#E-Girl Review

[deltaengineering]

Spring Anime 2024: A Wizard is never late

Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku (Train to the End of the World)

If you want a reason for why this post is woefully late, it’s this show: since we’re going in ascending order of quality here, it must come first, yet I have a hard time saying anything about it. I suppose I can start with the most obvious problem: I will probably watch your original anime, but I do that to get away from light novel levels of insufferable dialogue. Yet this one definitely goes with the NisioisiN school of writing, which is to say, talk a lot first, then figure out a point at your convenience. This definitely doesn’t endear the show to me and makes it mildly annoying right from the start, but it could still be salvageable - but then Shuumatsu Train just turns out to be not particularly good at any of its selling points. For a weird show it’s not weird enough. For a comedy it’s not funny enough. For a character drama the characters are too superficial. For a profound allegory, it's much too vague. And even though the parts are hardly stellar, the result somehow still ends up as less than the sum of them. It‘s not a total write-off since at least there is some ambition here, but I really can’t say that being more meaningful than not at all is enough of a payoff for something that is mostly just basic attempts at wacky humor presented in an annoying fashion. 4/10

Yuru Camp S3

So, speaking of ambition. My last contact with Yuru Camp was me getting very mad at S2‘s incessant products and services shilling. Admittedly S3 turns this down to an acceptable level, but that only makes the deeper issue more apparent: Yuru Camp is and has always been astonishingly vapid, and three seasons and a movie in all the vibes in the world can no longer make up for it. I won’t even complain that the show is no longer about camping in any meaningful capacity (since I never cared and at least the local-tourism-and-food lane we‘re in now doesn’t require purchase of specialized gear), but godammit if personality-free blobs looking at small footbridges for three episodes didn’t kill my enthusiasm for any of this mush. It‘s still broadly inoffensive, but at this point I feel like I’ve thoroughly exhausted anything this show is ever willing to offer. And Yama no Susume shows that you can have all the theoretical positives of a Yuru Camp with compelling enough characters, so there’s really no excuse. 5/10

Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai (Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night)

I don’t know where this recent trend of cute but reasonably serious girl band anime came from (I would like to think MyGO, but more likely it‘s Bocchi the Rock + the most blatantly obvious and viable way to improve on Bocchi). But here is Jellyfish and uh… it certainly makes an attempt. The first impression is very positive, since Doga Kobo provides pleasant visuals (per usual), but it quickly becomes apparent that it’s the writing that is really holding this one back. It’s not even bad ideas or a lack of ideas, since the concepts this show wants to tackle are generally quite good. But pretty much every execution on those plot ideas is botched in some way, be it by resolving them in a stupidly simple way (impostor syndrome? just do your best!) or by just having a character read out their character arc really dramatically. A bunch of plot points don't even make sense when you look at them in context of the ostensibly real world this show takes place in, and the ending is a massive nothingburger. It's all stuff that's barely passable when something like Love Live does it, but in something that aims higher it seems like a first draft at best and more likely just extremely amateurish. One can only wonder if you gave such a concept to a seasoned veteran like Jukki Hanada... 6/10

Tonari no Youkai-san

Tonari no Youkai-san started out as a rather simple show that I really liked: a mostly but not exclusively lighthearted depiction of a world where Youkai are real and the weird situations that can create, with likeable characters carrying it along. But then it became apparent that what it really wants to do is back-to-back KEY-style sadpiano scenarios. While those aren't bad in moderate amounts, the fact that every scenario now had to be about some heartbreaking backstory no matter what quickly became rather tiring. And then, if it wasn't apparent enough that this show was writing itself into the weeds, it capped the season off with a completely bizarre sci-fi multiverse action arc where everyone dies (very sad!) but then comes back alive because power of friendship beats entropy or something. Well, at least I prefer laughing at this nonsense to being annoyed at contrived tearjerkers, I suppose. I wouldn't call it quality though. 6/10

Dungeon Meshi (Delicious in Dungeon)

When the Dungeon Meshi started, I just didn't get it. The hyperbole around this show (mostly coming from manga fans, I think) was clearly not befitting a very mediocre gimmick anime where even the gimmick had been done better elsewhere multiple times. I do have to admit that as it went on, I could start to see where people were coming from: Once the cooking dies down a bit, the characters start to develop a bit and it finds its pace, Dungeon Meshi's "default mode" is an entertaining adventure anime with some nice characters, decent humor and engaging action. So far so good. However, I'll still call the show merely above average because it's in its default mode less often than you'd think. Every time I started to like something, Dungeon Meshi immediately had to head off in some random other direction that I don't care for: The cooking I did not care for in the beginning becomes vestigial but never stops taking up airtime nonetheless. The nerdy exposition about dungeon mechanics should not merit more than a footnote in a splatbook, but never stops taking up a lot of airtime nonetheless (it's also a painful reminder of the "worldbuilding over narrative" nonsense that I hate, but Dungeon Meshi isn't the worst offender here so I'll let it slide). The show expects me to care about other, far less interesting parties after I just barely mustered up enough enthusiasm to see Chilchuck as more than a spare Marcille when Marcille can't play the tsukkomi herself. Falin turns into a tragic zombie chicken. They adopt an annoying cat. It goes on and on and I'm not thrilled. I will admit though that I will likely still watch the sequel, mostly because Trigger really does a fantastic job with this adaptation on all levels, which at the very least manages to keep it watchable even in the doldrums. I just wish the source material was more consistent. 6/10

Kaiju No. 8

Every season there's some random anime that isn't particularly great, but still competent enough to merit a watch. It's usually some light comedy like Torture Princess, but every once in a while it's something else. This season it's Isekai QC, but in spring it was something even less likely: Kaiju #8, a Jump-brand premium shounen. Yeah, that's a surprise. It just doesn't do anything particularly wrong, apart from the genre staples that it must do wrong: The pacing is bad, but just regular bad. The tone is all over the place, but just regular all over the place. The protagonist isn't as good as he first seems, but not as bad as he could be either. It starts out as "less miserable Attack on Titan where people shoot at huge monsters with guns at shounen powerlevel efficiency", which is extremely awkward, but eventually it settles into a more standard "hit bad guy with sick special attacks" groove, which isn't exactly exciting but at least clearly something the show wants to be. In short, nothing special but the bullshit does not exceed the maximum level I will tolerate as the price of entry to epic dudes epically fighting in an epic fashion. There always is a point with these where you have to ruthlessly cut your losses, but it did not reach it in its first season when the average genremate reaches it within the first episode. That's... something. 6/10

Nijiyon S2

I wasn't even going to write about this because what is there to say about Nijiyon, except that Nijiyon is that rare mini spinoff that actually gets better and starts to outshine the main show at points. Half the time. The other half is still very basic and very arbitrary 4koma hijinks, but an improvement is an improvement. 6/10

Bartender: Glass of God

Why did they make a second Bartender anime in 2024? I can't answer this conclusively but I will say that if Suntory didn't pay for at least half of this production, they got something for free. With that out of the way, the most interesting thing I can say about Bartender is how it compares to Gin & Sonic '06. The old one was certainly ambitious, but in a rather obvious way: Treating the Bartender mystique as somthing close to supernatural and presenting it in a very abstract and stagey way. This is great when it works, but just as often merely comes off as extremely pretentious. The new one... just doesn't do any of that. It's a very straightforward, simple story with actual characters and stuff. It's workable enough with some stronger and some weaker episodes, and even though it does not even attempt to reach the highs of the old one, it doesn't sniff its own farts and does its best to avoid the old man machismo stank that faintly polluted the first adaptation. So I will actually call it better in some ways, maybe even on average, but it still can't compete with a show that had a better reason to exist than to get you excited for Yamazaki whiskey. 6/10

Euphonium S3

I've had my ups and downs with Yoof, and I will say that while some nags remain, I am satisfied with how it managed to (hopefully) wrap up. In fact, S3 might be the best the show has ever been. We were never going to get the cartoonish and quite frankly more entertaining presentation of S1 back, but for what it's worth, S3 takes the overcooked presentation and histrionic character writing of S2 and brings them down to a palatable level, and that makes it at least worth thinking about. Another big point in its favor is that it's now finally truly the Kumiko show, and not just the Kumiko stumbles into other people's drama show. Cast additions like Kanade and Mayu are prety great as well so yeah, I had a good time. Really my biggest complaint is that S3 might actually be a little too good at character drama, because at one point it seemed it was on the verge of starting to question a few of its core assumptions. I never expected it to have doubts over whether letting your school club control your entire existence is in fact a good thing, but ideas like Reina actually being as insane as she comes across and that Taki actually being as terrible as a teacher as he comes across seemed extremely promising. But nah, of course Kumiko just had to be honest with herself, that solved all the problems and then the show just coasted to the most predictable ending imaginable. Euphonium always seemed like it could be way better with a bit more risk-taking, but this was a particularly disappointing moment for the show to be itself. Anyway, if you just expect Euphoinum you're getting the good Euphonium here. 7/10

Girls Band Cry

So, about that "Hanada writing Jellyfish" quip I made earlier? What if that actually happened, in the same season no less? Yeah, these two shows are shockingly similar but unlike Jellyfsh, Girls Band Cry does things right... for the most part. You need to get used to the somewhat janky CG animation, but you're getting some great expressiveness in the deal so that's no problem. You'll also have to put up with Hanada's trademark yuribaiting, a pretty weak ending (as if these two shows didn't already copy each other's homework enough) and music that is much too obvously coming from the Vocaloid camp for my liking. Apart from that, GBC is very good. Not quite as good as MyGO (which has even better character dynamics and I still can't get past how shockingly high its quality is for a franchise anime), but it's really close. So close in fact that I don't even feel like pointing out in detail why GBC is good, because it really is MyGO again: Very flawed yet likeable girls try to get their mental in order while swinging between goofy and depressed and occasionally making music. It's not complicated, but when the character writing delivers (i.e., by seasoned pros like Yuniko Ayana or Jukki Hanada), it just works. If this is a trend now, I'll gladly take it. 8/10

[howtobeamagicalgirl]

I want to quit my job soooo bad

[demonstars]

before i post this fic i need someone to do a pretentious read because i've been rocking back and forth between "within universe it would make sense he says this" and "he would not be this fucking pretentious"

[deus-ex-mona]

secret favourite trope is when the girl proteccs the guy instead btw <333

[feral-and-or-horny]

Opinion on the Ginger Snaps series?

I haven't seen it, but one of my classmates talked about it in her presentation on the trend in horror to vilify female puberty and sexuality

[orphancookie69]

Nintendo Switch: DDLV-A Rift In Time...Part 1!

Where I thought this was going to be Update #6, it is taking a path all its own and happening at the same time as Update #6. Let's jump in.

Before the Update: So, there is a lot to unpack in just one image. Left to right. Left, you see the vitalys crystals found in the mines. Waterfalls and the almost antlantean rocks. I would love that snake as a pet. A sand land, Jafar was teased at the end and he does come Arabia. The castle from Aladdin is in the center. Shifting right you have Tangled house, with the main character from tangled below. You see wall-e's garden, but you also see Eve. I would love for wall-e to have his other half. You see the encanto house, not that I saw the movie or generally liked that-but that is a large family as far as I know. Maybe we get another family member? I almost forgot about Gaston, glad to see more characters from that story coming. He could look better. The staff tool looks original. I can't place the animal on the right. I can't place the boat but some have said it's Typhoon Lagoon, Tarzan, or Jungle Cruise. Maybe Mickey's ship? New realms means new flowers and seeds and foods. Also, THE MONKEY.

Welcome to Eternity Isle: So there is a lot to unpack here. First off, check your mailbox. There will be some intended and unintended goodies in there. This is somewhat story based, you will need to have completed a couple of missions (4 or so that show up more in the beginning of the game) that you need to be able to start your journey to Eternity Isle. You talk to Jafar via a holographic device. Merlin shows you how to get there. (I was so surprised when I saw it, the developers are being very smart in leaving so many future options open for this game)

Once you get there, You see mostly what we saw in the preview as a video. The first area is ancients landing. This is essentially another valley but its smaller (and called an isle). It functions not unlike your valley, but with different everything. Animals, fruits, trees, crystals, spices, etc. You do have a copy of your house there-which begs the question-should storage be inside your house to transfer to both areas better? You follow the story and most of what you need to know is explained as you go.

Characters can come and go to both locations. Mickey introduces a game you can play with villagers, seems chess like. I have not played this yet but plan to next time I jump on. You have Eve, Gaston, and Rapunzel on this side to meet and level up. You can house them here or in the valley. There is a restaurant from Remy to work on, stalls for goofy, and a shop for Scrooge.

I personally really like it so far. A lot of content now, and coming up, for the price. It is hard to imagine how much it cost behind the scenes to make this. Yes, at some point the company will profit-but if they do not, they go out of business-and if we want to play games we need the company around. Next update is in Spring of 2024, part 2-the spark of Imagination. What part of this do you love so far?

[hatake]

.

[mytastessuck]

Chiaki Kuriyama: Cold Finger Girl

So, the guy behind YuYu Hakusho and Hunter X Hunter (Yoshihiro Togashi) worked on another anime called Level E about an alien that...does stuff. I forgot most of it but I never forgot the opening. Cold Finger Girl, performed by singer/model/holy-shit-it's-the-girl-from-Battle-Royale-and-Kill-Bill Chiaki Kuriyama is an amazing piece that invokes deep registers and rocking guitars to sucker you into watching a mid animation about a blond tool. Ah, I'm being too mean...I'm mad because this is the first day I found my preferred version of the song because when I searched for it years ago, I found the only slightly less competent PONTIACS version. I still don't know which came first. Here's them right here:

Song Score: 1970/10

[silverspleen]

TFW when find a manga with scenes tailor made to please you but it's also packaged with stuff that makes snakes manifest in your brain so badly that you literally cannot read parts of it.

Like, I love that you keep mauling this protagonist, author, you keep drawing him injured and making the pained drooly face and covered in blood yet he is also a sensitive badass with respect for the main vampire lead and begging the vampire girl to bite him and like................. hm. yeah.

But also, I SEE YOU. I SEE YOU DOING THE VAMPIRE GIRL THING.

I SEE YOU BEING FUCKING WEIRD ABOUT THIS. THERE'S THREE OF THEM. THAT'S TOO MANY VAMPIRE GIRLS WHO ARE FAR TOO SOFT AND SMALL LOOKING FOR MY COMFORT. THERE'S SOMETHING UP WITH THOSE BODY PROPORTIONS AND BIG DOE EYES.

Like man I really wanted to like it I wanted to but like bad vibes alarm bells and god knows I can tolerate a lot but my enjoyment of the concept is being directly impacted because I kept feeling gross flipping through it in the Barnes & Noble.

[queenlua]

I feel like you could make an interesting book club based around the theme of "memoirs by women that earned SEETHING and VITRIOL from other women"

[married-2-the-music]

Lee Hyori Deep Dive #2: K-pop’s Greatest Soloist?

Here are my credentials (again): I don’t know much about Hyori, to be honest. I actually decided to do this review when I saw Hyori’s Hoodie E Banbaji music video (which came out last year) on the giant screens at a Korean restaurant, and then her collab with Jennie. I looked her up and found her interesting, and so here we are! We left off just before the release of Swing, which, for some…

PART ONE:

[cotyledonal]

just got sun haven, coral island, and moonstone island... I missed the time to get them on sale so uhhhh I hope these are good and I don't regret getting them 😭??

[theeditorreads]

Irresistibly Perfect by J. Saman - A Review

Irresistibly Perfect is paediatrician Fallon and her secret friend (the rockstar) Greyson’s imperfectly perfect romance. My Rating: 5/5 Genre: Contemporary Romance Pages: 340 (Kindle) Publisher: Kindle Direct Publishing Date of Publication: 20 April 2023 Series: Irresistibly Yours #2

[whimsicaldragonette]

ARC Review: A Consuming Fire by Laura E. Weymouth

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Publication Date: November 22, 2022

Synopsis:

Uprooted meets The Grace Year in this dark young adult fantasy of love and vengeance following a girl who vows to kill a god after her sister is unjustly slain by his hand. Weatherell girls aren’t supposed to die. Once every eighteen years, the isolated forest village of Weatherell is asked to send one girl to the god of the mountain to give a sacrifice before returning home. Twins Anya and Ilva Astraea are raised with this destiny in mind, and when their time comes, spirited Ilva volunteers to go. Her devoted sister Anya is left at home to pray for Ilva’s safe return. But Anya’s prayers are denied. With her sister dead, Anya volunteers to make a journey of her own to visit the god of the mountain. But unlike her sister, sacrifice is the furthest thing from Anya’s mind. Anya has no intention of giving anything more to the god, or of letting any other girl do so ever again. Anya Astraea has not set out to placate a god. She’s set out to kill one.

My Rating: ★★★★★

*My Review and Favorite Quotes under the cut.

My Review:

Laura Weymouth has a way with words, with turns of phrase that are simple and cutting and achingly true. Her books break me every time, and this one was no exception. I saved several quotes and I know I will revisit them. With only a few words she can conjure that aching, burning, wistful feeling better (and more consistently) than just about anyone else.

I also love the repetition of certain words and phrases throughout the book. Wetherell girl. Sacrifice. Don't go. Don't let anyone else go. Vengeance. Burning. Their repetition serves to heighten them and gives the story a rhythmic, chanting feel. Like a prayer. Or a vow. It gives them power.

I LOVE Anya Astraea. She has such a fire burning within her, setting her up as the perfect false sacrifice to bring down a god. The characters she meets throughout the story are wonderful (and sometimes terrible). Her choices and the path she walks and everything about her burn so brightly it hurts to look at her.

The title of the book would seem to come from the unjust god at the heart of her world, and in fact those exact words are used to refer to him at one point. But it's not the god but Anya who burns with passion and conviction. I would say that the consuming fire is Anya's deep-seated belief that her world is wrong and terrible and could be better - and that it is her duty to make it so.

The world she lives in is a terrible and unjust one, and her sacrifices and convictions help bring about a crossroads with the hope of a better world beyond it.

I loved the story of Matthias and the other travelers. They were so good, and when it was revealed where they had come from, who they were, and what they were trying to do, it was so satisfying.

I loved Tieran so much. He deserves so much more than he thinks - and I know Anya will do her best to make sure he gets it. Their romance was perfectly paced for me and just present enough to make itself known but not enough to get in the way of the story. They were also perfect together, and watching them grow closer and learn to trust one another was so satisfying.

I gasped at a few of the reveals - I did not see them coming - and they only made the story more impactful for me.

I actually put off reading this one for an embarrassingly long time. Once I finally buckled down and began it, however, I was sucked in and devoured it - finishing almost the entire story in one sitting.

My one criticism is that the very painfully obvious reference to Christianity - Ilva's pendant - is jarring and feels out of place within the story. Without it, this reads as an alternate fantasy world. With it, and with the references to the Romans who had previously settled there, it reads as a weird, twisted, alternate history / fantasy. It lessens the impact of the story for me. That could be a purely personal preference thing, though. Even the barest hint of Christianity in a story is enough to sour it for me somewhat. But it isn't necessary and doesn't add anything to the story. It feels like an author-self-insert.

Weird Christianity insert aside, this was a gorgeous book and I definitely recommend it if you enjoy Laura Weymouth's other books. I also think you'd enjoy it if you like Margaret Rogerson or Maggie Stiefvater or Laini Taylor.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Margaret K. McElderry Books for providing an early copy for review.

Favorite Quotes:

“You think you been treated poorly,” he said. “And maybe you have, a bit. But it can always get worse."

----

“Sometimes, Weatherell girl” — Tieran’s voice was low and unexpectedly earnest, his words spoken so close that Anya could feel as well as hear them, warm against her skin where the knife had been cold — “life’s easier if no one knows who you really are.”

----

“You both like to keep your truths close and your ways out wide open, don’t you?”

----

However powerful her wish for vengeance, she’d been brought up in peace and bred for one thing — sacrifice. She was made to shatter and made to suffer, and it was foolishness to grasp for anything else.

----

“Trying not to be a monster doesn’t mean I been good. Don’t know if I ever can be.”

----

Inside Anya Astraea, the flame that had plagued her all her life grew into a towering inferno. It sent rage scorching through every inch of her, and perhaps the god of the mountain and Tieran the thief burned visibly, but Anya was no less a living fire because her fury burned unseen.

----

*Note: This last one is a bit longer than I usually quote, but it's my favorite passage in the book, I think. It's gorgeous and really shows off Laura Weymoth's skill and genius as a writer. I've come back to it several times times since finishing the book because it captures that wistful, happy/sad, joyful/painful emotion I love that is so hard to find.

----

“When you come back down,” Tieran said stubbornly. Anya reached up and cupped the side of his sharp, clever face with one hand, running her thumb from the corner of his mouth to the line of his jaw. “I choose what happens to me,” she whispered. “You do.” Tieran answered, his voice a raw and wanting thing. And Anya chose. She rose up and kissed Tieran the thief the way a dying girl kisses a boy — with hunger and regret and desperation. She kissed him like a sacrifice, holding nothing of herself back, her hands on his shoulders and on the stubble of his shorn hair. And Tieran, despite his sharpness and his lies and his leaving, kissed her like a worshipper, as if he would lay all of himself out at her request, and count it glory just to be looked upon by his god. They came together and did not part for a long while, and when at last they did, it was Tieran who moved back first. His hands were trembling, shifting from shape to shape, and Anya took them in her own and pressed them to her lips. “I want to be a knife,” she told him. “You are,” Tieran swore. “Make me believe it.” “Anya Astraea, you could cut me open with a look.” “With a touch?” Anya glanced up at her thief. She put a fingertip to his chin and ran it down his neck, his chest, the travel-lean stretch of his abdomen, and before she could go further, Tieran let out a sound that set every part of her alight. He took her by the wrist and pulled her closer and they were kissing again, a wildfire between them, but the burn of it did not feel like blasphemy or vengeance or anger. It felt, to Anya, like shackles cast off. Like the first bright day of a journey that could lead only to joy. So Anya knew as she kissed Tieran that her heart was a worse liar than the rest of her, and selfish as well. There could be no joyous ending for them, and if she were righteous and fair, she’d pull back now, for the journey she’d set herself up on would only lead to devastation. But Anya could not bear to think of that or to pull away. Instead, she carried on, tangling herself and the thief together, and it was a mystery to her how she could all at once feel so tainted by guilt and radiant with glory.

[medicines1122]

Girl Scout Cookies Moonrocks

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[married-2-the-music]

Lee Hyori Deep Dive #1: K-pop’s Greatest Soloist?

Lee Hyori was—and, frankly, still is—one of the most important soloists in k-pop history, second only to maybe Rain and BoA. She debuted as part of the 1st generation k-pop group Fin.K.L. in 1998 at age 21, older for the industry than is usual. She’s been making music for the last twenty years, and just recently returned last year. Here are my credentials: I don’t know much about Hyori, to be…