1. This is a reference not only to Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio (the original is so good, btw, it’s a proper mess. I’ve never seen the Disney film tho) but also the cult 90s original video anime Key the Metal Idol. Its dubbed opening and ending songs are so peak that I miss that era.
I’m generally obsessed with all characters who feel they are insufficiently human, whether due to trauma, queerness, neurodivergence, or more fantastic and symbolic forms of Otherness.
2. This is a reference to the Japanese children’s song 一年生いちねんせいになった /When I Become a First Grader, which has so infiltrated the pop cultural consciousness in Japan that it shows up in anime/manga including Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu, Sexy Commando Gaiden, Komi Can't Communicate, Iruma-kun, Planetes, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Beelzebub, and so on. It’s usually the social awkward character who declares this goal, and it strikes me as so childishly optimistic that it’s funny for me to declare.
Research supporting Dunbar’s number indicates that the most friends one can reasonably have is more around 50, whereas 150 is the upper limit for “meaningful contacts,” but I want to agree with the researchers who believe that these upper limits are likely not neuro-deterministically written into our brains. But what do I know?