I’ve met a lot of people that really like ketchup. They like it so much that they always talk about tomatoes and agriculture like they’re experts. It’s really annoying. That’s why I hate ketchup. Oh yeah, and I don’t think it tastes so hot either!

You are allowed to hold whatever opinions you want for whatever reasons you want regardless of whether those reasons are logical or not. However, I don’t think it’s right to condemn people for pursuing their interests and doing what brings them pleasure when it has no effect on you. If a grown man wants to slap on a mini skirt and skip around like a teenage girl, that’s his business. If you don’t like it, don’t watch. I don’t see how any of the things in your post could affect you unless you choose to let them.
As far as “Japan [getting] dragged through the muddy water,” anime is a big industry that draws a lot of money into the Japanese economy directly through media and merchandise sales and indirectly though widening awareness of Japan and bolstering tourism. Perhaps it does not reflect what you consider to be “true” Japanese culture because it doesn’t involve painted wall scrolls and throwing beans under your house, but it is a part of Japanese culture nonetheless just like, for better or worse, hamburgers, guns, and racism are part of the culture of the United States. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t; but I don’t think you have a leg to stand on saying that your interests are more justified or more noble or more whatever you think they are than anybody else’s.

Ah that makes sense then. といた is the plain past form of とく “to explain” and it probably one of those verbs that gets hooked on to others in the i-form like owaru.

よう is added after plain form verbs to mean in “in that sort of way”. As usual, that made no sense. Example time.

聞こえるように言ってください。　（聞こえる=to be audible)
Please say it in such a way that I can hear you.
死ななかったようにしました。
I did it in such a way that I didn’t die.

The second question has three parts 促し と　いた. (I think the last part should actually be いった)
促し is like a prompt or a suggestion
and といった means “said”

I could be wrong but I hope that helps.

@Lemur – it generally gets easier as you go on. Although depending on your retention rate it might get hectic. If you are almost always getting them right then keep on rocking, if your review stack just keeps increasing in size, cut back a bit.

Speaking of review stack, I jumped back on RevTK since abandoning it for anki at the start of section 3. I’m using anki for kanji>keyword now and though I’d get back on RevTK for keyword>kanji. Only 1583 reviews. No biggie.

A lot of the issues you bring up result from not having a sense of what the individual pieces of “phrases” (I don’t know what else to call them) mean.

から, for me, gives a sense of “from”. It gives the feeling that whatever comes before it is the origin. So the から in things like
アメリカ　から　きました and
にほんじん　です　から　すし　が　すき　です
give the same feeling even though they would translate to different words in English.
If you look at それから, it’s actually made of two parts, それ and から　which mean (something like) “that” and “from”. So together you get the feeling of “from that” or “from there”.

I think そして is more like “thus” and may have originally come from (this is guesswork) そう and the te form of する. Which kind of feels like “that” “done” and feels more like “thus” to me than “and”. It seems like saying with that done, the next part follows naturally.

I think directions are a good example of the difference between the two.
Go down this street to the second light, from there (それから) make a left and as a result (そして) it’ll be on the right.

なぜなら is made from なぜ “why” and なら, a type of conditional. Together, for me at least they give the feeling of “If you ask why…”

ので seems like “by the means of” whatever came before. The の nominalizes the previous phrase and the で is like “by” or “with” like in
くるま　で　いきます

So maybe, “By means of his idiocy I am annoyed” is the feeling that ので gives.

If your asking about under which conditions which is used I think, like in English, you can say what you want using different patterns. I think the only one that really has a specific rule is そして which should only be used when the second part follows naturally from the first. Like “Drop a ball and it will fall”

かみのけ refers specifically to the hair on your head.
かみ is any hair anywhere.

おんなのこ (I think this is what you meant) means woman child
おんなのひと means woman person

the first is more like “girl” in English in that it applies more to children but can be used for young women (20 somethings) as well

the edit button is gone and I just realized that there’s nothing in there indicating the tense.
maybe it should be
食べさせられくれなかったら…
back to the books I guess