I am unfortunately employed now, so my free time has been devoured by the job, commute and preparation. However, I have still managed to keep up with a few shows and manga - at a slow pace. So how about you?

For me:

Manga:

Oresama Teacher (2007-2020, 176 Chapters) - The only manga I'm reading at the moment is a work by Tsubaki Izumi of Gekkan-Shoujo Nozaki-kun. It is a story of a former delinquent Mafuyu Kurosaki becoming a transfer student and trying to turn her life around. Like a wild mixture of Angel Densetsu and Nozaki-kun, it is indeed a hilarious manga with surprisingly in-depth characters, but instead of the 4-koma format of the latter, it has shoujo manga length chapters. *(so far) A+

Anime:

Dragon Ball (1986-1989, 153 Episodes) - Dragon Ball is a VERY competent Shounen, and one that steadily gets better and drops the immaturity and much of the horniness of the early part of the show. However, around the 100th episode things start changing. The show becomes... interesting. Definitely recommend sticking around to see the show grow. A

Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, Season 1 (2007, 12 Episodes) - This show apparently was a darling of weebs a decade ago, and it is not hard to see why. Edgyness, egregious fanservice, a cynical attitude towards society so typical of the 90s and apparently the 2000s too. The show provides critique that can sometimes hit at the core of the problem (including anticapitalist critique), and at the same time mock people who seek to do something about it. It's hit and miss, but undeniably interesting. The unique artstyle, the music, the Maeda cameos are bonuses. A

Lupin III: Part II (1977-1981, 155 Episodes) - Hit and miss episode quality, but always entertaining. Sometimes really weird (but apparently 80s Lupin/Part III is most like that), but those tend to be the most fun episodes. Definitely a fantastic show to relax after a stressful day, and there's a lot of episodes. A-

Lost Universe (1998, 26 Episodes) - Fun characters, but the sci-fi spin-off to Slayers is nowhere near as fun as that series. It's decent though. B-

Konosuba Season 3 (Ongoing seasonal, 11 Episodes) - It's more of Konosuba. Juvenile and horny humor, surprisingly decent character writing in spite of the weeb-brained overall writing and a better isekai than the much of the genre it satirises? Yeah, it's all still here. And not much more, but if you like the rest... B

Too early to tell - Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 (Very good so far. I like the atmosphere more than FMAB's and find myself enjoying it more than when I tried to watch that) - Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (very much anti-weeb brained + unique setting and premise = good, but can't tell more until I've seen the rest)

Tired of libs? Want to debunk common arguments as early as in the first chapter? Read Das Kapital by Karl Marx. Not as hard as its reputation suggests.

  • Cromalin [she/her]
    ·
    2 months ago

    watched a bunch

    • the first few episodes of gundam unicorn. not good, deeply naive liberal politics. the most blatant anything i've seen has done "the villains are right but go too far" because they forgot to make them go too far but everyone acts like they're going to blow up planet earth. incredibly pretty mech fights though, so it's impossible to say if it's bad or not. 7/10
    • momotaro: sacred sailors. bad, blatant fascist propaganda, deeply imperialist to its core. cute animals representing the indigenous population of colonized islands in the 1940s sing about how much they love acting as japan's labor force. fascist propaganda/10
    • voices of a sacred star: the only good thing makoto shinkai has ever made. who knew that if his stuff had charming animation and a relationship that works instead of being the most overproduced glossy shit ever made and having bad relationships i don't care about i would actually like it. 8/10
    • finished g gundam: would be a 9/10 if the fights were good. instead it's a 6/10 that has the occasional good episode and ends way stronger than the rest of the show. maybe 7/10
    • gundam seed freedom: dogshit movie. so many problems from the plot to the editing to the awful awful animation (they spent 18 years on this garbage! how!). there are massive pacing problems and the movie ranges from the least subtle thing ever to not explaining what happened to the plot of the movie and why everyone is doing something else now and the themes are incredibly reprehensible but had a good time heckling the movie for all the terrible terrible choices they made with it with some friends. 2/10
    • gate thus the jsdf fought there: again, this is fascist propaganda but it's worse than momotaro because this is doing isekai bullshit the whole time in addition to the fascist "we should get to invade china because they want to send HALF THEIR POPULATION HERE!" the author of gate believes china is attempting to flood japan (a country with a high population density at ~120 million) with SIX HUNDRED MILLION IMMIGRANTS. this is the kind of delusional right wing fantasy we're dealing with here. the heroic jsdf are pure to the point of absurdity as they slaughter hundreds of thousands of medieval soldiers and suffer no casualties ever. maybe the worst thing i've ever seen. 17 episodes to go desolate
    • horus prince of the sun: the guy who made all those good ghibli movies (and also miyazaki is helping) does marxist propaganda by way of a fairy tale. 1968 was an interesting year. 9/10
    • ghost in the shell stand alone complex: man what a great show. love the tachikoma and batou's relationship with them, love the main character being a transgender bisexual poly queen, love the action and music and cool cyberpunk ideas, and all the stand alone episodes except maybe the wine one, and all the complex episodes (togusa's such a loser i love him) 9/10 but maybe bumped up to a 10 if i keep thinking about it
    • nausicaa: this is a fantastic movie to watch while stoned. what a cool world and movie, the best aesthetic miyazaki ever put out, i gotta read the manga. 9/10

    also reading some manga. we are former girls hits hard, the main character's transphobic mom is painful to read. really praying the manga doesn't decide she just has rinko's best interests at heart and she should be forgiven all her bullshit

    • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
      ·
      2 months ago

      G Gundam is mostly about the vibes. I love it, even if I feel the tournament part should not have resumed after the halfway point and instead just went all in on the second plot arc. I was lucky enough to catch an episode on TV when I was in Japan and having seen the episode already was able to tell what was going on 😌

      Also it's funny how Momotaro is literally propaganda made under a fascist government - GATE just has the same brainworms, just to sell the show as a commodity and profit off of the chuds and clueless libs.

      GATE also popularized slavery in Isekai lol - if you check anilist for the tags Slavery and Isekai, you get like three isolated shows from the 90s and 2000s, then the floodgates opening after it.

      • Cromalin [she/her]
        ·
        2 months ago

        g gundam mostly runs off vibes but i think the vibes aren't actually very good trans-sad

        gate is worse because the jsdf was not demanding he make this. they were very happy he did, but he wasn't under any actual pressure. takumi yanai deserves the death penalty

        desolate oh cool. i haven't gotten to the slavery yet. that's cool, i love knowing that the worst is yet to come desolate

        • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
          ·
          2 months ago

          gate is worse because the jsdf was not demanding he make this

          Yeah, exactly. It's fash propaganda because he is a fash and wanted to make propaganda (and the Studio and its money people accepted.

          • Cromalin [she/her]
            ·
            2 months ago

            the studio toned it down! the author's unfiltered vision was somehow even more fashy!

    • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      gundam unicorn

      Just wait until you see what's in the box lmao

      horus prince of the sun

      Did you snag this one from Nyaa?

      ghost in the shell stand alone complex

      I feel like you're going to be super disappointed by Second Gig. I feel like there's still a handful of good episodes in it, but those blur together with S1 for me.

      momotaro, gundam seed freedom, gate

      And I thought I was watching a bunch of stuff I knew would be bad lol

      • Cromalin [she/her]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Did you snag this one from Nyaa?

        yep

        I feel like you're going to be super disappointed by Second Gig. I feel like there's still a handful of good episodes in it, but those blur together with S1 for me.

        i'm hoping to like 2nd gig, people seem mixed, i have a friend who says it's better than season 1 and i mostly trust her judgement so i have hope.

        And I thought I was watching a bunch of stuff I knew would be bad lol

        kitty-cri
        i'm having such a bad time, anime was a mistake. sadly i have entered into a pact and have to watch at least the rest of gate season 1, and also probably season 2

        • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          2 months ago

          sadly i have entered into a pact and have to watch at least the rest of gate season 1, and also probably season 2

          Hopefully the pact at least gives you demonic powers or whatever those typically do lol

          • Cromalin [she/her]
            ·
            2 months ago

            man i fuckin wish

            i DESERVE demonic powers after this shit

    • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Oh! I also watched Inu-Oh and The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl. The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl was pretty good kinda stalkerish romance though. Inu-oh was pretty freaking wild. duck-dance

      • Cromalin [she/her]
        ·
        2 months ago

        yeah the romance isn't great but i just don't care about it and am instead focusing on watching her do drinking contests with demons and shit. inu-oh is indeed pretty freaking wild, it rules