

And he never asks for, nor expects, any compensation for doing so.

This is why I am happy that Tadano is a plain guy (he is shown as average in everything) and Komi was not; it makes it feel more plausible that he expects nothing. I think it’s important for the story and for setting up the other scene I love so much.

As plain as he is, Tadano is not socially stupid. He knows his place according to Japanese society.

So when they are at Komi’s house celebrating her birthday, he sees a seat saved for her and does not even go near it. Instead, he sits on the floor away from everyone else.

And this happens:

Komi knows the open seat is for her. She knows Tadano is viewed poorly among her other friends. She doesn’t care. She loves him anyway, and she loves him more than she loves the others.

Because he loved her first.

Yes, he loved her. Not with romantic love or platonic love. With charity, the Pure Love of Christ.

And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

– Moroni 7:45

In other words, he loved her as a person, giving much and expecting nothing.

Contrast that with the other characters; most are obsessed with Komi in some way, and usually in an unhealthy way.

Their attempts to stir up mutual affection in Komi are all in vain because they do not love her like Tadano does!

Love begets love. Charity can beget affection.

Bunny Girl Senpai

While Komi Can’t Communicate is, in a phrase, about how one selfless act grew into love, Bunny Girl Senpai is how selfishness turned into selflessness.

The main male character, Sakuta, is a typical high school student. In fact, everyone says he’s a rascal, including himself.

So when he sees a girl wandering the library in a Playboy-style bunny suit, he notices her and stares. Funnily enough, no one else does, even though she seems to be trying to get attention.

When the girl, Mai, realizes that he can see her, she tells him to forget what he saw and leaves.

But he doesn’t forget; he is a teenage male after all.

But even though she isn’t happy about it, she talks to him on the train back home.

It turns out that over time, fewer people have been able to see her. It’s gotten so bad that she is unable to order food on the way home. He helps her do so, and when they get to his apartment building, he invites her inside and shows her the scars from when he suffered from “Adolescence Syndrome.” He shows her a picture of his sister suffering from the same thing.

He does this to prove to her that he believes her, and it works.

Unfortunately, he steps on a landmine during their talk, and she leaves in a huff.

No matter, she still can’t order food, so when he finally gets home the next night, she’s waiting for him.

He helps her shop, and they walk together. But he steps on the landmine again, purposefully. The reason is because she wants to do more show-biz work but will not because she’s mad at her mother.

Sakuta encourages her to restart, without her mother. She does, and in so doing, saves him from media attention due to his deal with the reporter.

Well, eventually, everyone forgets. The only reason Sakuta doesn’t is because he happened to stay up all night. He keeps himself up for yet another night to prevent the amnesia, but the next night, when he goes for broke, Mai shows up to help him “study” and slips some sleeping pills into water, telling him goodbye as he fades away.

The next morning, he wakes up with no memory. Even the diary entry he clairevoyantly wrote about her is obscurred so that her name does not appear.

He goes about the day, getting clues about her existence, but failing to remember, until in the middle of exams, he remembers.

He rushes out of the school, mentally ranting about how he somehow has to push the atmosphere of the school.

“Atmosphere” is his word for the implicit social pressure that exists.

He suffered against the atmosphere when a vile and wrong rumor about him started surrounding his experience with Adolescence Syndrome.

He realizes that to make Mai exist, he has to make them remember her, and the best way to do that is to shove the atmosphere, to turn it on himself strong enough that it moves itself.

So he runs to the outside of the school, and while the entire campus is quiet for exams, he shouts his love for Mai until the teachers and students get up to look.

It works; the school remembers her, and her Adolescence Syndrome is broken.

But it comes at great sacrifice to Sakuta.

It is no secret that in Japan, social pressures are strong; the atmosphere is powerful. Sakuta turned it on himself and suffers for it.

So Sakuta, the self-proclaimed lewd teenager, stood in the firing line of the immense social pressure of a Japanese high school for nothing more than to help a girl.

He was selfish at the start, claiming that he helped her because he enjoyed the attention of a beautiful girl one year older than him.

But he ended selfless, making a massive sacrifice to save her.

That scene, where he pushes the atmosphere, did more than shove the atmosphere; it ripped my heartstrings, because I know what he did.

I am a middle child, easily forgotten. I am a loner, easily avoided. I am quiet when depressed, easily ignored.

I have the ability to disappear in plain sight, and I have done so many times.

I know what it’s like to be invisible.

But at the same time, I have pushed the atmosphere. I have done things that made people look at me and turn the social pressure on me.

I know what it’s like to be Sakuta, to avoid making a scene. I know what it’s like to be Sakuta, making a scene for something I consider important.

So yeah, this show ripped my heart out.

The important thing is that Bunny Girl Senpai shows that love can turn selfishness to selflessness.

Love begets sacrifice. Sacrifice can beget affection.

The Quintessential Quintuplets

Komi Can’t Communicate is how selflessness turns into love. Bunny Girl Senpai is about how love turns selfishness into selflessness.

And The Quintessential Quintuplets is about how to nurture that love.

This one hit me the hardest, and I think it’s because there were more characters to love. I loved all of the main ones, even the ones that made me angry.

Fuutarou is a studious, high-scoring high school student who needs money, so when his dad picks up a tutoring job for him, he jumps at the chance.

Unfortunately, it’s to tutor a set of quintuplets, all of whom are failing and one of which he insulted at school hours earlier.

Needless to say, it does not go well. He is drugged on his first try. He is almost fired once, saved by the quintuplet who hates him the most. He quits later, telling the girl’s dad that he should be more active in their lives.

Through it all, the quintuplets slowly fall in love with him, including the one who hated him at first. In fact, she’s the first to confess to him!

I won’t go through it all; the anime spends one season on Fuutarou trying to get the quints to study and on them falling for him, and it spends one season on the quints trying to compete for Fuutarou.

The buildup takes a long time, and the payoff doesn’t even happen; they just released a movie in May that wraps it up, and it isn’t even in North America yet!

But the content of those two seasons are chock full of examples of nurturing love.

The sisters fight, yes. Two even slap each other.

But they forgive.

They also have mercy on each other. They don’t demand justice, and when they do, they always eventually acquiesced.

They all, including Fuutarou, begin the anime as selfish jerks. By the end of the second season, they are not, for the most part.

However, while most of the show’s treatment of love is indirect, some of it is direct.

There is an arc where Fuutarou is at a hot springs with his family, and the quints happen to be there too; it turns out that the proprietor is their grandfather.

Because he suffered something like a heart attack the first time he saw the quints not be identical, they decided a long time ago to take the identity of the youngest, Itsuki, whenever they were around him.

So poor Fuutarou can’t tell them apart anymore; he used to tell them apart by their hair, and they are all wearing matching wigs.

Of course, their grandfather has no problem telling them apart, and Fuutarou wants to know how, so he asks him, “Isn’t there a trick or something to telling them apart?”

The old man’s answer is one word: “love.”

“You can tell them apart if you have love.”

At this point, Fuutarou has heard this a lot from the quints, who claimed their mother said it. Fuutarou realizes it just came from their grandfather to their mother.

And just as Fuutarou is about to despair, the old man expands on his answer.

“Over a long time, you learn to identify their mannerisms, voice, subtle habits. That is tantamount to love.”

Then turning to Fuutarou with an extremely serious expression, he adds, “You said you wanted to tell my grandkids apart. There is no silver bullet.”

And then he demands, “Why do you want to tell my grandkids apart? What is it you want to accomplish by being able to tell them apart? Do you have the commitment to face them in good faith?”

Good Faith

If there is an overarching theme to this post, it is encapsulated in those two words: good faith.

Love requires good faith. Forgiveness requires good faith. Mercy requires good faith. Meekness, humility, and the other traits that Christ requires of us all require good faith.

And Heaven itself requires good faith because, as the old man said, there is no silver bullet.

I understand that that seems overly simplistic, but I will make the case for it.

Starting with grace.

Grace

In the Christian world, there is a lot of confusion as to what grace is. The problem is that there is confusion as to whether we are saved by grace or works.

Nephi said, “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”

So that sounds like it is both, and it is. Sort of.

My favorite talk about grace, “His Grace Is Sufficient” by Brad Wilcox, explains it in more detail.

Jesus Christ has already paid the price for us to get back to Heaven. Because He did, there is nothing any of us need to do to get into Heaven. He has already paid the price.

If He wanted, He could make it so all of us make it back. He can even cleanse us from sin and keep us from it so that we can be clean and stay in Heaven.

He could do all of that without expecting anything from us. That is grace.

And yet, He does expect something of us. That is works.

So why does a perfectly loving Christ expect something of us? Doesn’t He want all of us in Heaven?

He absolutely does, but there is something He wants more: He wants us all to be as happy as possible. This is why His plan is called the Plan of Happiness.

“His Grace Is Sufficient” talks about this. Brad Wilcox tells the story of a boy who was a delinquent, whose parents and grandparents made a great sacrifice of funds to send him to a spiritual camp called EFY.

And yet, within a day, he demanded to be taken out. Why?

Because he was uncomfortable. That was not the world he had gotten himself comfortable in.

Heaven is a more extreme version of EFY; imagine how uncomfortable that boy would be in Heaven.

Brad Wilcox then claims, and I believe him, that at the Final Judgment, when Heavenly Father and Christ pass final judgment on all of us, They won’t judge us; we will judge ourselves.

We will decide to stay in Heaven if we are comfortable there. We will decide to leave if we are not. It’s that simple.

So what does that have to do with what Jesus Christ asks us to do?

He asks us to practice.

If we are to stay in Heaven, we must be comfortable, right? Well, Heaven is extreme; it is not easy to be comfortable there. It will take practice to be comfortable there.

That’s what He asks us to do: to practice being comfortable in Heaven, to practice living the Law of Heaven so that when we die, we are already used to living it.

And if we don’t do that, then we won’t be comfortable.

Those are the “works” we must do, and it must be all we can do; otherwise, there is no sacrifice, and without true sacrifice, giving up what worldly things we want, there can be no true practice for Heaven, where worldly things do not exist.

So yes, Jesus Christ wants us back in Heaven, but He wants us to be as happy as possible even more. Thus, He will put us where we want to be.

So Christ does save us; we do nothing. But He wants us to practice so that we want to come back to Him.

The Two Great Commandments

So what has Jesus Christ asked us to practice?

Two simple things:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

– Matthew 22:37-40

Sure, that sounds nice. But why? Why those two things?

Once again, the answer is simple: because God and our neighbor will be in Heaven with us, and would we really want to be there if we didn’t love them all?

Of course not.

Learning to love everyone is the contral part of wanting to be in Heaven. If we love them, we’ll want to be there. If we don’t, we won’t.

It’s that simple.

Love Is Action

Well, the principle is simple, but execution is hard.

The Savior gave us a small taste of what we would need to do, to be, in order to love:

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

– Matthew 5:3-11

It is a beautiful list, and they are all about actions that show love for God or our neighbor.

• To be poor in spirit is to have humility, and humility is to not have enmity, whether toward God or our fellow man.
• The Lord has asked us to mourn with those that mourn, to help them.
• To be meek is to put others first. That is loving them.
• Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness have to love God to do so because righteousness is the practice that makes them comfortable in His presence.
• The merciful give mercy. How can that not be love?
• The pure in heart love God because they have become what He wants. Also, a pure heart can only have love inside.
• Those who make peace love those they are trying to reconcile because peace is a gift of love.
• And finally, those who are persecuted for righteousness love God because they are taking stripes for His name.

And that was just a distillation into general principles. A lot of love can be given in so many ways.

Such as having a conversation on a blackboard with someone who struggles to speak.

Such as facing the social pressure of high school for the benefit of someone else.

Such as forgiving a sister’s slap.

Such as spending the time and effort to learn the “mannerisms, voice, subtle habits” of a person, whether a quintuplet, twin, or not, so it is easier to figure out when they are feeling down or struggling.

Once put into action, then it is love.

That is why I said that Tadano loved Komi before anyone else: he put it into action first. It was why I believe Sakuta when he shouts that he loves Mai: he put it into action by sacrificing his reputation for her. It was why I know the quints love each other: they put it into action by apologizing and forgiving.

If you want to make it to Heaven, practice putting love into action.

From Love to Good Faith

But just loving people is not good enough.

If this were a perfect world, it would be. There would not be a single person that anyone would be uncomfortable around.

That is not our world; every person has at least one someone they are uncomfortable around.

Imagine that when you get up to Heaven, you see that someone there before Christ lets you judge yourself.

Would that change your choice?

Would you rather live away from Heaven than in Heaven with that person there?

The answer to that question is not something to take lightly. It will determine your eternal destiny.

The good news is that you don’t have to answer today, or tomorrow. You have until death.

Until then, practice.

Of course, you must practice love by action. But you must also practice good faith.

That someone who makes you uncomfortable, could you look at the fact that they are in Heaven as proof that they have changed, that they are better than they were?

If not, then you don’t have enough good faith.

Faith that Heaven means they are clean and pure. Faith that Heaven means that they don’t have to make you uncomfortable anymore. Faith that they will never again do what made you uncomfortable.

Good faith means that you will have faith in them, and in Christ, to welcome them into Heaven without reservation, and to stay yourself.

Can you do that?

This is the life mission for all of us: to learn to love so much that we want everyone in Heaven, and to have the good faith necessary to stay if they are.

I know this will be hard. I have people that I’m uncomfortable around.

And for people who have been directly hurt by others, perhaps through heinous crimes like abuse or negligence of the worst kind, being comfortable around those who abused them is a tall order, one I cannot begin to fathom.

But Christ can. He suffered the same things all of us have, including victims of abuse. If He wants them in Heaven, He is comfortable around them. If He is comfortable around them after experiencing the same things as you, then He can help you be comfortable around them too.

And practicing being comfortable with that is showing love, both to yourself and to the other person.

Forgiveness

The key is forgiveness.

If you can forgive those who have hurt you, truly forgive, then you will be comfortable around them in Heaven.

This link between forgiveness and comfort in Heaven is, I believe, why:

I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

– D&C 64:10

As I mentioned before, there are some for whom justice will require full recompense, so there are some whom the Lord cannot forgive.

But we don’t know who that will be; judgment is not ours to pass. So we must forgive everyone, no matter what.

This includes forgiving yourself.

I struggle with forgiving myself; this means that I am actually uncomfortable around the people I have hurt in the past.

That has to change because if it doesn’t, would I decide to leave Heaven?

I can’t answer that question, but I fear it.

Nevertheless, I know that if I can forgive myself, I will be comfortable around those I have hurt.

This was another reason The Quintessential Quintuplets trucked me. There were so many offenses, so many apologies, and so much forgiveness. Every time an offense happened, I hated it, knowing that these sisters would be better off together than apart.

That was why I started thinking about this: why did I feel like the sisters would not be together if they didn’t forgive?

Well, first, two of them literally left at one point, because they couldn’t stand to be in the same house. And second, I’ve seen in real life many times when broken relationships led to physical separation.

Then I realized that when Heaven comes, such physical separation will be all the more real.

That was why I hated it when the quints were mad at each other: I could sense them drifting apart, and I loved them enough that I did not like it.

Headcanon

I have an admission to make: this post only happened because I am unhappy with those animes. I did not like the payoffs of any of them.

In fact, I am so upset with the payoffs that I have my own headcanon for all three!

Komi Can’t Communicate

To be fair, Komi Can’t Communicate isn’t even done yet, so obviously, the payoff would not be there. However, I don’t want to wait that long.

So here’s my headcanon.

First, Tadano and Komi date and get married appropriately.

Then their home life is exactly as envisioned by Tadano in a daydream:

Lest you think I’m only taking into consideration what Tadano wants, Komi does something similar for real when Tadano is sick:

I think she would be alright with that life.

Bunny Girl Senpai

This one is a little easier.

We know that Mai and Sakuta are dating at the end of the anime, yay!

Eventually, Mai, who is actually the smarter of the two, helps Sakuta to graduate by helping him study through his senior year.

So they will eventually get married appropriately.

Sakuta will be Mai’s support in her chosen profession, and he’ll do the work at home, as he did with his sister.

They’ll be smart with money and time, spending enough time together and wisely spending so that Mai can retire when she is done, and they will still never have to worry about money.

Both Sakuta’s sister and Mai’s sister will also be a part of their lives to the end of time.

Also, in my headcanon, Sakuta’s friend Kunimi dumps his jealous and proud girlfriend in favor of Futaba, a girl that is a friend to both of them and has liked Kunimi for a long time.

The Quintessential Quintuplets

This one is the hardest.

I do have a favorite quintuplet, but I also want for them all to get the man they want, even the ones I get mad at the most.

In this world, that’s currently impossible.

But there is a way around it; however, knowing the personalities of the quints, I know that my headcanon actually depends on which one Fuutarou marries. So unless you already know, or are willing to ruin that for yourself, don’t read the spoiler.

Conclusion

While I admit that I wrote this post to get some catharsis after being unsatisfied with the three animes, I hope you do not miss the principles.

After all, my headcanon for all three requires the characters to love and appreciate each other, to work through problems, to share, and to have good faith that it will all work out in the end.

Which of course it will!

God will make us as happy as possible. We just have to practice for the greatest happiness in order to receive it.