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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!
New season — new animes. Thereʼre many avarage or good anime, but I prefer moslty slice-of-life, and this season brougth enough. So, I like for now such animes:
2.5-jigen no Ririsa
I watch it mostly for classic ecchi which could be better if we compare to manga or a way of Mahoako anime. At the first episode it was often compared to Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi o Suru, but for me it is closer to Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun: simple animation, a very dumb boy, and a girl wants to realization and not only.
Gimai Seikatsu
About not-related sibles. Unlike many other anime in this theme, itʼs pretty calm and more about psychology, normal relationships etc; something like it was in Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano Datta or Slow Loop.
Isekai Shikkaku
If Osamu Dazai — very famouse Japanese in literature and… suicide theme — is isekaiʼd. Pretty comedy, and itʼs from studio which made Isekai Ojisan [which was better for me].
Koi wa Futago de Warikirenai
Romance drama with triange: two different sisters and their clever neib boy.
Make Heroine ga Oosugiru!
The aniem has one of the best animation in this season. The romcom which is also pretty good, chemistry [not romantic] between the main char and Anna is perfect.
Mayonaka Punch
About a youtuber-girl and vampires — comedy with a little drama. The anime has a good animation.
Nige Jouzu no Wakagimi
Shōnen with samurai, non-real and brutal elements whichʼs based on the real historical figure of Hōjō Tokiyuki. Another anime with fantastic animation.
Senpai wa Otokonoko
Romcom about femboy [or just otokonoko: a boy with crossdressing.].
Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan
I guess… Shi~ka~! I donʼt need explain this, because it was already famous before airing due memes. Basically, itʼs absurd comedy on a deer theme. You deer!
Shoushimin Series
If you know Hyōka then you know this. Anime of episodic slice-of-slice with mysteries [without non-real elements, for now at least]. Btw, the author is the same, only the studio is another. So, while the animation isnʼt fanstatic, but itʼs cinematic. The anime will have only 10 episodes, and the next [4th] will be delayed to 3rd August.
From previous or just new seasons:
Started reading Hunter X Hunter manga. Since I finished the show, I figured I pick up the manga. Started from where the show left off since I did but want to read the whole thing. It's pretty good so far. The art is hit or miss. I like where this arc is going.
Tomadachi Game's penultimate chapter released this month. I'm pretty excited to see how it ends. There's a few things to wrap up and I want to see what happens to everyone. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint.
Just finished Mushoku Tensei season 2 and wow! A lot happened at the end. Felt like a good journey from the start of the season to where we're at. Can't wait for next season. I actually started listening to the audiobooks of the light novels. The narrator is pretty good. I'm looking the additional details the show left out. It seems like the show is a bit more humorous at times. But you get more lore from the LN.
My Wife Has No Emotion might be too… pathetic? for me to continue watching. Watching someone fall in love with an inanimate object mimicking humanity (esp. in the age of LLM "partners") is more sad than entertaining, and the series lacks the kind of thoughtful exploration that something like Her (2013) does.
Huh. I read the manga and enjoy it a lot, it's never struck me as sad. A bit odd, but there's more depth as it goes on. Without spoiling much, some more characters appear who add a LOT more depth to AI and its evolution. And also some hints that Mina herself is more unique than even she knows.
That said, it's overall a slice-of-life story so the pace is generally pretty slow and laid-back. The domestic daily life is the main focal point, with the deeper aspects of AI sentience being explored more gradually. So it may not be the sort of exploration you're craving.
My wife, on a whim, wanted to give Black Clover a shot earlier this week. We made it three episodes in, but when I asked if she wanted to continue a few days later, she admitted she'd actually forgotten we watched it at all, haha...
I can understand why, a bit? The first three episodes were quite slow. The third episode especially felt like it made no meaningful headway into the plot, just reiterating points from the first two episodes. It was cute seeing the brothers travel together, and the affection that the church had for Asta, and I am normally all-for slower-paced anime, but there still should be something meaningful even in a slower-paced, slice-of-life episode. We had quite a lot of questions after the first two episodes, so it's a shame the momentum stalled out so hard on the third episode. I'm not sure if my wife will continue it at all, but I might give it a few more episodes in my own time to see if it's worth continuing at all.
I'd be down to hear the opinions of others, though. I know Black Clover is decently popular, but I actually haven't really heard anyone else talk about it or what they think about it at all.
I wasn't aware a new season of My Hero Academia came out. I like it but am mostly just waiting for it to end at this point. Season 7 kicked off solidly.
I just watched all of Delicious in Dungeon in the last week. It was hilarious, generally light-hearted, but gave the story gravitas when needed and had a pretty fascinating world, at least as far as the story's dungeon mechanics allowing revivals, which they play with a few times. I also found out that season 2 is already approved, so I'm excited to hopefully see the conclusion (or just get the manga at this point).
Finished Railgun's Daihasei Festival arc. As of this rewatch, I think I might actually like it more than the Sisters arc.
No spoilers — Casting *Compress Text* with a 4th level spell slot
It's so good. It's got everything that made the Sisters arc good, but even moreso because instead of it just being Misaka handling everything on her own until Touma shows up to save the day, everyone is involved. Every episode is a blast to watch, and that one frame still gets the biggest oh shit response from me. The kind of spoilers where you don't even know it's a spoiler without context
The only reason I might like Sisters better is because it's a simpler, more concise story with a plot that takes less suspension of disbelief. Once the ______s come out, I can understand why some people might lose the plot. I don't like that we get some development of Imagine Breaker, but all we learn is that we know even less about it than we thought.
And can we talk about Touma? I wanted to avoid throwing shade at the other show, but how does the spinoff handle him better than his own show does? While he was finding new and unique ways to see women in various states of undress and getting his ass handed to him by one person with a bunch of generic magic attacks in Index, he was saving the day and being a Big Damn Hero in Railgun. He actively avoids seeing a girl in a state of undress in this season. I wish he acted like this in his own show.
Last point, ______ using her power on herself is exactly why I love esper powers so much more than magic. It's a strategy I never even thought of, but it seems so obviously possible in hindsight.
Let's talk about the spoilers
And by spoilers I mean dragons, and Gunha's powers. Namely: what the hell are they?
So the dragons are as yet the most development of Imagine Breaker as we've got in the anime. As far as I know, the author has been woefully reluctant to actually explain anything about Touma's powers, so why Imagine Breaker seems to be made of dragons, I don't know. If anything was gonna convince me to read the manga or the LNs, it would be to find out about this, but I don't think it's been answered yet.
As for Gunha, he's a Gemstone—a natural-born esper. Most espers in Academy City were made by the city's development program, which uses a combination of therapy and drugs to unlock and enhance a person's latent abilities. Before this kind of program existed, only a very few people gained esper abilities. Those people are referred to as Gemstones.
The fact that his abilities are naturally occurring makes me more able to brush off the more abstract nature of them. They don't do a specific thing, like most espers—they do whatever Gunha wants them to do.
And, another word about Doga Kobo. Sadly, but looks like they very like Russian dick, which alway had bad reputation, and still occupy Japanese lands [by Japanese laws]. Just look at their last animes:
One of main char is Russian:
One of char is Russian or Russian-liker:
Reference to Russian culture [maybe more, but I dropped]:
The reason I donʼt know for now. Maybe itʼs Russian influence [history already knows about it, esp. within France], maybe Doga Kobo really like non-human and imperialistic Russian culture and suck their dick.
You can say that other studios also can bring Russians or something around this, but from Doga Kobo itʼs pretty sytematic — almost in any last anime you see this.