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

I'm on volume 6 of the Barefoot Gen manga, all of which I eagerly read in only a couple of days. While it can be a bit cheesy and has a lot of now-common manga tropes, the underlying story is seriously good. It does a really good job at portraying the Japanese civilians as normal people who's lives were ruined by war in ways Americans couldn't even dream of.
I wish my classmates were forced to read this back in high school because we had multiple mock debates where most kids defended the nuclear bombings as ethical using examples like "well the Japanese were being trained to fight the American troops with sharp bamboo sticks, even women and children." This example was technically true and portrayed in the manga, but once you realize they were desperately waiting for the war to end and only trained to save face it's truly sobering how easy it is to dehumanize people.

On a lighter note, I've also been watching Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, and I like it so far. It has a lot of funny moments involving the supporting characters and it's pretty interesting to see all the steps that go into making manga. I just wish it had actual romance, because there's essentially zero.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun Anilist MAL

Barefoot Gen Anilist MAL

I was watching Dororo with no prior knowledge and no idea it had a previous adaptation from 1969, but I noticed that the character designs seemed familiar. I was thinking of Osamu Tezuka. When I looked it up, I was correct.

I find it somehow amazing that reincarnations of anime/manga (I've previously seen Young Black Jack and some of one of the other Black Jacks) from well before my time are still very interesting to me with what I am guessing are very few changes from the original material. Makes me wonder what other things will be remade with higher resolution/quality that I might enjoy, or what stuff from today will be remade in 10 or 20 years from now.

Dororo (2019) Anilist MAL

Young Black Jack Anilist MAL

Was mostly catching up on Fall anime.

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny-Girl Senpai is quite good despite the dumb title and hook. It's "Monogatari-lite" for people who've watched Bakemonogatari. Except mostly down to earth and with likable and understandable characters.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is decent if you recognize what it's going for. Rather than a typical shonen/fantasy story (kill badguy, get beat by next badguy, get stronger, kill next badguy) it's a city building story. So it's okay if all the badguys are immediately steamrolled. IIRC the author is a civil engineer.

Partway through SSSS.GRIDMAN, which is turning out to be decent. At least the pacing is way better than Darling in the Franxx. (Aside from boring episode 1.)

Winter: Watched ep1 of Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka. Ep1 is pretty much as you'd expect given the premise: Magical girl who fights in human wars after retiring from fighting demons. It has potential IMO, although the ratings so far aren't stellar.

Bunny-Girl Senpai Anilist MAL

Slime Time Anilist MAL

SSSS.GRIDMAN Anilist MAL

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Anilist MAL

Watched the new episodes of Mob Psycho 100 season 2! I really enjoyed the first season; the style and the story and the characters are all super compelling. I'm glad that they're able to keep up with great style of the first season, it's one of its charms. I just really like the show and am glad they decide to make a second season for it! I'm excited to see what happens this season.

I don't remember the last time I posted in one of these and it's been a while anyway, so I'll interpret "week" very loosely :)

I watched a bit of the KyoAni version of Kanon, then got torn on if I should finish that version or read the visual novel, downloaded the VN, never resolved that conflict....and I've been letting it sit. I don't have the heart for that kind of drama right now anyway, I think.

Caught up on my manga that I've had listed as "caught up" but I let slip by, right now being Dr. Stone, Boku-tachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai (We Can't Study), and Hunter x Hunter, the last of which is (probably unsurprisingly) now my favorite manga. Been one of my favorite anime for a long time, I think in terms of just...amount of creativity, if it were something that could be quantified...Hunter x Hunter is ahead of everything else. Everyone familiar with anime or manga already knows this, but it really is the best thing you could possibly go for if you want to be bombarded with ideas to the point where you wonder how much the narrative itself even matters. Much like the Ghost in the Shell manga in that way, I guess.

Also read Yagate Kimi ni Naru (Bloom Into You), which I don't really know how to sell because most of its appeal is in just being a very high quality romance which imo have been pretty dry recently from an anime-centric perspective. Without spoiling, I really enjoy how it handles some pretty common gay experiences that could easily be written in a way that throws ace people under the bus and manages to avoid that entirely. I normally can't even expect weeb romances to avoid straight-up homophobia so it's nice seeing something that does better than even many of my queer friends do on issues like this. Of course, the reason I like it isn't just that it isn't offensive, but the things that are good are mostly there for the diehard romance fans...it's managed to reach outside of the typical yuri audience to romance fans in general, but I don't see why it would go far beyond that. Some of the best character designs I've seen in a while, too. Oddly tasteful for the stylistic moment we're in right now.

I read Ashita no Joe and I'm thinking of writing a piece on it for the YouTube channel in my head I write partial scripts for and never complete anything to upload. I need to get on that. Anyway, the manga is a classic for all the reasons you've heard about and I don't disagree with much of anything it's praised for. Thematically it's a fucking mess and there's so many marks against this manga for what it tries to convince you masculinity should be, but simply as a sports manga and an emotional trip it's clearly a masterpiece and feels mind-bendingly modern for a manga that started the week before At Folsom Prison was recorded.

Midori no Hibi...delivered on its premise, I guess? Not very good, but I finished it to say I did.

...and I just dropped Marmalade Boy because it started getting into a teacher-student romance that I didn't want to touch with a ten foot pole. It's unfortunate, because the mangaka's notes and updates on her daily life were really wonderful. I might return to it someday just for that.