#you guys should watch witch from mercury

[nuqclanh]

HISTORY HAS BEEN MADE

Congratulations to Suletta and Miorine on their victory!

[azuresquirrel]

You and other people I follow have been talking about dungeon meshi for a while, and how good it is and how everyone should read it, and like, I do curate my dash pretty well, so i know you guys would have a taste somewhat similar to mine, and therefore I would really like it, but I guess the stars just have never been in position, also I keep seeing you guys posting about a lesbian ship and l didn't know if it was gay gay, or just two girls that barely interacted in canon but we just think it would be neat if they kissed (nothing against that, I do this myself a lot too).

But the anime is here, and so I watched the first episode, and then read the entire manga in less then 2 days, and you guys were absolutely right it is a great show, and also while there could be an heterosexual explanation for marcille and falin, it is just as equally possible for them to be very very gay for each other, so I taking that route

Also, while I am seeing and agreeing and respecting the themes of this show, Falin is still like part dragon or whatever so she is gonna live for like, a thousand years, right? Look, I am just saying that making a cake and eating is also a theme for this show, please let me have this

Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon spoilers

YES, YOU HAVE SUCCUMBED TO MY FUNGUS, MY POSTING HAS BOURNE FRUIT.

My two points to your message (well, two besides You Have Succumbed to My Fungus):

I enjoy that Ryoko Kui left any "romances" vague because it is plainly not The Point of the story she was telling, but I also like to think the vagueness re: Marcille and Falin was a bit intentional. Like its Up to Interpretation but without the insult of when Bandai tried to do that with Gundam: Witch From Mercury.

Likewise, I appreciate her being vague regarding what Falin's new dragon-incorporated body means, as given the entire situation she experienced its probably likely no one else in-universe has experienced it or its such a rare experience there is not knowledge to draw from, but I PERSONALLY choose to take it as that Falin does now have the lifespan of a dragon which means that while Marcille will have to face losing most people she knows to their natural lifespans, Falin can be around for much, much longer :)

[saffronapplemanga]

Recent Read Manga Recommendation Round Up (plus anime!) - Part 3

Manga/anime I’ve been enjoying recently! Links to part 1 and part 2.

Twitter link to this post here.

~Links to my other manga posts~ My personal favs/ones I super enjoyed will have a ✨ on them :)

PLEASE LOOK UP ANY TRIGGER WARNINGS!

CRIME, ACTION, DRAMA

✨GANGSTA. by Kohske

(8 volumes + chapters released past vol.8, hiatus)

Available in English

Please check out my dedicated post I linked for this series. I worked super hard on it!

If you take one recommendation from this list, let it be GANGSTA. I’m begging… This series is going in my all-time favs. I have a whole “Why You Should Check GANGSTA. Out” section in my dedicated post, so definitely take a look at that! But in short: Do you enjoy great character writing? A diverse, adult cast featuring different races and disability rep (deaf MC)? A gritty setting? A FOUND FAMILY OF DORKS?

I'm obsessed and I'm making it my mission to take as many of you down with me as possible...

TIME TRAVEL, SUPERNATURAL

Link Click directed by Li Haoling

(24 Episodes - Season 2 Coming Soon)

Link Click is a donghua from Studio LAN and streamed on Bilibili — the Chinese streaming service that I do some subs for, if you're unfamiliar with them — as well as Funimation. I enjoyed the art, animation, and atmosphere. The premise is that two guys working at a print shop time travel through photos to help their clients. And who doesn't love a trio of kids with a big-hearted jokester, the quiet, mature one, and a feisty girl who reins them in? I think this is my first donghua and I enjoyed it!

Plus, the opening and ending themes are pretty slick ->

Season 1 Opening Theme - Adding it to the playlist.

MECH, POLITICAL, SCHOOL

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury by Yatate Hajime

(12 Episodes + Prologue - Season 2 currently airing)

Let me tell you about me and Gundam.

I used to work at a translation company in Tokyo where I translated some Gundam figure commercials/interviews (which are currently privated on Youtube, unfortunately) amongst other things. I'm telling you guys, every time I walked into the office and saw an email from Bandai/TAMASHII NATIONS with a new Gundam translation request in my inbox, I would cry a lot little inside. I had never watched anything Gundam and didn't know what the heck was going on in the stuff I had to translate. There was this one interview with a figure designer where I was like, "Oh, you have to be a Gundam fan to understand what the heck he's talking about..." I remember me, another translator, and our editor staring at our screens exasperated. We managed, though. Big shoutout to the Gundam Wiki — not that I understood anything from it LOL.

If you told me back then that I would enjoy a Gundam thing, I would've laughed — but here I am, enjoying a Gundam thing. I'm not into mechs, even though I think robots/robot-adjacent stuff + space are cool. Still, I could never get into mechs for some reason. So if you're like me, try The Witch from Mercury. Our MCs are these two girls who end up engaged to each other in a rather hilarious way imo, with a colorful cast of supporting characters. The political themes I hear Gundam is known for really hooked me, and I LOVE how the kids handle a situation they end up in. I won't say more so as not to spoil it, but I think this is a great entry point for Gundam newbies!

Season 1 Opening Theme - Am I turning into a Gundam fan? Wild. Who would've thought the day would come? What if I start getting into Gunpla? A slippery slope, really.

SLICE OF LIFE, SCHOOL

✨Skip and Loafer by Takamatsu Misaki

(10 volumes, ongoing) + Season 1 Anime

Available in English

I remember seeing volume one of this series at the bookstore I frequented in Ikebukuro Station when it had just come out. Sooooo many times, I almost picked it up over the years. But I always passed because I was swamped with work, school, and current reads.

Now, I have a little more time on my hands, and the new anime adaptation has so much love put into it! A great coming-of-age story following young Mitsumi as she moves to the big city for school. This series is so wholesome, it's cavity-inducing.

This opening is the most delightful thing~

SLICE OF LIFE

Hotel Metsäpeuraan e Youkoso by Fukuta Seira

(5 volumes, ongoing)

JP only

In the mountains of Finland is a hotel run by two men. One day they see a young man outside in a snowstorm, and bring him inside. The men can tell that teenager Jun seems to have a heavy past and offer him a job and place to stay at the hotel.

Super cute, wholesome, and has great found family vibes!

SLICE OF LIFE, FOOD

Samenai Machi no Kisaten by Hasha

(2 volumes, complete)

JP only

A chill read with a touch of melancholy. At the end of each chapter is a recipe! The art is very cute and pleasing.

DYSTOPIAN, SCI-FI

✨Fool Night by Yasuda Kasumi

(8 volumes, ongoing)

JP only

In the future, the sky is blacked out, not allowing any sun through. To survive, technology has been developed to turn people into plants. The real horror is late stage capitalism though. I'm in love with the art and atmosphere of this series. I can't wait to read more!

ROMANCE

Gakusou by Tsurimaki Nodoka

(oneshot)

JP only

This is a super short one-chapter oneshot. Cute little read with lovely art! By the same author as 聖血の海獣/Seiketsu no Kemono, a 3-volume manga I've been meaning to read.

LGBTQ, DRAMA, COMEDY

To Strip The Flesh by Tooda Oto

(oneshot/anthology)

Available in English

An anthology that has some funny stories, and some that made me feel too seen...

DYSTOPIAN, SCI-FI, CRIME, ACTION, POLITICAL

✨PSYCHO-PASS by Urobuchi Gen

Check anilist for all content because the seasons, movies, manga, light novels, and watch order are a little all over the place.

The Psycho-Pass: Inspector Shinya Kogami manga is available in English from publisher Dark Horse.

Set in the future, Japan has implemented a surveillance state that measures people's psyche and flags anyone with the potential to do crime, even if they have not done anything or will never have done anything.

I watched season one back when it first came out in 2012. Since then, I would see ads for new content at the train stations in Japan and thought I’d catch up. There’s a new movie, PSYCHO-PASS PROVIDENCE, releasing May 12, 2023.

I've been having a lot of dumb, edgy fun with this series and its on-the-nose political themes. It's kinda camp-y? I do wish it spent more time on character moments, though.

I love me a trio (which seems to be a theme in this round-up lol) and this series has a good trio! Akane is such a great character, and Shinya and MY BOY GINOZA NOBUCHIKA!!! have been thoroughly entertaining me.

I love him. I wanna bully him and stuff him into a locker...

[littlestarlost]

Yellowjackets is a show about trauma. I don't know what else to tell you.

Alright, blood hive, here we go again.

We're about halfway through season 2 at this point, and I remain more convinced than ever that a large portion of the viewing public is not fundamentally listening to what the wilderness the showrunners are trying to say. If you're looking for a singular capital-R Reason for everything we see in the show, you're looking at the wrong stuff. So here are some more thoughts.

(Spoilers for all of Yellowjackets up to S2E5, "Two Truths and a Lie")

One: Yellowjackets is a show about trauma and its relationship to magical thinking.

I get another grey hair every time I see someone trying to puzzle out just what is in the woods.

There's nothing in the woods, y'all. Nothing. Until I'm proven wrong by the show itself, this is the hill I will stubbornly die on. But show has been EXTREMELY consistent this whole time in its ambiguity, and in my opinion anyone using the red string and thumbtacks approach to Yellowjackets is being played for a fool. It doesn’t matter if there’s actually an entity in the woods (there isn’t), or if Lottie actually has powers (she doesn’t); what matters is that the survivors are clinging to any answers they can grasp in a situation full of unknowns, and so are we. Part of what’s so devastating about their plight is that there’s no real reason for any of it. This is the basis for literally every religion humans have ever had; we’ve been grasping at ritual and magical thinking for millennia. We are observing the growth of that dependence and ritual right now, in the second season. We are also seeing the consequences of that situation in the future. We are seeing how the power of thought can provide both comfort and further trauma.

I suspect that we will never learn the meaning behind the mysterious symbol. I've seen theories that it's a witch's mark, or even that it's a miner's signal and that all the weird stuff happening to the Yellowjackets is the result of mercury poisoning because they're inadvertently on top of an old mine. That's a nice theory, but I don't think it's correct, and I also don't think it should be revealed anyway. It doesn't ultimately matter what the symbol meant to the dead guy or his cabin; what matters is what the symbol represents for the Yellowjackets themselves.

Two: Yellowjackets is a show about trauma and the way it twists the unknown.

I am fascinated but frustrated by the apparent age split with fans. It seems to me that there's a pretty good-sized gap between the older fans of the show, who would have been kids/teenagers in the 90s (including me), and the gen Z viewers, the latter of which seem unable to really really understand just how wild the wilderness is. The generational split here is with those who remember how VCRs work because we had them and those who have never needed to know. It's a split between we who went through our primary school years without access to Wikipedia and those who have had the wealth of human knowledge in their pockets since they were children.

I’ve watched people do all sorts of questioning and speculating, and it almost always traces back to whether or not you understand how the world worked before smartphones, AKA most of human history. Let me answer some of those questions right now off the top of my head:

How could the Yellowjackets not be found for 19 months?

People used to just fucking vanish, fam. We did not have GPS, we did not have trackers, we barely had battery-powered walkmen. People vanished all the time, and were never ever seen again. Sometimes they did it on purpose, and a lot of the time they disappeared by accident or malice, and a lot of times they died. 1996 doesn't seem that long ago in terms of technology, but it is. People still go missing to this day, even with all our tech tracking us everywhere. Canada is fucking huge and a lot of it is mostly wilderness. Here's a photo I found from Statistics Canada with the population density of Ontario; the black areas represent places where there's basically goddamn nothing but wilderness.

2. How was there no road to the Cabin Guy's Cabin? How did he get there? How did he get supplies there?

He had a plane, and also, once again: people used to disappear all the time. In his case, he seems to have done it on purpose.

3. How could Shauna possibly deliver a child in those conditions? How could the baby be getting the nutrients it needs?

People did this successfully for tens of thousands of years, you guys. You're literally reading this post because our ancestors successfully birthed children in the middle of fucking nowhere with zero medical aid or support.

4. How could Lottie know about the bear or the starlings or or or...?

Easy: she doesn't. Not entirely, anyway. She's an empathetic person who's really good at dealing with the emotions of other people and has a sense of spirituality that appears brave and confident, and people in dire situations with a lot of chaos will depend on that with their lives.

And speaking of Lottie...

Three: Yellowjackets is a show about trauma and how it forces you to transform.

At the end of last season I believed that we were going to get a Lottie Villain Era, just like everyone else. I do not believe that now.

Everything we have seen of Lottie shows a girl who was subjected to medical abuse and/or neglect from a very very young age. Regardless of her actual powers or lack thereof, she was placed on medication by her parents and didn't come off of it until she was in a super traumatizing situation in the wilderness. During this most recent season, we have seen both Teenage and Adult Lottie struggle with her role as a spiritual leader and advisor; she's good at it, but it drains her. It isn't something she's doing out of a desire for power or control: it's something she's doing as a trauma response. That trauma response is helping others, so she keeps doing it, but it's still a trauma response. Trauma transforms you into somebody new, over and over again. The scars you bear become your armor, and then your mask, and then it's hard to know where you end and the trauma begins.

Taissa, too, is transformed by trauma. Her other self is a trauma response, similar to alters in a DID system. It comes to the front when Taissa can't deal, and it's both helpful and harmful. I'm willing to bet a lot of her college years were spent sleepwalking, as the Other One dealt with exams and soccer games and law school. Any one of us with dissociative trauma responses can speak to the way that dissociation can be a savior and an abuser in the same breath.

Four: Yellowjackets is a show about trauma and how it compounds on itself.

This most recent episode showed Natalie coming to a realization about the last time she saw Travis, and she says the words we've heard in the season trailers: there was something in the woods, something they brought back with them. Or maybe it was in them the whole time.

In my previous essay I talked about how each Yellowjacket arrived in the woods with her own traumas strapped to her back. In my mind, that's what Natalie is talking about. There is no entity in the woods to blame for all of this, no ghost or witch who can be credited with the trauma the girls experienced and inflicted. There is only the trauma itself, in all its many shapes and sizes, in all the ways it fills in the gaps and makes shadows dance by firelight and drives us to the very brink of madness, holding us back by a fraying tether.

Yellowjackets is a show about trauma. The show's theme song rings out every episode: No return, no return, no reason. There is no return to the way things were. There is no return that can erase what you've been through. There is no reason for all of this, except for the one that's been very explicitly outlined via themes and story and dialogue and flashbacks and framing.

Yellowjackets is a show about trauma. It's the only answer we have, and I suspect--and hope--that it's the only answer we're ever going to get.

[pxlelf]

Hey folks, Cis Guy who’s barely queer and has literally no experience with Gundam here, is The Witch From Mercury good? Like aside from the gay ppl (which is awesome) is it good? Will me not having any context on deeper Gundam stuff be okay or will I be lost? I mean it looks good but like do y’all recommend it?

Cus I’ve been seeing you all freak out about it so like… should I watch it?

[olberic]

ranking anime i’ve watched in 2023:

as expected, here’s this year’s top 10 for how much i personally enjoyed the anime i’ve watched this year. ive watched more than this, but god i watched so many bad ones…. even number 10 sucks but everything else was worse. sad!

as always thank u gifmakers for ur service 🫡 the world would be nothing without u all

10. the legendary hero is dead! (2023)

dont watch this show. it sucks and its bad. hey. come here. hold my hand. now lets just watch and enjoy the OP ok? don't worry about the rest.

9. my daughter left the nest and returned as an s-rank adventurer (2023)

i have to admit this show charmed me. its not the best thing ive ever seen but its nice. comfy. yknow? i haven't finished it but it's enjoyable. can't rank it higher until i finish it

8. sabikui bisco (2022)

if it werent for the positively nonsensical jump in the middle of the show and the way theres just like. a lot of gaps? it’d rank higher. it’s a very cool premise for a show and i like the bisco/milo dynamic, and [SISTER] is fun as hell. it didnt wow me though overall, and while i enjoyed it i was hoping for more.

7. trigun stampede (2023)

im sorry trigun stans i simply didnt love it. i see the appeal i really do but it just didnt hook me. i really liked the animation and the storyline. im intrigued by whatever the fuck is going on with those plants and yall have said theres a tallgirl in the next season? so i’ll keep watching. i just didnt love it

6. that time i got reincarnated as a slime (2019-2021)

in contrast to #7, i can see why this show is weak HOWEVER i just enjoyed it. i like it. huge fan of how much gender the protag has. i love how they get new powers. i enjoy that it can be interpreted as an extremely bisexual show. it was well paced and the slime diaries OVA was a great addition. a lot of the characters really stuck with me too and its like. idk. one of my favourite isekais i guess

5. buddy daddies (2023)

this should rank higher. its so fun. its SO fun. its silly and it doesnt take itself seriously. i laughed in every episode. the dynamic between the guys is great. the dynamics between them and the kid is great. just a really solid show if you can stand the queerbaiting. i dont even care

4. bocchi the rock! (2022)

the bocchi side of tumblr is right this show rules. i like how real bocchi’s social anxiety feels (literally how it felt when i had it). the characters are entertaining, the show’s well done, they even have solid music (which band-based shows dont always do right!). its really funny and its really earnest and its a joy to watch

3. demon slayer: swordsmith village arc (2023)

i included the entertainment district arc in last year’s list so this arc makes the cut. im always late getting around to watch the new stuff and i dont want to read the manga but god DAMN does this show hit different. incredible fight scenes. i loved everything they did for the hashira backstories. i love whatever the fuck is up with genya. it even gave me some akaza to sustain me for the next year or whatever. ik this show gets overhyped but its normal hyped. to me.

2. frieren: beyond journey's end (2023)

oughhh frieren… ive only known this show for a few months but it means to much to me… i dont even wanna talk about it because its so good i just wanna watch it again. go watch frieren if you havent already its anime of the decade. to me

1. gundam: the witch from mercury (2022-2023)

ive never seen a gundam before but i will be watched them after this! what can be said about it that hasnt already been said on this site. the romance storyline is impeccable, the fights are awesome, the moral questions it posed were excellently covered. by the end of the first episode i was speechless. by the end of the last episode i'd cried like 4 times over the course of the show. this thing made me cry to happy birthday. what the fuck

[formulaorange]

2023 Spring Anime

This season looks whack. There's so many notable series, there's definitely something for everyone this season. Of course starting off with the big ones:

Demon Slayer Season 3 - The Swordsmith Village Arc

Attack on Titan: The Final Season The Final Chapters

Dr Stone Season 3

While those all look amazing and all:

Bocchi is back baby!!!

Season 2 of Ranking of Kings is back this season. Their story telling is top tier and if you didnt' check out the first season, now is the time to do so.

All these amazing new seasons to look forward to, but this season doesn't stop there, the new series set to debut look absolutely killer too:

Hell's Paradise gets it's anime release, produced by MAPPA of course. This is definitely my most anticipated for the season.

Followed by MASHLE. While I had fun with the manga, I ultimately couldn't get past the art style. The anime should complete the picture for me and this will definitely be one of the top comedy series this season.

Lastly for the big name debut series: Oshi no Ko

This series takes a second to get into but it's taken the manga world by storm and has already gotten its english translations with only 11 japanese releases so far. The story is definitely worth sticking around for and will likely be one if not the top show of the season.

Additional continuing series:

Golden Kamuy S4

Edens Zero S2

The Ancient Magus' Bride S2

KonoSuba - Spin Off Series

As for some lesser known series, I've gone through this seasons' release schedule and filtered through the trailers to pick out the ones that might be worth watching... I honestly wasn't expecting for there to be so many. So like I said, there's definitely something for everyone this season.

Heavenly Delusion

I'm such a sucker for adventure series, throw in sci-fi and I'm hooked. While this definitely gives me Made in Abyss and Promised Neverland vibes, I'm not sure it'll be on the same level.

So far episode 1 looks absolutely amazing. Post-apocalyptic world with the contrast of the two stories, one of kids inside a sanctuary with little outside world knowledge and the kids that live and survive outside. Definitely worth watching.

A Galaxy Next Door

I'm surprised this is even being aired already. I swear the english volumes for the manga just released earlier this year. I've heard mixed things about the series but I think this'll be worth checking out.

Skip to Loafer

I've heard so much about this series and it's honestly got the golden trio of tags. It's a Slice of life comedy romance and the style and characters are so cute. I'll definitely be giving this a full watch through.

Insomniacs after School

This kind of looks like an irl version of Call of the Night but after watching the trailers a bit more it still looks like a lot of fun. It's about these two students who're unable to sleep and what they do when they stay up. They end up joining the astronomy club and overall it looks like it'll be a really pretty and relaxing series.

Dead Mount Death Play

Most manga collectors will have heard of this series. It's supposed to be quite a decent thriller/supernatural series. While I haven't had a chance to read through it, I think it's about time we got another good supernatural show. I'll definitely be checking it out.

Magical Destroyers

This straight up looks like utter chaos. Whether that's good or not I guess we'll find out. It's under the mahou shoujo tag?? but it's about a radical group that is trying to eliminate the otaku culture from Japan. This guy "Otaku Hero" stands up and tries to stop them. It sounds wild and kind of looks like a passion project. I'll give it 3 episodes.

My Home Hero

This is straight up a western drama movie. Similar vibes to Taken this guy kills his daughters yakuza boyfriend and gets caught up in the criminal underground. It's definitely a new trope for anime so I'll be giving it 5 episodes.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury S2

While technically this is a continuation of a series, I feel like many people didn't watch the first half unless they were already into gundam. I never grew up with it and truthfully I just lumped it in with transformers so I never checked it out.

Lots of people have been saying that this reboot it really solid and a good way to get into the series. After watching the trailer I totally understand, the characters all look great and the story looks like a solid sci-fi series. I'll definitely be watching to catch up to the new releases.

Yuri Is My Job

I've head of this series all over the place in the manga world and I know it's one of the more popular shoujo ai. Essentially it seems the plot is that these 2 girls end up working together at a themed cafe and start falling for each other. I don't really have any interest in shoujo ai series (frankly i just started getting into romance series in general) so I'll give it 3 episodes and see how it goes.

The Dangers in My Heart

This is one of those - unlikely mc's gets attention from the pretty love interest. After watching the first episode I can say it definitely isn't the same as the others. The girl is super weird and I like his commentary of all the shit he does. Pretty fun and worth a try at least.

Loving Yamada at Lv999

This looks like a fun lighthearted romance. I'll give it 5 episodes.

Otaku Elf

Pretty much as the title says it's about an Otaku Elf. I think this hoenstly looks like a fun series and as long as you're not looking for more plot, it'll be a good time.

Blue Orchestra

While I think a decent number of people will like the series, I know for sure I'll drop it due to the cgi. I just feel that CGI isn't at the stage where it feels natural enough with the rest of the animations and it really takes away from my watching experience.

My god. I had no clue they redid this but I'll 100% be watching this now lol. They rebooted Tokyo Mew Mew.

This was one of the first anime I watched growing up.

The second season is airing this season - Tokyo Mew Mew New S2

in case anyone else grew up watching it and wats to catch up.

And of course, the isekais.

We've now evolved from just the standard isekais to isekais with a twist.

I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, too.

I'll give it 3 episodes but unsurprisingly I don't think i'll stick with it.

The Legendary Hero is Dead!

This looks a little different from the ususal, I'll give it 3 episodes.

Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion

This is a full send fantasy shoujo romance and I thought I had had enough of the royal isekai trope but apparently not. The cheese of the romance has sucked me in again with the pretty animations to top it off. I'll be giving it a good 3 episodes.

The Ecchi series for the season:

KamiKatsu: Working for God in a Godless World

This honestly looks like fun but I've had my fair share of this kind of show. This is a fantasy ecchi isekai comedy. I'll still give it 3 episodes.

Megami no Cafe Terrace

Frankly I have no interest in ecchi harem series like this but the quality looks decent so I've added it here for those who want something to watch along those lines this season.

[zayphora]

hi cori!!!! i’ve been meaning for a while to get into gundam but there seems to be so much of it and i don’t know where to start, what would you recommend as a good place to jump in!!! char i would like to meet him..

HI!!!!! sorry it took me a bit to get to this.

So I would absolutely recommend starting with the original Mobile Suit Gundam show from 1979, also called Gundam 0079 or First Gundam!

it’s the one that started it all, and it’s really a great gateway into Gundam as a whole. if you don’t have the energy or feel like watching a whole show there is also a compilation movie cut of 0079 that is 3 movies, which i believe is on Netflix, though i would still recommend watching the show if you can. (it’s even on the internet archive!)

the show is a little bit dated in its animation but it is honestly really charming and grows on you. the themes are still interesting even today. and also char is there! this is where he first appears and where his story starts.

After 0079, the typical watch order (which is basically just production order) is Zeta -> ZZ -> CCA. Those are the two shows and a movie that followed after 0079 and follow a connected storyline and characters. There are some shows that take place later on after that too, but 0079/Zeta/ZZ/CCA are the main sort of “cycle”.

All those shows take place in the “Universal Century”, which is the original and largest sort of shared universe/timeline within Gundam. There are a number of other spinoff universes, typically just called AU’s, that are not connected to the UC, and follow their own stories. Witch from Mercury, the newest one, is set in an AU. I love the AU’s (one of the more outlandish ones, G Gundam, which combines Gundam with a martial arts tournament type story, is my favorite, lol) but I’d still recommend watching 0079 before you dive into them, unless one of the AU’s is really interesting to you. Watching 0079 really helps you get an idea of the sort of shared tropes that a lot of the Gundam stories work with (see: why they keep Inventing New Masked Guys) so it helps to have it as a basis.

From your posts I also think you would really like Turn A Gundam, another AU show, but you really should watch at the very least 0079 before you try to watch Turn A, because it works best as a show when you’ve seen other Gundam shows before it, because it very intentionally builds on them in ways that i cannot explain without it being a big spoiler. But you have that to look forward to for sure!

All in all, welcome to Gundam! It’s a really cool series with a lot of interesting history. Gundam fans love seeing other people get into the show so i’m excited that you’re interested! Feel free to ask questions if you have em and I’d be glad to do my best to answer. Have fun in space!!!

[paxesoterica]

Some Thoughts About the First 3 Episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam [0079] Part 2

*Spoiler warnings again for both Mobile Suit Gundam and The Witch from Mercury.

*I forgot to mention this in Part 1, but the first time I saw Amuro in animation isn't 0079, but was instead the time he met Hello Kitty, who proceeded to transform his enemies into super deformed versions of themselves:

*And yes, you should watch this, even if you know absolutely *nothing* about Hello Kitty or Gundam (or, perhaps especially if you know nothing). Incidentally, super deformed (SD) Gundams have a long history in the franchise, so what Hello Kitty does isn't even that weird for Gundam (just imagine if she met Suletta instead, and transformed Aerial).

*Another thing I forgot to mention, was that the show's pretty competent about transitions: the Zeon's soldiers earlier were scouting Side 7 via binoculars, which led to them spying Fraw's buggy and switching to her perspective, and her discussion with Amuro about his dad incidentally transitions to scenes with the folks working on Side 7's secret military projects. While the titular Gundam is one of those projects, it's not the only one: I've mentioned before that several characters will be joining White Base, which is a new battleship the Earth Federation has been constructing:

*Shiny! And yes, very toyetic, though I'm growing to get very annoyed at people who refer to Gundam shows as toy commercials as a pejorative about their storytelling quality (some folks have been especially fond of talking about Witch from Mercury that way, and always for the same reason).

*Aboard White Base, we get to meet Amuro's dad, Lieutenant Tem Ray.

*The book he's reading is the instruction manual on how to pilot the Gundam, which I believe was written either partially or in whole by him (yes, this will be important shortly). The other guy with him is Bright Noa.

*So, Bright is rather (in)famous for slapping Amuro at least once during Gundam (maybe more?), so much that there's memes about it, and that, along with the fact that he's a captain, is probably one of the first things you'll hear about him. However, this is an excellent example of how memes decontextualize stories, and fun though they can be, can give you an extremely wrong impression. See, when I first heard 'Captain Bright Noa slaps Amuro for insubordination', it gave me a rather negative impression of him, since it sounded like a military officer flexing his rank against a kid who was drafted into battle (and understandably not okay with this). But if you actually *watch* 0079:

*It turns out Bright is only a few years older than Amuro, and is very much a teen himself who's only been in the military for half a year. Meaning the only way he's becoming a captain anytime soon is if he's the highest ranking officer who's not dead or incapacitated.

*In short, yes, Bright Noa using physical force against Amuro still isn't a good thing, but this is also very much the story of (essentially) someone who'd normally be a freshman at college being put in charge of a bunch of high-school-aged kids in a life-or-death situation and finding himself a bit in over his head, so I'm inclined to be a bit more sympathetic than I might otherwise.

*I really like this scene, even though I find it sad. Tem is very clearly talking to Bright here, but the camera notably focuses on Amuro, and it's pretty good foreshadowing if you didn't know Amuro was getting in the Gundam. With the passage of time, this scene has also taken on a layer of dramatic irony as well.

*I'm also not sure what to make of Tem from this scene. He seems friendly enough to Bright, and seems distressed about the idea of kids like his son fighting in wars, so he doesn't really come off as someone bad (except for the naive belief that you can build a weapon strong enough to end war, of course). While Amuro and Miorine seem to have a bit in common, I'm not sure yet how much that's true of Tem and Delling, aside from being military officers who want to protect their children, since Tem doesn't really seem like the sort of guy who'd authorize the UC equivalent of the Vanadis Incident. I'll have to mull this one over a bit more.

*It seems that unfortunately the White Base was followed by a Zeon ship, which was where the Zaku pilots were dispatched from, which segues into the audience meeting this guy:

*Char Aznable, whose very first lines instantly reminded me of this exchange between Belmeria Winston and Prospera Mercury:

*Char is is quite possibly the most (in)famous Gundam character, to the point that he's featured in commercials for cars and fast food (in Japan at least), and, of course, a number of memes. An examination of Gundam as a whole will reveal that many shows feature at least one mask-bearing antagonist or rival, who's typically manipulative and/or vengeful, and all of them can be traced back to Char. While I will be mentioning points of similarity between him and Prospera, I honestly feel like the connection between these two is by far the most obvious, and that it might be more worthwhile to discuss the ways in which they differ.

*Case in point. In addition to having unusual perspectives on luck (likely influenced by their high levels of confidence), Char and Prospera also have a good grasp of tactics, and are generally skilled at predicting opponents and choosing good moves to counteract them (though they are not always completely successful).

*Their attitude toward subordinates is also noteworthy. Prospera doesn't have a lot of interactions with her Shin Sei staff, but her calmly interrupting the one in the screenshots above (during the stress of the attack on Plant Quetta no less) is the rudest I've ever seen her act toward any of her them. In general, she seems to be a congenial boss who doesn't seem to get angry at her employees for disagreeing with her, a trait Char seems to share with how he treats his followers (so far anyway), and which is probably remarkable to me due to how often I see antagonists act like jerks to people loyal to them. Of course, both Char and Prospera are also known for manipulating people close to them, so how much this might be an act versus how much they genuinely care about others is ambiguous (and, admittedly, makes them interesting characters to observe).

*Char's mention of mobile suits shifts the scene back to the three Zeon pilots from the start, and one of them, Gene, decides that spying on the mobile suit project isn't enough, and opens fire.

*Amuro leaves the shelter to look for his father, and has his first encounter with a mobile suit.

*Anyone who's seen all of Witch from Mercury will already be aware that, leaving aside any armaments, the sheer size of a mobile suit is already incredibly dangerous to a human, as the Zaku simply taking a step knocks Amuro around a bit and prompts him to get in the buggy he and Fraw were in and drive.

*Amuro finds some soldiers and asks for help, but they meet a very abrupt end:

*You have absolutely seen shots like these before in anime, but I recently learned that they're typically referred to as postcard memories, a technique pioneered by Osamu Dezaki back in the early 70s, and since made ubiquitous. It's use is particularly interesting here for a couple reasons, the first being that MSG was made less than a decade after Dezaki started using this animation technique, meaning it would still feel relatively 'new' to audiences at the time. This shot also experiments by including some more traditionally animated objects in the scene, namely the transparent books and papers flying forward on the left side.

*The other reason, is that typically these were shots shown (at the time they were first used at least) to mark a transitional point, either narratively or in a character's arc, and while my knowledge of 70s anime is currently impoverished, I think Gundam may have been among the earliest to use this in such a tragically violent way (possibly beaten out by The Rose of Versailles since that also came out in '79, but I'm not familiar enough with that one to be sure). In any case, this a transitional shot, as it marks Amuro's first encounter with the horror and death caused by war, and the end of his childhood.

*This is a rather somber note to leave on, but at least next time we'll be finally seeing the eponymous Gundam, so hopefully that's somewhat comforting.

...to be continued in Part 3

[whypolar]

What anime do you most often recommend to people?

Oh MAN. Anime recs are so contextual, especially if you don't know what somebody has already seen. But I suppose "what do you most often recommend" is a much easier question than just "what would you recommend, in general."

I probably recommend manga to people more often than anime, just because I read more than I watch, but we'll talk anime.

If anyone wants actual information or content warnings for these, let me know. I'm just knocking out a list here.

I've recommended Dorohedoro to several friends. They finally announced that they're working on the second season a while back, so it'll probably be a good time to do that again soon enough.

Since I'm currently in Gundam mode, I have recced 0079, Witch from Mercury, and War in the Pocket as places to start.

First Gundam is genuinely compelling and well-made tv, and its influence on anime as a whole is inescapable. There's always a barrier getting people to watch older stuff, so I like to encourage it.

Gwitch has proven itself to be very effective for onboarding new people. There's a lot there to latch onto.

War in the Pocket is just... It’s good. It's literally just good. It's short. It makes perfect sense with zero knowledge of Gundam continuity. Why WOULDN'T I tell people to watch War in the Pocket.

Of stuff that's currently airing, I have recommended Dungeon Meshi. Easy, easy rec to a very broad group of people.

The Sentai Daishikkaku adaptation is fun so far. I have recced it to people mostly in the hopes they read the manga so I can talk about spoilers, lmao.

I also recommended Bravern to some people before that ended, just because it's unreal to me how anglosphere anime fans almost completely ignored it. Just looking at youtube makes it so obvious, the way search pulls up 80 zillion Japanese reaction videos and like, 2 guys doing the same in English.

Uhhh... I really like Kaiji. Not something I necessarily get to recommend often because it's such a specific thing that a lot of people would bounce off, even based on the art style alone. But I do love it. I am reccing it now, for fans of guys going through it and competitive games that kill you.

I would have had the perfect excuse to rec it back when Squid Game came out, but I missed the window. People who liked Squid Game should watch Kaiji. Extremely similar premise

[xian1na]

buncha words bout some spring animes #5

Now that I'm a Serious and Employed Person I appreciate series like Skip and Loafer or SpyFam even more. There's nothing better than coming back home and relaxing with some cute and funny anime. It may well be that if I rewatched some older series which I'd dropped or skipped altogether because they seemed boring, I would actually like them much more now. Well, for now let's stick to spring shows. Enjoy!

The Witch from Mercury (season 2, ep. 1-3) - one more week and I'll finally catch up to GWitch. These first three episodes were a real rollercoaster - we started with a pretty chill one, just reestablishing the characters and plot for the second cour. AND THEN! Episode two was wild. I gotta say, what's really amazing about the writing in this series is how it keeps introducing asshole characters, only to make you feel sorry for them after just a couple of episodes. And it actually works, I really care about these guys. I want to believe they're going to be alright... I don't know how dark Gundam endings usually are, but I get a feeling it's better to expect the worst and get a nice surprise, instead of the other way around.

Oshi no Ko (ep. 6) - yeah, yeah, I've watched another one. I planned to give it one last chance before dropping it but then Oshi no Ko had the gall to drop the best episode since the prologue. I still have some issues with it but I think it did a great job characterising Akane (and Yuki, too), making her relatable and sympathetic. What helped a lot was that Aqua was barely present in this one. You know what guys, I don't think I like Aqua very much. Which is a shame, because acting and film stuff in this series interests me more than idol stuff. Methinks I should look for some anime/manga about acting.

Skip and Loafer (ep. 7) - The highlight of this episode was seeing the drama club pres guy actually doing something decent for a change. And of course we have a brand new character introduced in the last minutes of the episode. I guess she's either Shima's family or one of the people he met when he was an actor. I wonder how will this plot develop and how will this person be neutralised by Mitsumi. Or hey, maybe she won't be! There are some people with whom you just don't get along, and I don't see that a lot in anime, I don't think.

Heavenly Delusion (ep. 6-7) - We got less school and more Maru and Kiruko's adventures, I'm definitely fine with that. Episode 6 had some great jokes, faces and cuts of animation, and episode 7 on the other hand got really disturbing towards the end. I like how this series treats the characters' sexuality (so far) - I mean, they're kids, they're figuring things out, and it's presented with honesty you don't often see. These episodes were also a bit thinner on plot elements and mysteries, but I liked that. I guess it could be a breather before what comes next.

Hell's Paradise (ep. 7) - Last week I speculated, that something major was going to happen this episode. That... turned out to be wrong, more or less. We now know a little bit more about the island and the elixir of life, but the majority of the episode was devoted to lighter character moments. So now I don't even know what I should expect next week. To be honest Jigokuraku is also close to falling off my watchlist but I'll give it one more chance.

Insomniacs after school (ep. 4-6) - Aaaand I caught up to Insomniacs. I think it's growing on me - the side characters were nicely fleshed out in the recent episodes and the relationship between the two leads is cute (not my top ship of the season, but they're nice kids!). Am I really going to watch another romance series this season? I almost never watch them!

I skipped Yamada-kun this week, but I'm definitely coming back to it next time. And finally:

Spy x Family (ep. 10-12) - Ok, two things: 1) Bill Watkins (6) was even better than whatever I was picturing before watching the episode and the whole game of dodgeball was a riot. 2) And then episode 11 had some brilliant Anya Starlight Anya moments. I can't wait to see the pupper. Thankfully I don't have to wait three months, I can jump right in the second cour. Episode 12 was kind of a weak follow-up to the two preceding episodes and a weird finale to the whole season, but the penguins were cute. So really, it's impossible to say if it was good or bad.

And that's it from me! Thanks so much for reading, have a great week and see you next Saturday!

[hanryuu]

Rules: Shuffle your 'on repeat' playlist and post the first ten tracks, then tag ten people.

i wasnt tagged but @ogerpon inspired me to do this. here we fucking go lads ( im also stealing their post layout ) also im not tagging anyone feel free to do it yourself if you see this. shits under the readmore vvvvv

Hacker (Death Grips) - "Most loved therefore most hated/Come and knock on the door we've been waiting for you"

i really just think this song is really catchy thats it ASUDGHSIOGJ i also love the meme with the cats. with this song. so yeah

2. Whoever Brings the Night (Nightwish) - "We seduce the dark with pain and rapture/Like two ships that pass in the night"

this song just fucks so hard i love nightwish so much. i recommend anyone to listen to this song also this album in general is my favorite nightwish album

3. Life Itself (Glass Animals) - "Said that he loved each of my two million freckles/When I grew up, was gonna be a superstar"

whenever i listen to this song i think of the legend of zelda amv that gothfrog did because its so fucking good. this album is pretty good overall too, i think this is my favorite off of it

4. Romantic Dreams (Deftones) - "So why wait to discover your dreams?/Now here's your chance"

i dont have a lot to say about this song i just really like it lol. jam to it pretty often

5. Wem die Stunde schlägt (OOMPH!) - "Wem die Stunde schlägt, sollte bereit sein/Erst wenn nichts mer geht, wird es vorbei sein"

the lyrics above translate to "for whom the hour tolls should be prepared/only when nothing more can be done, it will be over". apparently. i just liked the song because it fucks. i need to listen to more oomph for real

6. 祝福 (YOASOBI) - "The future you choose, the path you wish to take/Wherever they may lead/Those stars will be living it with you"

FUCK ME this reminds me i have watch season 2 of the witch from mercury but this song goes so hard. its in japanese but i couldnt be assed to find the original lyrics so theres a translation for you. sigh. i love sulemio :)

7. Kaisarion (Ghost) - "It is the truth of candor shown/Through a prism of deceit"

i just saw these guys in concert!! like within the past couple weeks! they were super cool and really had a silly awesome stage performance lol i enjoyed myself immensely. i went with @mangotigerr and i bought the ugliest plush known to man. this album fucking rules btw

8. The Kill (Thirty Seconds to Mars) - "What if I wanted to fight/Beg for the rest of my life?"

AHHHH WARRIOR CATS MEMORIES they ring so sweetly in my ears. i just started listening to this song again after not hearing it since like 2013 and it still rocks so

9. The Pallbearer Walks Alone (The Dark Element) - "Maybe we can keep on trying/And one day we'll become/Beautiful in the eyes of someone"

i just discovered this band this year and they fucking rule. and also a previous nightwish singer is the lead singer if i remember correctly so im way into that. they only have two albums out i believe? but i really like them

10. My Will Be Done (Powerwolf) - "When from the sacristy I rise/To bring the final sacrifice"

what can i say im a bitch that loves powerwolf. this song goes so hard. thast really all i have to say LOLOL

[photon-hypernova]

nine people you would like to get to know better

thanks so much for the tag @fullbrave!! <3 for this i'll be tagging: @seagullcharmer, @captwaddledoo, @flingsky, @bash-the-molegirl, @borreloadsavagedragon, @hiroshiportor, @danceintheskies, @ragecndybars, and @odysseys-blood, but feel free to do if you see this!! (and no pressure to do if you've been tagged ofc)

three ships

pyra/pandoria from xenoblade 2 - my beloved rareship (art below was commissioned by me from the AMAZING suneia)

akihiko/shinjiro from persona 3 - every few months i remember these two and my god very few other ships wrench my heart half as much as these fuckers do. my god. they're soulmates. they're mirrors. they drive me insane.

guy/jade from tales of the abyss - i think they should make each other worse on purpose. i have a VERY specific version of how they interact in my head but. my god. it's so fucking delicious. i need to write it sometime

first ship ever

makoto/rin from free - devastated to admit that the queerbait swimming anime got me down BAD as a teenager, and in seeing the ship wars, i went for the ship nobody expected

last song

Ef by LITE - a band i've been SUPER into as of late! brilliant instrumentals and just a lot of fun ^^

last movie

...the barbie movie, LMAO. i really don't watch movies at all

currently reading

just finished "good luck, yukikaze" and they don't lie, books sure can change how your brain is wired forever. currently reading through like seven books, but a couple of them are "house of leaves" and "thief of time"

currently watching

on the second session of "the witch from mercury"! REALLY good shit. i need to watch more gundam

also trying to catch up with dimension 20 - currently going through the second session of the unsleeping city

currently consuming

my fingernails?? i last ate pasta lol

currently craving

at any given moment i would kill someone for a cinnamon roll. i don't even like cinnamon by itself. cinnamon rolls just hit different

also ordered a bunch of galaxy/photon cards to finish my irl deck since they're finally somewhat affordable photon lord do NOT interact so looking forward to those!!

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 183 Rundown

The Witch from Mercury: It’s been two months since Suletta beat Shaddiq and Miorine’s off doing PR shit and business meeting being your standard Single Female Lawyer type badass businesswoman, but she’s trusting Suletta with her most important tasks at home which makes her happy. As testing goes forward there’s sort of an underlying anxiety among the club-like initial corporate group that Miorine’s gonna turn it into a for real company and get rid of them and all their high school antics (and honestly in terms of pure utilitarianism she probably should, like these guys are not very good at this, but for sentimental reasons we’re gonna treat that like it’s a bad idea). Meanwhile there’s a plot to kill Miroine’s dad from inside the Fortune 500 amd Shaddiq’s dad is just like ‘that’ll never work count me out’ but Shaddiq hears about it and hires up the Lagoon Company from earth to go help kill him which happens to involve hijacking the spaceship Guel’s currently serving out his Chazz Princeton rich boy humbling arc on so that’s kind of a lot. Meanwhile meanwhile, Suletta’s really excited about giving little phone charms to Miorine to share with her and I’ve watched enough anime to know anytime an anime schoolgirl skips down the street giggling about how great something will be, something is about to go horribly horribly wrong. There’s a New Fake Ceres and apparently this one’s the horny one because he just comes right onto Suletta saying that Miroine’s basically enlisted Suletta into a loveless political marriage like the Clintons and he wants to be her Monica Lewinsky so yeah that’s all kinds of fucked up and I feel like I’ve very much aged myself with that reference but I stand by it. Suletta’s a good lesbian and tells him to fuck off and even she notices the changes in him despite being a complete idiot to social clues so this guy’s not doing a very good job at acting. Turns out the worst is yet to come though as Miorine’s back and has hired people to take care of all the domestic shit she was having Suletta do and even hired Ceres to split the product testing workload with her (though if I remember correctly the Cereses can only pilot Gundam stuff by sitting on cockpits of broken glass and having bodies enhanced to resist broken glass so idk if that’ll hurt the company’s numbers or what). So this is actually a really good dilemma, like from Miorine’s perspective she’s been putting too much on Suletta and wants to make sure she doesn’t overwhelm her because she does care about her and Suletta is kind of a flighty ditz so you don’t want to give her too much, but from Suletta’s perspective Miorine’s taking back all that trust she put in her and devaluing their relationship and saying she’s not needed. It’s like Suletta’s a housewife and Miorine hired a maid but Suletta likes doing housewife shit and doesn’t wanna sit around drinking brandy and complaining about the neighbors, it’s a neat little conflict where you can see where they’re both coming from and I quite like it. Ummm also Prospera’s meeting with Miorine’s dad so hopefully she doesn’t get caught up in the Lagoon Company assassination attempt or else we’d be out the only two parental figures our main characters have.

Inuyasha The Final Act: Following up on last time, Kaede confirms that the will of the Jewel itself is what’s sealing Kagome’s power now that she’s become too strong, similar to how Midoriko’s will sought Kohaku and Koga being absorbed in order to make the jewel whole and purify Naraku, there’s a lot of Jewel Shenanigans in the back half of this series. Meanwhile demons are challenging Sesshomaru because he’s got no weapon, one arm, and a kid with the last jewel shard with him, but luckily Sesshomaru’s so overpowered he can literally beat 90% of the cast with one hand rotting in his father’s grave. Still, now we get the big reveal that Naraku’s working with the evil part of the jewel itself, Magatsuhi and Naraku’s just like ‘you better get off your ass and do something or else the good guys are gonna win’ because Naraku will literally do anything to get out of fighting for himself. So Magatsuhi uses part of Naraku’s body to basically possess a chunk of him and become a pseudo-incarnation and like… for the big bad of the series, mastermind behind the corruption of the jewel and murderer of Midoriko, this guy’s mid as fuck like he has genuinely no aura whatsoever and is not much of a physical threat at this point in the series, shown by his main strategy being literally immortal and hiding behind the peanut gallery so Inuyasha can’t do his big AOE attacks. He does manage to corrupt Kohaku’s shard and knock Kagome out with Conqeror’s Haki but like unless you’re specifically Sesshomaru working at 25% power he’s not very threatening. Still Sesshomaru shows off that he has healing powers and always has but is just too stubborn to use them and transforms into his Full Demon form, where Jaken confirms a long-standing theory I had as a kid that Full Demon Sesshomaru is the peak of his physical strength but sacrifices his aura and strategy which is why Inuyasha was able to take him down so easily in like episode 4, it’s just a big strong punching bag. Still, Sesshomaru can injure Magatsuhi’s ghost form with the Tenseiga, but it isn’t strong enough to hurt his physical body so he’s swallowed up, going through an existential crisis with Inuyasha shouting at him that he’s stupid if he’d rather die than be shown up by the person he gave his technique to and we don’t actually see if but Sesshomaru does let go of all of it, his attachment to the Tessaiga, the mildly shitty thing his dad did to him in getting him to make a new ultimate attack for the main character, and his renewed compassion for the people around him, culminating in the formation of the Bakusaiga, the ultimate in badass swords ten times stronger than the Tessaiga’s base attacks and with the added ability of poisoning any regeneration attempts, it’s so fucking broken it sounds like something someone playing Inuyasha on the playground would make up and I love it. He blows away Magatsuhi’s physical body but the ghost escapes, leaving Kohaku’s shard no longer unobtainable by Naraku and Kagome in a fucking coma so between that and the powerup it’s kind of a wash.

Castlevania: Trevor’s feeling some existential angst about going from being a wandering brigand to being a pair of wandering brigands in a healthy relationship and has a nice little talk with the mayor about both of their worries until both they and Sypha’s group see carved symbols around the town, now these aren’t all the same symbol like claiming the place for the Hell Sympathizers of the Priory but they’re different symbols so I’mma go out on a limb and say they’re either runes for a ritual or markings for where key positions of a more formal takeover/sacrifice will be. Alucard’s still off training his Japanese sword twins and is just having fun being a pseudo-father figure to them and again I’ve seen enough anime to know when something will likely go horribly wrong. Sypha confronts Saint Germain about him sneaking around the Priory with glowing rocks and once they meet up with Trevor he eventually admits he’s after the magical multiverse portal that can cross space and time and Sypha and Trevor come to the obvious conclusion that the demon that landed in the Priory is using said magical multiverse portal to unlock unlimited power and exert influence over the cultists and Germain’s just like ‘well fuck, I didn’t think of that’ despite having all the pieces way longer than these two have, like come on man.

Konosuba: So about that Kazuma rescue arc… yeah, not gonna happen. Kazuma’s enjoying his life in the capital and being the scumbag we all know he is (though honestly not as big of one as he COULD be, still pretty bad though) and he cultivates the Onii-chan relationship with Iris that he’s always wanted. It’s interesting because we actually do get a good look at how the war against the Devil King is affecting the world at large, even Kazuma’s like ‘somebody should do something about that’ even though HE’S the one supposed to be doing something about that, which is pretty funny. Eventually the gang DOES come to get him back once he’s been a bit too indulgent but they agree to stay for one more night so Iris can say goodbye. During the party Darkness gets hit on by a bunch of obnoxious flowery guys talking about how pretty she is in increasingly ostentatious ways which this may be me thinking too much about it but maybe she’s just a masochist because everyone spends so much time kissing her butt she’s literally bored of all the ways they invent to say how great she is and pain and degradation are somehow more ‘real’ to her, like if people are always lying to your face with good things you’re bound to feel like the bad stuff is the truth, but again that may just be me headcanoning too hard. Kazuma picks up on how uncomfortable she is and livens the mood a bit TOO much and gets kicked out, where Iris finds him and talks about how she knows because he’s such a scumbag that he’s always being real with her and she appreciates it. During the conversation she mentions a Phantom Thief that’s Robin Hooding their way around stealing from the corrupt and giving to the needy and in hilarious fashion Kazuma agrees to stop this nice yet technically illegal person to save his own skin and stay in the lap of luxury a bit longer. But before he can pull a Light Yagami and vaguely pretend to catch someone he has no interest in catching for two years, they kick him out of the palace and make him go stay with the targets of the Phantom Thief so now they’re stuck with the dude that almost killed them for teleporting a mech bomb into his house, fun stuff.

Delicious in Dungeon: It’s the first part of the two-part midseason finale, and the plan comes apart almost immediately who would’ve guessed. Turns out using cooking pans as shields doesn’t exactly work the same because cooking pans SPREAD heat instead of blocking it, need some giant armored potholders for that. What’s more, the dragon is basically completely unphased by their building trap, idk why they thought a giant armored lizard impervious to explosions would mind having a bridge dropped on it but maybe they thought it ate Captain Kirk and absorbed his weakness to bridges. Even Laios’s parasite sword wants nothing to do with this and jumps out of the way and hunkers down. Senshi and Chilchuck sacrifice themselves to take out one of its eyes and Laios comes up with a plan to launc himself off the pan BotW Shield surfing style and dangle his leg from the dragon’s mouth to stab its weak point. Now I thought he was gonna get completely swallowed and stab its weak point from the inside which would’ve been cooler but this is still pretty damn cool. While Laios is unconscious there’s a small flashback that’s otherwise just for emotional stuff but I do want to bring attention to the fact they come across a ring that binds souls to bodies similar to what the dungeon does and apparently it was in the possession of an elf so that may or may not be relevant to the story given we’re getting dripfed this shit REALLY slowly. One short flashback about Falin later, Laios is down a leg and before I can start thinking we’re gonna have some cool How to Train your Dragon parallels with a disability character they just fucking reattach the thing, idk I think one-leg Laios would’ve been a neat wrinkle though at least he gets a scar for his trouble. Still the group aren’t able to find Falin anywhere in the dragon’s guts and ultimately determine her remains are in the pseudo-appendix where they find her weapon and what Laios presumes to be her fucking skull so uhh that’s dark, dunno what the extent of that healing magic is but unless we can spontaneously regrow flesh we’ll have to get into some FMA territory here and work on some human transmutation, I mean Laios DID already sacrifice a leg so who’s ready to be put into a suit of armor? Senshi? Probably Senshi.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: The time has finally come for Sein’s big decision whether to stay with the group or chase after his friend… is what I would be saying if there wasn’t a bigass blizzard out of nowhere. Sein gets to enjoy a little more time with his friends even if they mostly go off and do their own things, even getting to mediate one last Fern and Stark fight and tell them both they have to act like adults and stop pouting over stupid shit. Side note but I kinda really like this little tiff they have like at first it sounds like Stark did something completely reasonable and Fern just flipped out but Fern reveals that she was actually scared because of how easily Stark was able to immobilize her even for just a gag and then was embarrassed about how scared she got for a sec, like it’s a very natural reaction and something men and women of any type kind of have to acknowledge when being around each other, there’s sort of an instinctual fear that doesn’t come up a lot but it is nice to touch on it and have Fern apologize and share her feelings on the matter and request for gentler treatment idk I just really like that touch. Either way as anyone could’ve called, Sein does decide to head off on his own after one last talk with Frieren and says his bittersweet goodbyes after leaving assured the group will be alright without him. Next Fern gets sick so we get to have a nice little Stark/Frieren adventure, a neat little pairing we don’t see the two of them alone much together and they bounce off each other well, Stark brings out Frieren’s sillier side a bit and Frieren doesn’t rile Stark up as much as Fern does so they’re able to have an earnest discussion about Fern and her growing up and Frieren feeling like something of a mother figure to her in a way which even normal mothers have a hard time watching kids grow up so far so Frieren must be getting whiplash for how fast Fern grew up on her sense of scale. Still they’re able to stay at a little farm where Stark gets complimented on his skill with milking tits so make of that what you will, we’re back on track and ready to start the Mage Exam arc next time.

Nekomonogatari Black: Araragi breaks into Hanekawa’s house and finding out she literally has no impression on the state of her home scares him worse than anything we’ve seen in the series, like the guy fights ghost crabs and got the shit kicked out of him by a basketball playing yuri monkey and the sheer amount of neglect this girl faces TERRIFIES him. Ironically though unlike most busybody protagonists that’re just like “I HAVE to be the one to solve this” he does agree to Oshino’s wishes and lets him handle it… until three days later when Oshino’s been beat to shit twenty times because he’s playing the world’s most NSFW version of Wile E. Coyote with the bustiest Roadrunner I ever hope to see. Apparently it’s like the time Piccolo fought Frieza in DBZ and Black Hanekawa isn’t that strong but normal Hankeawa is just that smart that she knows all Oshino’s traps before he springs them, him claiming she “knows everything” but Hanekawa’s own catchphrase would obviously disagree with that. Dejected, Araragi goes to lick Hanekawa’s desk in remembrance of her tits, you know, normal teenage boy stuff. Black Hanekawa shows up through sheer force of “Bro wtf are you doing” vibes and gives him the general gist of what we got from her motivation at the end of the first season, telling him to tell Oshino to leave them alone or she’ll kill him next time and she’ll be able to leave after 500 more attacks and she murders Hanekawa’s parents, so that’s uhh not great.She says something interesting though and basically implies Hanekawa’s a sociopath who only does the right thing all the time not because she’s good or feels empathy but because through her sheer emotionlessness she can accurately pinpoint what the right thing to do in situations is and does it to keep up appearances and thus she can’t be preyed upon by spirits who feed off her fucks because she has no fucks to give. I mean at that point idk, what’s the difference? The good shit is still getting done and if Hanekawa’s not doing it for any emotional payoff or catharsis if I remember my Categorical Imperative correctly that’s MORE morally good than doing it for the ‘right’ reasons and while Kant’s kind of a weirdo in that regard you can’t really argue with the results like is that something Hanekawa should feel bad about if the cat gets buried at the end of the day? Maybe that’s what Black Hanekawa sees and sympathizes with idk. Either way the conversation ends with Araragi resolved to stop Black Hanekawa and set Hanekawa free even if it kills him. Like this is the kind of shit that makes Araragi so hard to parse, like on the one hand he is easily on the scummiest spectrum of scumbag protagonists with underage shenanigans that put Made in Abyss to shame but on the other hand sometimes he’s just so fucking cool and able to leverage his usual scumbag behavior to get people to underestimate him, this is why I keep going back and forth on this series.

[thescrapbookingscientist]

Bimonthly Media Roundup

-A Sign of Affection (Anime) - A cute little romance anime about a deaf girl falling for multi-lingual backpacker. There's not really a lot to talk about or analyze with this one, I'd call it quaint, adorable, and a little unmemorable. For the things I did like, it's great that the characters were all in college with pretty grounded non-anime personalities, I liked the art and fashion quite a bit, and it had a lot of moments that make you go "aww that's so sweet, you're so cute!". The protagonist especially is very cute both in design and personality, honestly she should be more popular with boys. There was also a surprising twist in that quite a few of the main characters notably dye their hair - like everyone has normal genetics and you see their natural hair colors either in flashbacks or in the roots as they grow out, they just choose to dye their hair anime colors, very charming. I also like that the love interest travels frequently and it's implied that the protagonist will start to travel with him soon as well, would love to see just an animated travel blog of different Asian countries. For the negatives I'd say that as of the first season there just hasn't been a lot of interesting development. The main couple is actually dating which is nice, but their pretty quick to say their in love rather than they have a crush, and we don't see them together too much as the focus shifts to 2 other side couples (one cute but kinda bland in presentation and the other fine as individuals but kind of frustrating together) + the second obviously going to fail love interest who's pretty unlikable. There's cute moments but nothing I'd really feel the need to rewatch. Finally while I liked a lot of the characters designs, personality wise, most of them where a little too grounded and archetypal to be interesting. I liked most of them while they were on screen well enough, but afterwards I couldn't tell you their names or 3+ character traits. All that being said I did enjoy it, it was a cute down to earth romance with some good disabled rep and cute visuals.

-The Silence of the Lambs (Movie) - Hey did you guys know that The Silence of the Lambs is a good movie? It's a good movie guys.

- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch of Mercury (Anime) - Okay fine tumblr, I'll watch the lesbian robot anime. Not too far in yet, I like the music and Suletta as a protagonist. I also appreciate the variety of skin tones and body types present, really helps it feel like a realistic globalized future. Not super into the chemistry of the main couple yet (I actually like Suletta more with the simping jerk jock), but they have plenty of time to grow on me and have a good foundation to develop from.

- Dungeon Meshi (Anime) - More elves are here, they seem fun! I'm always delighted to see what the monster of the week will be, the speculative biology and environments are so well done here.

- Shadow's House (Anime) - yup yup, cute cute.

- Vineland Saga (Anime) - We've been watching this for quite a bit now at anime night, though I haven't included it here as I don't really have much to say. The animation and environments are great and I appreciate the mature storytelling, but honestly the slow pacing, similar character designs, and lack of interest in the majority of the characters has me zoning a good amount of the time. Anime Tywin Lannister is kinda the only character I'm invested in right now and it feels like his days are numbered. Still there's quite a bit left to go, and I do like the thematic direction the story is going so I'll give it time to impress me.

-Mashle: Magic and Muscles (Anime) - New comedy anime to watch with my sister. I like it well enough so far so far, nothing amazing but it is hilarious how blatantly they rip off Harry Potter (good lol).

- One Piece (Anime/TV) - Yeah One Piece is probably gonna keep this spot basically the whole year. We have caught up with the anime and are now rewatching the live action, which still impresses me in how good it managed to be. Now that I have knowledge of the whole series under my belt, I'll say that the Live Action cutting Don Kreig, setting up the parallels between Koby and Luffy (Justice vs Freedom) early on, turning up Sanji's charm and down his women-obsession, and including Nami in the initial episode were all smart decisions that made a tighter and easier to watch story. I hope to see similar things in Season 2 which I'm psyched about. Anyway I am begging them to keep the anime edition of Ace in Alabasta, please please please.

- Genshin Impact (Video Game) - Finished most of the Sumeru Archon quest which has some pretty neat lore drops. I still have a lot of exploring in the desert so I won't head to Fontain yet though.

Listening To: Hope by Akano, Tounges & Teeth and Metaphor by The Crane Wives, HateKiller by WON, Dream Girl Evil by Florence + The Machine, Imu’s Theme from One Piece OST, White Wedding by Billy Idol, GUY.exe by Superfruit, Promiseland by MIKA, All the Boys by Panic! At The Disco, Bonjour Au Revoir by Joyce Jonathan, Fences by Paramore, Little Numbers by Boy, Crazy by Walk off the Earth.

[fostersffff]

I should begin by saying that I only actually watched the first season of Korra, and I do believe you about Books 3 and 4 being better than 1 and 2, but that's also kind of my point.

When it was first airing, Korra was *only* going to have 12 episodes. It was a 12 episode miniseries, maybe there'd be a book or a comic or something, but the core story of Avatar Korra was going to be 12 episodes. Nickelodeon didn't seem particularly invested in Korra despite the fact that The Last Airbender was (and still is) one of their most beloved properties. So the creative team packed every idea they had into those 12 episodes, tried to pace it out as well as they could with the time allotted, and made sure that when it was over, all the loose ends were tied up. Amon and Tarrlok were dead, Korra got all her bending back and could also give it back to everyone else, and Mako won the Korrabowl. Done and dusted!

Except, partway through production, Nickelodeon went "You guys aren't gonna believe this, but people really like that sequel series to The Last Airbender! Make another season!" So, they made another season, presumably with the understanding that would be it. So they (presumably- again, haven't watched it) had to start a new set of plot threads and wrap those up within that season... until partway through production of THAT Nickelodeon went "Guys this is crazy, people REALLY like that sequel series to The Last Airbender!!! You've got two more seasons after this one, too!!!" I have no doubt that once they got that second order, they were able to pace things out way better and do longer character arcs and plot beats because they knew they had 26 episodes instead of 12 and 14, respectively.

And that's what I mean here: if the team behind The Witch from Mercury had to scramble to fit- let's say a hypothetical maximum of- 36 episodes worth of story into just 12, that's unfortunate, but the only thing worse would be doing that and then being told "oh btw this series was really popular so you do actually get those extra 24 episodes, get cracking!" This would actually be slightly worse than Korra because at least in the case of Book 1.

(also noting again there also hasn't been anything official about production issues with G Witch, which is why I say I'm more willing to believe it than stating it as fact)

My opinion of The Witch from Mercury is- as it's been from the start- that it's Very Good, but with one episode left to go I am definitely more open to the speculation that something happened with the episode count.

If that's true, and the episode count was cut and they had to rush to get everything in, I hope against hope that Sunrise doesn't surprise announce a second set of 24 episodes because oops it turned out to be way more popular than we originally anticipated.

There is no worse fate for a series than getting Legend of Korra'd.