What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)

I just started The Apothecary Diaries, after having it recommended to me a year ago. (Just in time for season two...) It's set in a sort of fictionalized China, where an apothecary's daughter is kidnapped and sold to work on indenture, as support staff for the Emperor's auxiliary palace, where he keeps his thousand concubines. It is quickly discovered that she's literate and has medicinal knowledge, so she ends up doing medical/detective work, investigating things like poisonings and other products of court intrigue.

The artwork looks impressive, and the character also turns into a semi-chibi cat gremlin when emoting sometimes.

We're also getting a new season of Doctor Stone and the second half of the current Re:Zero season this winter, so I'll be watching those soon.

Finished Madlax yesterday. Starring a notably beautiful assassin who, alongside a girl with amnesia (who only remembers the other's codename, which is also the title of the series), works to uncover their connection both with each other and with a shadowy organization that secretly controls a large portion of society... it definitely shares DNA with Noir. Makes sense, with both of them being part of Bee Train's "girls with guns" "trilogy."

It didn't quite capture me like Noir did. It felt like the show took too long to get to where it was going. Which I understand is a valid criticism of Noir as well, but that show's more episodic nature managed to keep my interest better than Madlax did. It may be that it was just a bad month, and I had trouble paying attention earlier in the series.

I liked the music. Like Noir, there are only a few really prominent tracks that play throughout the show, but I like them enough that the repetition didn't bother me.

I didn't like that near the end, characters started just... Explaining stuff. I like a show that I have to interpret. I would have preferred if the nature of the title character's existence were left a bit more vague, instead of having multiple people explain it multiple times.

I'm giving it a 7/10. Not bad, not perfect. Noir was a hard act to follow. Maybe on a future rewatch, I'll rate it more favorably.

I'd like more vague shows. Shows that warrant a lot of contemplation and interpretation. Like Serial Experiments Lain, or Haibane Renmei, or From The New World. Anyone want to talk about shows along those lines, feel free to go on a tangent here

I finally started Tokyo Ghoul this week.

Always heard good things, but the eating people part was off-putting to me so I'd keep pushing it off.

Once I got into the first arc, I was hooked. Already on Tokyo Ghoul:Re and probably will be through that soon.

Fantastic so far. I really like the intrigue of unravelling what's going on, the creativity of the power system - particularly for the humans but also the ghouls as well.

To me it's incredibly well choreographed (?) and artistic in how it presents its pannels, scenes, character development, and narritive.

Loving it right now.

What I liked from first episodes of winter animes. An order here is alphabetic, not by rating.

• Hana wa Saku, Shura no Gotoku

  About recittation — itʼs what our main heroine loves, and maybe something about broadcasting, because itʼs where our heroine entered. Pretty good animation — not suprised, itʼs studio Bind after all, — but with some vibes of KyoAni. You may note many feet, heh. Okay, even if you put this half-joke aside, you still have vibes, and if you know more details then itʼs also not suprise: an author of source is the same as for Hibike! Euphonium which I also love.

• Kono Kaisha ni Suki na Hito ga Imasu

  I love romcom in general. But many of them in last time are pretty bored because theyʼre jump around one [some] gag with different approach. This also can be in later, but for now itʼs what I like: at least we have cute, fine chemistry. Thereʼre still a main gag as hiding their romance from their co-workers, but at least itʼs not forced gag for now.

• Medalist

  Spokon about figure skating (or how do you call this). I didnʼt read the source, but it kinda should about a little girl which likes worms started this sport kinda late by its standard and a trener. For now I like the direction.

• Nihon e Youkoso Elf-san

  Another romcon which I liked (; The only diffrence here, itʼs elf from an isekai. Dunno, can they move again to the iseai, but the main theme is an elfess is in real Japan.

• Okinawa de Suki ni Natta Ko ga Hougen Sugite Tsura Sugiru

  This anime isnʼt what I liked but mostly find interesting, because I would like to find out more about Okinawa. While I like romance, in this case I would preffer to see more club-theme or something like, not love-triangle, but for now itʼs not so bad.

• Übel Blatt

  I have some vibes from Helck: adventure, semi-comedy, fantacy, a conflict between two parts, where one is dominated by humans. Not the top animation, but better than in Helck.

• Zenshuu

  Itʼs about an animatress isekaied into story which she knows. Animation is good, whichʼs not suprise: studio Mappa (whichʼs kinda ironic). I watched the second episode too, I donʼt like episodic theme (new episode, new battle) and resuded «getting a draw-desk» scene. But in general itʼs still good.

The winter season full of continued or new-seasoned animes:

• Ao no Hako

  Mixed of romance and spokon of several sports (badminton, basketball, gymnastic). Btw, Hina is the best.

• Bang Dream! Ave Mujica

  The series is known of drama. Itʼs about music group/s, but itʼs about not only this.

• Chi. Chikyuu no Undou ni Tsuite

  Heliocentrism in pseudo-Poland.

• Dr. Stone: Science Future

  As I know, it should be the last season. Itʼs about reviving civilization after post-apoc. But thinks about it as pop-science + comedy, thus for me itʼs like the anime about Okinawa.

• Kimi no Koto ga Dai Dai Dai Dai Daisuki na 100-nin no Kanojo

  Romcom + parody. I heard not good news about prodaction here, but I hope, anime is still fine.

• Shangri-La Frontier

  VR game/s (yeah, you will see not one game, while one is main, and itʼs not SAO-theme) and actions, actions. Btw, an openning for 2nd cour is one of the best, at least for me.

You may suprised that I didnʼt mantioned hyped anime as Sakamoto Days. But there at least such reason why I wouldnʼt watch:

• While animation is not bad itself, itʼs kind outdated if we compare to Dandadan, Chansawman, JJK (the first season).
• I tired from this westoid morale «donʼt kill». And we have a worse case here: a bad ones just were good beaten, not turned into police or something like this. For compare, Frieren doesnʼt have such problem for now, especially to demons. As Ukrainian, I prefer such morale as «not punished evil always returns back».