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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!
This week's chapter of Chainsaw Man (167) is probably the wildest chapter I've ever read of a series with mainstream popularity.
Yeah... I just read that chapter. While I've read similar scenes in other manga (Inio Asano's for example), none this mainstream.
Watching the anime for the first time, 3 episodes left. Better late than never! Maybe I should give the manga a go after.
Sure why not! The anime is pretty faithful to the manga but I do think the anime medium suits CM better. At least for the first season. I will say the manga makes some strange narrative decisions following the sequence covered in the anime.
Ohh, now I'll have to read it! 😅
I rewatched the original Berserk anime (1997 production) during the past week and boy does it still pack a punch! It was interesting being able to pinpoint those key moments that set up the brutal climax to the story arc, and to have a new experience of seeing how achingly close our unlucky protagonists might have been to averting tragedy altogether.
The abruptness of the final episode also does a great job of selling the manga. I went out and bought volume 1 of the very handsome deluxe editions afterwards and read that in an evening. I may have just committed myself to a rather expensive collection...
I've never watched the anime, but that panel of Guts and Griffith holding on to each other after a battle and laughing, Griffith looks at him and thinks "Only you have made me forget my dream"... and then followed with "I sacrifice"
:(
My slow watch through of Taiyou no Kiba Dagram continues! I've watched through episode 21 over the last couple of weeks. More characters are being introduced and I'm finding the federation politics plotlines to be almost more interesting than the Dougram group's plot these last couple of episodes. A new seemingly experienced mystery guerilla fighter was introduced who will probably be important.
Overall it's progressing well, I'm getting close to the 1/3 mark. I'm hoping for a day to myself sometime in the next few weeks (maybe father's day) and I may just watch a lot of episodes of this, drink a few beers, and have pizza. It'll be one of those rare days I think it'd be nice to own a TV.
I recently finished up Billy Bat by Naoki Urasawa, which was a wild ride. I'm very glad I went in blind without reading too much of the plot summary beforehand. I'll just say that it starts out as a manga-within-a-manga and quickly evolves into something else.
I recently finished Goodnight Punpun by Inio Asano and... Well. Yeah. I've never been so moved by a manga. It's been a week or so and I still think about it multiple times a day.
I read it after a breakup and it was like he took a sledgehammer to my mind.
Solanin and DeDeDeDe are also great. Curious how the anime of DeDeDeDe is going.
I agree with Solanin and DeDeDeDe. Both are excellent. DDDDDDDDDDD's anime adaptation has been good so far. It does change the sequence a bit, presuamably in service to the change in medium. In a world where most anime is a workman-like copy of the source material, it's interesting to see fan reaction to the sequencing change. Personally I think it's a fine change.
Wonder if we'll ever see a Goodnight Punpun adaptation... lol. It is on a different level though. Following the character of Punpun is a rollercoaster of emotion, from identification, to empathy, to horror, to repulsion, to pity, finally to sadness... oof. Aiko is the best character in the story and just so heartbreakingly tragic.
I've not been watching much! No streaming subscriptions for the moment, BUT I've been reading a fair bit in spurts:
A Sign of Affection - Off to a sweet start, I love the premise. The stories of deaf people are so rarely told.
Hope You're Happy, Lemon - I'm having fun, but it's not done anything extraordinary yet. It's cute though.
Yona of the Dawn - I'm positive that I'm going to love this.
50+ series later, and the Sisters arc in Railgun is still my favorite story arc in anime. It's the reason Railgun first is the way to watch this series. Seeing everything from Misaka's perspective, knowing only what she knows, makes for a much more impactful story, especially after the first season is so happy and upbeat. This was my first anime, so the shift to a more serious and violent story in Railgun S was especially intense on my first watch.
The story is super abridged in Index, which is a big shame. You gotta see it all from Misaka's perspective first so you can experience the shock and awe at what unfolds alongside her.
Mild spoilers for Railgun S
I've long had weirdly strong feelings about artificial personhood, so of course this storyline is among my favorites. I love that both Misaka and Touma don't even humor the idea that the sisters are anything less than human. They're alive, and they're worth fighting for, no matter what anyone else thinks.
Getting to see the lengths Misaka went to and the effort she put in to try and stop the experiments any other way gives us a much deeper insight into Misaka's final attempt to end the experiments than we get in Index. It better demonstrates the desperation she feels to put a stop to it.
It's also much more interesting seeing her lose (or only barely win) fights after the first season established her as Super Duper Strong. Her fights with ITEM are a large part of why I love this arc so much.
Big Railgun S Spoilers
I shed a few more tears each time I rewatch this arc. What Academy City is doing to Misaka is grotesque, even ignoring the violence, which makes it all the more touching how Misaka treats the sisters. There's something about the particular frame where Misaka is begging 10032 to get up that really gets to me. Like, you couldn't blame her if she was just doing all this to atone for perceived sins, or if she was just upset about seeing people with her face get killed, but she's not begging 10032 to get up for any reason other than that she wants her sister to live.
And ACCELERATOR! When I first watched this, I was rooting for his death the whole time. I hated him, he was my least favorite character. I distinctly remember the first time I watched this, thinking he can't just suddenly realize that murdering a ton of people is actually wrong and gain any sympathy. And then after just two episodes in Index he went from my least favorite to my favorite. It's hard to redeem a character with a kill count over 10,000, but Accelerator's is my favorite redemption arc. Better than Zuko. I think it's so good because Accelerator never tries to redeem himself. He realizes what he's doing is bad and stops it, and when one of the people he was murdering needs help, he doesn't help her to try and make up for all the killing; he helps her because she needs help and no one else will. He doesn't start seeing himself as anything but a villain until this girl is literally going to die unless he accepts that he's more than that.
No spoilers—Random notes of the week:
I like that Saten (and to a lesser extent Uiharu) is wearing a different outfit every time we see her. Anime characters seldom have entire wardrobes, and I think it's cool when they do
I really like the scene where Misaka first meets one of the sisters. The camera and music work together really well to make the moment tense
It's the third anniversary of me watching anime every single day! 1,091 days straight! It's my proudest achievement that I don't tell anyone in real life
A Certain Magical Index
I wanted to go into Index with an open heart, ready to forgive its faults the same way I do Railgun. I just can't. It's just not good. Nothing that happens matters. There's a character whose whole shit is that her blood is toxic to vampires. You would think that would mean there's vampires, right? Otherwise why would there be a character whose whole shit is vampires?
There are no vampires in this show.
I was about to write a whole bunch of other stuff, but I'll complain about that when I get to rewatching it.
I agree with you on the Railgun vs Index point. I watched Index first back when it came out and liked it for its unique world, and kinda tuned out Touma's misfortune gags because the actual meat of the story was pretty damn good.
The introduction to the sisters arc from Touma's perspective was definitely short, but seeing as that was our first taste of it it made sense. I wasn't expecting anything more from it but the second season of Railgun came out and it took a short 5 episode jaunt of mystery to a full season of great storytelling.
Railguns's version is definitely better and honestly Railgun is the better show overall. It tackles what I really wanted to see and that was what life in Academy City was like. Touma is almost always fighting invaders, but Misaka had to deal with all the really weird problems from within.
EDIT: I wanted to also add, I dropped Index trying to watch Season 3. It got too convoluted. Too much stuff happening for uncertain reasons and it really felt rushed, dense and confusing. If I had to tell someone to watch something from this franchise, it would only say watch Railgun
I enjoyed the first half of sand land on hulu, but not enough to go finish the episodes. The animation is pretty good but the story seems to not take any risks.
I'm 9 episodes into season 1 of Yuru Camp â–³, and I don't know if I'll finish. I thought this series would be relaxing and it occasionally is, but they try to push jokes constantly and all the dialogue is filled is girls exaggerating emotion with those monosyllabic vocalisations and it isn't calming to watch. It's cringe a lot of the time.