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

If it’s not specified, the time period covered in this post is from the 26th of October 2020 to the 23rd of November 2020.

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…

• A Review of ACCA: 13 – Territory Inspection Dept. by Sakura Sunrise – Considering most people finished ACCA and watched Regards separately, not a lot of reviews cover the two together.
• Taiso Samurai 03 by SuperWooper (Star-Crossed Anime) – These days, I try not to have reviews from these multi-blogger sites, because generally they’ll have an editor and a standard to publish to that makes them somewhere between a paid site and a standard blogger’s views. That said, Taiso Samurai doesn’t have much talk around it because, as I said in my first impressions, it’s juggling a lot. Although this post is mostly negative, most of the fun to be had in this post is in the humour the author uses to dig at the anime.
• 5 Completed Classic Shoujo Manga by Yuu Watase that you should read by geeknabe – Aside from the whole “happy birthday, hotpot!” from several days ago, Nabe managed to attack a very specific nostalgia spot with this post. I’ve discussed Arata Kangatari before, but I’ve perused at least part of most of the Watase catalogue and count Genbu Kaiden among my favourites.
• In response to Yumeka’s ‘Where are All the Female Anime Bloggers?’ | Aniblogging Escapades by TheHugeAnimeFan – Some of the “big” WordPress bloggers you could count, such as Irina and Karandi, came here after this post’s writing in 2015. However, even though the numbers are more even between the two heterosexual genders these days, it’s interesting that this is still a problem (…then again, it’s complicated by the rise of people coming out as LGBTQI+ identities, which was less of a thing people wanted to be identified as 5 years ago). Also note most female fans aren’t as committed to yaoi as the Mistress, although I’ve noticed an increase in .
• Not a Fan of E-books by EmpathMeetsAnime – A lighter post which has mostly been bugging me by coming up when I want to search other things, so I figured I’d put it here…
• Gekiga by Wave Motion Cannon – When people try to make a history of manga, they normally start with gekiga, although I think I’ve seen akahon come up at least once in its place. Nonetheless, looking at this stuff is tracking back the history of anime.
• ID: Exploring “it” from ID: Invaded by Matt Louie from The Senpai Project – I’ve been sitting on this post for a rainy day (and wouldn’t you know it, as I’m writing this post it is raining outside!) and it’s an appropriately psychological look into a psychological anime.
• Old School by Fred (Au Natural) – Actually a post on Vampire Hunter D (1985), which I haven’t watched myself but there’s a timelessness about it no matter when it’s adapted (or read, in the case of the manga/novels), including the 2000 movie (which I have seen). Speaking of which…what happened to Resurrection?
• Aesthetics of Iyashikei & Mundanity | The Rhythm of Ambience in Yuru Camp by Nachikyotsuki97 (ATMA and Funomena) – A well-researched but dense post.
• The Yays and Yucks of Reading Slumps by Neha (Biblionyan) – In terms of novels, I don’t read as much as I used to. Part of this is because after years of unlimited library access, I’ve read a lot of what I want and what’s left isn’t much of a priority, and part of this is the death of physical books as we know it (I’ve been witnessing it firsthand, dumping stacks of books at the charity store). Nonetheless, no matter what subject you blog about, burnout is relatable.

Spellbook Offerings

#Controversed

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3

#AniTwitWatches (Kanon)

• Kanon 1 – 3

Other Posts

• How Much Do Explosions Contribute to Enjoyment Factor?
• Ode to Anime Studios – PA Works
• #TheJCS: Fantasy Quest Edition (For Oct. 2020)
• The Curious Case of Otomate
• Charting a Course in Appare-Ranman!
• …Did Somebody Say “Husbandos”? – Part of Scott’s husbando post wave (as I’ve come to call it).
• Blogiversary Time Again! – I admit I kind of forgot about the blogiversary until a few days beforehand.

Current Obsessions

• Man, I didn’t realise how much I missed libraries until I went into one after things opened up again. It was basically empty of people but the shelves were full of relocated manga. (I didn’t even know this library system had Tokyo Ghoul and I was close to finishing it at a different library I’ve since lost access to, so score one for me.)
• Speaking of which, I mentioned Happiness last time (forgot to link it in last time). It was largely dialogue-less which allowed the art to speak for itself, but it jumped around timeline-wise and didn’t quite stick the landing it wanted, because, among other things, Oshimi (the mangaka) stated in the afterword he wanted an ensemble cast, which is true…but it’s some people’s series more than others. It was interesting when I opened Magazine Pocket and examined how Kiyoshi’s occasionally strange conjugation of verbs (e.g. yorosui desuka? instead of yoroshii desuka?) became a slightly antiquated style of speech.

Coming up next…

• It’s the end of the year and that means more Christmas-based torture (?). This being a year without much cheer, it makes sense I’m not feeling the holiday mood…I don’t even know if I’ll do the 12 Days of Anime this year…that’s how much holiday mood I’m lacking.
• Haven’t forgotten the spring 2020 or the summer 2020 wrap-up…it’s just massively delayed, as noted. I’ve only finished Arte, Fugou Keiji, Appare-Ranman and Koi to Producer as I type this, which is why I haven’t put them out yet.