Easy reasoning training for a structure think
I practised simple reasoning training with friendship anime.
An autobiographical animated series by the 40-year-old Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare – packed with references to Japanese anime from the 1980s and 90s – is available on Netflix, spanning three seasons.
The main character, Zero, consults with his friends and holds an excuse meeting with his imaginary friend.
It was perfect for the example of “the most familiar structural thinking is a friend’s trouble consultation”, so I practised the “easy reasoning training” that I proposed last time with my impressions of this anime series.
I would like to show you how my impression of ZERO changed significantly as a result of the training, and how that the causal diagram has also changed quite a lot.
I have created a slide illustrating the process
Title : This World can’t tear Me
■Synopsis (the main character Zero’s perspective)
For the first time in 20 years, Cesare returned to the suburban town in Italy where the shy main character ZERO (= the author) and his childhood friend had grown up.
He returned from a rehabilitation center for drug addiction. However, he stayed inside because he could not get used to the home town. One day, he said, “Only the neo-Nazis listened to me.” Cesare then joined the neo-Nazis.
At the same time, the city was divided over the refugee shelters. The neo-Nazis opposed accepting refugees, while ZERO’s friends supported them. Both sides began marching in protest.
The situation turned into a riot when the two groups clashed, leaving the refugees caught in the middle.
My Tow Cents
■Synopsis (the main character Zero’s perspective)
ZERO’s childhood friend, Shara, sent him a message saying, “I have something important to tell you.”
ZERO had forgotten about the meeting, so he was very late when he finally went to the meeting place.
The important news was about Smeralda, his favorite person when they teenagers, and then She was planning to temporarily staying away from her boyfriend because of his domestic violence.
So, Shara suggested Smeralda to stay at ZERO’s house for a while.
Let’s look at it from a different angle
This World can’t tear Me
■Synopsis (Friend’s perspective)
Zero (aged 37) visited his old friend Cesare after being invited to dinner by Cesare’s mother. On his way home, driven by a faint sense of justice, Zero tore down a poster put up by neo-Nazis that read ‘Oppose Refugee Shelters’.
In a stroke of bad luck, Zero was spotted by a neo-Nazi whilst tearing down posters.
Just as the neo-Nazi was about to attack Zero, Cesare appeared out of nowhere.
‘This is the only time I’ll help you!’ he said,
and, using non-violent means, he rescued Zero from the beating and walked away with the neo-Nazi.
Zero went about his daily life without even thanking Cesare for the help he’d given him.
One day, Cesare said, ‘Only the neo-Nazis would listen to me,’ and ended up joining them.
My Tow Cents
■Synopsis (Friend’s perspective)
Smeralda, whom Shara — ZERO’s childhood friend — brought along, was ZERO’s teenage crush,
and the young ZERO had been a regular at the shop where she worked for about a year.
The few weeks between her breaking up with one guy and the next one showing up were ZERO’s chance to make his move.
One day, Smeralda asked him out on a date, but he lied and said, “I have a girlfriend,” which backfired on him. That reunion was their first in 20 years.
ZERO becomes psychologically blind to serious matters
After striking it rich thanks to the success of an anime, ZERO began co-managing a café with his friend Inoshishi (pseudonym) for about three years, during which time he was in charge of checking the monthly accounts.
ZERO had noticed the shortfall in the monthly accounts quite early on, but due to his “inability to speak up,” he was unable to point out the problem to Inoshishi, who was actually running the shop.(ZERO’s Failure to Fulfill His duties)
Just as the shortfall at the café till had become far too large, a mafia member nicknamed ‘Bitter Worm’ burst into the café and searched every nook and cranny for ‘Boa Mask’.
Zero stepped forward as the owner and dealt with ‘Bitter Worm’ in place of ‘Boa Face’, who had fled.
‘Bitter Worm’ left him with the parting words, ‘The fallout from the trouble Boa Face has caused is your problem,’ before walking away.
‘Boa Face’ was suffering from the fact that he ‘couldn’t confess the truth about his debts to his wife’.
The situation gradually went from bad to worse,
and he had now fallen into a dire predicament, with a massive debt breathing down his neck.
ZERO is extremely sensitive about his own embarrassment and the risks he faces, and is constantly consulting his imaginary friend, the armadillo.
His friends are well aware of ZERO’s timid nature and are always there to help him.
However, there are virtually no scenes in which ZERO actually considers his friends’ feelings.
With that in mind, I have compiled the following list of predicted reactions from those involved in the real world after watching this anime series, the outcome of which is easy to predict even from the other side of the globe.
It was ZERO who first broke up the ‘DUO’.
In the story itself, Secco gets angry with ZERO, saying, ‘It was you, ZERO, who first broke up our best-friend relationship (DUO) over manga and anime things.’
Secco has been friends with ZERO since their elementary schooldays, when he was quiet and somewhat eccentric; the reason he makes a living from gambling is that he lost his family at the age of 14 and became an orphan.
Although he hardly speaks in the anime, he does showcase a typically Japanese ‘mum’s moral code’ — the idea that ‘even if no one is watching, the heavens are watching’ — within the story.
It is evident that Secco also references Japanese anime such as *The Rose of Versailles* and *Evangelion*, which ZERO uses as source material for his jokes. However, unlike ZERO — who makes a clean-cut distinction between primitive religious beliefs and Secco — Secco appears to have fully grasped the work’s intended message.
The dialogue in the manga is logical and reasonably substantial.
In the anime, however, he has been reduced to little more than a gelato-obsessed gambler.
Naofumi Kogami explains this humiliation well in his response to a readers’ advice column in a newspaper, so I’d like to quote it here.
“I think she was in a state where she felt she was being looked down upon but was glad that someone had spoken to her.”
“And so, after graduating from secondary school, going to university and entering the workforce, Ms A must have met someone with whom she could talk as an equal. She must have met someone who didn’t think of her as ‘poor thing’ because she came from an unhappy family, who didn’t feel the need to give her advice, and who didn’t put up a defensive front.”
So, I suppose that’s why she felts no longer wanted to talk to Sayaka.
She confirmed this whilst having dinner together.I don’t think you can form an equal relationship with someone once you start feeling ‘sorry’ for them. The same applies if you think, ‘I’m doing this for your sake’. “
The animated film in which Zerocalcare voiced all the characters must have made it abundantly clear to his friends just how much he secretly looked down on them, and they must have been shocked.
There are gradients in the walls of the mind
I surmised that Secco and Cesare were the sort who found it difficult to open up. ZERO lives alone in a seamless steel tower with no door through which to open up.
This is the diagram of the heart — drawn as a series of concentric circles by ZERO — in the scene towards the end of the anime where he and Secco part ways.
I’d like you to compare it with my own diagram of the heart (in the style of a traditional Japanese house).
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I, too, am the sort of person who finds it rather difficult to open up — or rather, I find it painful and so tend to avoid it — but my heart isn’t a simple set of concentric circles like ZERO’s.
Even amongst people who, like me, dislike opening up, the inner workings of our hearts differ greatly.
Let us now shift our focus to the real-life characters who exist outside the work
Only the person themselves lives within their own heart.
What does this mean in real life?
An acquaintance of mine, Mr IG, is this type, so let’s take a look at his life as an example.
At a drinks party, when K — a mutual friend of mine and Mr IG’s — confided that he had ‘been abused’, deliberately choosing a light-hearted tone,
Mr IG made a comment that was completely out of place for the occasion, saying, ‘You shouldn’t speak ill of your parents,’ which left everyone utterly dumbfounded.
At that moment, I found myself wondering: ‘Doesn’t he realise that he is the only one living in his own mind, and that other people have feelings and circumstances just like his own?’
But I also wondered: ‘Could it simply be that he doesn’t stand out because he usually adheres to the “correct behaviour” taught to him by his mother and his boss?’
A few years later, when he watched *Evangelion: 2.0 序破Q Advance*, I saw him grow angry and lament that he had been ‘betrayed by Shinji’ upon seeing the updated version of Shinji Ikari — a character now capable of making an effort to form ‘emotional bonds’ — and my suspicions turned into certainty. *1*
Here are the similarities between Mr. IG and ZERO, if my guess is correct
◎It is professionally correct for ZERO to follow the editors’ instructions. It is their job to suggest ways of clarifying the characters.
◎Zero should obviously have been able to question the editor with things like “How do friends of zero feel about changing character tire own?” or “How are the relationships if they will get angry with Zero?” and He must have tried to negotiate.
But he was completely oblivious to the accumulating unease his own behavior had been causing in everyone around him
◎When reading the same manga on Amazon Unlimited, Secco was a person who spoke the necessary opinions more clearly than anime.
He has his own philosophy, which is not Christian.
Viewers can easily guess that Netflix has drastically cut his faith (Belief) down for fear of trouble with the church and the PTA.
He called the theory of paganism “primitive”.
Because Zero who lives as a “the Italian citizen on the knees of the Pop of the Christian world.”
This is probably correct as common sense in Christian countries.
But as a friend ZERO is not at all right or respectful.
It would be humiliating if Secco’s unique beliefs (Belief) based on “goodness” in surviving alone from the age of 14 were assessed as “primitive.”
Secco’s philosophy closely resembles that of folk Shinto in Japan.
Even I, a Japanese person who does not usually give much thought to religion, felt that ZERO’s assessment was ‘an insult to my culture’.
Most people are afraid to open up, but you do it anyway, right?
Zero is an eternal teenager who never changes, but stands still. During the 3 years, Secco has become an adult, has a heart connection with someone, became the father of a baby, and has cut off contact with Zero and the others.
In this context, it is easy to predict that Secco is the reason why ZERO is often absent from the city due to the success of the anime and the busy schedule, and the care of Kamatte-chan (ZERO) has decreased dramatically, and Secco has opened up a space of mind that he can use himself.
In the empty space, the connection of mind between Secco and his equal, respectful friend or lover came in, which may have been the reason why Secco was able to complete his emotional emergence from his eternal pupa.
In fact, Secco had redrawn the boundaries of his unbalanced relationship with ZERO,
Shara explains that at the time of “My Tow Cents”, he had declared that he would not interact with his friends except when they in an emergency.
This is in a scene where he does not appear in the wild boar debt countermeasure scene.
Although ZERO is unhappy and realises his own problems thoug, he can’t see direct it.
he tells Secco that Zero is breaking off their duo.
In addition, regarding the way ZERO loses out or misses opportunities — due to shying away from the responsibilities of relationships or failing to engage deeply with friends and situations —
this is well illustrated by Smeralda’s line:
‘It’s got nothing to do with muscles; I loved them because they took the risk of exposing themselves to embarrassment and clearly expressed their desire to be with me.’
Causal Diagram Summary
When I first watched this anime, I perceived the protagonist, ZERO, as a gentle person — someone highly sensitive who could truly empathize with his friends’ troubles.
However, after putting the “Gentle Inference Training” I previously proposed into practice and carefully mapping out the causal relationships, a seemingly minor detail emerged as a crucial key: a trait ZERO himself admitted to — a tendency to become psychologically blind to matters that are too heavy to bear.
Tracing the causal arrows from this starting point led me to a new hypothesis: perhaps his “sensitivity” was merely a facade, masking a tendency to offload troublesome decisions and responsibilities onto others — a sort of impenetrable “AT Field.”
My view of ZERO changed a lot — from ‘a sensitive protagonist worthy of empathy’.
Here now has a pretty frank personal assessment: “A forty-year-old man-child who can’t clean up his own ass, who’s always oblivious the trouble his actions cause others”
This shows how training in structural thinking can sometimes have the power to completely change how you see a subject.
Recap on my solo training
If you practise thinking in a certain way (by mapping the causes and effects), the impression of the character changes a lot. If you then change the focus point of the subject’s speech and behaviour, the resulting impression changes a lot too.
I was worried that it could even change the impression if it was misused.
This time, the training involved me thinking out loud on my own, but when it comes to problem-solving face-to-face using structured thinking and inference, it’s really important to have a system in place that lets people know when they’re focusing on different facts or hypotheses.
It’s also important to make sure everyone feels safe to share their thoughts, no matter what their beliefs or habits.
If you don’t do that, you might end up with ideas that are easy to get behind but don’t go deep enough. You might miss the real problems that need to be fixed.
It seems like putting problem-solving on the agenda needs a bit of prep.
You’ve got to be prepared to deal with the consequences yourself.
I think it’s best to start with topics that don’t cause too much disagreement or upset anyone, so as to avoid any real harm to the stakeholders involved.
The idea is to avoid a situation where we’re just churning out meaningless meetings to keep up the illusion of harmony, when what we really need to do is deal with the root cause of the problem.
It seems like we need to improve the training so that it includes three different successful experiences: So, we’ve got to work out what the root cause is, get rid of it, and then we’ll be in a better state.
What sort of training would you like to try?
Explanation of the vocabulary
