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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 still watching Gundam Gquuuuuux.
The animation is still great and makes me wish Khara would headline more shows.
However, over the course of the season, the story has rapidly become completely pitched towards gunwotas who live and breathe the original UC series, and a lot of the big reveals and story beats feel like they'd be downright confusing instead of impactful for fresh viewers who are going in without that context (or people who watched Gundam years ago and have understandably forgotten a lot of it). The same heavy reliance on the original series also detracts from the development of the new characters by constantly drawing attention and screentime away from them. It's kind of like if they had a Star Wars TV series based on an original cast, but Luke Skywalker and Han Solo show up in the Millenium Falcon every week and look, now there's the Death Star! And Darth Vader too!
Apparently the show is only 1 cour long, so although I'm hoping there's a satisfactory conclusion for the storyline around the three protagonists, there's not a lot of runway left to execute it.
I just caught up to date with the series Mieruko-chan which is a horror comedy series that started as a twitter web comic that is about a girl who starts seeing ghosts one day and decides that her best way of surviving the ghost encounters is to act like she can't see them. It is a really fun mash up, as the author draws some genuinely creepy and messed up shit, so the horror still feels very real even when it is played for laughs. As the scope of the story expanded, it took on some more serious tones without really losing the initial charm. I think the author has a real understanding of horror movies, as the "camera work" of his panels is very good at setting suspense.
I agree completely. Mieruko-chan is better at being a horror than most actual horrors. I wish there was a second season
I've not been keeping track of what shows I already wrote about, but I think I'm fully out of the currently airing stuff that I'm watching. So this time will be revisiting one I wrote about a few weeks back: https://myanimelist.net/anime/59160/Wind_Breaker_Season_2.
Much of the current arc is surrounding a MtF trans student named Tsubaki. Although now that I think about it I don't think feminine pronouns have been directly used for Tsubaki. The closest is that one person uses the term that translates to "big sister", but Tsubaki also is one of the "Four Kings" and has no issue when someone says something like "What?! You're a dude?!". I've been taking those last two things as not relevant to preferred identity though.
This arc being halfway into the second season of a show that could be described as "teenage boys punching each other" is an interesting decision that I'd guess created a lot of drama in some circles.
Anyway, I personally am quite enjoying this arc. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of someone with more relevant life experiences though. I'm curious if the representation is actually done well or if it just comes across as reasonable to an outsider. If anyone is interested in expanding this discussion with their thoughts on that I'd be more than happy to give a list of relevant episode numbers and optionally a small spoiler block that tells you what you would need to know to skip straight there.
I watched a few episodes of Initial D, GTO, and Slam Dunk. I love the 4:3 aspect ratio of these old shows. 16:9 can be a little tiresome. 4:3 is cozy. I wish newer shows had the guts to adopt it when suitable. It pushes the characters together and allow the composition to only focus on what matters. These days lots of shots on TV shows feel like there's too much people in there, and when a director wants to focus on dialogue they must find a bunch of filler for the sides.
A show that became worse by going widescreen was It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Initial D is cool but also pretty boring, the first six episodes are essentially the same premise repeated over and over. I had to go back a few times because it was hard to distinguish characters. And the 1990s 3D models for the cars are terrible. The switch from "standard animation car" to "CGI car" is both jarring and constant.
GTO is great, what a charming and endearing show. Makes one think it might be cool to be a teacher.
Slam Dunk has great animation and humor but it didn't catch me emotionally. I'll give it another shot.
I like things that are old.
EDIT: 1990s Detective Conan is pretty cool, right? The character designs are full of charm and the mysteries are quite enjoyable. I made the mistake of taking a look at 2025 Conan and my God, what a bunch of ugly, sad looking characters. Old is always better! I'm on a retro kick it seems :P