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What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)
What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.
If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!
No spoilers ahead
Boogiepop 2019
I finished Boogiepop 2019 yesterday. It felt a lot more shounen than Phantom did, which makes some sense considering that's the demographic. The two series really are nothing alike—Phantom plays a lot more into the psychological and drama aspects, while 2019 is closer to a standard anime. Both of them fit my style of weird and unique. My favorite shows are often ones that I don't know if I can recommend to anyone else. This gets a rare 8/10 from me, because I can't justify rating it as high as Phantom.
I do have to offer a criticism, in that I don't like plot points involving humans evolving, because fiction basically universally gets evolution wrong. Individuals don't evolve, and species certainly don't develop supernatural regenerative abilities or psychic powers. It's easy enough to ignore, though, the same way I do with X-Men.
Boogiepop (the character) is rad as hell. I love a weird esoteric concept like an Automatic Existence. On the one hand, I wish they got more screen time, but on the other hand, the highlights of both shows are when I get to shout "hell yeah, Boogiepop is here!"
Now it's time to read the light novels, up to the point where they've been translated.
Next on the list, Ghost in the Shell. This is gonna take a while. Should I watch it all at once, or give it some time between the first movie/SAC and Arise?
Ghost In The Shell (1995)
I can't believe I've been watching anime every single day for almost 3 years and I never saw Ghost In The Shell until today. It really is required viewing. Crazy that this came out the year I was born. If SAC is anywhere near as good as the movie, then I look forward to the next couple weeks. If I have one complaint, it's that the movie doesn't delve quite deep enough into the artificial person debate. Even still, it feels like the movie has the same unquestioning understanding as me, that there's no fundamental difference between humans and synthetic life.
Incoherent ramblings about incomplete adaptations
Every time I watch an incomplete adaptation of a written work, I question whether I should stop adding them to my list. There's this oppressive feeling of incompleteness, knowing that not only is this anime not a full adaptation of the novels; less than half of the novels are even translated to english, and the series is still ongoing.
This is the same kind of feeling I get with almost every incomplete adaptation, but this is the strongest I've felt it. Even Land of the Lustrous wasn't this bad, because at least people translate every chapter the day it comes out. I don't plan on learning japanese for this one series, so I'll always have this feeling that there's something I've missed, books I didn't read, a story I never finished.
But if I never watched anything that wasn't an anime original or a complete adaptation, I'd never have seen a lot of my favorite shows. I certainly don't regret watching Boogiepop, I just don't like not being able to see the full story.
Idunno, I'm rambling. What are your thoughts on adaptations of written works? What's your favorite? Mine is Haibane Renmei, which was based on a doujinshi that was, ironically, never finished.
Me neither. But you'll recover from the misspent youth. Have a look at the early naughties TV series Stand Alone Complex. For many people, it's the favourite version of GITS.
Haibane Renmei is one of my favourite anime too, but I don't think of it as an adaptation. As you said, it was mostly just concept with a single issue before they started brainstorming the anime.
Finally got a round to reading Molester Man, it was really good would recommend it!
I've been watching Frieren: Beyond journey's end every week when it comes out. Watching too much anime had me majorly burnt out on it from 2017 onwards. I hope I get back into it more, but as it stands, I'm watching a healthy dose of shows, and that's to say 2.
I rarely watch anime as it comes out, so the rest is I'm watching both the old seasons of Ghost in the Shell: Stand alone complex, and I'm currently halfway through 2nd Gig, which is awesome as I remember. I gotta say this integrates CGI with 2D animation better than most anime that's come out since, and I love its aesthetics and grainy image quality. We should've got more pay-per-view anime.
Frieren is still airing. They did skip a week at the end of last year, so maybe that's why you thought it was over. I love the show. It is comparatively low energy, but that makes it go down easier for me, and being slow means we can confidently develop the main characters and the expanding cast/world. The slow pace allows them to showcase travel and adventure more true to life/RPG table I think [though I haven't played that since my teens]. Also sorry for the 6 days wait for this answer.