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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 finished OddTaxi this week! It was such an amazing show. I've been getting really tired of samey character designs, outdated tropes, fan service, etc. and was starting to get bored. OddTaxi was such a breath of fresh air. Characters actually talked like people. Right down to mundane conversations and trivial disagreements. I loved the characters and the way the narrative kept slowly unraveling this tightly knit mystery. I really hope we get more sooner rather than later. There was also apparently an audio drama that released alongside it? I had no idea so I plan to listen to that, or at least read a translation since it's probably only in Japanese.
Agree on every word! Such an amazing show, and the way ending was handled was very slick, extremely impressed.
I was pleasantly surprised by OddTaxi.
I agree that the samey-ness of a lot of anime gets tiring, and I like to see projects like this that actually try to be their own thing, but a lot of the time these are hit-or-miss.
OddTaxi manages to hit for me.
A translation of a new chapter of Ascendance of a Bookworm (the light novel) comes out every week, and I've been reading them dutifully.
I don't like to over-hype things, but Ascendance of a Bookworm really is a master class in worldbuilding. Yes, it's a reincarnation Isekai, for those of you for whom that's a deal-breaker for some reason. But it's far from the typical affair, in too many ways to even list here.
Initially, it reminded me a lot of Spice and Wolf in the way it focused on the economics of its world. And far from being some kind of power fantasy aimed at teens, the story follows a protagonist that is severly underpowererd and must find creative ways to get around obstacles, with the goal of establishing a printing industry, among other things.
I definitely recommend it to anyone who might enjoy a slower-paced, detail-oriented story that really digs into how the introduction of a few "new" technologies (taken from our own world) could affect a rigid hierarchical medieval fantasy society.
There was an anime adaptation a few seasons back (I don't remember - sometime in the last few years), and it was pretty faithful to the source material in my opinion, but it doesn't really get very far into the story as of the time of this writing.
I got the first volume free on Bookwalker and found the Main(heh) character just so annoying and selfish I couldn't bring myself to finish it. Otherwise it was pleasantly written. Maybe I'll try it again at some point hoping it gets better. Though I hear there's tons of side stuff about book binding and slice of life, which I'm not really into per se so we'll see..
I don't think I've heard anyone say before that the main character was selfish. Annoying, though, I can see. Some of her mannerisms are grating, but I figured that fit pretty well into the asocial personality established by her backstory. I don't think she's meant to be the sort of protagonist that the reader projects themselves into or necessarily finds agreeable. What is it about her that demonstrates selfishness, if I might ask?
Even if her personality is flawed, I think it might still be the perfect kind of story for me, though, in part because I don't care as much about character-driven-ness or character dynamicity as a lot of people seem to. In fact, my favorite stories tend to be those where the character development takes a back seat and lets the setting or premise really shine. I don't at all mind if main characters are fairly static and one-sided, for that matter. For some stories, I even prefer it.
Maybe selfish was the wrong word. Self-centered, perhaps? It just seemed weird how childishly Main behaved despite basically being an adult. Maybe that's just her bookworm personality from her previous life; not really thinking about other people, etc. It's been a long time since I read some of it, so I could misremember some things.
Add to that, many of the book club members I was reading it with related to the main character, whereas I couldn't at all. Maybe I'm just averse to shut-in 'living-in-their-own-world' main characters, which seems to be the long running trope of light novels.
Started watching Don't Toy With Me Miss Nagatoro, after some initial reluctance.
I'm around 4 episodes in. The very first episode was difficult to watch, as someone who went through somewhat similar kinds of bullying during secondary school. I've heard since that it becomes a much better rom-com that takes about six to eight episodes to really kick off.
I could not get past the first episode, since second-hand embarrassment is something I really don't enjoy. It's the same reason The Office is unwatchable for me lol.
But if the first episode was the worst for you, maybe I'll try again.
It is by far the worst one. It's the only time in the anime where Senpai is driven to tears. In Episode 2 Nagatoro comes close but even she realises she's gone too far.
Throughout the season it becomes evident that Nagatoro actually likes him even to the point of her friends realising it, but her way of showing affection is a bit unorthodox. Especially when she gives cold, even hostile responses to guys who continually try to hit on her, or hits back girls who try to touch him.