Must-read Monthly Monday (May ’20 ed.)

 

If it’s not specified, the time period covered in this post is from the 20th of April 2020 to the 25th of May 2020.

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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…

  • Otome Media vs. Media for Females // Explained with a Focus on Games by Yukina (Uguu Cage of Love) – You know those games: the ones with a bunch of dudes clearly targeted at a female audience, normally with one or no girls in sight? Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks, because there was an existing name for them…
  • Girls’ Last Tour: Why Did Ishii’s Plane Fail? by Scott (Mechanical Anime Reviews) – It’s always interesting to see someone write a post that bridges their interests with anime…sure, you have people like me who specialise in anime and Japan because we can and it’s useful, but I don’t mean that this time. (Speaking of which, I do have a completed post on the veracity of the genetics explanation given in Double Decker, but I don’t want to put it out there without a final check from the genetics expert I got to help me and they’re always busy – they’re part of so-called “essential services”.) I admit I probably didn’t pay attention to everything in this post because physics isn’t my strong suit, but if it interests you, then I don’t see why you shouldn’t read it.
  • Yesterday wo Utatte, Episode 1 by Isaac (iblessall) from Mage in a Barrel – I guess it takes all sorts for people to continue to watch and blog weekly. To be honest, I haven’t been reading this blogger’s posts a lot lately, so it’s nice to have our roads cross once more.

  • How We Talk About Anime: The Limits of Subjectivity by DanielsansLions (Trickster’s Treatise) – An in-depth look at how anime ratings differ and interpretations of anime, with a focus on studying the narrative. Be warned that it might go over your head at least a little bit – if that happens, maybe take a mini mental break and come back to it.

  • In the grand scheme of things, how important is the finale? by Space Whales – It seems this month is all about analysing the story, huh? (See On the Nature of a Great Battle below, for instance.) A conclusion isn’t always conclusive, as any open ending is wont to showing any old anime fan.
  • Anime is Serious Business because Guilt is Serious Business from ghostlightning (We Remember Love) – From the archives of the ancient past known as 2009 comes a post asking a simple question: why do we have guilty pleasures? (Seriously though: 2009 was over 10 years ago!…That makes me feel old.)
  • The Illegal 10/10 Anime by Casper (Reasons to Anime) – Why should one score an anime 1/10 or 10/10? The answers differ from anime watcher to anime watcher, but the level of attention given between subjectivity and objectivity is an interesting factor. (Plus, why is this post covered in cows…?) 
  • Stars Align, a Sincere Underdog Story by Alex (The Afictionado) – Stars Align hurts because it was not given a proper conclusion (made even more painful by the release of the fan movie), but instead of celebrating what wasn’t, it’s better to celebrate what was.
  • The Queen of Drama, Mari Okada, and How She Saved Anime by Kiddtic – Now for something kind of different: a post I’d disagree with by opinion standards, but it was useful while thinking about Wandering Son. 
  • On British Literature and What It Means to Be Remembered (OWLS Legacy) by Takuto (Anime Cafe Host) – …and now for something even more different, in that it’s tangentially related to anime via its usage, most noted to be in Fate/.

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Spellbook Offerings

#AniTwitWatches (Wandering Son)

The day this post goes out will be the day the first Perfect Insider post comes out. I’ll be rewatching episode 1 for that, since my notes from the first time around seem to be missing, but feel free to join me, Jon Spencer and friends for it. The OWLS post is sort of a culmination/analysis of everything I say in round 5, so I’ve added it to this category too (when I normally wouldn’t).

Spring 2020 First Impressions

  • Delays, Delays, Delays… (Fruits Basket, Appare Ranman, Princess Connect, Woodpecker Detective’s Office, Millionaire Detective)

Other Stuff  

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Current Obsessions

  • Humble Bundle: No matter what series show up in Humble Bundles, normally I would resist…but someone stuck Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu in one and threw in To Your Eternity and Your Lie in April, two series which I’ve read their respective Bundle volumes in physical form already but would own if I could. Notably, SGRS‘s physical volumes are pretty pricey, to the point the 3rd Bundle tier (covering the entire SGRS) would cost one physical volume!
  • Tsundoku: Not a tsundere, LOL. Tsundoku – short for tsundeoku, or “to pile up in advance” and using the first character from dokusho (reading) – is a Japanese slang word for when books pile up everywhere because you plan to read them, although apparently “plan to read” bookshelves can have this problem too. I used to not have this problem when I was a better reader (and less of a blogger), but I kept encountering cool books at the charity store and in sales, y’know? There’s this table with tsundoku material (some of them manga and/or not for the first time) I try to ignore because I’d rather focus on one book at once. Lockdown means I have made a dent into it, but books I borrowed from the library before that means…not by much. 

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Coming up next…

  • …I don’t really want to say too much else about what happened this month, given some of it connects to the passing away of my paternal grandma and the fallout from that, plus discovering what lockdown can do to an inactive potato like me. I guess all I can say is next month will be guaranteed to be a marked improvement over this one.
  • I hope to make the most of my Humble Bundle purchase by deciphering the written language in To Your Eternity, plus I finished my Planet With rewatch and am due to write a post on that too.
  • With some anime confirmed to be safe, Kitsutsuki is on pause. COVID-19 did mean some new HypMic releases originally planned to happen around the time of this post’s release were moved, including the anime, but people should stay safe first and foremost (including you, dear reader).

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7 thoughts on “Must-read Monthly Monday (May ’20 ed.)”

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    1. Thanks. In fact, it wasn’t just that section, but most of the other sections were duplicated too…but that problem should be fixed now. (The page jumps on the other hand, which are the reason I don’t just move to the block editor and get rid of the duplication problem…they’re almost all, if not all, busted.)

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      1. Yeah when I kept scrolling I was like oops the rest is repeated too, oh man, I haven’t tried using page jumps with the block editor, I wonder how that would work 🤔🤔🤔

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  3. Wanted to pop in and say the block editor did you dirty and there are… quite a few repeats on this post in each section at least when I’m reading it.

    Otherwise, thanks for the round-up!

    Liked by 3 people

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