#and then. watch the whole show over again. in english bc i've liked the dub clips i've seen

[mothric]

well it's official. my top 3 highlighted posts are all mob psycho related. I am brainsick about this show

[silvercrane14]

Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War - two students are in love with eachother but refuse to "lose" and admit their feelings. Instead, they have increasingly convoluted plans to get the other to confess.

Okay I will admit. this Is a romance and also ive only seen the anime. So actually this would fall more under anime recs bcs the english dub voice acting is AMAZING. Anyway tho its a comedy that I really enjoy. Its about romance but like. Idk I dont read/watch romance often so I cant say "its not like the standard romance plot". But its less about them Falling In Love and more about them Overthinking Everything And Being Silly. ALSO !! tho it takes a bit, it does go into the characters a lot. Very centred on the characters relationships !! Not just romantically between the main two, but in general.

Why I think you would like it: similar in "vibe" to nozaki-kun. Funny!! But it has its moments of seriousness and it understands its characters well.

Mushishi - Eye Have Not Read This im sorry 🙏 i havent even seen the anime so I dont actually know much about it but ive been recced it so many times I figure I should pass it to you.

If u like Natsume's Book of Friends you'll enjoy this. Genuinely I think this is my strongest rec for you on this list even tho I've never seen it. I really do think u wld enjoy 👍

Insomniacs After School - IM REALLY SORRY I HAVENT READ THIS ONE EITHER. I HAVE IT KN GOOD AUTHORITY U WOULD LIKE IT I JUST CANT GUVE ANY DETAILS. BCS IDK REALLY.

"Two young teens who can't sleep find companionship with each other. They must learn to overcome any challenges and figure out what's important to them."

Why I think you would like it: Ive heard its similar to Skip to Loafer in a way!!

Girls Last Tour - Two young girls explore a post-apocolyptic wasteland. They go through abandoned buildings and old towns in their journey, battling solitude eith only eachother

This one is a little sad. More likeeee. Meloncholy, yk? I dont have much to say about it. Very good manga.

Why I think you would like it: The character relationship between the two girls seems like something you would enjoy.

Look Back - to be super honest its been over a year since I read this I dont fully remember what happens. Theres this girl wjo draws comics for her elementary school newsletter. Shes funny so every1 really likes her and her comics. at some point another comic appears, but its actually just four panels of background art. Its so beautifully drawn that the other students begin to fawn over it. Angry kver her loss of attention, the first girl goes to meet the girl making these new comics (The background girl doesnt go to school, she works at home). Thr end up becoming friends and the story shows how their friendship develops and changes, growing closer and growing further apart.

The manga is p short for. a manga but its actually just a Really Long oneshot. Its rlly good. not much else to say.

Why I think you would like it: Very similar to Blue Period. About art and how it reflects people. Also very strongly driven by the relationship between the two girls.

The Girl From The Other Side - ive been typing so much i really cant give a whole review on this. Similar to WHA. kinda. beautiful art. read it u will enjoy it

Kaguya-sama I watched the first two seasons of! Maybe I should read the manga too, I did think it was fun

Mushishi I watched maybe the first episode of, but I should definitely try again,,, I don't remember anything about it lol

I've read Insomniacs After School!!! I'm definitely not caught up though, and I've been planning on watching the anime,,,

Girls Last Tour I,,, might have seen? At least part of it a long time ago. I'll have to rewatch/read the manga

Look Back sounds really interesting,,, I'll check that one out!!!

I'm actually reading The Girl from the Other Side in Portuguese rn lol I have volumes 1-5 on my shelf

[icharchivist]

i'm back home.

it was a religious experience for me for as far as i can say, i'm still so dizzy. I had tears in my eyes the whole way through and some specific scenes or musics would immediately open the floodgates and by the end of the movie i was a complete sobbing mess.

I haven't watched this movie in so long yet it still hits me in all the ways it could possibly hit me. I've never outgrown my ff7 phase huh

There was a mini interview/documentary before the start of the movies about the devs talking about how Advent Children inspired them to do the remake, and this whole section was filled with shots from the remakes and the movies and the original game. I cried at the first shot showing Cloud jumping from the train, i cried even harder when they showed Aerith, and then they showed a demo of Rebirth which was one of the scenes where Sephiroth and "Cloud" work together and then again i was wailing like an idiot.

then it was honestly just jumping from one scene to the next crying.

I watched Advent Children mostly with the English Dub because i was used to it from Crisis Core, so i mostly know the dialogues from there (and would like. mutter them to myself at some times before the lines happened because oughh)

Point is that in the English version at some point when Cloud comes back he says "i think i made through it, all that shilly shally", which was a sweet reference to what Tifa and Aerith told him, but hearing back in the Japanese that he doesn't refer to that at all was one thing, the other thing was to see this line translated in french "i've been carrying my pain for so long, i think maybe it's starting to wear off" (idk how to translate it well bc it's not about how it's disappearing, more just that the pain itself is worn off) and i fucking sat there in the theater like wow why do i still relate to Cloud Strife in the rip year of 2024, i thought i was over this i thought i was over this i th-

(granted all of his scenes still reminded me Why and how it's still accurate but this is because i wasn't used to this punch that it took me by surprise, as if saying "Cloud Strife in Advent Children is so relatable" isn't already a walking red flag.)

Every single Aerith and Zack scenes had me sobbing ugly tears so i'm normal. i'm so normal. I'm so fucking normal.

Bless Reno's soul for being the one thing that would constantly make me laugh in this movie though. God bless him because this amoral freak will never see the light of heaven but he lighted up my evening

also i forgot just how cool the Fusion Sword was. Is it one sword? is it two swords? well it's a Fuck You Sword that's what.

I forgot just how cool Vincent was actually, i think seeing exactly how he moves on the big screen was so much more impactful than all the other times i watched this movie

and honestly the whole screening was worth it if only for the whole fight against Sephiroth near the end. Hearing One Winged Angel blasting all around me just got me vibrating, and man, he's still the worst <33333

ALSO the Zack scene during the Sephiroth fight, everytime i forget that Zack asks Cloud if he needs his help to fight Sephiroth (because what he says before and after that is what kill me on the spot) but with the Rebirth scene i saw earlier today it shot me in the fucking face are you kidding meeeeeeeeee

And aside just from the problem duo, i was crying everytime the rest of the ff7 cast was on screen. It really felt like coming home to your family and all. god it was emotional.

Anyway i'm so normal. I cried the whole way through like a ff7 fan.

I really need to pick up the remake again seeing it as a sequel because i miss them all.

So yeah. I'm back home. I had a normal one

oh and Seiyuu wise it's so funny to me how Suzuken really don't sound like Sandalphon at all but Sakurai does really sound like something midway to his Lucifer and Lucilius' voice and it got me even more psych dmg the whole time.

also i wanted to cry everytime Reno was on the screen because Keiji :(

So i was normal. So normal; I'm the most normal i'm --

At the cinema for Advent Children screening. Sorry if i get out of it more normal than usual. Chewing on my hand.

[your--isgayrights]

hi!!! i'm the jttw asker on jay's blog and i stumbled upon your blog!! i was wondering if you had a specific preferred adaptation of jttw or resources on it!! i really want to read the whole thing when i have the time though!!!

Oh, hi there! I'm glad you're interested in reading, but this is actually a question that's a little hard for me to answer, because my main exposure to journey to the west was as excerpts or adaptation clips in Chinese lessons as a kid and I can't really remember if the versions I watched/read are, like, tolerable to adult consumers ajdjfjfg.

The cartoon I watched as a kid was the Chinese dub of Goku no Daibouken (Sun Wukong's Great Adventures) but I have NOT rewatched it recently and you can definitely see how they added or removed from the original text in a way that reflected the typical structures of shounen at the time (for instance they add a character whose whole thing is I Am A Girl In A Shounen Anime). It's prioritizing entertainment over faithfulness, but it gives you a good sense of the characters and I have Nostalgia for it. Don't know if I like Recommend it recommend it bc again IT'S A KID'S SHOW but here, watch the opening it's cute:

Are you the one that mentioned OSP's summaries on YouTube? Because those are good too, they get the sort of monster of the week vibe down pat and make a point to help you understand some of the important thematic elements. This is also, like, the cheapest, quickest way to get what monkey king is About, haha. I'll put a link to the first one here.

And then for READING let me just say that I've never read Journey to the West in Full. Just, like, culturally it's a story I grew up with, they taught it at cultural camp, it was in my picture books and cartoons, and my mom would tell me stories from it before bed. So the versions I'm recommending are sort of more like my best guesses at what the best English translations would be.

An abridged translation if you want just like the Brass Tacks of it:

FULL TRANSLATION:

On the full translation one I think there are 4 volumes, and I would recommend the translation over others because it's done by a Chinese person and anyone else might have missed some important cultural contexts in translating.

I think something else important to understand is that JTTW is a novel so old that a lot of it is passed through oral tradition now, like it's just a story that people Know. That's pretty important context for the JTTW arc in orv I think, which is why I feel like people who read orv need to have like a basic understanding of JTTW's story because like part of the importance placed on it in ORV is that EVERYONE knows it. It's a work of literature that approaches like the predominance of being a once living mythos. That influence is important.