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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!
Both on the Manga front lines.
Green Green Greens (Very bummed its "completed" at like 29 chapters though.)
Kaiju No 8 is slowly becoming my new favorite manga. Its everything I like about Shonen manga but so far every chapter is just a thrill ride that flows into the next. The cast itself is very well developed and its just a delight to see what crazy thing happens next. And its only slight over 100 chapters into it! Its just going to get better. And there is a side story I haven't even read yet!
My slow watch through of Taiyou no Kiba Dagram continues! I've watched through episode 34 so far. I ended up having more time in my evenings lately which has been nice. Getting to watch an episode every day or so has kept me invested in the plot making me want to see how this is going to turn out.
The group has managed to move to another continent that is more agrarian and also seemingly a hot bed of residency to the Earth Federations government. A few new characters have been introduced as well. As usual Dougram destroys handfuls of the enemies mechs and leads them to victory repeatedly.
More side characters are being fleshed out slowly and my early mention of the main cast remaining fairly static has held throughout these episodes as I near the halfway point. There are times of introspection from the MC but it is stretched out over episodes. This feels like his journey is secondary to the political drama that is unfolding with the federation characters and Dr Samalin (the head of the resistance). I'm not complaining about it as the plot engaging and works well with the constraints ~21-22 minutes of showtime in each episode.
I've brought this up before but this aesthetic of guys using corded phones and incredibly bulky looking + dated computer equipment while smoking cigarettes/cigars/pipes is something that is right up my alley. That interesting retro futurism mix of technologies that people envisioned 40+ years ago is great.
As I'm nearing the halfway point I've been debating what I want to watch next. I'm at a cross roads of finally finishing (at this point starting over and watching the movie first) Legends of the Galactic Heroes, starting my long dive into Gundam, or watching Armored Trooper Votoms (which is another Mecha anime made by the sam studio as Taiyou no Kiba Dagram years later). If anyone has thoughts on those options I'd love to hear them.
A large part of why I loved Planetes. I want to live in Ghost in the Shell. I want to live in Alien. Enough millimeter thick transparent touchscreen displays, I want to cut the ∆v of my space ship in half with 40 lbs CRT monitors and mechanical keyboards
Anyway. At the rate I watch anime, it would take me about a month and a half to watch this, and it seems like you're on track to take about a year, so I think I'm gonna start it in January next year so I can finish the show at the same time as you. I don't usually get into mecha anime as a genre, but this show sounds interesting
I'll be glad for the company! As I'm growing older I'm becoming more with you on wanting to dig into that and enjoy a mechanical keyboard, a CRT, and some future tech that is somehow running a space ship with floppy disks in the far future.
I watch fairly irregularly but I do post my progress on here. I'll be starting a job next month so I could slow down a bit as I navigate that. Hopefully not and I can keep moving my way on through this series.
Based on what you said, have you heard of the game Objects in Space? It sounds like it'd be in up your alley. I do give the warning that it looks like the devs ran out of money and slapped a 1.0 on it when it could have used more polish. I pirated a copy to try since it doesn't have a demo and I think it's worth the $5 on sale down the line when I have some extra money. Really scratches the itch you described of mechanical keyboards and space ships.
I have one more episode of Frieren. This show has been awesome. It is very charming, has an interesting story, and isn't excessively childish. At times it has an almost delicate way of being badass. I very much hope a second season comes to fruition.
Final Raildex update. This turned into a wall of text, so I'm casting Compress Text at 7th level
Index
Finished Index, for the fourth and probably last time. Generally more positive feelings towards the latter half of the show than previous rewatches. The excessive fanservice dies down a bit, which is a welcome change.
Miracle of Endymion
The movie is... fine. It highlights that part of Index that I dislike the most—because everything is magic, anything can happen and you just have to accept it. Aside from that, the movie is mostly alright.
I cannot fault the localizers for trying their best at translating the songs. It's obviously not great, but they get an A for effort. Not every movie can be Belle.
_______ is a character who was cursed with immortality as a child, and has lived in the body of a little girl for nearly a thousand years. And the movie avoids sexualizing her! Maybe the only decent use of the "older than she looks" trope I've ever seen. You might think this is a callback to that vampire thing from the first season. Don't worry, she's not a vampire. Himegami is still as irrelevant to the plot as ever.
I'll avoid talking much about the impossibility of constructing a space elevator (let alone at 35° latitude) and just assume that Aleister Crowley used magic to make it work
Fun enough watch, 6/10.
After the movie, the series gets mid fast.
The Academy City Invasion arc introduces the Right Seat of God. I like Vento as a villain. I really like her character design, and her English voice actress sounded like she had a lot of fun with the role. This arc also ends with a hint towards Accelerator's other powers, but because the series is allergic to explaining things, we don't get to know anything about them.
The Document of Constantine arc had nothing really happen, aside from introducing the rest of the Right Seat of God: Terra, a forgettable green douchebag; Acqua, a level 20 Oath of Devotion Paladin, and Fiamma, a redhead in pajamas. They're all interesting in their own right, and I will be stealing ideas from them for use in my D&D campaign.
The Battle Royale arc was fun. Couldn't possibly keep up with who's fighting who and why, but I like any story arc about Accelerator.
The British Royal Family arc is. There. The concept of Curtana is interesting, in a sort of "half-baked idea for a magic sword" kinda way. I'm sure I can workshop a sword that cuts through four dimensions to leave 3-dimensional cross-sections into a workable concept in D&D if I try hard enough
The WWIII arc is supposed to be the big finale to this part of the story, but I just don't have feelings about it. The only parts of the third season that I really liked were anything that didn't have to do with Touma. Hamazura and Accelerator's stories are so much better. The stakes are more clear, the problems are more understandable. Some villagers fighting Russian mercenaries is way more interesting to me than a story about a magic floating rock that does a magic thing to bring an angel to earth so that some magic can happen and Pajamaman can take over the world.
Gotta love the end of the series introducing a ton of new characters and concepts. You rarely see a show fail to tie up loose ends this badly. Hopefully we get an announcement about a fourth season next year, because it seems like they actually flesh out the idea of magic gods in the manga instead of letting it be another one-off "I don't gotta explain shit" magic system like miracles or the Right Seat of God
Overall, Index season 1 gets a 5/10, because aside from excessive fanservice, it's extremely okay. Season 2 gets a 3/10 solely because I hate the Daihasei Festival Arc that much. Season 3 gets a 6/10 because while I actually really like Hamazura and Accelerator's stories, the end leaves a lot to be desired.
Don't let this dissuade you from watching the series if you want to—it is rather important for Railgun's story to make sense, and this is my review on my fourth rewatch. Anyone would grow to hate a show they don't already love after watching it four times.
Railgun T
Picking up right after the Daihasei Festival arc, I am so happy to be back to watching Railgun. Indian Poker is maybe the most forgettable Railgun arc, but the episodes with Frenda and Saten are some of my favorites. Especially Frenda's fight with the sniper. Best fight in the franchise.
It is pretty sad to see Fre nda stop hanging out with Saten, but also she's genuinely an evil person so it's probably for the best
The Doppelganger arc is peak. You know I'm a sucker for stories about artificial people, and the Doppelganger is such a cool character.
One thing I love about this show is that it doesn't hesitate to show off how strong a Level 5 esper is. Most of the contests of brute force that Misaka finds herself in are no contest at all unless she's up against another Level 5, and the driving force of the conflicts are issues of information gathering. It's fun to watch her fights for the same reason that it's fun to watch Boogiepop fight. It would be boring if that was the entire show.
One thing I didn't like on the first watch was the kaiju fight, because that kind of power output is beyond anything Misaka has been shown to do so far, but on rewatching the show, it occurred to me that this is after the Level 6 experiment in the Daihasei festival arc. It may not have succeeded, but I can handwave away issues of power scaling with the knowledge that she was basically God for a few minutes.
End of Railgun T spoilers
On rewatches, it's extremely visibly obvious that the Doppelganger is using some kind of mold to control things. Like, it's all over everything she controls, the characters just don't mention anything until the last episode.
I really like the implication at the end of the series that the Doppelganger actually did have a soul. Again, I'm a sucker for stories about artificial personhood, and this is the apotheosis of an artificial person. Yet another concept to steal for my D&D campaign
All in all, Railgun season 1 gets an 8/10, seasons 2 and 3 both get a solid 10 from me. There's nothing I don't love about this show after the first half of the first season. You would think rewatching the show as many times as I have would dilute my love for it, but I've only grown to love it more and more. I look forward to next August, I can't wait to watch this series again without watching Index in between.
Tomorrow, I watch something new for the first time since May 7th. Can't wait to roll the dice and see what comes up next