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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 know this isn’t anime or manga but I have read my first light novel: Three Days of Happiness by Sugaru Miaki.
The story follows a 20 year old who loses all hope in life and learns of a store where he buy and sell lifespan. He learns that his whole life is only worth ¥300,000 (about $2000) which is shockingly low, so as a last ditch effort he sells his whole life aside from 3 months, attempting to find any meaning in his remaining life.
It is a romance that centres around the relationship with the protagonist and his “observer” who is sent to keep watch over him 24/7. It touches on what it means to find fulfilment when you are pushed against a wall on all aspects in life and know the end date.
The ending is very bittersweet and made me tear up, maybe because i’m a similar age to the protagonist and know the dread of being mentally aimless. It has changed my outlook on what I value and how I spend my time.
Restarted watching One Piece. I'm not a huge fan but people keep telling me gets really good and at this point I'm determined to get to the good part just to know if they're lying or not. I've been intermittently watching for about a year and a half now; I'm about 80 episodes in (Drum Island), but I'm watching the One Pace fan edits which cut down on a ton of filler and such, so really it's like 50 45-minute episodes in. Massive props to everyone who works on One Pace because without them I would absolutely not have had the patience to get even 20 episodes in.
It's pretty mediocre thus far, if nothing else it's something I can stick on when I'm bored. But everyone keeps talking about it like turns into the greatest thing ever animated and I just gotta see for myself, yknow?
I feel that if you don't like it by Drum Island, I don't think anything is gonna turn the needle for you. It's common consensus that stuff that's 200 or 300 chapters in is better than the stuff in the beginning, but the opinion is that it gets better as it goes along, not that it starts off bad and makes some sort of miraculous change up.
Agree with @Monte_Kristo's comment.
Although more is revealed about the backstory as you go and there's a ton of lore / cool references and homages / subtle subplots, the meat and potatoes of One Piece is the adventure and dudes fighting each other with superpowers and special techniques, and there's only more of that stuff as you go. Knowing more about the story (and even the more complex drama plots in the later arcs) won't turn it into a different kind of experience in my view.
I have watched all of the Big 3 animes with One Piece being the most recent. I did the One Pace experience also. My conclusion however, for myself, is that it stays on the mid scaling for almost 95% of the entire anime, with the 5% being some good fight scenes. That is about all unfortunately. One Piece has the best worldbuilding of the Big 3 but that is about it. Terrible soundtrack and osts, fight scenes are worse (tons of flashbacks and backstories in between the fights, gets worse in the later episodes), and hardly any character development. Luffy remains an idiot throughout the whole show, zoro is still zoro, sanji always remains a womanizer, and the rest of the crew are hardly even in the story (they do not get any powerups, become more useful, or make any significant impact in any way). In the last almost 700 episodes, the entire crew has been together for probably at most 10%. Stans of One Piece will always say it gets better and at least there is no filler. One pace cuts out almost 7000+ minutes of recap and fillers, which is more than Naruto or Bleach. As for getting better, there are better fight scenes and animation, but they account for a total of almost 20 episodes in a span of 500 episodes.
tldr; watch it to watch it, but it stays relatively mid. sunk cost fallacy for those who didn't watch One Pace.
I've been watching a lot of anime but don't have much to say about it. But the more surprising thing is that I'm reading manga right now.
Kodansha has just published their first English language version of Young Magazine, their Seinen periodical, as a special "45th anniversary" edition. It was aparantly done in cooperation with Kinokuniya USA, and I got it for free by the chance of me visiting one with my husband yesterday.
The thing is huge. It's over 1000 pages and it's about as tall and wide as a US magazine usually is. It's so thick because it has twenty different manga represented. The inside back cover contains a QR code where you can vote for the manga that will continue publication. If you are lucky enough to have a Kinokuniya near you, you should go pick one up. If not, you can still read it for free through Kodansha's USA online store, though I don't know if you can get it outside of the US.
In one way this kind of feels like Kodansha throwing us a bone to froth up their sales, but on the other hand I'm actually really excited simply because it looks like we're finally getting periodical manga again! I haven't seen that be a thing since Viz stopped publishing Shonen Jump years ago. I hope I can get them to mail directly to me; there's a Kinokuniya not too far from me but if they don't get sent to me I feel I will miss out on getting them, much like I dropped off on comic books ages ago.
Finished a few series over the last week or two.
Spy X Family, Season 2 - Think Season 2 did a better job of not making Anya so annoying. I also like that we got to see more of Lloyd in his dad role, while Yor kinda gets to be the badass this time around. Especially on the cruise ship arc. Looking forward to another season of Forger family shenanigans.
Solo Leveling, Seasons 1 & 2 - Really enjoyed this. I'm an MMO player so this was right up my alley. Not a lot of fluff; rather pretty straight to the point, with lots of action. Sometimes shonens have a tendency to drag, but not here. But it didn't feel rushed either. As such, the two seasons arc wrapped up nicely. Yes there are some things that clearly still have to be explained, like what's going on with Jinwoo's dad and whoever this Chinese S-rank is. And of course, what or who "the system" is. But, theoretically, if there isn't another season, at least this story is complete. I'm sure there'll be another season, though.
Death Parade - After watch a shonen, needed something a little more serious and philosophical. Which is probably my favorite genre of anime (GitS is probably my most favorite anime IP, followed by Psycho Pass). Recommendation from a friend and it was a good one.
Short series, only one season of 12 episodes. First episode was definitely a little heavy, but it made sense by the end of the episode, and I was hooked. The overall point is that you can't necessarily judge a book by its over, but instead it's people who have just died and are at their final judgment. Sometimes those who were awful in the living world had poor circumstances, but still might've been trying to do the right thing. Others who led lives that were supposedly moral and good were actually bad people, or turned into bad people. Either through circumstance or just because they always were and hid it. That human lives are complex.
Like I said, it's only one season, but I wish there were a few more episodes to explain who the arbiters judging souls are and what they are and even why they have to do this. By the final two or three episodes, it felt a little rushed as the writers had to quickly tie up the story arc. I wish there was a little bit more explanation and reveal. Really liked the music though.
I really liked Death Parade too. I got my recommendation from ProZD. I prefer a well told and concise story. This fit that very well
Death Parade is one of my favorites, an anime I would cite to explain what my taste is like. I saw it years ago when I first started really watching anime, and I actually had one or two qualms during the first half but felt the last two episodes wrapped things up very nicely. I've since been keeping an eye out to see what else Tachikawa, the director, can come up with, as this was his original creation. You may want to take a look at Death Billiards, which is the episode-length short film he did for an animator showcase and then based the series on. It's not quite as good as DP but it's interesting to compare the initial concept to the final product.
I also remember looking up this video analyzing the opening sequence, and despite the weeb overload it gave me an appreciation of the level of intention you can find in good titles. I've since used that (and key visuals) as a yardstick in deciding what to watch.
I'm three episodes in on Yuri!!! On Ice and absolutely loving it. There's not much I can say yet besides that the characters are all lovable and unique, the story seems fresh, the music is good, and the whole thing makes me wish I figure skated instead of playing hockey in my youth.
I needed a new laundry show, so I started watching Bleach again. I watched the first three seasons and a half back when it had first come out and was only subbed, but now I'm watching the dub. I vaguely remember some stuff, and that I enjoyed the first season, but it's been fun so far - only about 10 episodes in. It has been fun recognizing a bunch of Sailor Moon alum (Ichigo = Artemis, Rukia = Luna, Orihime = Usagi etc.) since my wife and I just finished Sailor Moon and miss it.
My question is, does it hold up? I noticed there are nearly 400 episodes now. I'm willing to keep powering through if it's worth it.
Are you asking seriously if it holds up or is that rhetorical? I watched all of it, including the newer stuff, recently-ish (for how long it is I'm counting the last 2ish years as recent). I could attempt to answer that if you want a serious answer, but I'm bad at identifying where people were being rhetorical and want discover the answer themselves and don't want to accidentally provide unsolicited information.
I suppose I could have been more clear - I don't want a synopsis or arc-by-arc breakdown or anything, just a general like "it stays great the whole time" "it has lulls but it's worth it" "it falls off after a while"
The main story of Bleach, the first 200 something episodes, holds up through most of it if you're into shonen tropes and fight scenes. I can't say it does character development that well, particularly for anyone that isn't Ichigo, but at it's heart it's about the fights and generally those at least are fun. The stuff after the main story is quite a bit weaker in my opinion, but it takes over 200 episodes for that to happen.
I started re-watching Dragon Ball. I doubt I'll make through all of it, but I hope I can finish an arc, and then perhaps continue at a later date. 150 episodes is a lot, but it's a fun series at least.
Edit 4 days later:
It's weird experiencing a Dragon Ball where fights aren't serious and Goku keeps hitting people's crotches to ascertain their sex. It's a comedy show at this point, and the fights themselves are humourous. It's been decades since I've watched this.
My slow watch through of Initial D First Stage continues. I've watched through episode 11 so far.
The last few episodes saw Takumi take part in another race after having a challenge accepted on his behalf, and come to realize that he enjoys driving and street racing. I've enjoyed the pacing of the show and really find that it sucks you in and makes you want to watch an extra episode to see what happens with it being a cliffhanger ending without it feeling like a dramatic cliffhanger at the end of each episode.
Honestly, I'm not a big car guy, but I do think if I had watched this show as a teenager, I probably would have enjoyed working on my car more and probably put more effort in to the "optional" work (like a rear window being stuck for a year+ or my back right speaker not working properly, etc.) that I neglected because I wanted to work on it as little as possible to not be around my dad more than I had to.
I'm not sure if I'll immediately watch the next season after this one or go watch something else I've been meaning to watch.