Gentoo is a bit of a weird choice but maybe I am prejudiced from using it as a Desktop environment versus use as a server. But in any case, good to write this up.
On my old asus eeepc I used to have arch with i3 as a tilling window manager for a while. It was taking a bit to get used to but once I worked it out and configured it how I liked it, it was fantastic. Used it for several years until I had to write my thesis and needed something stable for my operating system.
Woah, this reminds me so much of all of Miyazakis hits. Some scenes looked like Spirited Away, some like Princess Mononoke or Castle in the Sky. Looks promising!