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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!
I'm currently watching a bunch of seasonals:
The Apothecary Diaries S2 - second season of my favorite gremlin Maomao solving mysteries and messing with Jinshi. IMO just as good as first season so far.
Solo Leveling S2 - It has mid plot and shallow characters, but damn, its action scenes are outstanding. This show is my guilty pleasure. I recommend it to anyone looking for some dumb dark power fantasy. Season 2 has a lot better pacing than season 1.
Orb: On the Movements of the Earth - it's pretty good. Definitely the plot is its main strength. Production is good enough, though you can see that a lot of episodes were outsourced, many scenes are still too dark, but overall it's a very solid show.
Re:ZERO S3 - I liked the previous seasons but this one in my eyes is definitely a big disappointment. Weak pacing, a lot of bullshit dialogues, the whole season is basically one giant fight spread too thin, sort of repeat of what we already saw in season 2. The animation is much better, but this season pretty much turned into some battle shounen with pretty visuals but weak fight choreography. I'll probably stay till the end but I cannot say that I haven't considered dropping it.
From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! - another take on reincarnated as villainess type of show. This time it's actually pretty funny. It didn't make me laugh out loud but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of production and comedic scenes.
Flower and Asura - show from the author of Hibike! Euphonium and the studio behind Mushoku Tensei. So far it didn't pull me in like Hibike did, but nevertheless it's quite good so far.
Other than that I finished watching From Me to You S3. It was okay for romantic story but I'm disappointed that they didn't delve more into some drama like they initially did in S1. S3 was pretty average.
I've been watching the One Pace edit of One Piece, which they describe as follows:
Some years ago, I watched through the Skypiea arc (195 episodes) in the intended format. During Skypiea I felt like things were getting really drawn out for no reason, which is why I ended up stopping at the end of the arc. I tried reading the manga as a substitute, but due to some combination of how aimed at children it is and the fact that I had already seen the events in the anime, only made it through a few volumes before moving on to other things. One Pace is pretty seamless for how much content they're cutting out. It's obvious (from the lack of obviousness) there was a lot of attention to detail on things like music continuity. I've only watched a small amount of it and even then it hasn't been error-free, but it's definitely impressive and makes the anime a lot less of a drag.
Unfortunately, I'm still having a hard time getting invested in the series, so I think it may just not be for me. Very few of the big name, long running shonen series have hooked me. I've just given One Piece a few more chances than some others due to it's length and cultural significance.
One Piece has atrocious pacing by design. It adds scenes, lingers on still shots uncomfortably long, repeats scenes, flashes back too often.
It's honestly a rather bad viewing experience and it gets worse the further you get. I found myself skipping constantly which isn't all that relaxing.
One Pace is clearly the intended way to watch. The amount of effort put into making it an alright experience is significant. After your post I don't think more needs to be said.
If anyone is interested in One Piece at all, you should seriously consider One Pace.
That said, I always liked the idea of adventure more than I did the fights. And at some point the adventure is a lot of the party separately running around until they get back together and fight. Initially the show started with the unknown being a large factor (the grand line) and getting there was a big moment. That adventure got lost somewhere down the line.
Been watching some random stuff lately.
Neon Genesis Evangelion - This was my first time watching this series. There's a lot that I loved about it, like the sound design and the storyboarding (some really cool scenes throughout), but fuck me did the end get a bit confusing and metaphysical for me. I looked up some discussions about it afterwards, and some people seem to love it while others seemed very confused. I'm more in the confused camp. That whole thing about the Evas and Adam and whatnot was confusing as hell for me personally. A bunch of the discussions I read said stuff like 'there was no closure on the lore but there was for the story' and that just confuses me further. The last two episodes basically take place in different characters' heads, which is definitely an interesting choice stylistically. Also the show felt hyper-sexualized. I'm no prude, but it felt forced a lot of places.
Rising of the Shield Hero - watched this one too cuz why not. Started off okay (dude pretty much starts with nothing, unjustly becomes a pariah, and has to work his way into becoming a baddass hero, overcoming adversity along the way). Reminded me a bit of Solo Leveling in that regard. But the harem stuff was just too much for me and I stopped watching somewhere around season 2.
Shangri-La Frontier - started this one yesterday, already a couple of episodes in. Fight scenes seem pretty cool. Premise seems nice (I specifically found it by looking up 'isekai without harem trope' after my frustrations with Shield Hero mentioned above). So far so good, hope it continues with an emphasis on the combat and game aspects of the virtual world they're in.
It does. Shangri-la Frontier is a fresh take on the power fantasy isekai genre. It's made with more thought put into the game aspect and how it would make sense that way.
Just look at games like Dark Souls where people would absolutely walk around naked with a
bird headgiant pot on their head. It's in a sense closer to what a stat screen isekai should be like.Yeah Dark Souls games are exactly the types of games I'm imagining when watching it. Except more MMO-ish of course. Got major 'Let Me Solo Her' vibes from the first couple episodes for sure.
descriptions of sexual violence and a spoiler for the manga Homunculus
I am reading the manga Homunculus. I have read five of the nine omnibus volumes. The manga is okay, although a little preachy ("We live in a society..."). The art is trippy, phenomenal, and nightmare-inducing. But I came across a storyline that is all about adults sexualizing a 17-year-old girl and it was a bit much. The main character did something I would characterize as raping a minor under the pretense of helping her through supernatural means. I could almost hear him say "You know you want it...". He may have actually said that I don't remember. I'm sure people will say "But in-universe, he did good". Sure. I am not moralistic, I'm not throwing anyone under the bus here. But that is just not something I wish to read about. So I'll probably read a bit more (as there's nothing egregious happening at this juncture) just to see if there's some kind of brutal punishment for the main character soon, or if he'll just keep doing that kind of stuff. If there isn't any consequence, yeah... that is not the manga for me. I'm not into this early-2000s edgelord vibe. Maybe I'll just read Monster instead.I finished Homunculus. I feel that I need a support group or something.
My slow watch through of Taiyou no Kiba Dagram continues! I've watched through episode 46 so far.
Another interesting episode with a mix of politics and action. We saw the Federation forces maneuver their way into getting an "inspection" of the mine town where the main guerrilla forces are. The guerillas eventually are able to stage attacks outside the mine to indicate they were in the area but not nearby.
Overall an episode that just continues building on what came before. Not a ton of exciting twists, and I'm glad for a steady progression of the storyline.
I've mentioned it before but it's always so fun to me seeing them walk over to answer a corded desk phone while they live on an alien planet with giant mechs. There's also a lack of computers visible in this show, most of organization is shown being done on paper or over phone/radio calls.
I've been reading Otoyomegatari, or a Bride's Tale. It is a very good manga about various couples in central Asia in I believe the 19th century. It is soooo good, I can't put it down! The characters are very well done and enjoyable. The relationships are so cute and, the amount of research the author puts in is really impressive, and leads to a very accurate telling!