Must-read Monthly Monday (September 2018 ed.)

Now that we’re getting closer to the end of the year, it’s high time I checked those resolutions…

If it’s not specified, the time period covered in this post is from the 20th of August 2018 to the 24th of September 2018.

Navigation: Other People’s Reads | Spellbook Offerings| Resolution Progress|Coming up next…

Other People’s Reads

It wouldn’t be a round-up post without them. However, since I scour people’s archives on a regular basis, these may not even be from the right time period…

• Kino’s Journey: The Land of Visible Pain by Ruth at Art’s Ardent Disciples (Catch a Falling Star) – Imagine my surprise when I found some followers had seeped through the notification cracks because they’d all followed around August 20th! While I was poring through one blog in particular, I found this underappreciated analysis of Kino’s Journey (2003) episode 1 and had to share it.
• Why, As a Woman, I’m Loving Summer 2018 by Ty-chama at Watashi wa Bucho!– Regardless of whether you think summer’s been fantastic or sluggish, you have to admit there hasn’t been this much female representation in a while (fanservice shows and CGDCT aside). Even though two of this post’s points you might have heard earlier in the season, the “women as firm friends” one hasn’t been around a lot (that “overly nice friendship” stuff’s in a lot of shoujo, come to think of it) and that’s what won this post its spot.
• Give This Summer’s Planet With a Chance! by Jenn at Welcome to Hell Zone! – Here’s a fairly balanced take on Planet With, which didn’t inform my own piece on the show at hand, but the sentiments seem pretty similar.
• Anime Hajime Review: Golden Kamuy by LofZOdyssey – Finished Golden Kamuy just in time for the new season next month, and man, I am pumped for it! That said, the quality of this review isn’t something to be overlooked either – I’m astounded they don’t have many followers (less than 70 as of typing this sentence), considering the writing style is pretty much professional-level.
• Megane Day 2018, Announcement by Mel – October 1st is Megane Day and…welp, I’ve never joined in with one of these before, but there’s no harm in trying…
• Yuri!!! on Ice Guide to Episode 6 by Karandi – Yuri!!! on Ice gives as good as it gets every time you watch it (not that I have rewatched it, but there’s enough evidence from the ep 10 plot twist to say that), so regardless of if you’re watching it to catch up with hype or you just want to relive the show vicariously through blog posts, Karandi’s rewatch of the show has you covered. Why episode 6, though? Originally, I was trying to avoid hype around this show while it was airing and then gave into it just after episode 6 had dropped, so it’s something special from a more personal level.
• To Be a Center – Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight Episode 1 by Atelier Emily – After finally getting to watch this show at the anime club (without the bad HiDive subtitles, thank goodness!), what better luck is it that I’ve already seen a bunch of posts going around about it and the first one I set eyes on is a thorough analysis?
• Noragami Aragoto – Portrait of a Reckless God by Irina – I’ve featured Boku no Hero Academia here pretty consistently, so I’ve had to reject another post on it in favour for a Noragami Aragoto post. Don’t think I’ve made public my love for Noragami here yet, so…there you go. Irina basically echoed my thoughts on the series even though it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it.
• Romancing the Nerd; or, Wotakoi is Actually as Good as Everyone Says by Morgana (Manga Maven) – I’ve only read the small snippet of Wotakoi Kodansha Comics had on their website, but already I was pretty captivated by it. Glad to hear that what I saw in said snippet is consistent…although the non-sequitur ending of the post was what sold it for recommending.
• You Say It’s Boys’ Love – I’m Telling You, It’s Not by Lina (Tiny Ugly Animal) – Boys’ love/yaoi and non-yaoi with a lot of dudes can sometimes get confused between, especially by the fandoms who are motivated by yaoi/boys’ love ships (which is a lot of media, especially ones which have creators saying so-and-so is gay). So with Banana Fish as the impetus, Lina runs through the distinction between the two (although what isn’t mentioned is the difference between boys’ love and yaoi, at least in Japan, is that the former isn’t sexually explicit).
• Manga of the Month – Again!! by Alain from Reverse Thieves – Apparently Reverse Thieves is a source of opinions good enough to stick on the back of volumes of To Your Eternity (the first one, at the very least), which really does say something about the impact they (the author and her coblogger Kate) have. That said, I mentioned I had my eye on this series a while back, so we can put some faith in those trusted opinions…again (pun fully intended).
• Hinamatsuri. by Yomu – Hinamatsuri was a fun time while it was around, and the posts are just as fun! Yomu does make a lot of comparisons between D-Frag! (which seems to be a favourite of his) while discussing the show, but it’s nothing particularly spoilery.
• Why Orange Animation Studio Has Set the Standard for CG/CGI Anime by Ayano at Kawaii Paper Pandas – One of last year’s standout anime for sure was Houseki no Kuni and as awkward as some of the CGI has been around/since then, you have to admit we’re no longer in the era of the really terrible CGI. Ayano’s rundown of the studio already has me thinking about what I should look into for future Ode to Anime Studios, so get the jump here while you still can.
• 5 Advantages of Binge-Watching/Reading by The Rainy Raja – I don’t really hold a preference for bingeing or not bingeing and think both are equally as good as each other, except when watching as much anime in as short a span of time as possible (like I did with Shiki earlier this year). That said, here’s some reasons why the former is better.
• Learning to Live Again: Ancient Magus’ Bride Review by Gloria (The Nerdy Girl  News) – …and to cap things off for the month, we have this Ancient Magus’ Bride post. The post’s got some pretty tough themes due to the nature of Chise’s backstory and it runs through both cours of the anime, so caution is advised for spoilers. Even though it isn’t actually a review – it’s actually more of a mix of character studies focussd on Chise – the analysis of the relationships is top-notch.

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Spellbook Offerings

Current collab:

• Collab Announcement! – Playing Cupid With L.A.M.A. – The team from the hot boys challenge – that’s Lina, Arthifis, Mel and myself, hence “LAMA” – is back for more hotness. Which of us gives the best pairing to Nagisa from Free!, Aomine from Kuroko no Basuke, Oga from Beelzebub and, later this week (specifically Friday or Saturday, depending on your timezone) on the Spellbook, Todoroki from Boku no Hero Academia? Only the audience can determine that!

New this month:

• (Some of) The Most Average Anime I’ve Ever Watched – Everyone wants to say everything about good anime, but what about average anime? Inspired by Kapodaco’s more questionable anime choices, I run down some of my own average anime.
• Boku no Hero Academia: Past, Present and Future – How does the show’s connections to these three time periods affect it as a whole?
• The Epitome of “Absurd, But Fun” (Phantom in the Twilight) – As is usual around here, I’m spouting far too many words about underappreciated shows…
• If Anime Has to be Made by Japanese People…What’s a “Japanese Person”? – It’s one of those age-old questions: when do we draw the line between “not an anime” and “anime”? Even just starting from the focal point of anime being “animation made by Japanese people”, the idea’s a lot more nebulous than it is at first glance…
• Saiyuki Reload Manga Vols 1 – 2 Review – The significance of why I wanted this on this date is still a secret, but still, this is the end of the road review-wise.
• The Bias of MyAnimeList Scores – Even though the site’s been down for a while, MyAnimeList scores are still heavily biased. Even in August, MAL users were scoring fall shows, like SSSS.Gridman. What’s the point of scoring so early?…It probably varies between people, but that’s where this post begins.
• Golden Kamuy vs. Angolmois: Culture Clash – Golden Kamuy and Angolmois have a few things in common, so a compare and contrast was inevitable. That said, should cultural relativism really matter in historical shows like these?
• Astra: Lost in Space – A Perfect Manga to Lead the Web Revolution! – Manga is one of those industries that hasn’t had a lot of traction outside print historically, but it’s trying its best at the moment. With a focus on how Viz Media are handling Kenta Shinohara’s Astra, let’s take a peek at what could be the future of legal digital manga.
• On Rotation – Just a light post about anime music and its ubiquity on Spotify to keep the content coming.
• No Game, No Life and the Isekai Boom (TBR/W post) – This light novel series is just an ecchi-laden isekai no matter how you look at it, so what hallmarks of the anime immediately will tell you whether to give it a shot or not?

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Resolution Progress

• Cull some of that on-hold list.

As of the day the previous round-up post went out, the numbers were 167 out of 818 anime (about 20%, 1% over what it was when the resolutions were created). After thinking over the calculation, I might’ve gotten it wrong, the numbers should’ve gotten bigger…and they also didn’t account for future rejected seasonals…

• Finish at least 10 older shows (or seasons of shows) to make an older anime ranking in 2018.

If movies and shorter things like Umi ni Ochita Tsuki no Hanashi count, there’s already more than 10. In fact, this year has probably been one of my most productive watching-wise, to the point where something’s been finished every month but May.

• Keep posting weekly.

Check.

• Finish 4 or more short series (15 minutes or less) which are from 2018 to make a substantial ranking.

Once Nobunaga no Shinobi is finished, that’ll be 4.

• Resist the temptation to keep adding columns.

Check.

• Vary my genres.

The success of this is somewhat questionable considering a lot still didn’t make the cut, but Idolish7 and YuruCamp are two big successes I can cite on that front.

• Talk about manga and manga-exclusive titles more.

Check. Although the focus is still mostly anime, there has been more manga content than there was in January.

• Experiment more with Twitter/WordPress integration.

This one’s one of the less successful ones, since Boueibu Happy Kiss livestreams are also covered there out of habit. Still, there has been some (minimal) experimentation on that front with using Twitter to announce summer seasonal shows and hyping up posts back in January.

• Join some more anime challenges.

With the AniList Watching Challenge, consistent participation in the Showcase and the TBR/W tag, I can call that a success. However, I need to keep sights set on the Secret Santa.

• Get to 60 days watched or more.

As of the 20th of August 2018, the number is 55.8 days, so…still getting there.

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Coming up next…

• Gotten started on those preparations for November…not that that’s getting anywhere at the moment, due to getting a move on for watching challenges (among other developments)…
• I didn’t give much attention to the Diomedea post last month, but this month’s post involves learning from the mistake of leaving the Ode post too late, so I can tell you this month’s is on Shaft. Even if I haven’t watched much Shaft stuff, the studio is so well-documented I ended up quite happy with the results. It’s coming out on the 29th anyway, so you can see it soon.

Navigation: Other People’s Reads | Spellbook Offerings | Resolution Progress|Coming up next…

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