Various thoughts on a variety of topics.
The day of his wedding having finally arrived, Fuutarou Uesugi thinks back to how it all began. When he was a debt-ridden high school student who blindly agreed to tutor a wealthy family’s daughter… only to discover that he’s expected to tutor five sisters rather than one, quintuplets who would rather do anything else at all than study.
A reaction-focused romantic comedy with harem elements and a small amount of ecchi.
More Information:
aniDB
Crunchyroll
Funimation
Wikipedia
Within the gilded halls of Shuchiin Academy a new love story is set to bloom between the student council president and vice president. Though widely presumed to be in a relationship and in fact attracted to one another, their pride as elites has long prevented either from making the first move. And so the stage is set for a contest of psychological warfare… one in which the goal is to trick the other into confessing first.
A romantic comedy with a large amount of reaction and misinterpretation-based humor.
More Information:
aniDB
Crunchyroll
MAL (1, 2)
Wikipedia
24 and single, Ekoda does her best to navigate both relationship trouble and an assortment of everyday pitfalls.
A collection of gag comedy segments and daily life short stories. Each features a different art style and voice actor, and nearly all feature nudity of some form. Note that ~23 minutes of each episode consists of live-action behind the scenes interviews.
More Information:
aniDB
Crunchyroll
Wikipedia
Hikaru Tsutsui has spent much of his life preferring the company of fictional girls to real ones. Accidentally late to school one morning his punishment is to clean the pool with Iroha Igarashi, a beautiful girl with an exceptionally bad reputation among the other students. Yet after spending time with her Hikaru begins to realize that the two of them may have more in common than he first thought.
A romantic comedy with a focus on awkwardness-based humor and frequent dramatic outbursts, drama which becomes less common in the second half.
More Information:
aniDB (1, 2)
HIDIVE
Wikipedia
Patricia C. Wrede‘s Thirteenth Child trilogy is a very slow burn; don’t go into it expecting a hero’s journey. Instead it’s closer to an alternative history slice of life series, with each book being ~90% focused on the protagonist’s daily interactions/activities and only the last chapter or two providing an opportunity for her to do something that catches everyone’s attention. There are also a number of loose ends relating to the world’s metaphysics and the tendency for a chapter to end with a dire proclamation only to have nothing come of it in the next is a consistent annoyance. Yet despite all that there’s just something about Wrede’s dialog style that makes the journey entertaining enough to forgive the open-ended and somewhat anti-climatic conclusion.
Elise Kova’s Golden Guard trilogy is less a trilogy and more a loose collection of short stories. The first is a bit of an action-mystery, but besides that is hard to pin down. The second is a painfully generic paranormal romance story minus the paranormal. The third is something of a buddy comedy. All three together are about the size of one normal book and honestly I can’t recommended bothering with them since they add nothing to the sequel.
That sequel being her previously published Air Awakens series. Interestingly enough the genre here is different from all three of the short stories mentioned above, with this being something of a combination hero’s journey paranormal romance. It starts out slow, picks up in the second book, begins to fall apart in the third, completely falls apart in the fourth, and takes a hard turn into pitch black tragedy in the the fifth: Human mutation, cannibalism, incest, miscarriage, and mental corruption/degradation all make an appearance. Ultimately I can’t recommended this series either due to all the inconsistencies surrounding the protagonist.
Unrelated to the the two works above (though almost immediately recognizable as from the same author due to the fondness for using names over pronouns), Kova’s Loom Saga is a relatively straightforward paranormal romance story for the most part which quickly brought to mind Lilith Saintcrow’s Dante Valentine series. This series leans more toward steampunk instead of cyberpunk though and takes place in its own fantasy world. While the first book is pretty good and the second is decent, the third comes across as very unfocused and almost offhanded in how everything gets resolved; what ends up most interesting about it is how Arianna ends up ceding the protagonist spot to Florence.
Though president of her school’s science club and a genius inventor besides, Ueno just can’t manage to confess her feelings for her clubmate Tanaka in a normal manner. And it certainly doesn’t help that Tanaka himself is completely blind to her intentions. Yet ironically enough it’s that very obliviousness she finds so attractive in the first place.
An ecchi-centric gag comedy specializing in ignored romantic advances and misinterpreted sexual situations.
More Information:
aniDB
Crunchyroll
Wikipedia
Movies:
TV Show:
Having recently seen Captain Marvel and wanting to do a little preparation for the upcoming release of Endgame I decided to finally watch a few Marvel movies I’d been passively avoiding following the disappointment of Thor 2 and The Avengers:
After the success of those three, and not really wanting to do anything that would require effort, it seemed catching up with a few more was in order:
Despite the mixed results, I was on something of a roll now and decided to move on to the last batch:
So was all that necessary to watch Infinity War/Endgame? No, not at all. If you just want to see those two I would suggest going with the below viewing order:
And maybe try to fit Doctor Strange and Black Panther in there somewhere pre-Ragnarok to cover a few extra references.
Japan’s Saga Prefecture has many things to recommend it, from traditional arts and crafts to stunning vistas. Join us as we explore the area’s sights and take a look into the lives of a few people who call the city of Saga home.
A collection of short stories highlighting different parts of Saga’s cultural history and a few of its attractions. The first two are romance themed, while the third is comedic and fourth is more slice of life.
More Information:
aniDB (1, 2)
Spring has come once more, a time for new beginnings and new relationships. These are the stories of several students attending Otowanomori Nishi High each encountering their first taste of romance… and heartbreak.
A school life romance series with a small amount of comic relief and mid-episode eye catch segments featuring live action ecchi.
More Information:
aniDB
Wikipedia
