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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!
Air. Was in the mood for something relaxing, so brought my laptop to bed and watched a few episodes before sleep. The episodes I watched were toward the end of the season and used some dreamlike devices in the narrative. Some emotional bits. People connected across space and time. Slept comfortably after.
Air summer special (2 bonus episodes after the TV season) was a pleasant watch right around Mother's Day weekend. Focused on a trio forming a makeshift family. Dialed down the emotional bits and was an enjoyable slice-of-life side story. Spy x Family vibes.
Reading Dandadan. Juvenile, weird, and a bit fanservice-y; but funny as hell.
Watching Zombie Land Saga. Hilarious parody of the idol anime genre.
I just finished rereading Keyman - The Hand of Judgement. It was just as fun as I remember it being. It's a noir detective story about finding out who murdered the city's local superhero. The plot pretty quickly goes off the rails, and the whole thing really just manages to stick together by rule of cool. It's not a good murder mystery, but it is a fun action series where the main character is a T-Rex wearing a trench coat.
Intrigue in the Bakumatsu: Irohanihoheto
was pretty good. Historical fantasy that keeps the actual events depicted fairly grounded. Of course, it plays up the fantastical elements and their involvement in these events (Enomoto was probably not possessed by a haunted skull in real life). Like I said last week, strong recommend if you like shows where half of the major characters have entire Wikipedia articles. I bookmarked the article for the show so I could read about the real people and historical events.
Minor spoilers ahead. The ending kinda comes out of nowhere. The last episode has the lowest rating on MAL, for pretty good reason. I liked the end good enough, I just don't think the show sets up the antagonist's plan well enough beforehand, and the flying castle took me out of the experience.
Was a solid 8/10 until the last episode, but my problems with the ending bring it down to a 7/10. Totally stealing the story for my D&D campaign
A Certain Scientific Railgun
Before 2021, the last show I watched through in its entirety was Psych, in like 2016. In 2021, I started watching A Certain Scientific Railgun, and finished the first season in a week. After about a month, I realized that I hadn't let a day go by without watching at least one episode, so I kept that streak up. I watched it once subbed, then dubbed, then I started watching other animes, always keeping the daily watch streak up.
It's been 1,070 days, 1,671 episodes of 55 shows, and 23 movies. I'm rewatching Railgun once every year, just to see if it still holds up. The first few episodes super duper don't. Hate em. Feels too much like Index. That being said, from the third episode on the show is great. Far from the best show, still has its flaws, but great. I don't think any other show would be the right mix of "good enough to maintain a streak" and "bad enough that other shows are still interesting."
Railgun is the show that got me into anime. Can you pin your interest in the medium on one specific show? If so, what show is that?
Naruto for sure. It wasn't the first anime I watched, but it was the first time I went out of my way to watch foreign language media, and it was also one of the things that got me into reading manga.
Naruto was great. Wish I could go back to the days of watching that 1/3rd of an episode at a time on youtube
Love Hina was probably my gateway into the Internet anime fandom in the golden years. I'd watched the usual fare on after-school (western) TV and the occasional VHS or DVD introduced by extended family or friends. But Love Hina was so different. No sci-fi, no magic, no guns, no golden haired muscular flying dudes. A group of people—yes, a harem anime—living in modern day Japan near Tokyo. It was so different to me, and I wasn't used to a cartoon being so heartfelt. It got me somewhat into JPop too. Fond memories of that anime and manga.
I am watching Boku no hero season 6amd also blue eye samurai . Very intriguing
Fairy Gone. It's been a... Suprising show? It's one of the lowest rated shows that I watched seriously with it being 5,8 on MAL. While I wouldn't rate it that low, it certainly can get boring for a few episodes before it suddenly pulls you back in.