Must-read Monthly Monday (October 2018 ed.)

The new season’s starting to settle in now, so hopefully you’ve found yourselves some good shows. Otherwise, feel free to peruse the Spellbook backlog for something you might want to watch.

If it’s not specified, the time period covered in this post is from the 24th of September 2018 to the 22nd of October 2018.

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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…

• Mizukami Festival: Planet With and the Enduring Spirit by Natasha Y (illegenes) at Isn’t It Electrifying? (Shibireru Darou) – Planet With has been a gateway anime to getting Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer and Spirit Circle on PTW lists, including my own. That said, just because you only know one work by an author doesn’t mean you can’t write a decent post about that work. Natasha skilfully weaves 100 Years by Florence and the Machine with a narrative about justice, hope and forgiveness, all of course to the themes of Planet With.
• What’s in a Good Anime Fight Scene? by Chris Voyage from Galvanic Media – After being featured on one of their Angolmois posts (although I believe that was Evil Bob’s fault), I have to pay them back in kind and thus, this. Note I chose this of my own volition though. I would prefer it if this space was only ever handpicked pieces by yours truly. Whether it be certain musical cues (I believe Astral called it “hype music”), the genre or the animation, a fight scene’s gotta have some drawing-in point, or else it won’t have the right effect on the viewer. There are some mild spoilers, but nothing that a viewer of each show wouldn’t know.
• Princess Principal Ep. 1 by the Xenodude – HiDive is giving some backlog shows dubs, so it’s a good a time as any to refresh your memory on the surprise summer 2017 hit like Xenodude is here. Well, I’ve included it here for the insight the post gives on the dub, but you never know, you might just want to try the show out after reading this post.
• What Do I Do With Those Damn Anime Kids? by Sean Michael Robinson (The Hooded Utilitarian) – Sure, I may not be a teacher in any capacity, but this discussion on whether to discourage teenagers to draw in the anime style from an art teacher (and also anime club coordinator)’s point of view is enlightening in its own way, along with having a few lessons about sequential art teachers might want to learn from their anime-and-manga-obsessed students.
• The Guyver: Bio-Boosted Armour by Lynn Sheridan – Now, I’ve only read one volume of Guyver manga (since the rest are probably out of print, if not part of the library service I found the first volume at) but it’s pretty easy to tell where it’s going…Well, no one talks about this series because it does have a dated art style, but since reviving old stuff seems to be in vogue these days, I figured I’d give this post a shoutout.
• The Troubling Relationship Between Anime and Western Viewers by Weekend Otaku – Anime gets influenced by Western civilisation and vice versa, so discrepancies arise when they don’t quite see eye-to-eye and mountains are made out of molehills, such as in this one syfy piece Weekend Otaku talks about here. Not only does it give you ideas to ponder, the comments section’s also something to peruse.
• Asking for Trouble; My Observations on Cute Girls and Cute Boys by Irina – You’ve seen posts on cute girls doing cute things and cute boys doing cute things, but have you ever seen them together? Even in the picture captions, Irina makes some valid comments, even if it’s something which seems silly on the outside (like Prince of Stride and Prince of Tennis both being about metaphorical princes)…
• Is it Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? by Bossils (Anime Review) – As much as I’m not one for the male gaze, it just seems like this reviewer had way too much fun taking on this anime. Some spoilers are around but if you’ve finished season 1 and are anxiously awaiting season 2, this might just tide you over.
• Visualist x 100! – My Hero Academia Final Impressions with Kapodaco and Karandi – If you want to just cut to the chase when it comes to the strengths and weaknesses of Boku no Hero Academia, you’ve come to the right link…Yeah, I just can’t stay away from this show too long. It’s just too good, despite its shonen trappings.
• Should Rewatch Value Matter? by Jon (Jon Spencer Reviews) – This topic’s interesting because it’s got a lot of facets – the factors that comprise a purchase, whether media will hold up over a certain long period of time or whether your feelings will be the same after rewatching, as well as the initial idea of whether rewatch value should be included in reviews. Even if you haven’t thought about the topic before, you’ll probably still have an opinion about it…
• On Trying to Create Quality Content by Chris (Peach’s Almanac) – It seems motivational posts, or posts confessing to a lack of motivation, are pretty common in the blogging sphere…Nonetheless, if you need the pick-me-up, read this and keep your chin up. It’s only a few months until December, which means Christmas…and long breaks.
• So You Wanna Watch a Shonen? by Kimchisama – Comparisons to basically every other shonen out there are basically what Radiant seems to be attracting right now, even if my own comparison (see first impressions part 3 below) is to the lesser-known Deltora Quest. That’s all you need to know going into this piece.
• Comparisons as an Avenue for Elitism and Shows You “Must Watch” First by Leap250 – On that note, you shouldn’t necessarily have to watch another shonen before enjoying Radiant. It’s normally around battle shonen, especially ones with a setup like Radiant‘s that people believe they’ve seen a million times before, that get a lot of flak, and you have to make sure you’re looking at the show on its own merits.
• My Perspective of the Power of Characters in Anime by Railgunfan75 – What makes your favourite characters your favourites? Does it have to be one thing, or does it have to be many things? If you think I’m overthinking this topic here, then see what Railgunfan75 has to say.
• Kotoba #3 – Fall 2018 Week 2 by Kyra – …and to cap these links off, here’s a random link to a Kotoba post (because I found it sitting in my bookmarks). I’ve been finding these really handy, especially when obscure references suddenly start popping up in Run with the Wind.

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Spellbook Offerings

Past collab:

• Collab Announcement! – Playing Cupid With L.A.M.A. (with results here) – 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, on the Spellbook, Todoroki from Boku no Hero Academia? Only the audience can determine that!

New this month:

• Final Impressions for Summer 2018 + Hyping Up Fall 2018 + Fall 2018 First Impressions Pt 1 + Fall 2018 First Impressions Pt 2 + Fall 2018 First Impressions Pt 3 + Fall 2018 First Impressions Pt 4 – It’s that time of the season again…and this time, the season started a few months too early! That’s why the entire format had to shift along with it, so now there’s a ranking at each post’s end instead of having them here. It seems like my lineup is Double Decker!, Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san, Golden Kamuy s2, Merc Storia and Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken, unless Han Gyaku Sei Million Arthur appears somewhere in a few days…I know, that’s five shows, not six. I’m currently undecided on whether Zombieland Saga or Gridman should take that last spot, because the latter had a great second episode.
• Ode to Anime Studios – Shaft – Can I just say the Shaft post…got the shaft? (Okay, you can stop facepalming now…)
• The Multiple Strands of Competition in Prince of Stride: Alternative – True to my word, here’s the post for Megane Day 2018, even if it is a rejected practice OWLS post.
• The Inevitable Politics of Anime About Police, Detectives and Everyday Heroes – Double Decker got me thinking about police, detective and hero-focused anime as being more closely interconnected than they seem on the surface.
• When You Stare Into The Abyss… – After 5 months of waiting, it’s a real OWLS post on the Spellbook! It’s not about Made in Abyss unfortunately, but rather it’s on the horror of human nature and the encouragement of proactivity in Phantom in the Twilight.

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Coming up next…

• Changing the entire format for the first impressions was tiring, man. You don’t know how much time that’s zapped from me.
• Gearing up for November still, because the end of the year is in sight and that means the pre-Christmas rush is coming up. I’m probably not going to show up to OWLS next month because I have to get my head in the game elsewhere, though.

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