BEGIN SPRING-SUMMER 2023 ANIME (etc) IMPRESSION MEGA-THREAD! Lead with KONO-BOOM! [Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Bakuen wo!/ Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!], the Konosuba spin-off that will easily exceed the original.

Unlike mere isekai, with the 'dude-dropped-into-the-fantasy-world-getsa-harem' routine, we are in for a comedy bildungsroman for the POV of one born to the setting. Megumin is a better shonen hero than Kono-original's lad.

As a member of the red-eyed/ crimson demon clan, she's off to boarding school. There are RULES! 1) Crimson Demon Clan magic must always be incanted in the most embarrassing chuunibyou way possible.

2) The adults never give up their chuuni. From oyaji shopkeepers and seedy homeroom teachers, to wandering mages of great power; all MUST DO THE CRINGE AND LUV IT to do magic.

3) All magic is overdone. World-building done right.

Did I mention that the OP severely ROCKS! (I detect 'omoide' and 'kaze' in the lyrics, so it is a true j-pop ballad!) https://youtu.be/IfiQMJ3QlG4

The only mildly annoying bits are occasional fanservice lapses. The writers are fond of the 'oppai-envy-among-young-girls' routine. Tsk tsk; should be saved for the onsen trip episode. We'll pretend the bloomers thing is NOT some loli fetish.

Level up that chuuni!

Fortunately, our hero Megumin has something stronger: the dream she hides behind her snarker act. She's also a little shithead, which is perfect for a shonen hero. Must watch!

Next up: Skip & Loafer. Girl from the boonies goes to high school in Tokyo. Determined is she.

"Make no small plans... "

uh, matte, matte...

Thisis gettin' morbid.

Meets cute, does school slice-o-life, so far NOT hit by a truck/dies/re-incarnates as the villainess in an otome game. No trauma please, thanks.

I should simply re-watch ALL of SZS https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7twdab

Manga: AKANE BANASHI continues to be a ripping good yarn:

You can follow it legal, free on the VIZ Shonen Jump site. http://viz.com/shonenjump/chapters/akane-banashi…

Health annoyances hit last week, so hibernating/diverting. (no... tests clear so far...) Grand Sumo Villainess (LN) is not deep but is ridiculous fun - with some intro Sumo lore piled on. Sumo-as-shinto-ritual barges in on a typical feudal euro fantasy otome game magic setting,

... turns out to be quite powerful, indeed. Girl school sumo club member get reincarnated, yadda yadda. Defeats hunky dudes, they join her stable. Rescue Prince Shota, joins stable, Defeats army of 10,000 at a bridge army joins, etc... Good-hearted, fast fun read.

Already has a manga, should get optioned for an anime -- we've all seen much worse. Easy 12 eps. HAKKEYOI!

WHOOO HOO! Did I just glom to a QUALIA tribute/ influence in GWITCH ???

But if Miorine echoes Qualia...

...then Suletta is the monster.

(oh fvck... me)

Light Novel series: Holmes of Kyoto. Art-appraisal detective stories, slow burn romance-lite, Kyoto tourism pr0n, Oh my!

I had noted the 2018 anime - it was a pleasant diversion; some slow burn romance, some crumbs throw to the rotten, nothing stinky but nothing that really stood out.

But wait... The light novels are strangely... better. There are problems -- not problematics, more like pace-finding glitches. These are minor. And I've managed to pull a "meta" "easter egg" out of the read (wait for it), so I'm tickled. It's all about fakes.

The slow burn romance thing is CHEESY AAF but not objectionably cloying. After all, there is the age gap, plus both of their josei-lite (say it in mock French pronunciation) "baggage". Translator notes absent on the last few lines in Vol4 CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ Finely aged Soseki

... which is kinda unfair to us outlanders who didn't have to suffer through Jp high school lit classes and have to rely on Genshiken Nidaime for Soseki reference context.

But that's a minor bit of cute. The fun starts when one considers what the light novels have, that the less successful anime adaption lack -- which one is more "real". Like a valuable Kyoto antique? Both are, after all "fictions", neh?

The two things the light novels can do and do better than the anime lie in the realms of background, of versimultitude. Kyoto location pr0n Japanese antique pr0n

For the antiques, the light novels' text description work better than low-res 2D renderings plus dialogue.

2D like this just can't do it. Some guy called Hakuin might have done a Zenga painting that looks something like the above... but it might as well be a mcguffin whomped up for a Lupin III heist. The LN text descriptions, even used as filler, hold the advantage.

They are "truthier". They "look (read) like answers". There is an assumed contract in these entertainments.

What of "truthiness" for Kyoto "location pr0n" points? A contemporary anime should be able beat the pants off of a text description in a light novel.

... or at least get a WOW! every so often by cranking magic realism filters on Google Street View shots. Er... Nope. Not this anime. All soft-focus backgrounds and a stubborn resistance to anything beyond generic anime backgrounding.

Whereas, with the text descriptions in the light novels, you get buried in tour-guide location description padding; which, surprisingly. WORKS. The author is given the benefit of the doubt that they have some 1st-hand familiarity with the location. Not fake.

Kyoto of course is a BIG tourism city -- forget outlanders, the internal Japanese tourism industry is incredibly robust. The light novels never miss a chance to guidebook-out. Contrast to the Nagasaki settings in IRODUKU: The World in Colors (2018):

More at 'Like a Fish in Water, post 295' https://likeafishinwater.com/2018/11/29/weekly-review-of-transit-place-and-culture-in-anime-295/… (an amazing blog, sadly currently having problems with some goofs DDOSing them)

Another Holmes location shot, Inari Shrine: The two anime date from appx the same time, the background treatment in Holmes seems a conscious decision: focus on the detection and romance, severely condense the antique and kyoto stuff. Ok. So what?

The author of 'Holmes of Kyoto' can pad out their light novels with plenty of location-location-location scenes; Holmes and Aoi go to shopping in historic district, see temples, visit coffee shops.

Holmes the expert exposits. Aoi soaks it up, sometimes with the excuse that a friend from Saitama will be visiting soon and will expect a tour. Drop in a few doki-dokis Guidebooks, Google maps/ street-view will help the author but they can't cheat much.

Getting it right takes about the same amount of writing work as inventing something with a similar level of detail. Besides, Kyoto famous, neh? The readership would howl if a temple was misplaced or vanished. The customer base can be expected to sense authenticity and fakery.

What happens when creating this kind of "tour-guide" narrative gets a boost from highly evolved random poetry generators tweaked to spit out stuff that "looks like answers"

A story-monger could ask ChatGPT to write a description of say, a shapeshifting Tanuki chara running from -this- bridge on the Kamo river to -that- temple. Depending on how many iterations and tweaks, the output MIGHT be stuff-able into a story.

But the locale might as well be on a space station in high orbit around the planet Remulac, not matter how many times the text drops place names that sound "Kyoto". Something is lost, something else is gained.

Nothing wrong with letting a promising AI model help out with a bit of sci-fi +/or fantasy world-building; one can always throw technobabble and "a wizard did it" at glaring inconsistencies.

But realistic, contemporary settings are part of the "bargain" that readers make with authors of stories like Holmes of Kyoto. You get the oblique guidebook view. You assume the author has scouted the locations, made notes, worked features into their tale.

When a generative model is refined to output "convincing" form/ structure while lacking "intelligence" to fact-check a map, let alone "features", how will anyone be able to read touristy stuff for secondary touristy appeal? Fear, as well restaurant scenes with elaborate menus

This all leads to a stupidly fun situation where a fiction, a fake, has more real-value because of human authorship (craft) and presumable research as part of some implied bargain with the readers... Vs, Fictions generated by mechanically agglomerating extant sources...

... and then discarding agglomerations that fail various rulesets.

Ep3 of Kono-BOOM!/ Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Bakuen wo! Cute red-eyed demon girls doing cute things. Megumin can be a bullying jerk but the rest of her class has figured out how to handle her.

Meanwhile the local NEET stalker can't catch the eye of the most beautiful young woman in town -- can schoolgirls resit helping him out?

A great candidate for a low-stakes "healing" watch: Edomae Elf/ Otaku Elf/ A Sloven Elf Who Has Been a Shut-in Since the Edo Period. Just what's on the can

Somewhere in one of the wards of Tokyo is a shrine that has been home to a reverse-isekai'd elf maiden for centuries. Elf. Ages slowly (if at all). The resident good-luck charm with few "deity" powers, save her longevity and [remote pester] Currently, she's a shut-in otaku.

Her current minder, urrr.. shrine maiden is slowly introducing her to friends, even getting her out for brief visits to the shopping district. She can be bribed with merch. Been a manga series since 2019. Pleasant. Keep watching.

I HAE ORDERD IN A KEYBORD VACUUM

Holmes of Kyoto Vol6 with its rich-kids-weed-cult sucked at Hardy Boys levels. Disappointed!

Those who watch the Precure are fools!

But those who don't watch the Precure are fools doubly!

Bonus "Lord of the Mountain" shot:

From Holmes of Kyoto Vol7: Do I detect the origin of the INCREDIBLY ANNOYING ANIME GIRL WALKS PIGEON-TOED thang?

Finished Vol4 of the TenTen light novel series, [The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady] which either wraps up an arc. Whatever Euphie wants, Euphie gets. Also maidos move forward.

This is very CHASTE yuri, but at least it is real. They like each other -that way-. They are happy couple. No baiting. Families support them. Hooray. Cynic in me would argue that young ladies still have to be somewhat -not normal- in JP vernacular fiction to escape trad-ness.

... but o/c most heroic charas in 'romances" are removed from the mundane. Girl couple CAN FIND TRUE LOVE, as long as one of the pair covenant to become an immortal embodiment of the world spirit(s) /or/ is a vampire. Their story continues, a 5th vol is due in September

As a respectable anime+etc season mega-thread, I note that #G_Witch is continuing with a 2nd season. An extremely densely written, often grim action adventure/ high-school robot battle show, living up to its franchise's rep. Trouble is, I'm not up on Gundam lore.

Better to let someone who knows the Gundam stuff do impressions. Here's the start of Thaliarchus' epic mega-impression-thread on #G_Witch [Gundam: The Witch from Mercury] https://twitter.com/thaliarchus/status/1565254637829120001…

For maximum browsing fun, I use the thread thang at Tweetor-Thread. Pix bigger! https://twitter-thread.com/t/1565254637829120001…

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Punch! (2nd Season) The original premise was a social isolate gamer girl (who was so rich from playing the stock market that she can live as she pleases) beta-testing a new VR game. Perhaps we see a brief glimpse of this in the ED. Whatever.

Our overpowered bear-onesie wearing heroine enjoys life as an adventurer/ business incubator. Protects the lands from monsters. Dotes on young girls. Brings folks together, starts restaurants, employs orphans, enjoys yummy food. No longer treats everyone as NPCs

Why watch this? Nothing Bad Happens. There might not be much to it but Nothing Bad Happens.

Wait! This impression thread has filled up with low-impact girly anime, we need some manly action hot-blooded guy anime. Cue the construction himbo MIB/Chainsaw Man derivative: The Marginal Service

Young loose-cannon cop gets fired, recruited into MIB-ish thang that keeps the peace among ... I donno, refurbed yokai. They do battle in weird-ass stylized construction industry outfits, using modded power tools. Looks uncomfortable.

His team might be all shapeshifting whatever-yokai too. Who knows? Who cares? Plenty o mindless action-adventure! Buff dudes for those who care. Mostly internally consistent. Solid low-mid, sure, keep watching, why not?

Hell's Paradise/ Jigokuraku Was anticipated and lotsa folks are geeked on it. Secret to eternal life might be hidden on super-body-horror-freaky-edo-era island. Condemned ninja wife-guy and samurai beheader-babe VS everyone & everything & each other.

I read some of the manga last year. It got -repetitive- fast. "I don't care" intensified.

I might try to marathon it later, once it finishes but these Battle Royale thangs leave me cold, even with the random body horror generator AI running full tilt. For those who lurv such, undoubtedly a feast.

Next up: Tonikaku Kawaii (lit. "Cute, No Matter What")/ Fly Me to the Moon, Season 2. One could DISCOURSE on this.

Tsukasa-san's backgrounder has swelled to legendary proportions since the first anime started. Also, the young'uns now have a social - which was sorely needed. Learn 2 normie. Girl's got history. Hubs oblivious. Tsukasa-san as manga/anime Ur-wife.

To refresh my memory, I went through S1 at 2x speed. Many hints but no LONG EXPOSITORY ARC on how Tsukasa ended up like she did. Go read/buy the manga. Guess I have to post fake spoilers Tsukasa is a "Highlander" No.. really.

Tsukasa has spent the last millennium either ruthlessly killing all who sought to kill her for her immortality and/or hiding in the mountains. Ageless 1,000 year old perfect battle shufu. https://dh.japanese-history.org/2020-spring-women-in-japanese-history/the-establishment-of-shufu-housewives-culture-and-shufus-happiness-in-showa-japan/…

And the reason for the moon-rock and her interest in Nasa

Hiding up in the mountains, wasn't that bad an idea if you were immortal and invulnerable:

Dontcha just lurv scihub: The Emergence of the Japanese "Shufu": Why a "Shufu" Is More Than a "Housewife" Imai Yasuko and Lili Iriye Selden U.S.-Japan Women's Journal. English Supplement No. 6 (1994), pp. 44-65 (22 pages) Published By: University of Hawai'i Press

KonoBOOM ep4

(don't cackle)

Skip/ Loafer cramming flashback; rocking the hanten + sweater look.

The Ancient Magus' Bride Season 2 If you count the 'Wild Hunt' OVA, this is more like S2.5 or S3 and if anything, the -troublesome- aspects of the series, both manga and anime only intensify. They don't overwhelm, they just remain everywhere in the story,

... like the dangerous supernatural forces that seem to pop up like clockwork figures. The magic college piles it on.

Since I catch up on the manga now & then, I get the drift of the 'college arc', even as it goes on and on and on... It looks like S2 of the anime is choosing to narrow the focus to something more manageable.

Elias is NOT some originally-but-cursed-human.

We kinda GOT that already. Elias is some manner of elemental, cursed with an insatiable curiosity about humans.

With this, the entire bride thang gets complicated.

Rahab is way kewl

Angelica way kewl too. Also, resident marriage expert, because magic-users are prickly and prone to solitude. Subverted Iyashikei.

KonoBOOM Ep5 She did it!

I am a simple soul with simple tastes and that's why KonoBOOM! [Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Bakuen wo!] FEEDS MY SOUL!

Really, please watch KonoBOOM! [Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Bakuen wo!] If you have somehow missed it. It is wholesome, fun and much better than the original.

Marginal Service ep4:

Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia/ After School Insomniacs

Never mind the "exactly what's on the tin"

Afterschool Insomniacs DRINKING CONTEST! Hoist one every time a CAT appears!

(wasted...)

Found and watched a Konosuba movie; Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!: Kurenai Densetsu (2019) /KONOSUBA -God's blessing on this wonderful world!- Legend of Crimson

Shy, flustered Megumin is not as much fun as the newest iteration but was neat to see more of the Crimson Demon village.

In this post, I shall apply Baudinette's critique of [Pure Invention or Pure Fantasy? A Critical Review of a Popular History of Transnational Japanese Media Fandom] to Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers...

TLDR: NOT Dead Leaves, maybe later.

And while I am at it, why can't THE TATAMI GALAXY fix its young women charas? The "lead girl" charas all suffer from "Murakami syndrome". It is effing annoying to put up with and a major disappoint!

Tonikaku Kawaii 2nd Season Episode 6: Hubs hasn't yet twigged to the fact that his wife could eat Highlanders for breakfast. Tonikaku-anime is still cute as both of them negotiate traditional married roles. They are both really working hard at it.

ASIDE: I rarely get into Korean or Chinese cartoons/ animation because the pacing is fundamentally different than what I got used to with animoo + manga. Exception: PEAK by Im Gang-hyeok:

Correction: Author: HONG Sung-Soo Artist: LIM Gang-Hyuk

Mobile Suit Gundam -- The Witch from Mercury Season 2, Episode 5: https://youtu.be/e35BU1eB_5k

Seriously and with apologies to Gundam fans everywhere, I AM NOT ENJOYING THIS. I get the plotting and heavy-handed chara motivation but this thang is turning into rando giant robot battles & puppies into a woodchipper. Fvck this.

Tonikaku manga observation: no one really, really can give a convincing origin for the use of "Musashi" as a place/ region name. If Japan had suffered the French instead of the Dutch, most of Saitama would have ended up as "Grand Marais".

Because of a comment in a post by the WBA (World Bollard Association), I can't get the idea of TRUCK-KUN being isekai'd out of my mind. Does truck-kun get a harem? Cheat powers? A mission? Does it end up as magic loot in a dungeon?

Once again, I must repeat: GUNDAM OLDSMOBILE ftw!

Decided to watch, ty again to watch: Trickster: Edogawa Ranpo “Shounen Tanteidan” yori (2016) You cannot pet the dog.

This thing has a rep as a STINKER. So far, the handful of eps I've seen are simply -mid- . I suppose the problem(s) with this one are gonna develop from trying to "tribute" the orig Rampo shit vs. "oh look, a squirrel!" writing.

Bleh. Trickster not working for me. Time to dip into Daniel White's study of Cool Japan bureaucrats: "Administering Affect: Pop-Culture Japan and the Politics of Anxiety" Bernstein Symphony #2 on loop in the background.

The "Cool Japan" introduction reminded me of the young entrepreneurial enthusiasts that clustered around the garage band music scene in seedy bars in my town some 40 years ago...

One Dwane, (called 'the dwark' behind his back) proclaimed that he was going after 'the Punk Rock dollar' -- to which we noted that failure was inevitable: "There is only one 'punk rock dollar' in this town -- we pass it around among ourselves." Cool Japan, echoes of Dewey...

'Underpants Gnomes logic' kicks in fast:

18pps in and White has deftly moved to laying the groundwork for linking the respectable, ethnographically study-able 'affect' with its dodgy vernacular alter-ego. How long before we see the 'M' word?

Ah yes, "the affect-emotion gap"

Made to page 49. Groundwork has to be laid when discussing the anxieties of METI (and other) 'crats. Affect theory is a pita to read; it is struggle to grab at the fog of individual feelings that get transmuted into a bureaucratic, even national culture https://youtu.be/LFrdqQZ8FFc

Above example is accessible but too easy. Quebec-ness = know words to Gens du Pays & Canadien Errant + condescendingly replying in English to anglo tourists trying out their French in Montreal. Which is why the grade-school nuns made us sing: https://youtu.be/Gd3VDd08MxI

Nuns were all Quiet Revolution exiles. The archdiocese drew the line at 'Gens'. (/s) The serious lack of "So homesick, gotta get back to Japan" songs, stories and myths in mainstream Jp culture means that Space Battleship Yamato is left to take up the slack. Also: Isekai rice.

(Don't get me started on Farewell to Nova Scotia and Barrett's Privateers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFsg4ZFG5wY…

National Character in pop culture, neh? It is a BIT SAD that high-nihonjinron spoof stuff like this CM (2010?), is no longer cranked out. (Note the multinational biz types, as bubble-era nostalgia/ callback) https://youtu.be/o-Uv5ZNk0RE

Add shrine maidens?

Aside: After watching a 'snagged" copy of 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" the same anime mom who had years earlier introduced me to 'Totoro' commented: "Her skirt is too short!"

Well into CH2, Nation Branding, we get an examination of a number of efforts, which I could describe as "reified". The long-running NHK 'Cool Japan" show serves to hammer the point home.

"This should be Cool like that" makes for great subsidized afternoon TV but lousy draw. Tourism $$ could have be thrown at the Sumo Association or the Hakone Ekiden for free world-wide LIVE STREAMING for a far bigger ROI, but heh, rightsholders and shit...

Of note, NHK Sumo was, for a while simulcast by arrangement with UBS in Mongolia, as a 'soft power' expenditure. Worldwide fans would latch onto the Ulan Batur TV web stream to watch, until the feed got locked down. White makes the point with outlander otaku:

We now pause theory for: Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Punch! Episode 8: CAKE! Yes, the entire ep is about cake. Some tea because it goes with the cake. Nothing bad happens.

G-Witch; the Utena deception and Chekhov's Wave Motion Gun. Prospera (Duh!) Aerial (Duh!) I suppose much will be opined about it after it is over & done... Go drown yar books.

Just finished reading a classic 199X "cyberpunk" sci-fi novel and have realised AGAIN why I am content to watch nothing-bad-happens anime and read boring manga. I will purposely not mention the title. It was readable, even "a read" However...

Orientalism. White-boy saviorism, undercurrent of brain-dead sexism, Bad intimacy, facile scifi technology... Any more would name it, and heh, some folk lurv it to death, so whatever. Just a whole lotta ANNOY crept up on me as I read. I don't long suffer ANNOY any more.

Edomae Elf/ A Slovenly Elf Who Has Been a Shut-In since the Edo Period, Ep 8. ANOTHER ELF. All enshrined Shinto deities either dead warlords or reverse-isekai'd elves. The latest has a gambling problem.

That makes 3 of 'em so far. Novel conceit, as well as a twist on the perennial Black Ships/ Annoying Outlanders trope. Of course they need minders.

If I was sane and practiced self-care, I would watch Kuma Bear and/+ Insomnia tonight and stay miles away from live Alberta election coverage. YO! CBC, can't do this with your official feed, can I? (also note clean R. side feed, by Ublock Origin)

Subtweet: outlanders requiring minders to encourage them to behave is one of the great engines of anime/ manga storytelling. We outlanders lurv it death too, as long as the minder is hawt.

OOPs... been neglecting the anime impression mega-thread. TL;DR everything is still doing what they were doing. Coolant pressure nominal, maintaining course and speed. Skip to Loafer is surprisingly complex, yet restrained.

Awwwww crap, it's 5:20am. Again I had trouble sleeping and woke up to doomscroll. Just saw a post about someone finding their grandparents' sex pix -- which reminded me of how SOMETHING ODD dropped into the middle of Dr. Saito Tamaki's 'Beautiful Fighting Girl"

Now Tamaki-sensei is/was the reason I got HEAVILY into a heretical offshoot of late/ post- Lacanian media analysis directed at Contemporary Japanese Visual Culture artifacts. That and The Genshiken (whose author filches liberally from the discourse, to spice things up).

It was a simpler time. Here is Frog-kun's 2015 blog intro on Tamaki: https://frogkun.com/2015/04/07/beautiful-fighting-girl-and-otaku-sexuality/…

The THANG about Tamaki was that he didn't' erase desire, like another big-name philosophe did when they discussed otaku/ fandom/ weeb shyte. Yeah, he's all guy-centric as heck cause, Duh! (write what you gno) + Lacan/ Freud residue has a problem with female subjectivity --

It LITERALLY cannot understand it; the 'female' becomes this woo-woo residual that they don't even have theory words for. It would be funny if not so fucked up: "Thus woman exists, but as a symptom of man, created to ensure his ontological consistency" That kind of shit.

Which is of course provocation and twee poetics but since I stumbled onto philosophe stuff via Jimbo, I appreciate this kind of high bullshit, as long as the poetics are worth it and it is funny. Jean Baudrillard is a lot like sci-fi (pace Eagleton)

Anyway, Tamaki on otaku was a side-gig, so back to trying to help Hikikomori. Meanwhile TONS of very smart and able women simultaneously responded to the provocation and ran with the the general desire-mechanics of fandom that Tamaki sketched out.

Sure you might get a hat-tip towards the database and some Foucault woo-woo but (RE-)CATHEXIS + schmexy; we can DO THING S WITH THAT !!!

What is REALLY ODD about Tamaki-sensei's BFG is the mid-thesis digression on HENRY DARGER.

Oh crap, it is morning... I will continue this weirdling later. Or not.

Still no idea if I can continue this. I might 'fork' it from the main impression mega-thread or just nuke it later. Whatever, here's the wikipedia entry for Darger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger…

As to WHY, Tamaki-sensei decided to drop a humongous digression on Darger into the middle of a speculative essay on obsessive Japanese guy manga + anime fans, I can only venture a guess: Comiket pr0ny ani-paro doujinshi.

Here is Kathryn Hemmann's summary/ review of the 2011 translation: https://imagetextjournal.com/review-of-beautiful-fighting-girl/…

Here is a less than sympathetic review/ summary of BFG: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Saito%2C+Tamaki.+Beautiful+Fighting+Girl.-a0342568945…

If you can bear the jpgs of pages, J. Keith Vincent's intro to the 2011 English translation of [Sentō bishōjo no seishin bunseki] -- what we call 'Beautiful Fighting Girl' is a great read in itself: https://www.academia.edu/3682539/Making_it_Real_Fiction_Desire_and_the_Queerness_of_the_Beautiful_Fighting_Girl…

Despite the cringy/schmexy subcurrent in the entire theory wank (ok, ok, discourse) Dr. Tamaki's work is fairly readable in translation and surprisingly reserved when it comes down to otaku lads, urrrr... 'getting out of hand'

Years ago in a blog essay, I felt compelled to TL:DR the otakufication 'process' advanced by Tamaki. 1) Guy enjoys manga+/or anime featuring hawt girl MC. 2) Guy wants more, finds pr0ny fan-work of the cutie. 3) Guy's head explodes...

4) ... etc., 5) OMG, my brain is wired wrong. Guilt, shame, uh, nope. All good. In fact SUPERIOR because... reasons. 6) Join anime club at school/ lurk Tumblr.

At this point, the theory moe is strong and can go off into a hundred different direction, however.. Naive understandings lack investigation into the ownership of the means of production!

Couldn't resist a dash of Marxian fake-out. What I am really interested in, is what Lamarre (The Anime Machine, etc.,) once dismissed as 'Technological Determinism'. We get Ghost in the Shell Toy Story because we can make it with the machines we have now.

Similarly, we got Comiket starting in Japan, in the late 1970's because enough fans -- the overwhelming majority of them being women -- could get their hands on just slightly better enough office duplicating technology. See Ghibli's 'Up From Poppy Hill' for what was supplanted:

In the Anglosphere, fans appropriated the IBM Selectric a decade or so earlier. Fanzine production evolved toward text-based secondary production. Freedom of the Press is the freedom to own your own press -- or borrow the good stuff after hours.

There was also a strong social/ cultural bias that favored Japanese women fans getting their hands on emerging office/ school duplicating technology: at work they were invariably stuck with the task. Girls Run the Riot.

Don't fvck with me on this one. I spent decades around small uni/ community presses as the tech went from copy-counting + line-tape to Ventura. Corel Draw on a 486: 40 minute 1/2 assed color seps! I have a light table and 2 waxers stashed away somewhere.

Now for Darger, 'naive art', creepy stuff, naughty doujinshi and printing "costs", but first; Why do netizens strike a knowing pose and exclaim RULE 34! assuming that the intertubes were the first & only "publishing" technology to have ever fallen under this baleful influence?

Darger traced, glued and collaged because that was >all he could do<. Here's a second specimen for Dr. Saito Tamaki: Chris Offutt's "My Dad, the Pornographer" https://archive.is/VdoCe

Not everyone has 2-3 years to work their way through Bridgman.

Kondou Shouma's improbable tale of a too-young ero-mangaka; 'Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says' gets to the heart of it faster, with less post-Lacanian woo-woo.

Following through on the narrative urge is damn hard work.

Something must drive one's motivation through the green fuse to the flower...

while blasting the roots of trees.

Unless you live in 16th century France, in which case it was FOOD!

Techno-determinism part 4,379: you might stumble on your grandparent's weird polaroids because...

Just so this is not a complete waste of thot & time, one could posit a Maslow-ish hierarchy of woowoo motivating the narrative urge. Cat pictures =>pr0n =>fanfickery =>relationship dynamics =>OMG stop naow, you're committing fiction!

BONUS TALE: That light table. I will never get rid of it, though I painstakingly took apart the 2x4+4x4 stand frame. Slanting glass topped a 4'x3' plywood case, fluorescent lamps, etched glass surface with translucent white plastic behind the glass.

Found behind the Engineering dept of the local Uni during my art school days. It was tradition for the more modern streams of the sculpture dept to raid the Engineering dept's dumpsters. You can have lotsa fun with a dozen green-screen terminals and an xmas tree flasher.

The light table box had obviously been built to order, to sit upon a low table. The fluorescent lamps inside were burnt out. There was an access panel built into the underside of the box for easy bulb replacement....

And then some genius had added freestanding legs and supports across the bottom. 2x4's, 4x4 legs, L brackets, big screws and 5" spirex nails.

Blue enamel paint. Stenciled lettering proudly proclaimed: 'University of [redacted] Engineering Department

Yuppers, you guessed it. They built the frame OVER the access hatch, so it was impossible to replace the bulbs. Spirex nails. Took 2 hrs to gently coax it apart.

Otherwise, a superior light table. Much better than the usual tub-enclosure glass kludge. Keeper.

Back to manga & anime: A quick glance at the Wikipedia page for AKANE BANASHI led me to search out the voice-acted youtube-ization of the manga on the official Jump Youtube channel. Japanese only though, Ch1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGJVTaehEtY…

I am itching to theory grind on a not-too-ancient crossdressing boy high-school romcom... Even if it is lightweight fanservice fluff. 'Amachin wa Jishou Osu' is pure otokonoko trope-fest. The most "queering" one could charitably bestow upon Amachin is 'gender non-conforming'.

Amachin presents femme but is adamantly male. They also are exclusively smitten with their hunky childhood friend, so the hijinks [that] ensue are little more than an endless stream of gender mix-up burlesque -- and surprisingly chaste.

Where this manga excels, is in how religiously it sticks to the classic tropes of the josou (crossdressing lad) genre, with Amachin as the legendary 'not-a-girl-better-than-a-girl' otokonoko. No deception, hence avoids the hateful anglosphere slur. Eye-candy, teasing, flirting,

and fanservice, with bonus gender subversions. Add unrequited affection garnished with young lust. Fetishized by design, a complete elide of any IRL concerns. A fantasy from high-school-Japan on Earth3. Or is it a cynical retread of BL cliches for the male gaze?

Tatsumi considers Amachin his childhood best bud but refuses to take Amachin's flirting seriously. Otherwise he is surprisingly unfazed at his friend's manner. The rest of the school is fascinated with the novelty of it all.

This kinda stuff supposedly tanked out in 2011 but it appears there is still a niche market for it. Every last HS romcom gag ever devised can be recycled with the added frisson of josou.

With a little setup, toss in a hat-tip to enthusiastic male fans:

If one resists the urge to pillory josou fluff, a fvckton of discourse can be teased from something as devoted to the genre as Amachin. Carnival week A HS echo of drag shows for tourists. No young hearts were broken in the making of... Gay, un-queered. War without tears...

"Black magic is a matter of symbolism and intent." -- Master Sean O’Lochlainn, forensic sorcerer.

Yup... Rather than attempt to compare-&-contrast Amachin with a more tojisha-informed josou work, I have decided to gorge on Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy (omnibus edition)

For one thing; straight, cis, anglo-euroethnic, pale oyagi raise hackles if they venture to opine too deeply on stuff better discussed by those with skin in the game. Be that as it may... The two works cry out to the heavens for a theory grind.

'Who I am..." is queer AAF. Amachin is... (Even the most charitable interpretation would say;) 'less'. Less queer. But far more devoted to josou tropes and cliches and therefore a stark example of how to pander to the straight male weeb gaze...

... while the rotten gaze watches & takes note of both. Consider them as completely different machines. Symbolism and intent.

"Well, it's Father's Day, and everybody's wounded... " Time to marathon Eva

..that was somewhat tedious. And I only made it to ep 16. Guess I will continue, whatever.

Pause 1/3 into ep26. "A brilliant deconstruction of Japanese cult recruiting videos, woven into a skein of budget-ran-out-fill-with-clipper." Also: "Producer had a breakdown, shoganai!" Screw this, there ain't nuthing that ain't been already sed bout it.

BAD NEWS: "The Witch from Mercury Final Episode will be a Suletta-in-a-chair episode." GOOD NEWS: Endless remakes guaranteed.

This thread will no longer concern itself with anime etc., impressions and will henceforth review the poetry of Aliexpress Beach Shorts listings. This has the feel of Shintaro's 'Taiyō no Kisetsu' [Season of the Sun];

Inevitable decline cheap suit discourse!

We interrupt the ongoing review of Aliexpress fashion pix random English poetry, to note a fortuitous event: REJOICE! EXALT! CELEBRATE! A brave scanlator has picked up Spotted Flower!

If this holds, we might eventually get past ch32 !!! The long 5year (4 if you could deal with Italian scans) drought is over. Kudos & thanks to "MTL Shark" !!!

Since we are on the subject of Spotted Flower, missed the ENTIRE "Madarame dirtied" thang as an EVA tribute. "I want to be dirty. I wanted to see what I looked like when I was no longer perfect.”

If so, it was a callback on a particularly weak instance of Gainax psycho-bullshit storytelling.

Yuppers, the kids have opinions.

We'll leave this one for someone with more feminist discourse chops but c'mon: adult, functioning 2nd in command of a nightmare post, no serious tactical FU's, plus had to babysit the effed up brats... (opens another beer, downs it...)

Aktchewally... nope. Following the text, from Nidaime on to Spotted, both of these fools have only had ONE lover each in their entire lives. Horny weeb-brains working overtime on a legacy script. Unless Hato2 cruised the ni-chome before their manager snagged 'em.

Anyhoo, HOORAY MORE SPOTTED FLOWER! Horny 30-something weebs FAFO-fest continues!

Meanwhile in this season's anime; Skip & Loafer wrapped with ep12 and the end of the school culture festival. Plot threads were handled "lighter" than the manga but the chara dynamics were far more intricate and occasionally heavier than yr avg, HS romcom.

Small, pleasant stories with just enough drama move the tale along and wrap up in 12 episodes. Satisfied.

Skip & Loafer were cute but the 'Best Mushy HS Romance' of the season award is gonna go to Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia (After School Insomniacs) Jeesh, soooooooooo much mush! D'Awwwwwwwww. One more ep to go.

G-Witch 2nd to last episode: a very big buncha robot battles in space. Imma beginning to twig to the idea that these are fanservice-of-a-kind to the gunpla community. To the rest of us, is -huh?- WTF? overload.

Also; there must be some analogue to the old "a wizard did it"/ "if everything is possible, nothing is interesting" rule, about using murderous corporate faction fights as a plot engine, especially if there are too many factions to keep track of.

I -think- The Ancient Magus' Bride Season 2 is over. We're gonna need a few more OAVs and maybe a third season to... ... further string the story along forever with no clear anything, except perhaps slow chara dynamic developments in Chise.

Elias doesn't even get to have any "Duh!" moments about his waifu, though at least she has grown fearsomely strong and more assertive. We'll keep watching for neat little bits of verisimilitude, dribbled out to us: like the Academy's guard cats.

Could this be the inspiration for a new watamote arc? https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Japan-to-teach-teenagers-to-make-EV-batteries-amid-labor-shortage…

BIRD SITE WON'T LET ME USE A PC BROWSER, SO I CAN'T WRAP UP THIS SEASON'S MEGA-THREAD. OR START THE NEW ONE. Blehhhhhhhh!

Been severely weebed out by this from the new season's offerings: WTF did I just??? Oh, its a Love Live re-spin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H2N5qcBUuQ…

.... slightly in awe of how seemlessly they pull it off. This sucker is well-polished, like watching a pro go through their warm-up. Almost frightening.

Alternate, slightly magical Japan setting, charas from the Love Live franchise dropped into a heartwarming, wholesome, not-forced-at-all "Yes, you can go home again" tale that def is not tourism promotion. ... or a Steam game

"Re-enchant the world" Dr. Tamaki? We'll show you how to re-enchant the world...

2011 Tweetor-style subtweet/ thread continue: Stumbled upon some HEAVY gender theory posts, brilliant AAF, except for the historical record of casual neglect and violence done to real people(TM) using theories that are about as rigorous as Fate/Stay Night weeb lore.

Shit is really, really frightening. Very Foucault - and I hate Foucault because exaustive taxonomies of systemic human shittiness exaust and nudge me towards nihilism.

Whups.. old tweetor skin (invooked to defeat limits) has no spellcheck, whatever, insert H's

Anyways... Lotsa 'experts' made comfy upper middle-class doktor-professor lives from their twisted fan-lore analogues. 'Just-so' stories; how the leopard got its spots and why Johnny is (multiple choice entry) to think they might live better as Jane.

There is a point when weebish infra curls and loops back upon itself, then does so again several times over to become an impenetrable ball of arcane bullshit. Fun, perhaps for a story franchise. Dangerous, even repulsive when IRL lives and personhoods are on the line. Obscene.

In this vein, submitted for your approval, a fresh, new season's cours of high FATE/ WTF bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGD1NPn0kGg… I hope tweetor fixes itself so I can start a new mega-thread usiing the current UX -- because this 2011 skin is really cramping me.

Meanwhile, should endeavor to finish up the spring impression mega-thread. Somehow.

Holding out for a GoHands Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 3

New season: Undead Girl Murder Farce proves once again that JP vernacular narratives have to twist themselves into absurdity so that two idiots can kissu.

This is How You Lose the Twitter War

Time to WRAP UP THE SPRING 2023 ANIME, ETC MEGA IMPRESSION THREAD. Season fave: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!

Despite being a late entry to the Konosuba franchise - which by itself is middling, relying on the same few jokes over and over and over again - Explosion's Megumin lifts the entire effort: Snarker bomber-girl's bildungsroman. Banger OP, fun ED Blows a lotta things up. Chuuni

Recommend hunting down the prequel OAV/ movie where the idiot troupe goes back to the Crimson Demon village - I'm guessing that the idea to center Megumin in her own series began there.

Megumin's kid sister deserves her own OAV!

Best decision of the series was to severely background the idiot lad and the rest of the Konosuba party. Worst decision: oppai inflation envy done over and over and over and... (weebs must be placated) One more time, the OP: STAY FREE https://youtu.be/IfiQMJ3QlG4

Best 'so damn PURE ya gotta cheer them on' High school romance: Insomniacs After School

The small touches seal the deal for me: Magari doesn't get turned into the 'girlfriend with a lingering illness'. Nakami repeatedly falls into wounded self-pitying jerkdom but gets dragged back to sociability by his bud. Rain at Grandma's house. The kids being SO DAMN PURE.

Runner up "so damn PURE ya gotta cheer them on" high school romance: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

I can take or leave the giant robot space battles; at least this Utena didn't have to turn into a car to get free with her bae.

Hon mention in the "so damn PURE ya gotta cheer them on" category: Skip and Loafer. Really needs a season 2, as there is still plenty of material in the manga. Also the two were left hanging. I stumbled on the manga a few years back and try to catch up on it every so often.

The Skip/ Loafer challenge is how a "light mood" anime deftly, almost effortlessly, deals with the extremely dense and complex chara dynamics of the source. Stealth high Josei. Needs a second season just to process what we have already been introduced to.

Winner of the "exactly what's on the tin MID" category: Marginal Service

Best "Immortal Battle Shufu Romance": Tonikawa Season 2

Noteable weirdness: the anime refuses to do ANY backstory for Tsukasa-hime. Instead, the "I've been 16 1,400 times" (not mentioned in the anime) and her genius nerd hub navigate newlywed-dom.

I have a weak spot for Tonikawa because, in my youth I was witness to two incredibly messed up aquaintances' desperate attempts to learn "normal relationship" by getting high and watching soap operas in her dad's basement. FAIL Compared to that... Anyhoo, S3 inevitable.

Aside: note to light novelists and Great Clerics: using magic bond slavery to juggle character dynamics problems in light novels mirrors numerous arguments from Economic History.

PORCO GUNDAM: OLDSMOBILE!

Someone else can go on about the use (and/ or LACK) of BGM in MushyTen2

I REJOICE! I do not have to do a summer anime, etc mega-impression thread: Use this instead, thanks! https://twitter.com/colonvee/status/1681052515595345922…

...except for the ODD OCCURANCE of a resuming AYAKASHI THIGH FETISH THANG. Seems production was hit with C*vid and had to hiatus. https://anitrendz.net/news/2023/06/16/ayakashi-triangle-restarts-on-july-10-reveals-new-pv-trailer/…

Here is a LIVE BEACH CAM from Yokosuka (which seems to pronounce out as Yo-kus-ska for some reason) which has LIVE SOUND! Holy Tokyo Bay ASMR, Batman! https://www.youtube.com/live/Jv5-71wmalA?feature=share…

In case you wanna jump to the beginning of this mess: https://twitter.com/Mudakuntweets/status/1646941165692895232…

OK... HEAR ME OUT. Like, there should be an anime with cats, cats that walk on their hind legs, doing Shinto stuff like Edo Elf, in fact, just redo Edo ELf but with CATS!! https://twitter.com/ekichoTAMA/status/1682555495662649344…

C'mon! Cartoon kitties in shrine maiden outfits, what could be more WEEB? FFS, redo YOUR NAME with animoo cats.

We KNOW this works, the studios just have a bad case of "anxiety of influence".

Close enuff, for now:

I'm a simple cis straight oyaji but aint Fate/strange Fake -Whispers of Dawn doin' some heavy gay erasure?

Gilgamesh, a King, at Uruk...

(reads more) ...hmmm, so the lore attempts to fuzzify this, turning Fate/Fake Enkidu into an ex-clump of mud that... blah blah blah blah magic xgenderfluid... whatever. At least not a blonde loli vampire.

The fact that -someone- weaved all this lore, suggests that at least the fandom recognised there was something deeply OFF with turning Enkidu into the Fate/Fake version. At least they tried, I guess. https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Enkidu

A second indy scanlator has tackled EN scans for Spotted Flower and now chapters 24 through 31.5 (including tankobon/ Paradis extras) are available. Rejoice! (C32 was the last of the Karan scans - I speculate that landing a pro gig is why they stopped)

Have yet to decide if I will start a new mega-thread for the current (Summer) anime season but I can say ONE THING FOR SURE: Common to the large number of -mid- offering is REALLY LOW LEVEL WRITING. Story-line, dialog, plot and char mechanics... meh!

The current Mushoku Tensei and Masterful Cat are Ok but too many of the rest are just phoning it in. Oh yeah; Undead Girl is on the verge of destroying a solid premise by dragging, dragging, draging the "mystery" out bc they ran out of manga material.

This is VERY EXCELLENT, even if I still lack the cpu to process Utena. https://youtu.be/tzLbu7CHcq0

For backgrounder: the "politics" history of 60's onward Japanese radicalism(s), a very readable blog: http://throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com Makaing the jump to "the personal is political" continues to be a "caveman brain hurt" thing for me.

More by the writer: http://apjjf.org/2020/5/Andrews.html…

This eX-birdsite might be going to heck in a handbasket but at least I catch a rec from some anime folx and watch Tsuritama.

I'm a sucker for any Kamakura/ Enoshima anime, so I really dunno how I missed this one. It was GOOD. I once bumbled into an Enoshima setsubun festival and won some dried whitebait (and a sponge). Hooray! The little fishtanks with fish to nibble your feet - not in the anime.

Sagami Bay is ocean and one does not need any kind of fishing license for individual recreational ocean fishing in Japan.

I was intruiged by a rec of the OP for the 2009 sci-fi robot-motorcycle thang, RIDEBACK, so I am watching it becausee I am a total fool for white sun dresses. The heroine spends a bit to much tme in shock. Understandable but drags the story pacing. https://youtu.be/yTTOMukrtWo

The treatment of "radical student politics" is VERY stereotypically post-ANPO, in that they are violent, incoherent, pointless and stupid. MC babe just wants to zone out on her super-bike, keep her fam safe as buncha guys are shooting at each other.

DOCTOR: "I know who you are."

Let the mayhem commence! AliExpress's buy 3 at US$1.99 (or more) sale dumps a pile of wigs, including cosplay wigs into their "fashion" section. Shipping included, annoying restrictions apply.

You can only buy 1 selection per item, every 24 hours and you have to come up with 2 other items at least to make an order. Also forget about any refund if they screw up - this is an AliExpress close out alias store. Pay with PayPal and give AliX grief if they screw up.

GO HANDS / MASTERFUL CAT: When you step back, you realise that the story is small, to the point of intimacy. The bits of wide angle-whohoo-panning are to hopefully distract until the writing takes over. Fortunately, the writing is good.

Yukichi-nekko is an OL's Doraemon https://youtu.be/N-wI5EAhMyY

Engagement with my anime etc. impression mega-thread is so low that I suspect algorithmic throttling/ Shadow whatever... Time for my secret weapon! In Canada milk comes in bags

My engagement def is throttled because I RT C0v1d stuff, because, uhhh... I would like to stay alive to watch more anime. BAG MILK BAG MILK BAG MILK !!! Back in 2017 BAG MILK got me 3k impressions. Ok, try Guel.

The original line was: "go out in a blaze of glory". Like changing your corporate mission statement to SUICIDE BOMBER!

Against my better judgement, I am adding Lv1 Maou to One Room Yuusha to the Summer season watch list. At first I thought it was all fanservice but the "washed-up hero" thing is being handled deftly enough in the show's writing to surprise me.

The show is also having a teeny tiny bit of fun with a gender-indeterminate Level 1 Demon Lord, espec their "pinku movie high school girl" (almost Lum-ish) magic disguise.

Guess I will also watch Helck, because Lady Vermilio has cute hats. That's about all. It's enough.

By ep 5 she is on a tropical island with hero-boi. If I get a cute hat AND a white sun-dress they can spend the rest of the season playing mahjong for all I care.

In retrospect, it is easy to see why ambitious works like Oshii's VLAD LOVE failed to have a greater impact: NO CUTE HATS! https://youtu.be/W8hT-mbEBn4

Undead Bore Murder Farce pisses away all of episode 5 introducing big name charas: WOW LOOKIE, Arsene Lupin WOW LOOKIE, The Phantom of the Opera WOW LOOKIE, Sherlock Holmes WOW LOOKIE, Dr. Watson WOW LOOKIE, Passpartout WOW LOOKIE, Inspector Lestrade WOW LOOKIE, Phineas Phog

WOW LOOKIE, I betcha the dude who stole her bod is... (drumroll...) ===> MORIARTY ! <=== And while exposition is usually a bore, the silver safe and the Dwarf-wrought black diamond lore was prolly the most interesting of the entire 22 minutes.

IMMEDIATE SEQUEL: Tonikaku Kawaii: Joshikou-hen/ [Tonikaku Kawaii: High School Days] follows fast on the heels of Tonikaku S2 Still no anime reveal of the 1400 year old battle shufu. Must watch looking for Zetsubo Sensei tributes. (mangaka was assistant to SZS way back when)

Oh lookie: A classroom full of WEIRD HIGHSCHOOL GIRLS... (hijinx ensues) http://youtu.be/Xapr64dQYIY

For those who you who somehow missed it way back when: Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei - Episode 1 (c'mon effing defecto birdsite-load the preview frame!) http://youtu.be/-yKzalMqBHE

Level 1 Demon Lord Fake Lum White Sun Dress service!

Appropriate Cute Hat!

A for effort:

The somewhat-less-then-official streaming site running Ep3 of Tonikaku Kawaii: Joshikou-hen/ [Tonikaku Kawaii: High School Days] snagged a copy with WRONG SUBTITLES (hijinx ensues)

HELK 5: Desert Island no white sun dress no cute hat -hmph-

Undead Parrot Birdcage Head-swap Farce Ep6: Rakugo History

UPDATE: The somewhat-less-then-official streaming site running Ep3 of Tonikaku Kawaii: Joshikou-hen/ [Tonikaku Kawaii: High School Days] now runs the correct EN subtitles.

Masterful Cat/ Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu EP 6 brought to you by product placement for OK Supermarket's house brand wine; "Cellier de la Deli Boutique". (quite drinkable for appx Y400)

You doubt that Chateau Casa Maison de le Deli Boutique wine is a THANG? (oh ye of little faith & bargain food scounging while in Japan mojo) More on OK grocery store god-tier-ness: http://soranews24.com/2021/11/03/its-a-boozy-bare-bones-senbero-from-ok-discount-store%E3%80%90japans-best-home-senbero%E3%80%91/…

OK Discount: Home of Y400 Korean Beer six-packs and Y600 sararayman highball whiskey (with some playing card motif on the label - surprisingly drinkable, though ONE TIME the lowest price bottle was IODINE + CARAMEL flavored industrial alcohol.)

WHEN THE AMV IS MORE FUN THAN THE SHOW: Rideback https://youtu.be/XlQDQxXjR0g

WHEN THE AMV IS MORE FUN THAN THE SHOW: Evangelion https://youtu.be/tIcOIc7AFww

WHEN THE AMV IS MORE FUN THAN THE SHOW: Genshiken Nidaime https://youtu.be/bTF4GBbSkh8

WHEN THE AMV IS MORE FUN THAN THE SHOW (legacy version): Ah My/ Adventures of Mini Goddess https://youtu.be/AJEvppm1rNc

Despite all the "won't be as good" punditry on Mushoku Tensei II. it is turning into one of the best shows of the season -- if only because of the lack of competition. Now that the lad is happily ensconced in magic school, we get BGM with our scenes.

Note as well that the scenery art is going out of its way to NOT ANOTHER HOGWORTS CLONE the magic university. They are having big fun with the interiors.

Big fun...

Then main story of course is Buddy boy X Fritz/Sylphie but since the entire rest of the epic has him based in the university town with his polyfam, this arc is unavoidable. Not a bad watch either.

... still miles above the other 4 isekai/ power fantasy harem stinkers of this season. I tried: these don't even work as parody/ desconstruction/ whatever. They are just SUCK that fills screen time. Even the loli dragon one. Should go %110 service and at least DO SOMETHING.

Any one of these could be improved by the "SNEEZE AND ALL THE GIRLS' CLOTHES COME OFF"gag. Heck, lads clothes too. Equal oppo. And while we are on the subject, WTF happened to the restart of AYAKASHI THIGH FETISH, a true POS that it least acknowledged its bullshit?

Rewatching SUPER CUB bc it is so wholesome!

The Enoshima/ Kamakura run !!!

Reiko's Climb !!!

Sano Nami, author of Sakamoto desu ga?/ Haven’t Your Heard? I’m Sakamoto, has lost her battle to cancer at age 36. Must marathon the 2016 anime.

Yuri doujin/ manga: The Guy She Was Interested in Was (n't a Guy At All) a Soft-Butch Music Store Clerk When Not a Shy Glasses-girl at School. Way cute! Very pure. Massively fun graphic style too.

The Choric Song of the Nightwalkers/ Yofukashi no Uta manga continues, with its signature oblique approach to Josei-ish 'relationship' comedy.

(I liek my title localiation better than that bland 'call' thang) IAC, damn fine cynical love comedy use for vampire grinders.

Light novel: Otherside Picnic 8. Less spooky stuff and much more intensely considered -relationship- concerns, as Sorawo tries to figure out all this annoying desire stuff. Faceless tanuki creatures, NBD when faced with WTF is this thing called...

Undead Victoriana Namedrop Melee Farce Eps 7+8 The assembled brand names all fight it out.

I am blocking all ads on this hell site except for those by Shonen Jump.

Someone has decided to resume EN scanlation of the 2008 homage to Akihabra electronics parts stalls (and maid cafes) TRANSISTOR TEASET. (worth mention that it elevator-pitched-as-gag, the concept for Akiba Maid Wars)

The manga version of The Vampire Dies in No Time has its funny moments as well.

ELEVATOR PITCH! Just had/stole this awsome idea for an Isekai; summoned dude is a mouthy asshole with a weird cheat power - Kumauso Jitsu. Attacked by bandits, he insults them, then a door appears and he slip through it to escape... They open the door to persue. GRIZZLY BEARS!

An entire 12 ep cours of this gag, repeated over and over with minor variations, escalating insults and ever-increasing varieties and numbers of bears behind the doors.

Season 2: At the Magic Academy...

FRIEREN is getting an anime! I look fwd to many thinkpieces debating if it is an allegory on contemporary sociopathologies.

Another(!) fan translator goes at SPOTTED FLOWER and we get the 4-5yr long-awaited chapters 32 through 41.X

...and JFC on a bicycle, it was worth the wait. Along with the rediculous horny fail-songs of the now-30's gang... moments of poingnant vulnerability

(or/and a hat-tip to Qualia) Plus a few other "between men" treats for the rotten gaze (not spoiling) Good start to September!

A note to the writers and producers of YOHANE; FUCK AROUND WITH LAILAPS AND THE FANBASE WILL HUNT YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH!

OH Snap! Screwed up the thread -- repost time.

Plenty of things put me off a 1-ep (let alone 3) test watch of the latest instalment of the "girlband" Bang Dream franchise; "It’s My Go" -some kind of idol shit - uncanny CGI -another damn media mix But I broke down and watched ep12 cold.

It almost was not enough. It was just enough. This band is disfunctional AAF Who wrote this thing? Yuniko Ayana, of GIVEN fame (among others...) Ok.. that explains it.. Marathon time.

I don't know if this would work as a weekly watch. The CGI remains uncanny. Continuity helps to take your mind off it needs more: in this case, VERY melodramatic writing on young women over-wroughting about band-stuff. Btw: Tomori-chan has ball of steel.

Show LOOKS like it is built around pink-hair bubbly girl and her serial self-sabotage. Don't be fooled.

Seriously needs ONE jaded, condescending adult teacher-type to butt into the middle of one of their band melt-downs and drop something about "energetic youth". Maria-sama watches over our band trauma.

The 'live' in ep10 is fvcking MILES ABOVE the show in ep12. Would not have worked w/o 9 previous eps building up to it. (yeah, it's the Given trick again but who cares --still works.) Recommend as holiday marathon watch! 4.5/5

Looks like magical girls, smells like shonen: Kabushiki Gaisha MagiLumiere This manga is a shoo-in for an anime. Extra features; young adult magical girls, no fanservice, action/adventure plus "agency-team" story dynamics. Excellent PACING PACING PACING!!!

Office Lady Shonen Jump!

More fan-translated HIBIKI has dropped. My fave psycho Jp lit prodigy continues to go to extreme lengths to protect her privacy. (the drawing style is -slowly- improving)

They already made a live J-Drama of Hibiki, wonder if anyone EN subbed it?

More on Hibiki: Japan LOVES its high lit writers. Lit is big in Japan and so a story about a -slightly- monomaniacal highschool girl who writes award-winning high lit novels (by hand, as properly done) Manages to be a hit even with doujin-quality drawing.

Perhaps the doujin-quality drawing works even BETTER than a more polished presentation would; visually emphasizing the radical otherness of her chara.

FVCK YEAH, I believe!

Yet at the same time, she is a lie, albeit an attractive one; a distillation of all the kulture-BS that agglomerates around the role of the "superhero author", the "auteur", squashed into the frame of a sullen teen girl. A perfect, perfectly wonky what-if

HELK, as morality play is turning out to be better than a lot of the other action-adventure grinders of this season.

Tweetor Diversion Time: Here are a few extensions that will help you if you use tweetor on a Browser (PC, MAC, Chromebook, Android tablet running Kiwi Browser) 1-click blocker for Twitter https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/1-click-blocker-for-twitt/clhbjgbdocpldiobndgnlijdcmpppkhl…

....gives you a block button to nuke asshats fast. When someone tells you who they are... Also, though the author recently stopped updating it: RED BLOCK Good for chain-blocking up to 500 followers. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/red-block/knjpopecjigkkaddmoahjcfpbgedkibf…

Don't fret, it will show dialogues in EN, even though was made in Korea. Like all chain-blockers, recent changes in Tweetor code mean that you may have to hit followers a few times AND re-log-in after chainblocking a few hundred chuds.

Has it's own, less reliable one-click blocker in the wrench section. Old Twitter Layout (2023) Your backup when Tweetor starts misbehaving, also the image viewer is SUPERIOR. You can override it during normal use. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-twitter-layout-2023/jgejdcdoeeabklepnkdbglgccjpdgpmf…

Privacy Badger General FB/Tweetor/ Insta/etc tracker integration blocker. You don't need that shyte slowing you down on any sites. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp…

uBlock Origin The best of the uBlock adblockers, works for lots more than just the birdsite. Highly recommended but I won't directly say why, here. Make sure you go to settings and let it auto-update its block lists. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm…

I have fallen from the grace of anime impression thread-ing and henceforth am condemmed to review Aliexpress "Diamond Painting Anime Horror Girl Picture 5D DIY" kits

This one has an 80's Detroit/ Niagara from Destroy All Monsters" vibe, though one must wonder if the glued-on rhinestones can pull off enough of an effect to do proper homage.

On sale now as a flash deal on the app landing page, so you can get yours for under CA$4.50 & use it to scare children, give it to someone you hate or... something. I shud stick with anime impressions but MushokuTen II was just doing its thing, FFS, sex down Fitz already.

NIAGARA, her band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX5JnEBrIzc…

YOHANE stole dog-mom's voice... Bastaads! (fucking Kiki trick, we see you.)

There I go again getting my sorry ass algorithmically buried for posting anti-Canfasc and anti-sars2 minimizer oyaji memes. Xitter no like mega-threads either.

Waiting for tomorrow's last ep of It's My Go. Since I am completely out of the BangDream Media Mix lore cluster, I process it as GIVEN, with gay guys replaced by a disfunctional girls' homosocial, fronted by somewhat-on-the-spectrum Tomori-dono.

The trick works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLl0D6xz39Y…

I treat Star Trek Lower Decks as honorary anime in these mega-impression threads. Season 4 has dropped and the 2 eps I've seen so far are fun.

...not gut-busting fun -yet, but still fine. Some chara development for our hero:

And last season's Star Trek: Strange New Worlds "Lower Decks crossover episode" was cute.

Is wednesday. Where is my ep13 of MyGo? ---grrrrrrrr---

BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! Ep13 final. Well. that sucked. I somewhat grasp the narrative purpose (plus drop in some promo in for another band in the stable) but blehhhhhhhhhhhhh......

FINE POINT OF USE: Yes, you can post links to news on Canadian Feceebuk, if you post the [archive dot is] save. (the archive is also great for paywal hopping) But the preview of the headline and graphics will not resolve.

Ooooh! Ooooh! Theory stuff heating up here on xitter. Must curb my enthusiasm and instead try to get some new reading material out of the fray. It's a hobby. My position is suspect, even dubious; I have my reasons, even if they are oblique.

... tho honestly, lately, imma getting more of the kind of theory moe I crave from an anime about an outsize cat and an Office Lady.

Guys: If you thot BL (as a straight woman's gaze artifact) was scary, contemplate your worth compared to a masterful house cat.

This show is turning out to be one of the surprise hits of the season. What a simple fun premise!

"For the smell of food, the sound of money." Found something with theory-moe: "BL (Boys’ Love) Literacy: Subversion, Resuscitation, and Transformation of the (Father’s) Text" --Tomoko Aoyama 10.1353/jwj.2013.0001 SZS often "played" with Soseki in its own rotten-aware way.

While we are on Aoyama-sensei, here's sumthin' I stumbled on a decade ago, that provided a lot of influence-context for a couple of big otaku properties of the time: “Eureka Discovers Culture Girls, Fujoshi, and BL. http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue20/aoyama.htm…

Them 3 magazine issues became the mid-2000's "mangaka's-Cliff-notes" for the genre, as Yureka was (is) a prestige title. Know jack shit 'bout that yaoi stuff? Pull up a chair, sensei...

At the simplest level, what made all this fascinating was the shift from THE MAIN CHARACTER (whose ass, the universe revolves around) to a subversive dynamic between characters... because, apparently the wimmins can handle complexity better than my guybrain can (or something).

This changes the way a story is told. The author-reader insert best move to a support position lest they get tangled up in my-head-hurts dynamics. Not exactly like you can't do shonen with this POV -- is just more work. Cut me some slack, I'm spitballling here.

There is a world of difference in the praxis of moe-shipping vs. oshi-stanning. The difference (feels to me like - but whatta I know?) between hostage-taking and self-immolation.

This is hard to describe. Compare & contrast, POS harem isekai w. a few meta yuk yuks : "Jitsu wa Ore, Saikyou deshita?" to The girls-band melodrama: "BanG Dream It's my Go" Like, how many eps before we twig that Tomori is MC?

Pay attention: Tomori is the MC because the story inexorably winds all the rest of them around her; she is Hell's Own Magnet because of the history she has woven with the rest of them. She is inescapable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_XvL6HgAgE…

In contrast Jitsu only gets truly FUNNY once stepsister commandeers buddy boy's posse because she watched too much magical girl anime. The manga is -sligtly- better than the anime.

Therefore: Shipping, as symptom of complex chara dynamics holds far greater subversive potential than stanning, which only becomes destabilizing + subversive as it approaches self-immolation. Of course, you do you, not judging , except I think your thang is suss. QED.

Aside: consider how close the vibe btw oshi-katsu and akogare. "mumble mumble mumble, something about ontological consistency"

The trouble with Mushoku Tensei II is that too many of us have read the light novel +/or manga. So fer pity's sake, Sylphie, please jump buddy boy before we all die of ennui.

We interrupt this anime/etc. season impression mega-thread with another oyaji meme, because SOME PEOPLE like maiming and killing their neighbors.

(fixing thread) Current season is ending, begin wrap-ups starting at the shallow end: Am I Actually/ Jitsu wa Ore, Saikyou deshita? was not the stinkiest Isekai harem fantasy this season. Close... but at least it has CHUUNI!

Was it also poking fun at a certain -other- fantasy property with kid sister's "hidden student council" delusions? Bored spitless, I tracked down the first 2 light novels. Like the show, the original -only- turns funny once kid sister starts messing around.

If I want to drag this out, I could go on about how Japanese light novels are great at "do one simple thing, see how it works". Unlike the premiere fantasy isekai of the season, our reincarnated hiki schlub does NOT want to do a redemption arc. He wants to continue to NEET out

'Am I Actually' is still a stinker. but it is not the worst stinker of it's kind, this season. Solid MID. Popcorn. Time-waster. We've all seen worse.

Scrolling back, I see that my last theory-wank bit didn't explain itself clearly because I should be wary of the NEATO INSIGHT after the evening tipple. Also when bone weary. I think I found something but it is difficult to clearly elaborate it...

... without some hideous math-looking multiple axis graph or worse. But I can fix the above a bit by using an even stinkier isekai than "Actually"as the MC-centered example. As well as continuing my season-end wrap-up.

Level 1 dakedo Unique Skill de Saikyou desu/ My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1 is Absurdly bland. Scripted by ChatGPT. No human mind could make something as bland and formulaic without going mad. However humans cleaned up the output, so no 'too many fingers'.

Has the plot complexity of a grocery list. There is a Main Character who gets reincarnated and walks around RPG-derivative maze structures to kill slimes for carrots and bean sprouts. All other characters (harem girls) interact AT him and not with each other.

All interactions are weirdly 'pro-forma', as if every chara has been sent by a temp agency. This anime fills time and occupies scheduling space. It is neither cruel nor funny. Is it some zen thing?

For purposes of theory example, it radically centers a main character and eschews character dynamics and narrative distractions. Maybe it was some kind of thought experiment. You can do that with Narou isekai (just because you can, doesn't...)

You can do that with Narou fantasy web-stories even as such an absurd level of -meh!- is impressive. There is another Narou weirdling this season, same RPG-dungeon drop fuck-it setting, with the Main Character reincarnated as a VENDING MACHINE.

It is still a mess but somehow manages to have more in the way of character dynamics than "Drop", even with the machine only able to communicate in recorded phrases. For review purposes, both are -not very good at all- Less than mid.

Back to theory grind exampling: comparing bad Narou to Bandori is sloppy AAF but it at least highlights the sharp differences between MC-centered narratives and ensemble stories that center character dynamics.

To further draw parallels between these differences and those between Affective-moe/ shipping and Stan/ oshi-katsu secondary/ fan praxis is sketchy, tenuous. But I think there be sumthin there. Gotta tread carefully tho on the essentializing. Might get a blog essay out of this.

Also: Carlyle is generally considered reactionary.

As we all know...

Detail: random poetry from Aliexpress fast fashion pix:

(fix thread fvck:) Three more failed isekai/ fantasy properties from this anime season: Most harmless fail: Okashi na Tensei/ Sweet Reincarnation. Kid is named Pastry. His arranged fiance is name Licorice. Sometimes, after much hardship, he makes simple sweets.

Guessing that Ascent of a Bookworm was on the mind of the light novel author when they started this one. The kid (reincarnated chef) goes ON + ON + ON about confections but supplies are at feudal levels, so much adventuring & trade negotiations to make an apple pie.

Bookworm will top out over 40 volumes. If this thing goes 40 volumes it can be beamed at hostile embassies to cause mystery brain-bleeds. In single-cour anime form it is harmless. Just weird how it goes on + on + on about sweets, then goes boys own adventure.

Next fantasy -meh!- Eiyuu Kyoushitsu/ Classroom for Heroes. Reincarnated demon-lord at magic academy plodder. At LEAST it does not outta-my-ass as much as 'The Misfit of Demon King Academy 2' -- which I won't even consider for this impression thread.

Enless shit-tonne of fanservice training battles. That's all. At least it is not mean-spirited while phoning it in.

Fantasy Fail o the season: Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru/ Reign of the Seven Spellblades. Narou-zoku: GET OVER YOR HOGWORTS, PLEASE !!! Folx I respect had big expectations for this one, based on the light novels.

I don't see it. Lacks charm and humor, while it plods through the tropes. Creepy mean-spirited undertones throughout. Aims higher, so falls further. Expectations disappointed. Also: they hold their swords weird.

Conditional pass isekai: Seija Musou: Salaryman, Isekai de Ikinokoru Tame ni Ayumu Michi, know to the English readers of the light novel series as The Great Cleric. Stand-out for this cour (perhaps the only one) is the relentless "hard training will never betray you" BS...

taken to such extremes as to become the ENTIRE story. Later, in the novels, we get to my greatest complaint with the series: magical bond-slavery used as character dynamic crutch. "Massa treats me fairly, so I will be loyal to death" must be killed with fire on sight.

For now, train, grind, meet & heal interesting people, drink blerghhh potions, rinse, repeat. Watch-able mid.

Aside: conceit for the theory-wank blog-essay I may grind on: "The common goal of nature is utility" (from the title of an obscure, sci-fi tale - the aliens read crackpot utilitarianism and be unimpressed with humans)

Now back to the anime season wrap-up: Meh!-levolent Spirits: Mononogatari 2 - Tolerable battle action but otherwise, BOREDOM. He fights, assist from wedding set, must eventually gets girl. Solid mid.

Ayaka Another solid mid. Might be throwing some bait out for the rotten gaze but as this is now commonplace, who cares. Some interesting visuals for the setting, mechanical plotting.

This is good so I must steal it: http://x.com/DivineNoodles/status/1703866111157325975…

Gradually working my way up to my picks for best of season, so time for the "would have been great but messed up" lineup: Undead Victoriana Namedrop Farce.

The manga is high stylish and better paced. The anime disappoints.

Great premise but stuffing it with legendary crimers and detectives, then having them do fight choreography left me cold. When the cages got swapped -- that was fun and hinted at what was otherwise sadly absent. Season 2 has been announced: DO BETTER!

I was prepared to give Yohane - a Love Live franchise derivative a chance because of the weirdness it added to the fantasy version of her Japanese town. And the re-enchant the world thing.

Instead they messed up. Much too much Yohane self-pity and then a cardinal sin: They fvcked with dog-mom.

I feared they were going to Old Yeller her; at least they held off and Kiki's cat Jiji'd her by stealing her voice. Lailaps was the best of you and in the end, disposable. Fatal error. Jail for One Thousand Years!!!!

Seasonal Anime/ etc., Impression Mega-thread Special Mention Awards: Back-From-the-Dead-Gender-Swap-Burlesque Award for Persistance: Ayakashi Thigh Fetish (Triangle) -- the cheesecake genderbender anime that would not quit, even after covid ravaged the production!

Cheesecake! The spirit-cat censor cutouts! The thighs, thighs, thighs - one really has to have a thing for girl-thighs to show such dedication. Occasional flashes of above pay-grade writing. Shonen-hero-level ecchi fluff!

Xitter's FOR YOU algo is flooding me with cat picture posts. For once, I approve!

Seasonal Anime/ etc., Impression Mega-thread Special Mention Awards: Only-1/3-of-a-cour-echoes-of-Zetsubo-Sensei award: Tonikaku Kawaii: Joshikou-hen/ group of weird girls (localised to the bland "Highschool Days) https://youtu.be/2s6yEN0ynLI

Recall that the mangaka was assistant to Kumeta-sensei during the run of Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei. We can spend 4 episodes of TK season 2.5 looking for tributes. Otherwise, they still doing their newlywed thang while avoiding that Tsukasa can eat Highlanders for brekkie.

Now for the 'better-than-mid' finals of the season, leading up to my faves: Atelier Ryza should have ended up cast into the mid, or worse, suss pit. Not even light novel derived; was an RPG. Also, fanservice. Thicc thighs. Thigh-za.

They fanservice-out sword boi too; equal opportunity leering. Also, is criticism thicc-shaming? Healthy young woman, tropical weather, cut them some slack. I couldn't help comparing it to Yohane, and when I did, it came out better. Story competent. Better than mid.

So Ryza wins a "one of the better anime of the season", because it did mostly what it set out to do, avoided gross errors and why shouldn't young women alchemists get their own coming of age adventures with their friends?

Next up the list: Dark Gathering. Holds it's place through sheer bloody-mindedness and the sang-froid of our fave demon-subjugating munchkin.

Dark Gathering goes the extra mile on horror nasty. Munchkin is down with that, even if buddy-boy is scared shitless all the time -- despite having a creepypasta demon tendril hand infestation - next time try clotrimazole.

I'm not usually down for horror stuff and most exorcist tales I've seen seem to veer away from that - like there is some agreement for each to stick to their side of the street. Munchkin sez bring it. Ok. Win.

Aside: I may need a Sky of Blue invite code soon. I sure AAF am NOT paying a subscription to create free content for Emerald Space Karen.

Note to new followers: I check your profile and your followers. If I smell suss, I chain-block. If you are marketting, I chain-block. If you put me on a list, I chain-block. My feed is my front porch.

Next "You have be exposed to a diveristy of opinions" fool who slides into my feed can go expose themselves to a diversity of edible and rotten food. You can do shit-on-a-plate, me no thanks.

Moving up the list to my fave of the season, we have a surprise in the fantasy-adventure section: HELCK Is really The Adventures of "Anne from Management" & Helck show and the vibe is tantalisingly variable - from boss battles to cooking contests to Iyashikei lounging.

So what if I have a weakness for hotheaded ladies in cute hats? The story NEEDS (Lady Vermilio, the Heavenly Demon King of the South), as Helck is opaquely good-natured - when not consumed by rage. The writing sets this one apart.

Originally a manga, the anime is planned to run for 2 cours. Plenty of time for our intrepid pair to make it back to the Demon Empire and confront the treacherous humans who betrayed him.

Xitter's algorithm has determined the optimum mix of pandemic stupidity, fascist hate and CAT PICTURES to keep me from logging off. I wish I could get some anime recommendations instead of the shitblizzard of human misbehavior. Or more cat pictures.

Dedicated Manga Historians Award: Intrepid fan translators got their hands on both issues of the famous lasted-2-issues 1995 manga-heavy Japanese lesbian magazine, Phryne. (June 1995, November 1995) Read the manga sections, 28 years later.

Here's a 2017 post on it and other early publications by Okazu's Erica Friedman: "How Lesbian Social and Political Activism Helped Give Birth to Yuri Manga" https://okazu.yuricon.com/2017/05/21/how-lesbian-social-and-political-activism-helped-give-birth-to-yuri-manga/…

Women meeting up, working out relationships, living their lives together. Lighthearted and dead serious works. Some high shoujo 49er-ish set-pieces. Very 80's & 90's art. On aggregator sites, so one can find the releasing group. A must-read yuri ur-trace.

Back to the season's anime/etc. impression mega-thread countdown, with my #4 Best of the season: Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero/ Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero I AM DEAD SERIOUS!

Rude burlesque with the undercurrents of regret, rage and despair hiding in plain sight. Very band-o-heroes trope faithful. We'll get the proper ver. of this vibe next season with FRIEREN, not Max slinking off to porno booths + blowing his cash betting. http://youtu.be/GKkKyyHndhk

Then, the puny Demon Lord will pop up in her porn movie highschool girl guise, wearing a sun dress and a cute hat. So fourth best, because uhh, reasons.

My pick for 3rd best anime of the season: BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! "All happy families are alike..." Not your average Bandori

Years back, sitting at the bar with a band I knew; guitarist was turning 30, leaving the band, moving to Ottawa. Someone something about wasting their life... "WTF you bitchin' about, I've spent one third of my life in (band's name)" Maigo feels.

MyGo!!!!! would have scored even higher but for the last ep/ ep13: I totally get WHY it was written as it was but I would have prefered one more intense, messy Maigo freestyle. Again, Episode 10 was the high point. Good work!

Correction: seems the Phryne scanlations were completed back in 2015 - was an aggregator site glitch that made it look like a new release. Scangroup also did much of the successor magazine Anise, so worth going back to the source.

If I move to Sky of Blue, can I keep my nym/ remain relatively non or do they want phone/ address/ DNA sample? May need an invite code soon. I sure AAF am NOT paying a subscription fee to create free content for Emerald Space Karen.

Seasonal anime/etc., impression mega-thread BEST OF THE SEASON runner-up: Mushoku Tensei II (Rudy Can't Fail) Hard to go up against the EPIC scope of this tale. When it dropped there was plenty "won't be as good..." How it managed limitations was superb.

Building the second installment of an epic fantasy around buddy boy's impotence was a stretch - so they gave us a teaser in episode 0, dropping Sylphie out of the sky. Ya just know...

Lookie how they handled the first few eps; "The Sorrows of Young Rudeus": somber mood, winter, no background music, bloody danger, Quagmire.

Then gradually: more adventures, drunken sex-fails, off to the inevitable Magic Academy with Sexy Elf Grandma (we get BG music back) and...

HIDDEN CHILDHOOD FRIEND CARRYING TORCH! Magic Academy avoids Hogworting out, Nanahoshi appears, Hijinks and (takes forever + ever) romance ensues!

Get married already! D'Awwwwwwww. All this in ONE COURS, plus we just know the light novels series has much more material waiting. Hard not to give it a prominent spot in the season rankings, though MyGO would have bumped it if they had spent ep13 better.

Extremely watch-able. Make sure you also hunt down the season I DVD extras (Hi Cliff!), watch Ep0, kick back and enjoy the tale, even with the wagon-load of annoying flawed-hero-Rudy-redemption bits. Childhood friend's crush wins. Hooray!

Before I do my pick for Best of the Season, a few words on the ones not even mentioned in this thread. I never got around to them. Not my thing Summary/ promo art spoke to me and sed : "Nope" I failed to read anyone's passionate hyping of the show. etc.,

Nothing personal, each their own, the usual... Also, Hirogaru Sky! Precure (or any Precure for that matter) is an automatic "of note" -- just hard to put a Precure into a "season"; they start, go on forever and end whenever they so choose. 34 eps so far on this one

And finally, my anime/etc., impression mega-thread best show of the season: Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu/ The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today A young office lady saves a stray kitten: The subtext is impossible to avoid & an absolute hoot.

I will hear no complaints regarding the studio's overdone camera angle hijinks. Ladies, forget bishie boys, the ideal life partner for the overworked career woman is a giant house cat who cooks, purrs and does housework.

Guys, young sarrarymen: your worth has been weighed and found wanting. Can you manage a bento like this for your girl?

No annoying chatter, does not pester the woman in the morning.

I'll let others play deconstruction on this one.

Yukichi-cat even rations sarrary-girl's worknight drinkees. (a very shufu duty)

So, yeah!. Best of the season. Enjoy.

(repost fix thread:) If that's it the anime for this season, what is to become of this mega-thread? (at least until the new season starts) How about: cheesy manga!

New levels of cringe-comedy UNLOCKED! Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan/ Old guy's Villainess Reincarnation Jealous of a famous yuri franchise? ....Or can't resist stupidly effing around with clichéd tropes? Whatever. It works. More or less. Surpasses low expectations.

Middle-age manager X truck-kun and is in a coma, plopped into the otome game his daughter was playing. Old guy, his wife and daughter are all otaku. Mom and daughter find that dad is trapped in the game, can watch, lend limited help (you gonna steal, steal EVERYTHING).

Showa otaku history too.

Only problem is the manga has gone through 4 or 5 different -ahem- fan translation groups, which is never a good sign. 5 tank volumes. Weird enough to score an anime -- IF it can continue the oyaji cringe! I STAN! https://isekai.fandom.com/wiki/Akuyaku_Reijou_Tensei_Ojisan…

I require more silly manga and less dread RWNJ attacks on what is still barely functioning in Canada. (blocks so many trolls I got limited)

"Villainous Daughter Reincarnated Uncle" (to Volume 5 by Michiro Ueyama) deserves an anime so 100's of groaning Japanese dad jokes can be loosed on the world.

Meanwhile in Japan, Zetsubo Sensei's HAMASHO cult is loose in Fukuoka http://x.com/mainichi_houdou/status/1706286985567162590…

Full details here: https://vimeo.com/99969766

Got my hands on the latest (book 5, Vol 6) installment of BOOKWORM. Stayed up all night reading it, will read it again because I find it soothing. This one is all logistics and administration, in preparation for WHEN ALL HECK BREAKS OUT. Pester your local library.

I now put aside any lingering annoy I once held for the Eva franchise. https://www.bengo4.com/c_23/n_16559/

The fall anime season is surely upon us. Wonder how I will start a new mega-thread?

I was today old when I realized that some beaches are good for sunsets, while other beaches are good for harvest moon viewing. #Learnthingsfrommanga