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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've never been a big fan of the actual Gundam shows, so I'm pretty surprised with how good Gundam 00 is. The plot to every Gundam series is that the Gundam mobile suits are supposed to be vastly superior to any other weapon, and Gundam 00 is the first time it actually feels like it; There's so many shots of these machines getting shot and having no effect whatsoever. In most of them, the Gundams are the underdogs, but in this one they are essentially dominating the entire world.
The thing that bothers me about the plot is that it maintains tension and mystery by outright hiding everything from the viewer. And the thing I hate the most is how well it works. The writing in this show just basically flips everything about Gundam on it's head. The most interesting and fleshed out characters are not the Gundam pilots (which is not to say they are uninteresting), but the side characters. And the show does a much better job of showing the viewer that all of the major players are trying to uphold their ideals and are essentially all working for noble causes; It's fairly rare to see people with bad intentions, and those who do barely get any screen time.
The only real negative is that it's very much structured as a weekly show; things are paced specifically so that every single episode ends on a cliffhanger, after revealing a big change, or right before an exciting fight. That pacing is very exhausting. Also, there's a clip episode right in the middle of the first season! It does actually have new content in it, which would be nice if I were watching it as it aired, but it's a few years old now.
Right now I'm not even done with the first season; I'm just slowly watching it while I wait for the new shows I am more invested in to finish.
I'm halfway through Gurren Lagann. It's ok. Very pretty, love the action, and the concept is decent.
I don't know what I was expecting, but I'm not "blown away". I feel like I'm not in the right mindset for it, maybe. I keep comparing it to Code Grass, which I found a lot more fun.
Right now, I'm rating it around 7 or 8 out of 10 overall.