I was in Japan with my Fiance pre-covid and we were traveling from Ueno to Harajuku. It was early-ish morning and the train was pretty full by the time this woman who seemed to be in the elder age range was standing in front of me. Where I come from it’s just polite to offer your seat to people who are older, so I did just that. For context, I speak enough Japanese to maybe converse with a 5 year old. We had a little exchange that went kind of like, “please take my seat” -> “oh no, I couldn’t” -> “I’m getting off soon” … that eventually ended with us sitting next to each other.

She was surprised to learn that I didn’t speak Japanese fluently after I felt like I was struggling through a few simple conversations about the weather. And I wish I could remember what she said, but it ended up with her saying something like it’s ok because we understand each other, “hearto to hearto”. And she placed her hands over her heart and then over mine. Goddamn, that was the most anime moment in my life and nothing is going to live up to that memory.