My theory is that he actually is in love with Miyahara, and he just hasn’t realized it yet.

Yeah - I was kind of put off by how determined the villagers’ opposition is. I can definitely see it up to a point, but it seems to have gone beyond anything reasonable. But it makes for a good story, and it’ll probably make it just that much sweeter when they finally do come around.

And yeah - Grieja.🥰

I’m still not watching any current anime, but Negative Positive Angler is on my TBW.

I finished up Boogiepop wa Warawanai (2019). It was pretty good all in all. As I noted last week, I watched the original series - Boogiepop Phantom (2000) - years ago, and while it was intriguing, it was a bit too buried in the surrealistic visual imagery of the era, which made its already subtle plot pretty much indecipherable. This one was much more straightforward in style and presentation, which is a much better approach, since part of the overarching theme is bizarre mysteries and horror taking place right under our noses and virtually everyone failing to even notice. And with a more straightforward style, I was better able to follow the recurring characters and appreciate their certainly not coincidental growth, and piece together hints about the mysterious Towa Organization that’s lurking in the shadows behind many of the crises that Boogiepop and friends face. And now the light novel series is on my TBR, which is presumably the intent.

Then, casting about for an entirely different tone, I thought back to series adapted from manga I particularly enjoyed, and suddenly remembered Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san (2013), so that was next, and it was wonderful. It’s a slice of life gag series centered on a notably staid high school student/tsukkomi who spends his spare time fishing, and the childish, self-absorbed, seemingly immortal mermaid/boke whose attention he catches after he literally catches her (more than once - one of the many running gags is that no matter how many times she ends up with a hook in her mouth, she just can’t resist a fishing lure). It expands out to an entire cast of legendary creature bokes, and has more laugh-out-loud moments stuffed into its 13 minute episodes than anything I’ve watched in quite a while.

Then most recently I watched an oddity called NieA Under 7 (2000). I just happened on it listed in a stack and thought it looked interesting, and I ended up quite liking it. It’s a sort of melancholy slice of life about a distressingly poor ronin (in the modern sense of the term - someone who’s out of high school and studying for, but hasn’t yet passed, college entrance exams) who lives above a quaint old bathhouse in Enohana with a brash, selfish, free-wheeling alien freeloader (in their timeline, aliens crash-landed on the Earth about 20 years previously, and have since just sort of blithely blended in with human society). The art style is rough and simple, but it fits the setting of a broken down bathhouse in a broken down town, and the overall feel of it is satisfying - mostly melancholy but with bits of hope shining through, and with a pleasantly well-developed cast.

And I have no idea yet what’s next. I’ve been sort of considering catching up with either DanMachi (which I burnt out on with the second season) or Re-Zero (which I dropped after the first season because I hate Subaru with every fiber of my being), but I just can’t quite get myself inspired. We’ll see - something will present itself, one way or another.

Huh… I didn’t expect that.

I’m actually excited. I think the last time that happened was the first season of Non Non Biyori.

I love this manga, and as a general rule, the manga I love don’t get adaptations, and when they do, they’re mediocre at best. And it’s not just that they’re mediocre at best, but that I can predict accurately that that’s what they’re going to be, because there’s no way an anime studio is going to capture the magic of the manga (Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku is a perfect example).

But this… they might just pull it off. In fact, if it’s done right, it could be one of those exceedingly rare cases - like Lucky Star or K-On - in which the adaptation is actually better than the original.

If nothing else, it’s pretty much guaranteed that it’ll be worth it just to see and hear the full rollercoaster effect of a Wada monologue.

This is sort of a relief. Sort of.

I caught up with it a few months ago, when the then latest chapter - 28 - had “Final Chapter” in its title, and figured then that there had to be more coming. And sure enough, here’s another “final chapter.”

That said, it doesn’t really seem to make more sense of the story - just the opposite - and the MC is still one of the most foul, loathsome, noxious pieces of shit it’s ever been my displeasure to experience in any medium, but at least there’s a chance that he’ll still be either redeemed or made to suffer the fate he so richly deserves.

That’s undoubtedly true - at the very least, Aqua needs a dose of him just because it takes a sort of verbal two-by-four across the forehead to get through to her at all, and Darkness needs a dose of him because… reasons.

Still though, I just regularly want to reach into the screen and punch him in the face, and that’s sort of unpleasant and exhausting.

Yeah - the rest of the cast is definitely what makes it watchable.

I was sort of surprised by how much I ended up liking Darkness. She seems like she’d just be a tedious one-note character, and she does get that way sometimes, but the way her masochism syncs with the expected self-sacrifice of a knight actually gives it some flavor and context. I like those moments when she just shines - when she really is a noble and chivalrous knight, even though, as we’ll soon be reminded, it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Aqua is sort of odd. I get what they were trying to do with her, with that combination of helplessness and hyper-competence, but it just somehow doesn’t quite work - the parts just don’t quite mesh. Though part of it is just that I find myself comparing her to Hestia from Danmachi, who’s pretty much better in every possible way. Still though, Aqua does have her moments.

Megumin is plain awesome, and easily my favorite character.

I love the idea of awards, but with only a few notable exceptions, I don’t watch currently airing anime, so…

And on that note, the first thing I watched this past week was the rest of Katanagatari, which I started last week. And I loved almost everything about it. The artstyle and character design particularly stood out, but it was all notably high quality. Though I still have to say I loved almost everything about it, because there was one part I really did not like at all:

…

So… I needed to decompress a bit from that, and I already had an obvious choice lined up - a series that I knew I wanted to watch, but hadn’t gotten around to because I hadn’t quite been in the mood for the particular sort of stupidity I knew it was going to offer - KonoSuba. And it was pretty much just what I expected - shallow, goofy, egregiously ecchi mindless fun. The only thing I didn’t like about it is that Kazuma is, not to put too fine a point on it, a petulant, bitchy, self-absorbed asshole, and I really wanted to punch him in the face. Repeatedly.

And now I’m in the middle of something completely different - Boogiepop wa Warawanai. I watched the original version - Boogiepop Phantom - years ago and mostly enjoyed it, though I also mostly had no clue what was going on. The story is strange and complex and mysterious, and it’s told non-linearly through multiple viewpoints, so it’s opaque at best. The biggest problem with the original though is that it came in the wake of the success of things like Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain, so it took what was already a complex and mysterious story and buried it in surreal symbolism. This one is still complex and non-linear, but at least it sheds a bit of the surreal symbolism in favor of more straightforward storytelling, and to its benefit. I have a lot of episodes left, but it’s shaping up well.

At this point I’m not even bothering trying to make sense of this one.

I’m just letting it sort of wash over me, and when it seems to have reached a good point for it, I’m going to re-read the whole thing.

it is among my best anime despite season 1 being an 8/10.

Ah.

I’ve seen the acclaim surrounding AoT, and never really understood it. I watched the first season back in the day and thought it was pretty meh really, and mostly stopped paying attention, only occasionally wondering why so many people thought the series was so good.

Now I get it.

So I finished watching Akudama Drive, and discovered I was entirely wrong about it.

Partway in, I had written it off as nothing special, and in an awkward middle ground in which it was too over-the-top to be taken seriously but too sincere to work as satire.

But then it turned into something different - by about 2/3 of the way through the series, it all started coming together into something surprisingly serious and dramatic and moving, and very good, and I ended up liking it a lot.

Then I watched the second season of Arcane, which I think only sort of counts as an anime (amusingly enough, as with the first season, aggregators tag it as a dubbed anime, which is sort of oddly accurate in spite of the fact that it’s not at all accurate). It was okay all in all. Kudos for tying everything together into a complete story, but it did feel a bit forced and contrived.

And I’m currently watching Katanagatari, which is pure awesome. I’ve been sort of idly threatening to watch it for years now, and just finally got around to it, and it’s everything I could’ve hoped.

That was a simple but brilliant gag, perfectly executed.

They were made for each other.

So now that the weather’s turning, I’m watching more anime, but since nothing this season grabbed me, I’m reaching back into the past some more. With sort of interesting results.

I watched Renai Flops early in the week. It was a fine example of a decent idea poorly executed. The set-up is a fairly ludicrous and contrived harem story that tediously hits on all the tropes, then there’s a big reveal that changes the direction of the story and makes all of the early silliness make sense. And it does a decent job of that all in all, with one gigantic flaw - the reveal comes far too late (in episode 8 IIRC). So the first two-thirds of the series is tedious and wearing, and the last third is rushed and therefore shallow and unsatisfying. It was okay all in all, once I trudged through the earlier episodes, but it could’ve been much better with better pacing.

Then I finished up Metallic Rouge, which was okay. Very stylish and a decently told and decently interesting story, but just somehow sort of drab overall in spite of that.

Then, most recently, I watched Renkin San-Kyuu Magical Pokaan, which was a lot of fun. I stumbled on it looking for something that was just unapologetically silly and weird - I have a soft spot for animes like that (e.g. Nichijou, Pani Poni Dash, Azumanga Daioh…) And it’s definitely that. And an odd thing came of it. I’ve never really understood the appeal of furries, but I got some insight into that with Liru, who’s just an outstanding character design. While I’m too old and jaded for her to awaken an entirely new kink, I can absolutely see how it’s likely that if I was younger and more impressionable, she definitely would’ve done that. And, I have no doubt, did do that for an awful lot of people back in the day.

And at the moment, I’m watching Akudama Drive, which is okay. I love the artstyle, but overall, it’s just in a weird middle ground - too over-the-top to take it seriously but too serious to treat as a satire. If it was less serious, it could be Kill la Kill, and if it was more serious it could be Ergo Proxy, but it’s neither. It’s okay, bit so far nothing special.

That’s how you do manga.

That was a great chapter - intriguing, well-told, well-paced, with a fascinating reveal and such a glorious pay-off.

I believe, if what I’ve seen mentioned is true and I’m keeping accurate count, that there are three chapters left. And at this rate, it could actually be that oh-so-rare beast in manga - a satisfying ending.

Yeah - that caught me totally off guard. Taira and Azuma just barely started to actually open up to each other and Yamada and Nishi were really coming into their own (and damn I’m going to especially miss Nishi).

Ah well. Poorly timed axes are just a part of being a manga fan.

Same here.

I’ve actually already re-read it two or three times now, but even with that, I can only keep up for a while, then I start losing track of plot points and characters again, and that’s where I’m at lately. And it feels like it’s wrapping up, so I’d like to get it all more or less straight in my head again, hopefully in time for the end.

That was smooth - well done Kouhei.

That last was the thing that irritated me the most - the constant calculations on whether or not it would be worth it to take a particular picture.

On a related note, in the early 90s I worked at the corporate headquarters of a national drug store chain, in their photo studio, taking pictures for their ad circulars. And they’d just invested an enormous pile of money on an amazing thing I’d never seen before - a digital camera.

It was a box about the size of a shoebox with a lens on the front, mounted on a big, clunky tripod and connected to a Mackintosh by a cable about as big around as my thumb, and it was awesome, because we could set up a shot, take it, then go over and look at the screen of the Mac as it (slowly - one scanline at a time) came up, right then and there. So we could experiment and tweak without wasting anything but a bit of time and get just the shot we wanted, which then was like a dream come true.

Now of course, I could take higher quality pictures more quickly and easily with my phone. Still though, I remember how amazing that was then.

This series has really been a surprise.

It doesn’t feel like any of this was planned. It feels like the author just started with the gimmick of a young witch who’s too earnest and naive and kind-hearted to become the manipulative and self-indulgent sybarite she’s expected to be, and who meets a boy who’s just as earnest and naive and kind-hearted as she is, so what was supposed to be just a callous initiation into a life of debauchery becomes an endearingly awkward story of young love, with the added twist that the young witch, raised as she was, has no conception of things like modesty.

But all the way through, the author has been rearranging and expanding the cast and providing background and context for the situations, and with a few fits and starts, it’s really started to come together well and become much more than it was.

I’m impressed.

Yeah - he’s normally just an ID on the other end of a text message exchange.

I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen his face.