A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions

REVIEW: Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san (anime TV series)

2023-10-15T13:22:00.000-05:00

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san is a comedy anime. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This series relates the real-life experiences of Honda's days as a bookstore employee. It's both humorous and informative, explaining how things work in bookstores as well as dealing more generally with the issue of customer service and the types of customers Honda dealt with.

It wasn't until I started working on this post that I realized that apparently Honda is a woman - in the anime, she is voiced by a male voice actor. I suppose, though, that Honda's gender doesn't really affect the overall story.

This was an impulse purchase. I was curious about it and decided to give it a try, knowing that it probably wasn't going to end up on my "rewatch" list. This is an extremely niche series, both in terms of its comedy and subject matter. I work in a library, so there's potential for overlap between my experiences and Honda's (particularly when it comes to people not always asking for what they really want), but bookstores and libraries really are very different. Their focus is on selling things, for one. Also, aside from a few titles that people are always interested in and things that have temporarily entered the spotlight due to current events or whatever, they're extremely focused on new releases and making room for them.

I don't know how much of the Japanese bookselling world overlaps with the US bookselling world, but it was still interesting to learn about, if perhaps not as funny as it might have been to someone living in that world. The more general customer service comedy worked much better for me overall. I particularly enjoyed the last couple episodes - Honda working the closing shift was amusingly similar to the experience of working a library closing shift, trying to herd people out, keep new people from coming in, and get all closing tasks done in time. The bit about the emotional effect of dealing with "saintly" customers soon after horrible ones was also pretty good.

I was surprised at how many scenes there were in which Honda tried to deal with foreign customers - I wonder if that's really as regular an occurrence as this anime made it seem, or if those moments stuck out to Honda more because the prospect of trying to speak coherent English was just that panic-inducing. I couldn't help but laugh at Honda's anxiety over how to explain to a clueless and handsome foreign gentleman that his daughter had sent him out to buy explicit self-published manga (although, considering that cover image, it should have been obvious).

Honda was in charge of the American comics and Western books areas of the bookstore. I laughed at the way those were depicted - more than anything, physically heavy, since they use better quality paper than Japanese manga.

If I had to pick a favorite employee, it'd probably be Pestmask (a female employee depicted wearing a plague doctor mask), if only because her introduction was hilarious.

I enjoyed this enough to watch it in one sitting, but it really was a very niche series - I don't know that I'll ever want to rewatch it, and I'd only recommend it under very particular circumstances. As an impulse purchase, it was decent and certainly low-stress, but I wouldn't call it a "must watch" series.

REVIEW: My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Season 1 (anime TV series)

2022-11-27T15:50:00.000-06:00

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! is a fantasy comedy with romantic aspects (but, just to be clear, it is not a romance, so don't expect it to be). It's based on a light novel series. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Catarina Claes is a spoiled child who bumps her head and suddenly remembers her past life as a Japanese high school student who'd enjoyed playing an otome game called Fortune Lover...which very much resembled Catarina's current reality. The only problem: in that game, Catarina Claes was the villainess, and just about every ending resulted in her either being exiled or killed. Realizing that she has only a few years to ensure her own survival, Catarina attempts to deal with as many of her future death flags as possible - if she has to have a bad ending, she'd rather be exiled with marketable skills under her belt than killed.

What Catarina doesn't realize is that her decisions have, from the start, deeply affected the story. Instead of being the villainess, she's now unwittingly the character everyone loves. But will even that be enough to help her escape her doom?

This first season of the anime (will there be a second? I kind of hope not) covers the events of the first two light novels, which allows it to end at the perfect spot, with the whole "can Catarina defeat her death flags?" storyline dealt with.

The light novels and manga are both fun but, in the end, mediocre, so I was expecting pretty much the same from the anime, and it didn't disappoint. I did think that the comedic aspects were handled best in the manga, but overall the anime was light, fluffy fun.

And...there isn't really much more I can say than that. The deepest this series gets is when it explores Japan Catarina's friendship with Atsuko, the girl who introduced her to Fortune Lover. It was kind of nice to see a series that paid more attention to the emotional impact of friendship than to developing any of its possible romantic relationships. Although if you go into this series hoping for anything to come of Catarina's various accidental conquests, the friendship aspect might turn out to be disappointing.

This is one of those series that I think is fine as it is at only one season. It doesn't need another one, just like the light novel series would have been fine ending at Book 2.

Extras:

Clean opening and closing animations.

REVIEW: Toilet-bound Hanako-kun: The Complete Series (anime TV series)

2022-11-06T16:26:00.000-06:00

Toilet-bound Hanako-kun is a supernatural school series. I bought my copy brand new.

Review:

Yashiro Nene is a young romantic who decides to try summoning a ghost at her school that supposedly grants wishes. What she ends up with is Hanako-kun, a ghost who admits to her that he can't make her crush fall in love with her. Nene isn't willing to give up, though, and accidentally gets herself bound to Hanako-kun as his servant.

Through her association with Hanako-kun, Nene gradually learns more about her school's various supernatural "Wonders" and how they function. Unfortunately, a Wonder with a painful connection to Hanako-kun seems to be trying to upset the balance of things at the school.

This was a very good series, but I should also emphasize that it's an incomplete one. If a second season is never released, this will definitely end up being one of those series that functions better as an advertisement for the manga than something that works on its own. None of this anime's biggest questions and problems are resolved by the end.

That said, I enjoyed this a lot once I got past the first few episodes. It started off a little "monster of the week," with a few bittersweet "humans meeting the supernatural" moments, but rapidly developed into a story about Hanako's past. Nene continued to be a bit shallow throughout the series, but thankfully she wasn't just shallow - she genuinely wanted to know more about Hanako and become a stronger person. Watching her and Hanako become closer was nice.

Although the show's bright colors might trick you into thinking it's all supernatural comedy, it also goes some fairly dark places. The developments with the Number 3 Wonder were a shock, and I very much hope that a second season gets made so that I can learn more about what's going on between Hanako and Tsukasa. Although I suppose I can accomplish the same thing by reading the manga...but it's a whole lot easier and cheaper to get a season of an anime versus double-digit manga volumes. Plus, the anime gives me all that fabulous color and great voice acting. I watched the original Japanese with English subtitles (Hanako's VA, Megumi Ogata, was great), but at some point I need to listen to the English dub.

If you don't mind an anime that doesn't yet have a true ending, I very much recommend this. Crossing my fingers that it gets continued!

Extras:

Textless openings and closing, and a FunimationCon interview with Megumi Ogata that I didn't watch.

REVIEW: Bananya: The Kitty Who Lives in a Banana (anime TV series)

2022-10-23T12:28:00.000-05:00

Bananya is a slice-of-life fantasy series. I bought my copy new.

Review:

The only one who says recognizable words in this series is the narrator, who acts as though he is studying strange and gentle creatures in their natural habitat and inviting viewers to join him. The cats just meow (or, to be more accurate, say "nya" in both the Japanese and English dub versions, because that's what Japanese cats do).

Each episode introduces different cats who live in bananas and shows snippets of their daily lives and behaviors. There is Bananya, whose greatest wish is to become a trendy chocolate-covered banana. There's also Tabby Bananya, Bananyako (the only confirmed female cat who lives in a banana, bringing to mind shows like The Smurfs), Black Bananya, Long-Haired Bananya, and more.

I've seen Bananya merchandise and thought it was cute. I've wanted to try this show for a while. It's cute, easy and quick to watch, completely stress-free, and will probably not make much of an impact on your thoughts. But if you've had a bad day and need something cute and stress-free, it may just hit the spot. I used it for some self-soothing after a biopsy.

I don't really feel strongly about any of the cats, but if I had to pick a favorite, it might be Mackerel Tabby Bananya, because he's shy. Honestly, though, most of the Bananya cats don't make a huge impression on their own. They're all just...nice.

Although this show definitely seems like something that younger kids in Japan could watch, I'm not sure how well it would work for English-speaking younger kids. It's not that it would be bad for them so much as some of the jokes don't come across nearly as well in the English dub.

Not really a must-see, but also not bad. Get the Bananya merchandise that looks cutest to you, and then get this if you have cash to spare and want something short (39 minutes total) and soothing to watch.

REVIEW: Channel Zero, Season 1: Candle Cove (live action TV series)

2022-09-25T10:28:00.000-05:00

Channel Zero is a horror anthology series that aired on Syfy. I bought my copy of this first season used.

Review:

Mike Painter is a child psychologist who hasn't been back to his hometown in years, not since his twin brother became one of the victims of a serial killer targeting children. Most of the victims were discovered in a forest, missing their teeth. Mike's brother Eddie was the only child never found.

After some kind of psychotic break forces Mike to take some time away from his wife and young daughter, he decides to go back to his hometown and face the memories he tried to leave behind. His relationship with his mother is awkward, and tensions rise between him and a few other local residents when his arrival seemingly prompts the killer from 1988 to reappear. People think Mike and/or his family may have something to do with the killings, but Mike insists that the true thing linking them all together is a children's TV show called Candle Cove. It only aired during the killings in 1988, and for some reason local children are starting to see it on TV again.

This first season of the show was based on a creepypasta story by Kris Straub, which can be found here. I enjoyed the story and wanted to watch this show but wasn't sure how well it would work for me. Now that I've finally seen it...meh.

I'm a horror wimp. My preferences run more towards "creepy and atmospheric" rather than "gory and truly scary," and there's also only so much creepiness I can take before I have to take a break. This show...did not hit my maximum, ever. I'm not sure what the issue was. The acting? The pacing? Whatever it was, for some reason watching this wasn't nearly as stressful as I'd expected.

There were some genuinely creepy moments, but I think part of the problem was that, after a while, I recognized that the creepiest moments were always either dreams or hallucinations. They were scary for the characters, but they almost never had any kind of lasting effect. There were also a few bloody moments, for the most part shot in ways that didn't bother me too much.

Most of the characters hit pretty much the same emotional notes all the time. Mike was soft-spoken and often looked like he was holding back a sad, wry smile, which I kept expecting to go over very badly with certain characters. Mike's mother always looked sad and vaguely horrified, so there were times when I thought she was reacting to something that was going on when, in fact, she just looked like that.

I liked the designs for the Skin-Taker's true form, and the Tooth Child was kind of disturbing. There was definitely a truly creepy show in here somewhere, but at some point during the execution it got lost. I doubt I'll be trying Season 2 of this series.

Extras:

There were "bonus" scenes, but as far as I could tell, they were just repetitions of the Candle Cove show snippets. They didn't seem to be deleted or extended scenes, so I'm not sure why they were separated out like that, and there was no writer or director commentary to provide context.

REVIEW: Classroom of the Elite: Complete Series (anime TV series)

2021-11-06T22:00:00.002-05:00

Classroom of the Elite is an adaptation of a light novel series. Wikipedia tells me it's considered to be a psychological thriller, but that's debatable.

Review:

Kiyotaka Ayanokoji is an unmotivated and unsociable student who has just started attending the Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School, which is designed to support the country's future leaders. Students can't leave the school grounds, but the place functions like a self-contained city and provides students with a high degree of freedom. Everyone is given points that they can spend as they please, and more than a few students quickly spend everything they have, assuming that they'll regularly be given more points.

However, the system turns out to be a little more complicated than that. Everyone is separated into different classes based on their academic achievement, and Class D, Kiyotaka's class, is at the very bottom. The odds are stacked against them, and no one expects them to rise any higher in the school's hierarchy. Suzune Horikita, a Class D student, is determined to make it to Class A no matter what it takes. Whether she can manage it depends upon the rest of her class...and whatever secrets Kiyotaka is hiding.

This was slick, but ultimately disappointing. I was intrigued by the overall mystery surrounding Kiyotaka. What is his goal? What does he hope to achieve and how will this school help him do it? Does he really only view the students around him as tools? The school's points system also had some intriguing aspects.

Unfortunately, the story moved slowly enough that no real answers of any kind were provided. Also, it focused way too much on its least interesting and most useless characters. I could have done without the storyline in which a group of Class D guys tried to hide a video camera in the girls' locker room, or the bit focused on the stolen underwear. As the series progressed, it added to Kiyotaka's social circle, but in ways that had no effect on the story as a whole. Although their secret sides were momentarily interesting, neither Airi Sakura nor Kikyou Kushida amounted to anything in the grand scheme of things. I assume they became more important later on in the light novels, but in this one anime season they took up screentime for no apparent reason.

It's possible that this will one day get a second season that will actually move things forward and include some real revelations. And I could always start reading the light novels. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the fanservice was worse in the original series, which would just make the pacing more excruciating. If this series had actually done something substantial with Kiyotaka, it could have been really good - I love characters who are secretly brilliant and have hidden devious sides. It's too bad it couldn't overcome what I assume was the original light novel series' terrible pacing. It had potential, but it wasted it.

Extras:

I thought it had both a textless opening and closing song, but the back of the box says that it just has a textless opening. I think I just watched the trailers for other shows and that was it, so I didn't notice.

REVIEW: ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept.: The Complete Series (anime TV series)

2021-09-05T23:17:00.001-05:00

ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept. is a political thriller that feels like a slice-of-life story, or occasionally even like a strange comedy. It was an impulse purchase during a Right Stuf sale. I hadn't heard anything about it and wasn't expecting much from it, so it was a pleasant surprise when it turned out to be really good.

That said, I spent a good portion of the beginning of the series with no clue what kind of show I was watching. ACCA takes place on an island composed of 13 territories, each with a vastly different culture and way of life. ACCA is an organization that was originally created to protect the kingdom's peace and guard against the threat of a coup d'etat. Jean Otus, a member of ACCA's Inspection Department, travels to each of the 13 territories and attempts to figure out whether there's really a coup brewing in this seemingly peaceful land. What he doesn't initially realize, however, is that his actions are being interpreted by nearly everyone around him as signs that he's involved in the supposed coup.

Was the coup real, or a paranoid bureaucratic fantasy? Was I watching some kind of absurdist comedy or an actual political thriller that just happened to contain frequent snack breaks?

It was fun watching the story's various threads gradually come together: Nino, Jean's mysterious friend; the planning and plotting of the five heads of ACCA; the elderly king and his foolish grandson; Director-General Mauve and her suspicions; the source of Jean's seemingly endless supply of cigarettes in a world where cigarettes are a luxury; and probably more I'm forgetting. It's the kind of show that's rewarding to rewatch, because you can see all the things in the earlier episodes that hinted at later revelations. Like Jean himself, the show proceeds at a relaxed pace but has a lot hidden under the surface.

I wish there had been a bit more time for some of the characters to sit, decompress, and talk things through at the end. Viewers got a few brief glimpses, and the 6 extra clips included in the special features were nice for winding down, but I'd have liked a bit more. The series' final revelations were a lot to take in.

All in all, this was an excellent show that deserves to be more popular than it seems to be. It's only 12 episodes long, but it makes very effective use of its time.

Extras:

Six "special featurettes" that are actually a series of brief OVAs that take place during unspecified times throughout the original series. You don't miss out on anything vital if you don't watch them, but I thought they worked well as a nice "farewell" to the characters. Some were better than others - I really liked the one in which Jean and Nino had an argument, but the one in which Grossular made various puns was just weird. The one in which Nino talked to Grossular on the phone was completely out-of-the-blue fanservice (Nino, somewhat drunk and getting undressed), considering that the show was otherwise fanservice-free.

Also, a textless opening and closing. I really liked the opening song and animation.

REVIEW: My Hero Academia, Season One (anime TV series)

2021-08-22T17:37:00.001-05:00

My Hero Academia is a superhero series based on a manga of the same title. I bought my copy of this season brand new.

Review:

In the world of this series, people started mysteriously developing superpowers, called Quirks, some time ago. Now 80% of the world has them, and they're seen as normal.

Izuku Midoriya has looked up to the hero All Might since he was a child and always wanted to be just like him, so it was a huge blow when a doctor told him that he was Quirkless. Now that he's older, it's still his dream to attend U.A. High School, the top school for prospective heroes, but is that even possible for someone without a Quirk? Then one day he encounters All Might, learns his hero's biggest secret, and is gifted powers that could make his dream a reality, if he can ever figure out how to control them.

This is one of those enormously popular shows I've been meaning to try for years. It's now up to its fifth season, so I'm a wee bit behind.

My personal verdict: it's okay, but not the addictive experience I was expecting based on its popularity. I just checked, and it looks like it's streaming on Funimation, so I'll probably watch more of it, but if I didn't have a Funimation subscription I'm not sure whether I'd be continuing on. It felt like the show took ages to really get going, and there were too many characters introduced too quickly who almost all had at least a mild case of main character-itis. It was hard to really get to know any of them or get attached.

It also didn't help that I wasn't a fan of All Might's design. He was supposed to be this amazing and inspiring hero, and instead I thought his constant smile was a bit creepy. Also, the superhero schooling system seemed just as likely to produce bullies as heroes (I'm looking at you, Bakugo).

The big villains were introduced fairly late in the season and viewers were given no opportunity to learn their backstories or even much about their motives. I did want to find out more, but, again, if I didn't have access to Funimation's streaming catalog, I'm not sure I'd be willing to put in the effort and money.

There were definitely some things I found appealing. Although the effect of Midoriya's powers was worrisome (for the most part, he couldn't use them without seriously injuring himself), he demonstrated multiple times that he was smart enough to weigh different options and consider the consequences of using his powers too much or in the wrong moment. And All Might's secret made him more appealing than I think he would have been if he'd just been a stereotypical powerful hero - he had limitations he had to keep in mind and things he was trying to keep from revealing to anyone beyond a few people at U.A. High School.

Who knows, maybe this is one of those series that'll just take a while to grow on me. I suppose I'll find out when I watch Season 2.

Extras:

Nothing but trailers for other shows.

REVIEW: Angels of Death (anime TV series)

2021-08-02T18:37:00.005-05:00

Angels of Death is a psychological thriller series based on a game. I watched it on Funimation's streaming service.

Review:

Content warning for this series, beyond all the murderers: child abuse.

Rachel Gardner wakes up in the basement of a strange building with no memory of how she got there. The last thing she can recall is going to see a doctor because she'd witnessed a terrible murder. It isn't long before Zack, a scythe-wielding serial killer, finds her and tries to kill her. However, Zack isn't the only deadly person in the building - and all of them want to kill Rachel. Luckily (I guess), Rachel soon decides that she actually wants to die...but she wants Zack to be the one to kill her, and he won't do it unless she helps him escape.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this show. On the one hand, it completely hooked me, to the point that I watched the whole thing in a couple days. On the other hand, the ending left me unhappy. I'm not sure what a "good" ending would have looked like, but it definitely wasn't the ending I got.

I'd heard of this series before but didn't actually know much about it, going into it. I remembered seeing it on someone's "bad Japanese horror" list - I disagree that this was horror, though. Yes, it had a bunch of serial killers and some chases in it, but in reality it was more of a mystery/thriller.

It was apparent from the first episode that there was more going on with Rachel than she'd admitted, or possibly even knew. How did she end up there, and what happened to her before she got there that prompted her to want to die? Why were she and the others there? What was the building's purpose? After a while, I started to wonder if the building and everything Rachel was experiencing was even real, considering the kinds of things Zack was able to survive.

This series was originally an adventure game (which I haven't played), and its origins were pretty obvious - at times it felt like I was watching an animated "Let's Play" video or something, as Rachel tried to figure out each floor's various puzzles. Catherine Ward's floor was the most obviously adventure game-ish, due to a setup that forced Rachel and Zack to figure out puzzles in a series of rooms before they could finally directly confront Catherine.

That said, I still enjoyed it immensely, which I suspect wouldn't have been the case with the original game (it sounds like it has some nerve-wracking timed elements). Zack was charismatic and surprisingly sympathetic, considering that he was introduced as a psychotic killer. Once they started working together, his and Rachel's interactions were generally fun to watch. Zack was the enthusiastic muscle, prone to rushing in and worrying about the consequences later. Rachel was the more careful and logical thinker.

As much fun as it was to watch Rachel and Zack try to get past every obstacle the building threw in front of them, the pact they'd made cast a shadow over everything. Zack was a young man who'd been shaped by horrible experiences he'd had when he was a child. Rachel, too, had experienced horrible things prior to ending up in the building. Rachel kept reaffirming that she wanted Zack to kill her after they got out of the building, but would he be able to? And would she really want him to?

Strangely, finding out Zack's past made me feel sympathy for him, while the same didn't really hold true for Rachel, I think because Zack seemed like he might have been a normal kid prior to the horrible stuff he ended up doing, whereas Rachel...wasn't. In fact, Rachel's background got me to thinking about abuse, and how the series' message probably wasn't the best - at least three characters with horrible childhoods, all of whom went on to do horrible things in response. And yeesh, of all of them, Rachel's story probably rang the least true, emotionally. People just don't act like that.

I watched this on Funimation, which, for some reason, only had the English dub. Thankfully, the dub was pretty good. Dallas Reid was appealing as Zack, and Meg McClain managed pretty well considering that Rachel was supposed to be mostly emotionless. Part of me enjoyed this series enough to want to buy it and rewatch it in Japanese with English subtitles, and part of me wants to never see the ending again. Hmm. I'll probably end up getting it at some point, and stopping any rewatches just as they're about to go outside.

REVIEW: Talentless Nana, Season 1 (anime TV series)

2021-07-10T21:10:00.000-05:00

Talentless Nana is a sci-fi psychological thriller series. I watched it on Funimation's streaming site.

Review:

In the near future, monsters known as the "Enemies of Humanity" began to appear. People with superpowers also began to appear, and these "Talented" were best able to fight the Enemies of Humanity. In the series' present, Talented children are sent to a deserted island for special schooling and training so that they can one day fight against the Enemies of Humanity.

The current class includes people like Iijima Moguo, a loud bully whose ability is pyrokinesis, and Kori Seiya, a flirty guy whose ability is cryokinesis. However, there are also several students who do their best to hide their abilities, because there are rumors that the Enemies of Humanity made themselves look human and have infiltrated the island.

The class's newest students are Hiiragi Nana, a cheerful girl who can read minds, and Onodera Kyoya, a mysterious loner who refuses to reveal his ability. Nana attempts to befriend Nakajima Nanao, a timid and supposedly Talentless boy. Soon, however, tensions rise as the rumors about invading Enemies of Humanity appear to have some basis in the truth.

I've kept my description as spoiler-free as possible. When I first heard about this series, the general consensus seemed to be that it was good but that it was probably best to go in with as little information as possible. I actually went in completely blind and didn't even realize that it would involve characters with superhero abilities.

While I'm going to avoid including major spoilers in the rest of my review, the rest of this review will include what some folks may consider minor spoilers (related to the premise, but still). You've been warned.

In my effort to go into this series as blind as possible, I didn't even check what genre it fell under. However, even I could tell that something was off during the first episode. Most of the characters seemed a little too cheerful and cliche considering they were supposedly training to be soldiers in a war against literal monsters. Then there was the title of the show itself, Talentless Nana. Nana said she could read minds and seemed able to do so. Meanwhile, Nanao was the supposedly Talentless one.

Then the murders started, and the series became absolutely gripping. Viewers knew who committed most of the murders and how they were done. The thrill was in seeing whether or not the murderer could remain undetected. There were additional mysteries as well: the island's history, and the truth behind the basis for the murderer's motive. There was even an element of black comedy, since the murderer didn't know what everyone's abilities were from the start and occasionally had to do some panicked recalculations after, say, finding out that one of the students could raise the dead.

The world-building had holes in it that you could drive a truck through, but there were indications that aspect might have been intentional. Whether it was or not, I mostly didn't care - the action and various characters' mental gymnastics were fun to watch. Nana's voice actor was amazing, and Onodera's drove me nuts with deja vu until I figured out that he also voiced Abe in Big Windup! (the fact that both characters shared the same serious and stoic expressions and eyes increased the feeling of deja vu).

My biggest complaint is that the series ended with nothing resolved - one particular character made huge emotional strides, and I loved the friendship storyline, but otherwise there were loose threads everywhere. If a second season gets made, this won't be a big deal and might actually be a plus. There would be a clear emotional dividing line between the first and second seasons.

At any rate, I enjoyed this immensely, but in order for it to truly be great, it needs a proper ending. Here's hoping it gets one and doesn't end up in limbo, with anime fans having to turn to the manga to find out how the story ends.

REVIEW: The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent, Season 1 (anime TV series)

2021-07-04T11:25:00.001-05:00

The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent is a fantasy romance anime based on a light novel series of the same title. I watched it on Funimation's streaming site. This first season is 12 episodes long.

Review:

Sei is an exhausted office worker who suddenly finds herself transported to a new world, along with a teen girl named Aira. It turns out that this new world is dealing with some kind of magical miasma that causes monsters to appear, and a saint from another world is occasionally needed to dispel the miasma. But which one of them is the saint: Sei, Aira, or both of them?

Moments after the summoning spell is complete, Prince Kyle whisks Aira away, having immediately decided that the pretty young girl is definitely the saint. Sei is angry about being ignored and asks to go home, but that isn't an option. Plus, despite Kyle's certainty, there's no guarantee Sei isn't the saint. With nowhere else to go, Sei opts to work at the Medicinal Flora Research Institute, learning to make potions. She gradually makes friends and learns to love this world. But what will happen to this new life of hers if it turns out she's the real saint?

I was going to wait until after I'd read the first three novels before watching this, but I was having a rough weekend and decided I wanted to watch something light and undemanding. This seemed like a good pick.

I've read the first book and the first couple volumes of the manga. While I'm definitely not a newcomer to the series, I can at least say that events after episode 4 were new to me (I'm guessing the adaptation stuck to approximately four episodes per book).

This was definitely not a top tier series. The world and most of its characters were pretty generic. The same went for Sei and Albert Hawke's romance, which was heavily dependent upon Albert just being nice and handsome. Thinking about it now, they rarely (maybe just once?) sat down together and talked about themselves and their lives. It's a shame, because the romance turned out to be a pretty important plot point. It would have been nice for it to have a more solid foundation than "he's hot and she once saved him from dying."

Although lots of reviewers seem to view Sei's age (20-something) as something a little more fresh and new - similar series are more likely to star a character Aira's age - her behavior where romance was concerned still came across as very young to me. Albert was so restrained that, yes, his behavior towards Sei could initially be mistaken for politeness, but Sei continued to behave like a bashful schoolgirl until nearly the end of the season, after multiple people told her Albert was interested in her and he treated her like the center of his attention. The anime didn't make it as clear that this was Sei's first experience with romance, but even considering that, her complete inability to talk to Albert about their relationship was frustrating and annoying.

Anyway, based on what I've read so far, this was a pretty faithful adaptation, with one exception: the "Holy Magic: Level Infinity" thing was entirely dropped. In fact, all hints of any kind of RPG-like levels and leveling were dropped, possibly because those elements were fairly light to begin with and didn't absolutely need to be there.

The series started off fairly slow, but I still got into it enough to watch the entire thing over the course of a couple days. I still think aspects of it, like the romance, are more enjoyable in the novels (or at least the first one), but overall it wasn't bad. It's probably not one I'll be adding to my collection, though.

While the color scheme worked well in the color art for the novels and manga, it was a little too garish for the anime. Albert's uniform, in particular, was hideous. However, I did really enjoy the design and colors for Yuri Drewes - his light blue eyelashes combined with darker hair and eyes were surprisingly appealing. In general, that character pretty much stole the show whenever he was on-screen - I really enjoyed his laser-focused enthusiasm for magical research. Albert might have been handsome, but he was kind of...bland? I really wished he'd had more opportunities to relax and be Albert rather than Commander of the Third Order.

The key to Sei's saintly powers was a bit saccharine, and she was definitely an overpowered heroine whose primary limitation was just figuring out which things were possible and which weren't. Still, the series was generally more focused on the characters, their relationships, and Sei's discoveries in her new world, so her overpowered abilities didn't bug me too much.

All in all, this made for a nice few hours even if I never get the urge to rewatch it. I'd be willing to watch another season. It'll be interesting to see how I feel about the next couple novels by comparison.

REVIEW: Kuroko's Basketball, Season 2 (anime TV series)

2021-06-01T20:39:00.001-05:00

Kuroko's Basketball is a high school sports anime series. I watched it on Netflix. If you haven't seen Season 1, I highly recommend you do so before reading my review.

This review contains things that could be considered spoilers.

Review:

Season 2 starts with a street ball tournament that introduces viewers to Tatsuya Himuro, Kagami's childhood friend and the person who got him started with playing basketball. Although they were very close friends, Himuro now sees Kagami as his rival and thinks they must abandon their friendship in order to play each other seriously.

Then the series moves on to the Winter Cup preliminaries, beginning with Seirin vs. Josei (no Generation of Miracles characters here, and I literally can't remember a thing about this match). After that, Seirin faces off against several other teams, including Kirisaki Dai'ichi (known for playing dirty), Shutoku (Midorima's team), To'o (Aomine's team), and Yosen (Murasakibara and Himuro's team).

The season also takes a break a few times for things like a flashback to Kiyoshi starting Seirin's basketball team, special training efforts, and a trip to a hot spring.

I enjoyed the first season, but during the second season this series started to lose a bit of its shine. It was all a little too dramatic and serious. I was overly aware of just how ridiculous it was that these supposed high schoolers had names for all their special moves and techniques. Like "Vice Grip." Dude, you're just grabbing the ball. Yes, you're grabbing it in mid-air, but still. And that whole "Right of Postponement" thing, which was such a magical-sounding name it felt like it could have come straight out of Naruto. (Both of these are Kiyoshi's abilities, so it feels like I'm picking on him, sorry - he's actually my favorite type of character, the "dependable older brother.")

It felt like this season was a lot more fanservice-y, too. More shippable character dynamics (Kagami and Himuro literally had matching rings), the hot springs episode in which Hyuga spent an awful lot of time walking around without a towel and Riko and Satsuki had boob rivalry moments, and Alexandra Garcia the child molester (I'm sorry, but her tendency towards grabbing high schoolers and kissing them was more off-putting than funny - do Japanese people see Americans as being overly physically affectionate and prone to inappropriate nudity?).

While Kuroko's new techniques were clever, if over-the-top, it felt like the series hit a wall where characters like Kagami and Aomine were concerned. It's frequently a problem that shonen anime characters are depicted as being so talented, right from the start, that there isn't really a way for them to truly get better, and Kuroko's Basketball is no exception. The only thing that could be done for already powerful characters like Kagami and Aomine was to introduce "the Zone" - a real-life thing that was depicted as though character who entered the Zone became basketball playing robots complete with electricity flashing from their eyes. Players in the Zone were unbeatable except against other players in the Zone, which was an idea that quickly became boring. I'm sorry, but I'd rather hear about new tricks and techniques rather than "player enters a magical state that makes them play perfectly for just as long as the story requires it."

Seirin's match against To'o was unbearably long, and Seirin's match against Yosen wasn't much better in that respect. I like a little bit of nail-biting suspense, but this dragged on so long and got so bad that I actually looked up spoilers so I could take the edge off a bit.

If Netflix picks up Season 3, I'll watch it because I'm still interested in the characters and want to finally see Akashi in action (although I'm more than a little worried that he's going to be both scarily sadistic and stupidly powerful). That said, I think Season 2 killed my desire to own the series - these aren't the kind of matches I'd find enjoyable to rewatch.

REVIEW: The Way of the Househusband (anime TV series)

2021-05-11T19:38:00.001-05:00

The Way of the Househusband is a slice of life comedy series. Wikipedia says it's an "original net animation," which may be a better way to refer to it than "TV series," since that perhaps sets different kinds of expectations.

Review:

Tatsu is a former yakuza boss who was known as the "Immortal Dragon." He's now happily married and a dedicated househusband, putting the same attitude and energy into grocery shopping, cleaning, and cooking that he once put into facing off against other yakuza. In fact, his yakuza life hasn't quite left him behind - he keeps coming across old associates, and the police can't help but figure that he must be up to no good.

When I heard that this series was being made into an anime, I was really excited. I figured that movement, sound, and voice acting could really bring this series alive and turn what I thought was a decent but uneven manga series into a fabulous comedic anime.

I didn't watch the trailer, but I knew that early viewer reactions were...not good. Lots of people talking about how bad the animation was. But I figured (hoped) that that was just the usual fan grumbles you find with pretty much any series that gets any attention. Since I already had a Netflix subscription, it wouldn't take anything more than a bit of my time to give the series a shot.

I hate to say it, but the first episode in particular had me thinking "They were right." I've read that the animation style was a deliberate choice. I can certainly believe that, but that doesn't stop it from looking cheap. Very little movement, and a lot of reliance on manga speed/focus lines and sound to create the illusion of movement. Or at least to attempt to create it. It was not good, and to make matters worse, the artwork occasionally looked off.

Things got a little better after the first episode, but overall this was an underwhelming experience. The flow from one scene to the next was terrible, and the effect was extremely choppy. Scenes I remembered liking in the manga didn't communicate as well in the anime. I think part of the problem is that there wasn't any time to really pause and enjoy some of the more ridiculous moments. The only time I laughed was during the cockroach bit.

The voice acting was decent - Kenjiro Tsuda (Tatsu), in particular, did a wonderful job, especially during the Happy Birthday song. Still, I hate to say it, but I don't recommend this. If you're able to, stick with the manga.

REVIEW: Erased (anime TV series)

2021-05-10T11:37:00.000-05:00

Erased is a mystery/psychological thriller with time travel aspects. I watched it on Netflix.

This review includes spoilers. I don't reveal who the killer is, but I do mention other details that could be considered spoilery.

Review:

Content warning for this series: child abuse, murder, animal cruelty/death (hamsters)

Satoru is a loner who wants to become a manga artist but is currently working as a pizza delivery guy. The only people in his life are his mother, a former journalist, and Airi, an optimistic teenage coworker of his. Satoru has a special skill that no one knows about: occasionally he experiences something he calls "revival," in which he's transported a few minutes backwards in time. When this happens to him, he finds himself instinctively looking for details that are out of place. Sometimes he's able to avert a disaster, and sometimes he's not. In quite a few instances, his actions negatively affect him, so he's not entirely sure why he bothers.

Then one day Satoru's ability helps his mother prevent the attempted kidnapping of a child. Satoru doesn't think anything of it, but his mother's journalistic instincts kick in and she realizes that the kidnapper may be the same person who killed several children at and near Satoru's school when he was little. Unfortunately, her realization leads to her murder. Satoru finds himself on the run, under suspicion of being her killer. "Revival" gives him a chance to make things right, somehow transporting him all the way back to his childhood to stop the killer when he and Satoru first crossed paths.

I watched the live action version a while back and enjoyed it well enough, but the anime is overall much better. I haven't read the manga yet, but when it comes to watchable versions of this story, if you only have time for one, go with the anime. That said, there's value in watching both. Although the killer is the same in both the anime and live action versions, the way things are handled, especially in the second half/last third of the series, is very different.

This is one of those series I'd even recommend to anime beginners: it has none of the usual anime cliches that might turn newbies off or confuse them (no sweatdrops, no boob grabbing jokes, etc.), the psychological thriller aspect has broad appeal, and in general the series was filmed in a way that I think would feel comfortable to someone used to live action shows.

Even though I knew how things were going to turn out, I loved watching it all play out. The animation was great, and the story was tighter than I recalled the live action being. Also, some of the things that bothered me in the live action were less of an issue here. Although Satoru's mother was still an awesome lady and high on my list of great anime moms, for some reason the way the last third of the series was set up didn't feel quite so much like she'd been cheated out of a good professional future - maybe there was less focus on her work in the anime than in the live action? I'm not sure. I also wasn't quite as bothered by how things turned out in the time jump, but maybe that's because I knew not to expect Satoru to be paired up with anyone.

I did have a few issues with the series. The way things were resolved with the killer came off more like a fizzle than a bang. It was odd for the killer to just...give themselves up like that. Attempted suicide would have been more believable, considering the emotional beats the series was hitting at that point. And the way Satoru handled things was enormously risky - sure, he had a plan, but it relied heavily on things going a very specific way. If this hadn't been a TV series, he almost certainly would have gotten himself killed.

Also, I really wasn't a fan of how things went with Kayo's mother. The only good thing about that portion of the story is that there was no sickeningly sweet "forgiveness" scene - that would have been enraging, considering what Kayo's mother did to Kayo in the various timelines Satoru experienced. Still, I did not appreciate the attempt to make the audience sympathize with her. Okay, so Kayo's father used to abuse her. I really don't care. That's not an excuse for abusing your daughter every Saturday.

All in all, I highly recommend this series and hope it one day gets an affordable Blu-ray/DVD release. It looks like it might not be available anymore, at least on Right Stuf, but I know that when it was, it was being sold for well over $100. It'll be a sad day when Netflix removes this gem from their streaming catalog.

REVIEW: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Season 1 (anime TV series)

2021-04-24T10:48:00.001-05:00

Demon Slayer is a historical-ish dark fantasy action series. I watched it on Netflix.

Review:

Tanjiro is a kind-hearted and gentle young man who is known for his incredibly powerful sense of smell - he even has the ability to smell emotions. Ever since his sickly father died, Tanjiro has taken over the responsibilities of supporting his mother and younger siblings. However, one day he goes out to sell charcoal and gets home later than expected, only to find that nearly his entire family has been murdered by demons, which he hadn't even thought were real. The only "survivor" is his sister Nezuko, but her exposure to demon blood has transformed her into a demon herself. Nezuko appears to be special, however - although most demons are stripped of their humanity and cannot resist eating humans, Nezuko is somehow able to resist her urges and remember that Tanjiro is someone she loves and wants to protect.

In an effort to learn how to transform Nezuko back into a human, Tanjiro becomes a Demon Slayer. His ultimate goal is to find Muzan Kibutsuji, the demon who killed his family, and get him to change Nezuko back and then kill him.

This was wildly popular when it first aired, and I'd heard a lot of good things about it. I've been watching anime for long enough that it's getting harder to wow me, but I still enjoyed this series. If it weren't ridiculously expensive (limited edition is $260 for the full season, standard edition is $98, curse you Aniplex of America), I'd probably buy a copy of the first season just to make sure to have it in my collection when Netflix inevitably removes it from its streaming catalog.

One of the things I'd heard was that the visuals were amazing. I was initially a bit disappointed, since all the praise led me to expect something more clearly off the beaten path, but it got more impressive as the series progressed. The animation was crisp and clean, the use of CGI was well-done, and there were some environments and visual effects during battles that I thought were really good. Breathing techniques were a huge focus of demon slayer abilities in this series. Tanjiro's primary abilities relied on Water Breathing, with his sword strokes depicted as powerful waves that reminded me of Hokusai's "The Great Wave" woodblock print. And the camera work during the Mansion episodes and the bit with the Biwa demon was great, and I'm guessing only possible due to the CGI environments used in those episodes.

Tanjiro initially seemed like he'd be an annoying protagonist doomed to spend a lot of time crying about his sister before pulling amazing fighting techniques out of thin air. However, I grew to love him as the series progressed. He was very earnest and genuinely kind and gentle. If it hadn't been for his family being murdered, he'd probably have lived his entire life never harming anyone, but even becoming a demon slayer didn't change his basic nature. He killed demons to prevent them from harming others, but had enough empathy to care about the humans they were before they were transformed, and to comfort them as they died and remembered a little about who they used to be. And just becoming a demon slayer in the first place wasn't an easy process for him - it took two solid years of constant training, with him realizing later that there was still far more for him to learn.

Before watching this, my exposure to the series was mostly limited to the fandom's focus on how cute Nezuko was. I have to say, she disappointed me a little. Yes, she was cute, and yes, she could be an impressive fighter when necessary, but she didn't have much personality. It was tough to say what her perception of the world was even like - she remembered enough of her humanity to know that she loved Tanjiro and her other family members, but her way of living made it tough to tell anything beyond that. Unlike most demons, who ate humans to heal themselves and add to their power, Nezuko spent most of her time sleeping. Tanjiro's mentor helped her resist her urges to eat humans by hypnotizing her into thinking that all humans were her family members, so I wasn't sure whether she even remembered exactly what happened to her mother and other siblings.

The cast eventually grew, and I generally enjoyed finding out more about them, even if I didn't always like them. The most annoying of the bunch was probably Zenitsu, who whined and cried all the time about how he was going to die and who mistook female characters' very existence for signs of love. Inosuke, the feral and short-tempered demon slayer who wore a boar head as a mask, was like Naruto times a thousand, boasting about how awesome he was, charging into battle without a hint of fear, and shouting at everyone. However, he eventually grew on me, and I absolutely loved how Tanjiro's earnestness would give him secret warm fuzzy feelings he didn't really know how to process.

The series managed to effectively use horror and violence by not making it a constant thing. There were a lot of gentle and humorous moments, and of course Tanjiro's general kindness. This meant that bloodier and more violent moments packed a punch - I'd somehow forget that the series could have really dark moments, and then bam, a demon accidentally invoked Muzan Kibutsuji's curse, or Muzan Kibutsuji tortured someone just because he was in a bad mood. I'm not a huge fan of gore, but the few moments I couldn't bring myself to watch (which, I know, weren't as bad as they could have been - more sounds and glimpses than true on-screen awfulness) didn't feel like gore for gore's sake so much as a reminder of just what Tanjiro was up against.

In an effort to keep the story moving, there were a few things that either initially confused me or had me raising an eyebrow. For example, at one point Tanjiro was told that he might be able to find help for his sister if he could collect blood from demons with a lot of Muzan Kibutsuji's blood in them. The problem? Demons literally disintegrate when they die, not even leaving blood behind. I wondered how Tanjiro was supposed to collect blood in that situation, and yet he never asked. It wasn't until he had to collect some blood that it was revealed that he'd had been told off-screen what he needed to do. I had similar questions about the way physical injuries were handled. Demon slayers were supposedly regular humans, and yet here Tanjiro was, somehow walking into yet another battle with a broken leg and ribs. Breathing techniques and determination apparently solve a lot of demon slayer problems.

If there's a way for me to do it that doesn't involve forking over a ton of money or paying Crunchyroll anything, I definitely plan to watch the next season (season 1 just stopped rather than ending in a satisfying way, so I'm glad to see that there is definitely going to be another season). It'd be nice to eventually add the series to my collection as well, but that's likely only going to happen if the price goes down a bit.

REVIEW: Lupin, Part 1 (live action TV series)

2021-04-04T20:21:00.001-05:00

Lupin is a contemporary-set French thriller series. It's streaming on Netflix, and Part 1 is 5 episodes long.

This review includes slight spoilers.

Review:

In the series' present, Assane Diop is a clever and cool-headed thief and master of disguise who takes his inspiration from Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin. Flashbacks gradually reveal his motives. When he was a teen, his father was arrested for the theft of an expensive necklace from his employer, Hubert Pellegrini. While in prison, Assane's father committed suicide...or was it murder? In the present, Assane seeks to find out what really happened to his father and who was responsible.

When I first heard about this series, I thought it was going to be a contemporary-set adaptation of the Arsene Lupin stories. I liked what I read of that series and was interested in seeing that, but discovering that it was actually about a man who was inspired by those stories was fine too.

Part 1 didn't bother to show much of the period between "Assane the orphaned teen" and "Assane the slick and charming thief," which I didn't mind too much. I liked the series best when Assane was in his element, smoothly pulling off thefts right in front of people and tricking his way into and out of tight spaces.

However, Assane was not an infallible master thief. His obsession with Lupin was a weakness that those hunting him could exploit. Also, he had loved ones who didn't know the truth about what he was doing. Claire, his ex-girlfriend (ex-wife??), knew he was involved in shady stuff and broke up with him because all the secrecy and broken promises were too much for her. However, she still maintained a friendly relationship with him, which was good considering that she was also the mother of his child. Raoul, Assane's son, had no clue about any of the stuff Assane was up to, although he learned to love Arsene Lupin just like his father.

Race came up a few times in the series, although not so much directly as in the assumptions of characters and even viewers. In the first episode, for example, Assane was introduced as part of the cleaning staff at the Louvre, apparently barely scraping by. He and Claire were friendly, but there were indications that he'd previously been late giving her money for child support and that he couldn't really afford to give her the money he was giving her now. He needed extra cash and had big plans to get it, but could he pull it off? By the end of the episode, however, viewers got to learn how much of what they'd just seen was true, how much was false, and how much they'd filled in themselves based on how Assane had been presented to them.

Most (all?) of the episodes had at least one moment in which Assane met someone who said something to the effect of "I didn't expect someone like you [to spend millions on a necklace, uncover dirt on one of the most powerful men in the country, etc.]." His response was always a pointed "Someone like me?" At which time the speaker hastily came up with an explanation that wasn't "a Black guy," even though it was clear that's what they'd actually meant.

So far this seems to be a fairly tightly focused series - other than a scene or two during the flashbacks, no side trips to pull off thefts unrelated to Assane's father's death. I admit, that's been a little disappointing, since watching Assane convince people to happily hand over their stuff is entertaining, but hopefully that means the series as a whole has a coherent plan and will come to a satisfying conclusion. I'm looking forward to seeing what Part 2 will be like (I kind of wish I'd waited until that was out before watching Part 1), and I'm crossing my fingers that Assane and his friends and family all make it through okay.

Note: There is an adorable dog named J'accuse (who has been trained to bark whenever Pellegrini's name is mentioned - "J'accuse" indeed). At one point, the dog appears to potentially be in peril. If you're like me and fret about animals, allow me to reassure you that the dog makes it through just fine.

REVIEW: Kaguya-sama: Love is War, Season 1 (anime TV series)

2021-03-13T23:28:00.001-06:00

Kaguya-sama: Love is War is a romantic comedy series. I watched it on Funimation's streaming service.

Review:

Kaguya is Vice President of the Shuchi'in Academy Student Council. She's a brilliant and wealthy young lady who has been raised since birth to think of all her social interactions and relationships, including love, as power struggles. She's initially amused when she learns that much of her school thinks that she and Shirogane, the Student Council President, are a couple. They're not a couple, but she decides that she wouldn't mind dating him, as long as he asks her first. After all, in romantic relationships, the first person to admit their feelings aloud is at a disadvantage.

Shirogane, the President of the Shuchi'in Academy Student Council, comes from an ordinary family and isn't naturally brilliant, so he maintains his reputation and status at the school by studying every chance he gets. He's pretty sure Kaguya sees him as beneath her but decides that he'd be okay with dating her...if she asked him first.

Although neither one of them is willing to admit it to themselves, they're both in love with each other. Will they be too stubborn to ever admit it?

I've read and enjoyed a little of the manga. I've wanted to see the anime for some time, but it's an Aniplex of America title and therefore almost $100 for 12 episodes. I couldn't justify the expense. When I saw that the series was in Funimation's streaming catalog, I bumped it up to the top of my To Be Watched list.

Although it has some rough spots, I think I enjoyed the anime more than what I've read of the manga. For some reason the jokes made me laugh more and harder. Possibly the Japanese voice actors had something to do with it? Also, I know that the anime didn't adapt everything - some of the stuff it skipped (like Kaguya and Shirogane's battles over word games and puzzles) were things that didn't translate well and had to be explained with translator's notes in the manga.

For the most part, the series leaned heavily on the comedy part of "romantic comedy" - Kaguya and Shirogane weren't always the sort of couple you'd root for and were actually kind of frustrating in their inability to talk to each other like normal people. I loved the way Fujiwara acted as a chaotic element in their relationship, messing up their plans. Overall, though, Fujiwara was the "normal" person in the bunch - if she wanted to text someone, she just did it and couldn't understand why Kaguya and Shirogane were making such a big deal out of it. One of my favorite parts was when she agreed to help Shirogane improve his volleyball skills - her voice acting and visuals were hilarious in those scenes.

As the season progressed, viewers got to see more of Kaguya's vulnerable side. She was expected to behave like a perfect lady, doing as she was told whenever she was told, even if that meant missing out on things she really wanted to do. For a brief period, Kaguya and Shirogane became a more stereotypical shoujo series couple, kept apart as much by the difference in their social classes as by their own stubbornness. Then they switched back to their usual awkward and stubborn selves by the end of the series, which I'm guessing sets the stage for Season 2 to follow a similar pattern: heavier on the comedy throughout the first two thirds or so, and then more drama and romance near the end.

My least favorite moment was the "Kaguya is sick" episode, in which Kaguya's personal servant made it clear to Shirogane that he had three undisturbed hours in which to do whatever he wanted to Kaguya (who was so sick that she was acting like an adorable child). Kaguya understandably freaked out about it after her fever broke, and although Shirogane hadn't done anything, it briefly drove a wedge in their relationship. I understand that Ai was probably frustrated with the lack of progress in Kaguya and Shirogane's relationship and hoped to speed things up a bit, but it was a gross move.

Then there was Ishigami, a character I simultaneously loved and hated. I got a kick out of the way he noticed stuff about Kaguya that none of the other characters had, like the way she'd sometimes get jealous and decide she hated Fujiwara. However, there were times when he leaned a little too hard on the gross gamer boy stereotype, and I was right there with Kaguya and Fujiwara, wishing he'd shut up.

Overall, I enjoyed this. It's similar, in a lot of ways, to other series I've enjoyed - His and Her Circumstances (romantic comedy/drama in which the main characters play "perfect student" roles in public but are different in private) and Special A (romance between two rivals, with some social class difference issues), to name a few. If it ever gets a more affordable physical release, I may add it to my collection. I certainly plan to watch Season 2.

REVIEW: Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, So I'll Max Out My Defense, Season 1 (anime TV series)

2021-03-13T22:07:00.001-06:00

Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, So I'll Max Out My Defense is technically a sci-fi series, since it's focused on a pair of teen girls who play a highly advanced VRMMORPG. However, since it mostly takes place in the RPG world, it feels like fantasy. I watched it on Funimation's streaming service.

Some aspects of this review may count as slight spoilers.

Review:

Kaede's never been much of a gamer, but she gives NewWorld Online, a VRMMORPG, a try on the recommendation of Risa, her best friend. Risa can't start yet due to needing to concentrate on her schoolwork, so Kaede does her best to figure things out on her own. She names her avatar Maple and, because she doesn't want to get hurt, puts all of her skill points on defense. Initially, this looks like a bad move - because she has no points on Agility, she can't move fast, and her attacks are weak and limited to trying to hit enemies with her shield or just plain falling on them.

However, with a bit of luck and a tendency to try out wacky things like eating her enemies to death, Maple manages to acquire some amazing skills. Eventually, Risa (called "Sally" in the game) joins her and chooses to play the swashbuckler class. They gradually grow stronger, make friends, and participate in in-game events.

This is based on a light novel series I'd considered buying and reading. Once upon a time, I had this goal of reading at least a little of every light novel series I could get my hands on. However, there are now a lot more English translated light novel series than there used to be, and a large percentage of them aren't very good. Also, I'm pretty much out of storage space. Since this series was part of Funimation's streaming catalog, I figured I'd watch it and then decide whether the light novels might be worth trying.

The verdict: I doubt I'll be reading this series. The anime was more fun than I expected, but it had some issues that I imagine would be excruciating in the original light novels.

I didn't know much about this beyond what its title said. I figured it might be another "stuck in a VRMMORPG game" series, like Sword Art Online or Log Horizon, but it turned out to just be about people playing a game and having fun with it. It was surprisingly low stakes - sure, they all wanted to defeat enemies and win in-game events so that they could get better skills and items, but there were no real drawbacks if they lost. Risa warned Kaede a couple times about remembering to keep up with her studies so that her parents wouldn't ground her from gaming, but that was handled in a pretty chill way too. The one thing I thought had potential to turn into something bigger was a brief period in which Kaede's body had trouble remembering that she wasn't in the game anymore - someone would bump into her and she'd react like she would in the game, like she was about to be attacked. But all she did was take a break from the game for a few days and this issue was never brought up again.

Everyone was extremely nice. When Maple was a newbie asking for help, no one tried to mess with her. There were no griefers, no spammers, no cheaters, no creeps, and no thieves. When Maple eventually formed a guild, she added several people she barely knew and immediately treated them like friends. Although one of them was briefly surprised at the level of trust she displayed (Maple let him borrow her in-game pet, which he then could have stolen if he'd wanted to), everyone was on their best gaming behavior. It was nice, if not particularly believable.

The series followed a definite pattern - Maple would go out, alone or with friends, and find a strong enemy, which she'd then somehow defeat with her increasingly game-breakingly powerful skills, at which time she'd acquire new game-breaking skills. Since Maple wasn't naturally inclined towards PvP combat, there were occasional in-game events that made PvP a strong likelihood. Occasionally viewers would get peeks at characters I assume were the developers, debating how and whether to put limitations on Maple so that she wouldn't become too powerful and ruin the game.

I know some people found the series to be too repetitive, and I totally understand that viewpoint - it's one of the reasons why I've decided I won't be touching the light novels. But in the anime, at least, the humor, finding out what new skills Maple would acquire, and the overall niceness of Maple's gaming experience helped keep things from becoming too boring for me. My favorite moments were the quest in which Maple realized that her skills made some of the NPC dialogue nonsensical since she skipped the experiences that normal players would have had, and pretty much any time Maple used Atrocity (even though her last use of it seemed unfairly powerful).

The one skill I wish Maple hadn't gained: Machine God. It didn't fit the overall look and feel of the series. It was like someone let a Gurren Lagann fan run amok for a bit.

I really liked the series' focus on friendship and having fun (zero romance so far, FYI), and I'm hoping that Season 2 digs into the real-world lives of characters besides Kaede and Risa. We don't know enough about most of them to even know how much of the way their characters act is role playing and how much is who they really are. The most interesting one of the bunch is Mii, the charismatic guild master of the Flame Emperors. Although she acts confident in public, she cries and beats herself up every time she fails at anything. For a while, Payne looked like he might be another interesting character - for some reason, for most of the series his face was hidden - but then he turned out to be just another skilled gamer, with little else that made him stand out.

This series has no depth and not much in the way of originality, but it's nice, cozy, and has a few amusing and/or surprising moments. It's not something I feel like I need to own, but I enjoyed watching it and plan to watch Season 2 when it's available.

REVIEW: Cells at Work!, Season 1 (anime TV series)

2021-03-04T23:41:00.001-06:00

Cells at Work! is a combination comedy, workplace, and edutainment anime series. The first season is 13 episodes long, plus one OVA.

Review:

Red Blood Cell works hard and has her heart in the right place, but she tends to get a little lost when attempting to deliver oxygen and nutrients. She also has terrible luck when it comes to staying safe - she encounters viruses and dangerous bacteria with alarming frequency. Luckily, whenever disaster strikes White Blood Cell (Neutrophil) is there to save the day.

Each episode in the first season deals with a different topic: how the body defends itself against viruses, bacteria, and cancer, how minor injuries are repaired, what the various cells do, etc. All of the body's cells are anthropomorphized. Red Blood Cell is depicted as a delivery girl (possibly a sickle cell, based on her sickle-shaped lock of hair and her difficulty with circulating properly). White Blood Cell is dressed in a white uniform and behaves fiercely and violently at the slightest sign that invaders are present. Killer T Cells are musclebound military men, Macrophages are murderous maids, Platelets are adorable little children, and so on.

I've wanted to watch this show for a while, but the Blu-ray price was prohibitive (it's an Aniplex of America title, of course). I couldn't justify spending $140 on 14 episodes of a series I figured I'd probably enjoy but not love enough to want to rewatch in the future. Then it popped up on Netflix, and I spotted it in Funimation's streaming catalog. I decided to give it a try with Funimation, since I opted to continue my subscription past the free trial period, but I'll mention that I did consider switching over to Netflix to stream it because Funimation's choice of white subtitles on black bars annoys me (although possibly Netflix's subtitles for this series are the same? I haven't checked).

While I did enjoy the series quite a bit, I still think $140 is far too much to pay. I'm glad I streamed it and will probably watch Season 2 once that's complete, but it's not something I particularly feel like I need to add to my collection.

I'd qualify this as edutainment, but the educational aspects feel pretty light. Yes, the plot of each episode is built around an educational topic, but the anthropomorphizing and overall humor could make the information a little difficult to follow. There were times I wished that the series would give more (or any) bigger picture views of what was going on - the narrator would explain some aspects, but it was left up to viewers to picture what the person all of these cells lived inside was experiencing.

The characters were fun to watch, and I really liked their designs. My favorites were probably White Blood Cell, Macrophage (particularly in the episode where their other identity was revealed - if my high school science classes ever covered that, I completely forgot it), Dendritic Cell, and the Platelets. Watching White Blood Cell quietly rooting for Red Blood Cell (and, in one episode, do his best to help her without her finding out) was enjoyable.

There were several cliched anime character types, and yet the series stayed true to its science/edutainment foundation and never stooped to pairing any of those types up and cramming in romance. These are cells, after all. They don't do romance. It was kind of nice to watch something with a bunch of characters focused on supporting each other purely as friends and coworkers.

My favorite episodes from this first season were the hemorrhagic shock ones. The body had faced several serious-looking threats up to that point, including heat stroke and a horrifying parasite, but the injury and its aftermath in the hemorrhagic shock episodes was truly dire. I actually found myself tearing up as the Red Blood Cells struggled to deliver oxygen to dying regular cells and White Blood Cell found himself moving around in eerily empty areas.

If you've got immunology, cell biology, or circulatory anatomy tests coming up, this is not going to replace actually reading your textbook. But if you'd like something amusing and mildly educational, this is a good series to watch.

REVIEW: Heaven Official's Blessing, Season 1 (donghua TV series)

2021-02-18T12:23:00.001-06:00

Heaven Official's Blessing is a Chinese animated (donghua) fantasy series. It's based on a novel of the same name.

Review:

Xie Lian was the Crown Prince of the Xian Le kingdom about 800 years ago. He ascended to heaven at a young age, only to get kicked out, ascend another time, get kicked out again, and then ascend a third time about the time this series starts. He's now pretty much a joke among the other heaven officials (deities?), and no one in the mortal realm even builds temples for him anymore.

Since his third ascension causes a bunch of damage in heaven, Xie Lian is instructed to go to the mortal realm to investigate rumors of a supposed ghost groom who's been stealing away a bunch of brides. Because he has no mana anymore, he's given two assistants (who'd really rather be elsewhere and don't even like each other very much). During the course of his investigation, he crosses paths with Hua Cheng, a Devastation level demon (ghost? can't recall) who makes all of heaven shiver in fear...and yet for some reason Hua Cheng seems surprisingly gentle towards Xie Lian.

In later episodes, Xie Lian attempts to gain followers by building a temple for himself and travels to a desert city to investigate disappearances of merchant caravans.

I've read up to maybe chapter 70 of the novel on which this series is based, and so far it seems to be a pretty faithful adaptation, just missing some of the details that might make a few of the cultural aspects and flashback scenes make more sense. I'd previously attempted to get into several versions (novel, animation, live action TV series) of the author's other work, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi), but the pacing and overall darkness always eventually lost me. So far, Heaven Official's Blessing has been working better for me, not necessarily because the plot is better, but because the romance aspects, which I've been very much enjoying, are more front and center. Which made me wonder how the TV series would handle things, what with Chinese censorship and the central romance involving two men.

So far, though, the TV series is doing such a fabulous job I'm surprised it got past the censors. I suppose there's still plausible deniability - Xie Lian only has one bed, so of course he and San Lang had to share it. And San Lang wasn't flirting when Xie Lian helped him with his hair, he was just being a cheeky youth. Oh, and Xie Lian was pretending to be a bride, so a little tender hand holding with a handsome ghost groom just helped his disguise be more believable. Uh huh.

Then the special episode came out, with its series of flashbacks that were basically a gift to fans of the central romance. Bless everyone involved in that episode - it was so good. This series has had zero physical interaction beyond occasional hand-holding, but the central relationship screams "slow-burn romance" - Xie Lian was oblivious but affected, while his love interest was clearly happy to be around him and kept throwing longing glances his way. Episode 12 put the spotlight on that through a combination of reworked visuals and even a tiny bit of dialogue.

The real test for this series is going to be how the romance is allowed to develop. The slow-burn is wonderful, but if censorship never allows it to go anywhere, I'm not sure that the surrounding stories are strong enough to make up for it. I liked the ghost groom investigation well enough, despite the emotional aspects falling a bit flat, but the Banyue storyline was confusing. But who knows, the place I'm at in the novel isn't too far past where season 1 of the TV series ended, so there may be some really great events coming up. I'm looking forward to the flashback period set during the time when Xie Lian was still Crown Prince, and the gambling part will be amazing, if only for the interactions between Xie Lian and Hua Cheng.

I've spent years considering signing up for Funimation's streaming service. This show is what made me finally break down and do it, and so far I don't regret it. It was definitely worth binging, and Funimation's plans to give it an English dub make me think they may also have plans to give it a physical release. I hope so, because I'd love to own this series on DVD or Blu-Ray so I could rewatch my favorite parts anytime I wanted. Although hopefully by that time they'll have the subtitles cleaned up. I really hope the current quality is due to the speed required for simulcasting - they read like fan translations and/or like the translator wasn't a native speaker of English. There were multiple times when even I could tell that other word or phrase choices might have been more appropriate. Well, at the very least the planned English dub should have a smoother translation - I'm looking forward to it.

REVIEW: Kuroko's Basketball, Season 1 (anime TV series)

2021-02-14T00:12:00.000-06:00

Kuroko's Basketball is a sports anime. I watched it on Netflix.

Review:

Every young basketball player knows about them: the Generation of Miracles. They were five basketball prodigies on the same middle school team. However, although they got the most attention and glory, there was a quiet sixth member of their team who they all respected and acknowledged: Tetsuya Kuroko.

Kuroko is now in high school, and his new team is initially excited to have him. If he was on that team, he must be good, right? Except that he seems to be pretty terrible. His athletic ability is average at best, and he can't score. He has almost no presence, to the point where people often don't even realize he's there...and that turns out to be his secret weapon. He's a shadow - he helps the team as a whole, particularly its strongest player, score by slipping in unnoticed and passing the ball at crucial moments. In this new team, the light to Kuroko's shadow is Kagami, a talented player who spent his middle school years in the US.

In this first season, Kuroko and his new team face off against three different members of the Generation of Miracles: Kise (a handsome player who learns quickly and can copy any technique he sees as long as he's physically capable of it), Midorima (a stern player whose life is ruled by horoscopes and who believes that perfect shots are everything), and Aomine (the ace of the Generation of Miracles, a player whose style is quick, instinctive, and agile). The final episodes of the season pit Kise against Aomine.

I'm pretty sure I read some of the manga this was based on, but I think it was only a few chapters, not even a full volume, because almost nothing that happened in this first season was familiar to me.

I had a lot of fun with this anime, even though I didn't for a moment believe that the Generation of Miracles characters were the ages they were supposed to be, particularly in the middle school flashbacks. At one point it was mentioned that Kise wouldn't be able to copy NBA players because their physical level was beyond his, but the way the games were presented, it was difficult to believe that there was anyone the Generation of Miracles players couldn't beat, NBA players included.

I love series in which seemingly weak characters actually turn out to be really powerful when they find the one thing they're really good at and figure out how to make use of it. Kuroko was one of those characters - useless on his own, but brilliant at passing to players who had a better chance of scoring than he did (which was pretty much everyone - I don't think he ever managed to score, even during practice). Even better, he was the kind of character who preferred to assist others from the shadows - another one of my favorite character types. He wasn't depicted as the brilliant strategist sort (see Log Horizon's Shiroe), but he could definitely think on his feet and figure out the best way for his very specific skillset to benefit his team.

Some sports series take you through the rules of the game and spend a large amount of time on the team's first practice game before moving on to games with higher stakes. Kuroko's Basketball jumped right into a practice game and then immediately moved on to the Interhigh preliminaries (or whatever it was called - I didn't keep track) before slowing down a bit and spending some time on a training retreat episode or two. I have zero interest in real-life sports, but even I know the basics of basketball, so the lack of introductory info wasn't a problem. I enjoyed the series' energy, even as I shook my head a bit at aspects of the setup. In addition to the Generation of Miracles guys not being at all believable as high schoolers, I had to laugh when I realized that this show barely had any adults. Most of the teams had adults as coaches, but not Kuroko's new team - they had a high school student whose father was a basketball coach (somehow this gave her the magical ability to see and quantify a person's physical skills just by looking at their body).

So far, one of the series' appeals is finding out what each of the Generation of Miracles players' quirks and particular skills are. Of course, they're all ridiculously good, and there's still a couple more players I haven't gotten to see in action much: Murasakibara (who surely must have abilities beyond "being very tall") and Akashi (who I gather was the Generation of Miracles' brilliant strategist, possibly the male version of Satsuki Momoi). After that, it'll be interesting to see whether the series can keep my interest.

Of course, that's assuming I ever get to see more of this series. Netflix only has the first season so far, and I checked, Right Stuf doesn't have any of the seasons available for purchase. I suppose I could watch more seasons on Crunchyroll, but it's more likely that I'll wait for Netflix to pick up more or for there to be a DVD/Blu-ray release. And yeah, I'd be willing to buy. I don't think this will be a favorite, but it's a lot of fun, and there's nothing about it that irks me (I'm thinking of Haikyu!! and the way it initially turned me off with its antagonistic pair of main characters - Kagami is dismissive of Kuroko at first but learns his value quickly, and Kuroko isn't the sort to pout or whine about anything).

REVIEW: Goedam, Season 1 (live action TV series)

2021-01-28T20:36:00.000-06:00

Goedam is a live action Korean horror series. I watched it on Netflix.

Review:

Goedam consists of 8 episodes that are only 7-15 minutes each. They apparently draw from folklore or urban legends - I didn't know enough to be able to recognize any of the story details.

The first episode features a tense girl, one of her class's top students. In the second episode, a taxi driver picks up a terrifying passenger. The third episode focuses on a livestreamer. The fourth episode has a creepy doll. The fifth episode seems to take place in the same classroom as the first, although it has no other connection to that episode - it stars a girl who seems to have taken the death of one of her classmates badly. In the sixth episode, a cop investigates an urban legend about an elevator that's supposed to be able to take you to another dimension. In the seventh episode, a husband doesn't listen to his wife's request that he not remove the talisman hanging above their bedroom door. The final episode deals with a shaman who kidnaps and starves children and then kills them so that she can use their souls.

Many of these shorts are excellent in their first few minutes and then rapidly fall apart, relying heavily on blood and gore for their scares. My favorites, as far as the initial setup went, were episodes 1, 3, and 6, but I didn't actually like any of the episodes as a whole and hated the reliance on gore. Episode 3 was particularly worthless in that respect - its ending wasn't so much scary as just gross.

Most of this series felt pointless, and there was a surprising number of wasted moments and details. Episode 1 appeared, at the beginning, to be a story about evil twins, but nothing was ever done with that detail. Episode 2 had what appeared to be multiple unconnected horror elements. Episode 3's conclusion was confusing and felt senseless. Episode 7 had me wondering "why this house?" - there was almost no buildup. And episode 8 felt vaguely out of place.

All in all, not recommended, and if a second season is ever added to Netflix, I don't plan on watching it.

REVIEW: Emma: A Victorian Romance, Season 1 - English dub version (anime TV series)

2021-01-20T22:10:00.001-06:00

Emma: A Victorian Romance is a historical romance anime.

Review:

When William Jones, a member of the gentry, finally goes to visit his former governess, he ends up falling head over heels for Emma, her maid. His feelings only grow stronger with time, and even Emma finds herself beginning to forget the distance between them - the difference in their stations in life. However, their relationship doesn't blossom in a vacuum. William's father is trying to cement the Jones family's position by setting up a marriage between William and Eleanor Campbell, the daughter of Viscount Campbell. Eleanor mistakes William's friendliness for romantic interest, which only makes the situation more awkward. What chance does a romance between a maid and a member of the gentry have?

I last watched and reviewed this series about 12 years ago (my reviewing style was very different then - be warned that those posts are detailed and filled with spoilers). A little over two years ago, I was one of the people who backed the Kickstarter for an English dub for this series, and just a few weeks ago my Blu-ray discs and other Kickstarter backer items finally arrived. I figured it was time for an English dub viewing.

I debated whether to reread the manga first. In the end, I decided to just jump into the anime, which I recalled differed from the manga in key areas - that would allow me to rewatch the anime more on its own terms, rather than constantly comparing it to the manga. (I wonder, is the manga out of print now? I checked, and Right Stuf doesn't have all the volumes anymore. That's a shame, but it makes me doubly glad I got myself a full set while I could.)

I had forgotten how slow this series was. William clearly enjoyed spending time with Emma, to the point that bystanders could recognize his interest in her, but it took him ages to actually verbalize his feelings. Instead, he kept trying to buy her gifts. If it hadn't been for the arrival of Hakim, William's over-the-top Indian prince friend who also fell immediately in love with Emma but was much less shy about telling her, Emma and William's romance might never have progressed.

My favorite thing about this first season was the relationship between Emma and her employer, Kelly Stownar. Initially, viewers just saw examples of how devoted Emma was to her - going the extra mile to help her when a favorite necklace of hers broke, taking care of her when she was sick, etc. Eventually, flashbacks revealed how and why Mrs. Stownar came to mean so much to Emma, and it was lovely.

When I first watched this series, Eleanor annoyed me. Maybe it was her Japanese voice actress that did it, because I liked her a bit more while watching the English dub, although I couldn't help but wince every time she blushed over William. Actually, this time around I might have disliked William the most out of the entire cast - after a certain point, he had to have known that Eleanor was interested in him, and yet her continued to behave warmly towards her and essentially encouraged her crush. Hakim, the quiet spectator in this whole mess, seemed to feel the same way I did.

Right Stuf hasn't listed the English dub edition on their site yet, so I don't know if they plan to sell Seasons 1 and 2 together or separately. Together would probably be best - this is not a series where Season 1 stands alone well. In fact, it'd probably anger anyone who hadn't read the manga and went into it expecting a romance, since it ends in a very difficult place. I plan on continuing straight on with Season 2 once I finish this review.

Now, for the thing that makes this set different from the one I originally watched and reviewed: the English dub. One of the big selling points of the English dub was supposed to be the care with which the Nozomi Entertainment folks cast the various parts. The characters' accents needed to be believable and natural.

I have to admit, I was a lukewarm backer for the dub - after the Kickstarter was funded, I didn't pay much attention to most of the emails sent to backers. I downloaded the wallpapers for my cellphone and read the casting post for Hakim, and that was pretty much it. I knew it would be a while before I'd ever see the results, and I didn't want to make myself impatient. I don't know how many, if any, of the voice actors selected were English (or Irish), and I don't know enough about the various accents to really judge how realistic they sounded and whether they properly fit the various social classes represented.

I do know that some of them sounded really good to my ears - my particular favorites were Erica Schroeder (Kelly Stownar), and whoever voiced Annie (Eleanor's maid) and Emma's aunt. Eileen Montgomery made an excellent Emma. I enjoyed James Rieser as Hakim, but that was such an odd role - he's technically an over-the-top character (he brings elephants with him and rides one through London, and he's constantly accompanied by a group of silent interchangeable servant girls), and he's much bolder than William, but he's also simultaneously very self-controlled. In the anime in particular his expression is unreadable, and he can behave like an impeccable English gentleman when he wants to (and for Emma, he wants to). In the English dub, his level of self-control can also be heard in his voice.

Out of the main cast, my least favorite voice in the English dub was probably William's. It wasn't that he sounded bad, but something about his way of speaking (combined with his friendly and oblivious behavior?) reminded me of Bertie Wooster. It reminded me that I'd actually shipped Emma with Hans when I first watched this series. We'll see if I feel the same way during my rewatch.

Season 2 is going to be a bigger test of my feelings about the dub. For one thing, Hans is one of my favorite characters in the series. For another, I'm half German and I know German voices, speech, and accents. If something is off about those accents, I'll hear it much more readily than any issues with the series' other accents. Crossing my fingers that it all sounds good.

Extras:

The Blu-ray includes a clean opening, clean closing, a Japanese promo commerical, Japanese TV spots, Japanese DVD commercials, and English trailers for both seasons of this series. There's also a Kickstarter backer thank you.

A look back at 2020

2020-12-31T22:27:00.000-06:00

I used to do more thorough "end of the year" posts, with "best" and "worst" lists, stats, etc. The last time I did anything like that was at the end of 2016/beginning of 2017. I figured I'd try to get back to something like that at the end of this year, but less methodical.

So, here goes. As with just about everybody, the pandemic was an issue for me this year, although thankfully it hasn't directly affected me or any of my family members. Neither I nor they have gotten sick or lost jobs so far (although I did have a couple ER visits that were made scarier by the knowledge that, if things got worse, there might not be anyplace else to send me). I worked from home part-time, which was nice in some ways and sucked in others, and I've been back to my physical workplace for some time now, although meetings are thankfully almost all still virtual. I didn't go visit my parents in October/November the way I usually do, so I didn't have my usual vacation manga binge, but I still got quite a bit read during the year.

I got into needle felting at the end of the year, although sometimes I think I like the supplies and the books more than actually doing the felting. We'll see if I'm still doing this craft by the end of 2021, or if I have just have a bunch of rusty needles and a tub of unused wool and doll eyes.

Reading:

I'm really proud of my offload stats in 2020 - I got rid of 61 DVDs and books, more than twice what I offloaded in 2019. My 2019 offloads freed up less than 2 feet of shelf space, while my 2020 offloads freed up about 3.5 feet of shelf space. Overall I need to do a lot better, especially when you consider how many books and DVDs I add to my collection each year (I'm not going to tally that, it would be too depressing), but still, this year's offload total was really good. It helped that I pushed myself to get rid of things I'd read and enjoyed, but didn't particularly think I'd want to read again anytime soon and figured I could easily get via interlibrary loan if necessary.

Best books I read:

This isn't a comprehensive list and doesn't necessarily mean I rated them 5 stars, but here are a few that I really enjoyed.

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells - Technically a novella rather than a book. This is possibly my favorite entry in the whole series. It reunites Murderbot with the humans from the first novella and has some good action and emotional moments.
Anime Supremacy! by Mizuki Tsujimura - I went into this having no idea what to expect and got the fictional stories of three very different but equally dedicated women in the anime industry. I've seen anime like this before, but I don't think I've ever read a book like it, and it was much appreciated.
Sea of Wind by Fuyumi Ono - The second book in Ono's Twelve Kingdoms series, which I keep hoping will get a license rescue. I've reread this many times and will probably reread it yet again in 2021.
Ascendance of a Bookworm, Vol. 1 by Miya Kazuki - This...actually isn't all that great, but I wanted to mention it because it's one of the few light novel series I've read several volumes of and still genuinely plan to continue, and not because I foolishly bought a bunch of volumes of it all at once.
So I'm a Spider, So What?, Vol. 1 by Okina Baba - This series started so well and so strong! Unfortunately, it couldn't maintain that momentum, so although I rated it more highly than the first volume of Ascendance of a Bookworm, my interest in the series as a whole has petered out much more quickly.

Best manga I read:

Sweat & Soap, Vol.1 by Kintetsu Yamada - This is much sweeter than the cover art led me to believe it would be. Although the premise seems to fade into the background pretty quickly after this first volume, I've still enjoyed what I've read of this series overall.
A Man and His Cat, Vol. 1 by Umi Sakurai - I'll have to see how later volumes hold up, but this first one was very enjoyable, a sweet story about an older gentleman who adopts a cat, something he'd originally planned to do while his wife was still alive.
Dekoboko Sugar Days by Atsuko Yusen - I'd actually have liked this more if it hadn't included explicit sex scenes. They meshed badly with what was otherwise a sweet and awkward romance.
BL Metamorphosis, Vol. 1 by Kaori Tsurutani - 2020 was a good year for manga with older protagonists. This featured a nice cross-generational friendship - I'd like to get back to it at some point, but first I'd like some warning as to whether Ichinoi, the older of the two main protagonists, dies at the end of the series.

Watching:

My viewing stats for the year are really inaccurate - I'm bad about remembering to review stuff, and bad about recording that I watched things. Again, this isn't a complete list and doesn't necessarily mean I gave it 5 stars.

Best stuff I watched:

Mononoke (anime TV series) - This series is visually stunning. Yes, it has some extremely off-putting moments, but I still consider it very much worth watching.
Knives Out (live action movie) - I found this just as enjoyable on a rewatch as it was when I originally saw it in theaters, despite knowing all the twists and turns.
Violet Evergarden (anime TV series) - This is the kind of thing I'd rewatch if I needed a good therapeutic cry. There's so much grief and heartache, but it also pays a lot of attention to emotional healing as well.
My Roommate Is a Cat (anime TV series) - Another "healing" sort of series, although a bit less of an unrelenting sob-fest than Violet Evergarden.

Gaming:

And now for games, which I've kept even worse track of than TV and movies.

Best games I played (but haven't necessarily finished):

Disco Elysium - I haven't actually gotten very far into this and am pretty terrible at it, but the gameplay is fascinating. You set up your character stats so that you are a certain kind of very messed up detective, and then you go and try to solve a mystery - the same one each time, although having different skills means you'll have access to a different set of clues and way of doing things.
Baba Is You - As you shift words around, you change the rules of the game. For example "Baba Is You" means that you control the movement of the little Baba character. If you change it to something like "Key Is You," you control the movement of the key instead and Baba becomes stationary. If you can think outside the box and arrange the words in the right way, you can solve the puzzles. I'm currently stuck and haven't bothered to look for a walkthrough, but this is another one with fascinating gameplay. It's a simple but at the same time very difficult game, and it's rewarding when you manage to figure out the right thing to do.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons - I played this a LOT when I first got my Switch Lite, and discovered that my hands can't handle the Switch for very long. I've since stopped playing much - the last time I went into the game my house had cockroaches - but I still have fond memories of it and hope to get a full Switch and some good controllers at some point, so I can hopefully get back to it without destroying my hands.
Untitled Goose Game - Another game I played on the Switch. You're a horrible goose who enjoys ruining people's days. It's simple, but very fun.
Murder By Numbers - If you really, really like Picross, this is a fabulous game - great visuals and fun dialogue and stories. The only reason I haven't finished yet is because of a demoralizing glitch - I completed one of the cases and, since it was late, didn't want to start the next one and deal with a bunch of intro stuff I'd be forced to watch before I could save the game. Unfortunately, I must not have saved, or the game just plain forgot where I was, and so I was forced to have to recomplete that same case.
Stardew Valley - Yup, I got back into this, although I haven't played it since its latest big update. I've been trying to accomplish any achievements that felt reachable (cooking all recipes, befriending all villagers). I have hundreds of hours in this game, and it's safe to say that it's one of my all-time favorite. Although I wish that instead of updates, we could just get a whole new game set in another part of the same world - same sort of gameplay, but new secrets to learn and NPCs to get to know.
Cloud Gardens - Some would argue that this isn't really a game. There's a slight puzzle aspect - you have to arrange objects around your plant seeds to that you'll get enough growth to move on to the next scene - but it's really meant for people who'd just like to create pretty overgrown scenes while listening to soothing music.
Hades - Yes, I have jumped on the Hades bandwagon, and surprisingly I don't regret it. I've made six escape attempts so far and tend to die embarrassingly quickly, but I like to think that I'm getting better. Or the boons and other boosts are starting to help a noticeable amount. I actually managed to get through a few rooms without any damage. Granted, there are still times I literally run into enemy blasts while accidentally aiming in the opposite direction I intended. It's highly likely I'll end up turning on God Mode at some point, but for now I'm enjoying this, frequent death and all. The voice acting is great, getting new boons and power-ups is fun, and I like talking to the NPCs.

REVIEW: The Goes Wrong Show, Season 1 (live action TV series)

2020-12-31T21:54:00.002-06:00

The Goes Wrong Show is a British comedy series. I watched it on Amazon Prime.

Review:

An amateur drama society performs a new play each week. Unfortunately, due to set disasters, actor personalities, script problems and other issues, the plays always go horribly wrong. The actors do their best to continue on, despite everything.

The first season has six episodes, each focusing on a different play. The order in which you watch the episodes doesn't really seem to matter, and in fact Amazon's order doesn't seem to match the original broadcast order at all.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this show - the description on my TV wasn't clear as to whether this would feature an actual drama society trying to perform plays or whether it was a fictional comedy. I was a little disappointed that it was the latter - it could have been a lot of fun watching actors try to perform plays with only a week's worth of planning time - but the show it actually turned out to be was a lot of fun too.

Granted, the humor could be a bit much at times - the most horrifying part, for me, was when the cat (clearly a stuffed animal by that point but real in an earlier shot) was thrown into a malfunctioning instrument. It wasn't immediately apparent that it hadn't been mangled to death.

For the most part, though, this was an enjoyable series and each episode had at least one part that had me laughing so hard I had to pause and take a break. The absolute best episode was "A Trial to Watch," in which the courtroom set was accidentally built much smaller than it needed to be. "90 Degrees" was also good for similar reasons, requiring a lot of creativity and planning to get around the serious set design issues.

Although viewers only ever saw the characters during their doomed plays, it was still possible to get a sense of their personalities. Max, for example, was absolutely delighted whenever the studio audience responded to something he'd done, and would do it over and over again to milk audience reaction. Robert, meanwhile, was a much more serious actor who probably viewed these plays as being beneath his skills.

I wish it had more episodes (here's hoping that Season 2 gets added to one of the streaming services I'm subscribed to), but it was lots of fun while it lasted, and I'll probably end up rewatching it at some point.