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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 got caught up to date on Yasuyuki Kosaka's Houkago Teibou Nisshi/Diary of our Days at the Breakwater, and I completed Aki Irie's Ran and the Gray World
Houkago Teibou Nisshi is a fairly standard contribution to the "cute girls do cute things" genre, it is about a group of high school girls who are a the members of a fishing club in a small town in Kyushu. It's one part slice of life comedy, and one part in depth exposition on the intricacies of angling. I've spent most of my life hating fishing, and I'm coming to the conclusion that a part of it was caused by being "taught" how to fish by people who don't know much about fishing. So this series going in depth on different types of knots, lures, rods, reels, line materials, and techniques was all informative and engaging for me. I'm also appreciative of the series being pretty on point about the environmental impact fishing has, and the responsibilities one has to uphold to ethically participate in the hobby. For example, pretty much every episode is at the beach, but the SoL token "beach episode" was about the cast cleaning up trash on the beach. All in all nothing crazy, but fun if you have any sort of passing interest in fishing.
Ran and the Gray World is a fantasy coming of age story about a young girl named Ran living in a family of sorcerers. Her parents are loving, but burdened with responsibility (they guard a gate that entombs a swarm of demon bugs), and her older brother is caring, but suppresses his magical ability and actively prevents Ran from using her's. Ran is a little spoiled, and because of her ignorance about the world she acts up. She has a pair of shoes that she casts a spell on to transform her into an adult when she wears them, and she sneaks out of the house to get into misadventures.
Ran has a larger overarching arc about learning responsibility, but both her and her brother Jin have arcs exploring the "gravity" of sexuality. Jin is essentially a werewolf and Irie uses it as a metaphor for male puberty, and how it is not a thing that can be suppressed but can be controlled. For Ran, the message is clearly about how girls get acknowledge for their bodies far faster than they should. I think the most contentious plot point of the series is that she essentially start dating an adult man (in her mind she's just hanging out with a friend), and the guy isn't really reprimanded by the cast for this after he finds out she is a child with magical powers and decides that it is not a deal breaker for him...
Spoilers
He gets killed by demon bees in a tragic way after learning how to be a better person and Ran starts dating a boy here age at the end of the series, so the narrative side steps that issue.
Started up Season 2 (or Part 2 of Season 1?) of Spy X Family again. I like this series, but definitely one that I think I have to watch in small batches. There's definitely an annoyance and/or cringe factor, often from Anya, that I can't handle too much of.
I started this series subbed, but decided to give the English dub a try. I often like to play games or cook or do chores while watching TV; hard to do and of that with subs. The English dub is OK. Think I might go back to the sub.
It's the brother Yuri for me. Turns it from a family friendly show to something I have to explain away.
Genuinely well made show with some 10/10 episodes in terms of quality and enjoyment, and some otherwise normal episodes weirded out by the overbearing siscon brother.
I totally forgot about that guy! But yeah it is weird they put that trope in. Especially in the context of this show, which takes place in western (make believe) nations. Not saying siscon would be OK if the show took place in Japan, but somehow it would make slightly more sense. Like I was recently re-watching Ouran High School Host Club which does take place in Japan, and that show is basically all anime tropes, with some siscon/brocon and even yaoi/shota twincest. Though I think with Ouran it's supposed to be mocking said tropes, to a degree.
But in Europe? Even in alternate Cold War-era Europe? I just don't see siscon being a thing. Not enough to make a main character have to deal with that.
Back at the start of the year I had an absurd idea to celebrate the anniversaries of a number of anime by watching the TV series tagged with romance on MyAnimeList from 1995, 2005, and 2015 that I hadn't yet seen. Turns out that was nearly the perfect number to make a 7x7 bingo board and I've slowly been making my way through it since then. Here's where I am at the end of July (+X denotes previous seasons I'd need to watch in addition), and I finally got one bingo — bottom left to upper right diagonal — wrapping up an enjoyable run of shows in roughly the past week:
Gokinjo Monogatari is a classic Ai Yazawa series before she wrote Paradise Kiss and Nana, the latter being among my favorite anime. It feels a bit stretched as many year-long shows from before 2000 do (I have no idea how it compares to the manga, things might have been drawn out or added given it was 33 chapters total) but was still a good teen drama/romance to watch overall and right in my wheelhouse with a pair of childhood friends coming to terms with their feelings for each other.
Kaitou Saint Tail is a fun heist of the week show that I picked up after I finished Magic Kaito 1412 the month before and wanted something in a similar vein and it very much is, just tuned a little differently to put the budding romance at the center of the cat and mouse chase rather than Kaitou Kid's mind games. It's interesting to keep in mind that this was airing at the same time as the final couple of seasons of Sailor Moon and more than a year before Cardcaptor Sakura when thinking about it as a magical girl anime. I eventually need to get to Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne for another magical girl thief but that's for another time.
Futakoi Alternative feels like more than the sum of its parts, taking characters from what I assume is a fairly standard school romance visual novel and doing something completely different with them. Here a pair of twins join the main character Rentarou in running the detective agency he inherited from his father, but he's drawn into drama from their past and a plot involving a violent squid-man. What helped make this a more interesting watch is its non-linear structure and other creative choices from Takayuki Hirao, who directed this show and later Pompo the Cinephile.
Basilisk has been a compelling watch from the start, a team death match between ninja clans that doesn't shy away from killing off characters quickly and making it apparent that no one is safe. At its core is a Romeo and Juliet situation between the descendants of the clan leaders and I could see it ending in a number of ways with three episodes to go. I have some qualms with how the female characters are handled but aside from that it's been a great watch even as something not in my wheelhouse as I'm not generally drawn toward action shows.