Day in the Life of an Idiot

 As noted on a previous blog, I just finished Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. I enjoyed it, despite occasionally feeling miles a head of the protagonist in terms of Clues to Pick Up On. However, I never know if that's actually a problem or just my well-honed writerly sense of foreshadowing and how it's used in narratives, due to spending much of my life workshopping professional-level writing in my two writers' groups. So, it's possible that it would not be an issue for most.

I have a number of things in my TBR pile, but probably I will be listening to Frankenstein next. Not only did Libby finally cough it up for me after being on hold forever, but we are doing a deep-dive into it for my cyberpunk podcast in time for Halloween, which is coming up fast. I think it will be fun to try to make the case that Frankenstein is cyberpunk--it certainly tackles a lot of the same themes as cyberpunk: what does it mean to be human? When is science TOO much science? And, there is no question in my mind that Frankenstein is the first science fiction novel. This will be, I think, my second reading. I'm pretty sure I had to read Frankenstein as part of my English major in college. Though I remember nothing of substance about it.

 As for manga and anime media, I seem to be falling into movies lately. On Crunchyroll, I watched Josee, the Tiger and the Fish.  I recommend it? It's a very sweet coming-of-age romance between two new adults, one of whom has been disabled (wheelchair bound) since birth. I found it really heartwarming. I tend to love me a good slice-of-life where a large percentage of it is just people discovering how cool it is to be alive in the world today.

 Just two minutes ago, I finished reading a powerful webcomic recommended by bcholmes called O Human Star. I cried all the tears, the ugly ones and the happy ones. I can not recommend it enough. 

In a sort of similar vein (at least in terms of a world where androids and humans co-exist), I finished listening to the audiobook of  Klara and the Sun by Kazou Ishiguro. I can't say that I enjoyed Klara and the Sun because it's ultimately--in my opinion, anyway--a tragedy, I did find it very compelling all the way through. I'd read Ishiguro's previous novel, The Buried Giant, when it was up for the Mythopoeic Award (2016). Looking back at my review of that book, I can see that I had similar feelings about it. Ishiguro's narrative style is very dream-like in both of these books, though I was impressed in Klara and the Sun how he was able to tell the readers more than Klara herself always fully understood or grasped. That can be extremely tricky to pull off, and he does it masterfully here. As I told a friend, I liked this book right up to the very last line--and the last line didn't make me HATE the book, just feel deeply, DEEPLY sad.  

Otherwise, I crammed in a couple of food-related manga ahead of tomorrow's OH-F*CK-O'CLOCK WorldCON panel "Let Them Eat! Food in Anime."  Of them, I really loved all 70+ chapters of Wakako-Zake by Shinkyu Chie. (The link is to my review, but from there, if you like, you can find a copy of the manga.) It is impossible not to spoil this one because the entire manga is about a 28-year old woman who goes out to eat and enjoys her food (and whatever alcohol she pairs it with.) That's it. That's the entire manga. And, I would read 70 more chapter of it, if it were available. As part of all this prep, I also skimmed through the manga Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi / Campfire Cooking in Another World with my Absurd Skill by Eguchi Ren / Akagishi K, reminding myself as to why I loved the anime so much.  I also ended up watching a few episodes of Food Wars! so I could reasonably understand what people were talking about, should it come up. I should probably re-read my review of Dungeon Meshi before tomorrow AM, too. 

Unrelated, I also read the Japanese re-imagining of Batman manga called Batman: Justice Buster by by Shimizu Eiichi and Shimoguchi Tomohiro, (Again, all the links to the manga will take you to my review, but from there you can usually get to an online version of the manga.) I really loved what they did with the Joker in this series, honestly. If you are a Batman fan... well, it might drive you crazy? Or you might love it. 

Over the weekend, I read a couple of cyberpunk short stories that were collected in The Big Book of Cyberpunk that I'm borrowing from a friend. I re-read James Tiptree, Jr.'s "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," and Pat Cadigan's "Pretty Boy Crossover." 

Oh, and I listened to the first couple of episodes of the Call of Cthulhu Mystery Theater podcast and The-Channel-Show, since both of the producers of those shows will be part of the panel that I'll be moderating on Saturday.  The first is a slightly scripted TTRPG podcast of a cast of characters playing Call of Cthulhu, the only TTRPG that I ever rage quit. It is one of those that is designed to end in a total party kill/deep insanity and I had spent way too much time building my character... and so I was deeply upset to be agoraphobic (and thus basically useless) after the first session. Unlike me, these actors are aware of what they're getting into, so it's more fun to listen to. The-Channel-Show is... deeply weird. The first few episodes, at any rate, are basically two people (AIs?) "channeling" the future of... some world? Possibly ours? Possibly not? But, it's very surreal and... yeah, not for me. But, weirdly, when I was on the how-to workshop for Glasgow WorldCON online stuff, the writer/producer person Dana Little was on the same call. She didn't put her camera on, but seeing her name come up was just sort of "Oh. There you are. I was just listening to you be VERY STRANGE. Hello," you know? 

I think that's everything!  

I should probably go organize myself for tomorrow, but what about you? Have you been reading anything good lately? Anything not so good?

 I am still sitting on a book that I should have gotten back to the library AGES ago. I should just give up on it, I think, and admit that I am not in the mood for horror manga right now: PTSD Radio. I think I'm just mad because I got halfway into it and then stopped. It's a book of pictures, I should just be able to push through.

Anyway.

What I did read (and also, as it happens, watch the anime for) was Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san / Mr. Villain’s Day Off by Morikawa Yuu. As I read this manga, I thought a lot about that torpedoed panel at Minicon: "Shipping Light and Dark." The main character of this manga is known only as Shogun or The General and it's clear that being The Villain is just his day job. He's good at it and high-ranking and does seem to sincerely want to end humanity reign on Earth (he's an alien), but when he has time off all The General really just wants to go to the Ueno Zoo to watch the pandas. 

The inherent ridiculousness of the situation fuels this gag manga. For those of you familiar with The Way of The House Husband, this manga runs of the same concept as that one: putting a scary guy (a villain, a yakuza gangster) into light and fluffy domestic situations is just so difficult for the brain to parse that it automatically seems silly. This is a guy who'd kill a man for looking at him funny, but he can't handle a roomba, right? It's just ridiculous!

And this is part of the appeal (for me, at least) of shipping dark characters with light ones. Taking the villain off the battlefield and asking the question, "What does Dr. Doom do on his day off?" forces us to attempt to humanize someone who is maybe, normally, only seen in black and white and as larger-than-life. And, I think this works especially well for those villains who are mostly just foils for the hero. Those villains whose motives are somewhat vague, or like Crowley in Good Omens, just sort of works for the Other Side--and who doesn't necessarily buy into the full agenda. 

This isn't to say there isn't value in exploring those that are more committed to the "evil" cause, however. 

One of the things I really didn't get to talk about on that panel (because it was so thoroughly shamed out of us) was the fact that, in my fan writing, I am actually interested in sociopathy. Like, there was a really fascinating recent article in the New York Times interviewing a woman who is a psychotherapist and a (diagnosed) sociopath. She apparently has a new book out that I should probably find and order all about her life, etc. But, she points out in the interview that not every sociopath is a serial killer, despite the popular imagination. It's a mental illness like any other for many people. It's difficult to medicate, so people have to learn to just live with it.  But, yet in the interview with her you can TOTALLY see her struggling with empathy and consequences... like she is COLD and you totally get the sense that she would cut you and have zero remorse, you know? Just in a half-page interview! And, I just find this utterly captivating. Like, she talks in the interview about what happens when she tells people that she is a honest-to-god sociopath at cocktail parties and the like because inevitably, apparently, people will just start telling her about their fantasies of murdering co-workers, spouses, etc. 

Anyway, in fiction, I've explored the idea that a sociopath, who among other problems severely lacks empathy, could be loved, particularly by a hero who has ALL the empathy. 

Like in the manga I just read, trying to write a sociopath just living their lives is a kind of fictional puzzle that I particularly like to play with. Can you write a sympathetic sociopath? Can you do that without "weakening" the sociopathy--what fan readers call OCC, being out of character? Like for me, the challenge is "Can I write a believable love story between two people who should be (or have been) enemies, in part because one of them LITERALLY has no conscience?"

And I don't know that I've done it, but it was a fun exercise to try, you know? And, I think one of the appeals of shipping these sorts.


==
Again, the article "What It's Like to Be a Sociopath?" is probably behind a paywall for most of you.  Apparently, the author is Patric Gagne and the book is Sociopath: A Memoir. Interestingly, there's some talk in various Reddit forums that in psychology the term "sociopath" isn't typically used as a diagnosis, instead folks who suffer from this mental illness are referred to as having anti-social personality disorder, which I knew from my previous research into this stuff for my fan fic. But, in this case since it appeared in a NYT article, it raised some flags for people working in the profession as to whether or not Gagne was merely sensationalizing for the publicity or actually lying about her credentials as a psychologist. And you know... fair point.

There is another article about her, here, in The Guardian that is free: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/apr/08/patric-gagne-sociopath-fighting-urges

And the Daily Mail... mmmm, seeming more an more disreputable... as this is a deeply sensational article about her, some of which seems a bit perposterous: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-13248861/sociopath-patric-gagne-new-memoir.html

Still, I should see if the library has this book.

 I posted my fic and then wandered away, I guess?

Sorry about that.

On Tuesday, I went by myself to the fan screening of the movie Psycho-Pass: Providence at the Roseville AMC. As I said to a friend, Crunchyroll placed a surgically striking ad in a pop-up when I logged in to see if there was any anime I was interested in watching. I've been a fan of Psycho-Pass forever, but it's a weird little cyberpunk where, n some distant future, Japan has instituted something they call the Sybil System that monitors people's "crime-coefficient" (a thing that measures how likely you are to commit crimes.) You can be executed and/or imprisoned just for being "a criminal type." It's sort of like Minority Report, except in this the law enforcement agents actually employs some of these not-quite-criminal, but criminally-minded sorts to aid Investigators as "Enforcers." So, there's (for me, anyway,) this fascinating underclass of people who do the dirty work of enforcing the very system that oppresses them. I kind of love everything about it? But, for whatever reason, I can't talk a lot of my fan friends into it? So, even though I immediately bought TWO tickets to this show, I couldn't even convince my son to go with me. 

Worse, when I got there, I discovered that that particular screening was dubbed.

I try very hard not to be a snob about dubbed versus subbed. This is one of those fan wars I try to stay out of, but I definitely prefer subbed when I can get it. But, if someone tells me that they watch something dubbed that I watch subbed, I say, "Yay, we're in the same fandom!" And that's the end of it for me.

But, as I was telling another friend, this one was tough to appreciate because for whatever reason the dubbed director cast two English-speaking actors to play opposite each other who had the same vocal range, the same accent, the same clipped speaking style, and the same delivery. The scenes they were in where they were exchanging quips during a battle... I had no idea who was saying what. Yes, in English. It was a real problem for me. You're probably thinking, but Lyda, the one talking is the one moving his mouth, how hard is this for you? Well, not all scenes were "shot" where you could always see their mouths. Sometimes people were walking through dark tunnels. Sometimes there was just a lot of action. So, now you're saying, "But then how would this have been better if you had to read subtitles at the same time?" I will tell you. The Japanese voice actors for these two characters have totally different vocal ranges, speak differently (in terms of emotions), and are distinct! So, even though the subtitles don't tell you who is talking, it's actually far easier to tell speakers apart when, say, one guy is a tenor and the other an alto. 

I have had to complain to everyone I know about this because I was alone. It always kind of sucks to go to movie theaters alone. I was also masked, although given that there were four other people in the entire theater with me, I probably didn't have to be.

On Monday and Friday night I played taxi to my wife. She's on the board of The Friends of the Ramsey County Library and they had a meeting in Shoreview on Monday and then some tech training at, of all places, The Good Earth restaurant in Roseville. This used to be a relatively popular cafe/restaurant chain. The tea still remains, but the only two places left to get the vegetarian menu exist in Minnesota. But, in both cases, I was not invited to the actual meeting, not being the board member, so I spent Monday trying to find any good manga I hadn't read yet on the shelves at Shoreview, and on Friday I spent the time in a nearby Starbucks people watching and writing some snail mail letters to friends.

Wednesday night I had D&D, but I managed to fail to make cookies for them... and then subsequently failed to write up my usual letter home. As I was telling Mason later, I'm having a bit of trouble with this character? I have literally never played a woman in an RPG before and... I can't say I like it.  Beyond my very personal reasons for never having done this before, I also made some mistakes in designing this character because I forgot to factor in real life sexism? Like, I forgot that if you want to play a fun-loving, sexually adventurous, chatty (ditzy?) woman, not only will the other player's characters dismiss you as a silly little thing, but also the tenor of whole game shifts?  Suddenly a lot of the around the table jokes get more pointed about who your character might choose to sleep with and what EXACTLY they might be doing with them, etc., etc. There's always some of that stuff and so it's not necessarily even a dealbreaker for me? Still. I mean, I'm still having fun with this character and this group, but I find that I'm engaging slightly less in character moments when they come up (to be fair, my Wednesday night group is much more a "kill things and take your stuff" bunch of players, anyway?) 

I think that's my whole week? I did some writing, but not on the right things. 

 
Image: Willow's "Why won't you play with me all day instead of that stupid box?" thousand yard stare.

So, I should be writing on a short story for an anthology I finagled an invite to, so of course, I am suddenly filled with a desire to write pretty much anything else. It is Wednesday, so I should probably tell you all about what I am reading. I recently read a couple of manga--one that I reviewed over on my review site, called Dinosaur Sanctuary by Kinoshita Itaru. I also read My Wandering Warrior Existence by Nagata Kabi, who is the author of a bunch of other autobiographical manga, most famously including: My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness and The Solo Exchange Diary. 

I haven't written up my review of My Wandering Warrior Existence yet because I'm not sure what I have to say about it. I will write something eventually, however, because my personal policy for MangaKast, my manga review site is that I review EVERYTHING I read that is manga or anime related. I do this because, otherwise, I'm sure I would skip reviewing all the trashy stuff I consume. I don't think there are a lot of review sites that faithfully record and discuss the weird, porn-y stuff that's out there? So, I hold my feet to the fire. Anything I finish, I review.

The thing is, Nagata-sensei is writing about her life. It's difficult to critique a narrative when it's essentially someone's lived experience, only illustrated and made public. Yet reading this particular volume makes me want to learn enough Japanese in order to write a letter to Nagata-sensei explaining to her that it's pretty clear to me that her "problem" in this particular volume isn't a problem at all. It's not that there's something wrong with her and, for me, it's not at all funny that she doesn't understand how people get into relationships. She sounds a bit neurotypical? But, otherwise, she's perfectly healthy and fine. She's just on the aromantic and/or asexual spectrum. She never seems to come to this conclusion in the book, however? Instead, she sets herself up--as she does in these manga--as a target for ridicule and laughter. That last bit made reading this particular volume kind of un-fun. I left the last page with a bad taste in my mouth, like I'd participated in self-bullying or something, you know? I felt the same way about her last autobiographical manga, My Alcoholic Escape from Reality. Yet I keep buying these books??  

I think it's that last part that I'm finding hard to justify to the audience that reads my manga reviews. I really need to stop reading about this woman's life. It feels weird to be taking enjoyment out of her actually very serious train wreck of a life. Like, in the previous book, My Alcoholic Escape from Reality, she ends up hospitalized for fatty liver disease which she brought on by basically being an untreated alcoholic, a condition she never solves, other than to realize that she can cheat on her fatty liver diet by STILL DRINKING OCASSIONALLY. Like, this woman needs therapy, not another manga contract. Or she needs a contract to write a manga called, "My Life-Changing Experience Getting Therapy."

And, if I write that in a review that's going to harsh someone's squee about this mangaka and her work.

I will probably write it anyway? But, this is why I've been dragging my heels. It's not going to be a fun review, where I say, "Dinosaurs! Hot guys! Hot guys and dinosaurs! What more do you want??" which is the thumb nail for Dinosaur Sanctuary, basically.

So, let's see. In other news, a combination of dental surgery (my DM's) and weather has cancelled our Dungeons & Dragons game for tonight.  Honestly? Either of those is a fine excuse. Both of them seems a bit like overkill. But, so no further adventures of the barbarian elf this week, as a head's up for the two of you reading my post-game write-ups.

Otherwise, what else have I been consuming? Mason and I finished up a marathon viewing of FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, (I had only ever previously seen the 2003 FullMetal Alchemist anime, which, once it diverges, is shockingly different, and so much BETTER. The 2003 version doesn't have General Armstrong and, frankly, her absence is a crime against humanity. She is god's gift to humankind and my ONLY anime waifu.)  So, that's been fun, in so much as a world-ending story can be fun.

I'm finally at the very last episode of Critical Role's second season... just in time to watch the new one-shot reprisal of that season's characters that they did.

I have the second Paladin book by Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher, Paladin's Strength, in my hot little hands and am hoping to start reading that tonight. 

And, unrelated, but related to some of the TV/YouTube consumption, I started a new quilt. This one is going to be weird... pretty intentionally, but the friend I'm making it for loves both octopuses and sheep. 

Image: Hello Kitty wishing us a nice trip on the Hello Kitty Shinkansen / Bullet Train

For Children's Day in Japan, Dave (our Canadian ex-pat) took the Hello Kitty Bullet train. I was annoyed by this HeyGo because all of the material for it sad BE ON TIME, leaving promptly when the train departs!! And the time the tour started in Central Time (where I am) was listed as 9:30 pm. I was in the tour ten minutes early and they were clearly well on their way. I checked and double checked because I did not want to miss seeing the exterior. The next HeyGo of interest was with Yusuke. I went along on his Golden Week trip to Nagasaki. Nagasaki is on the Kyushuu Island. As his tour notes say, "Because of its location, rather closer to China than Tokyo, Nagasaki has played an essential role in connecting the nation to the outside world. Especially during the Edo (Tokyo) period (1603 – 1867), the government closed the country from outside the world to prevent the country from foreign influence, except Korea, China, and Holland." So part of what we looked while we were walking around was Oranda-zaka, the Dutch Slope.  

There are several Western-style mansions (that survived the atomic bomb)  that are open to the public. 


Image: Western enclave in Nagasaki

I was not able to stay for the whole tour, but apparently they also visited Japan's oldest Christian church. As I learned from watching Samurai Champloo, Christianity was outlawed in Japan and was a crime you could be, of all ironic things, crucified for.  The secret history of Christianity in Japan is something that shows up periodically in anime. It also featured strongly in an anime series that I adored (but had some issues with at the end) called Kids on the Slope, which I reviewed here: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/kids-on-the-slope-anime-review-and-thought-about-josei/ (This is one of the very few times that I reviewed an anime as an anime, without a corresponding manga on my site.)

Anyway, this tour was fascinating for its history. As you can see from the above, it was not really a "postcard" friendly tour. 

But, speaking of postcard friendly... the last tour I took was to the Nagamineyama rest stop/observation area.


The snow caped  Northern Alps as viewed from the Nagamineyama rest stop near Azumino City, Nagano Prefecture.

What was fun about last week, of course, is that a lot of the Japanese HeyGo-ers were just taking us along to the places that they'd decided to visit as part of the Japanese Holiday known as Golden Week. Many hardcore manga fans know Golden Week because it is often the ONLY week (often two week period depending on the serialized manga) when JUMP does not publish. I don't know if it's still true, but, in the past, there was much bemoaning here in the West when the next chapter of Bleach was delayed due to this fairly baffling holiday (it's generally described as "The Emperor's Birthday," but there are actually several holidays that make up Golden Week, including Children's Day.) 

Anyway, because it is a full week off, a LOT of Japanese folks will take advantage of the time and go on a vacation. It follows so closely on Hanami that a lot of people will take a couple of weeks, the first to go view the cherry blossoms and then to see whatever else. Clearly, Toshi just wanted to see the Northern Alps and so we went along with him. He was the guy who tried to give us the spectacular ocean view of this mountain range, but we were rained out.

It was a good week for virtual travel. 

I may risking jinxing it, but the writing thing has been working amazingly lately. I entirely credit all the words that I am getting on the page to my hour long Zoom meeting with naomikritzer every day (Monday-Thursday.)  I will be the first to admit that I usually poo-poo the whole concept of "writing dates," even though they have worked for me in the past, particularly with the MinnSpec meet-up.  They seem like they should be silly? Why would I write more just because I am sitting on a Zoom call? YET. I think having someone who is keeping me accountable totally works, plus, with the daily thing, it's a time I know I have already allocated for writing. It is SO EASY to do almost anything else all day long, instead of writing.

Writers: people for whom writing is more difficult than it is for most people.

Anyway, that's a yay.

I didn't post in yesterday's "What are you Reading Wednesday" meme-thingie because even though you lovely folks have nicely chosen my next book to read (We Have Always Been Here), I have not managed to crack it open.  Not sure what's up with that.  I sometimes feel like a fake fan, because I don't read nearly as much as all of the rest of y'all.  I haven't even been watching all that much anime to make up for my geek cred. I've been stuck working my way through campaign 2 of "Critical Role" (while also keeping up on the current campaign 3... ahhhh! Bye, Dorian Storm!!) My anime-turned-C-Drama friend had me watching the "Untamed (陈情令)" spin-off, "Fatal Journey (乱魄)"  the last time I was there. We also watched a few episodes of "Once Upon A Time In Lingjian Mountain (从前有座灵剑山)" and then switched to South Korea for "Hotel del Luna (호텔 델루나)."

I got her to watch exactly twenty minutes of an episode of "Sweetness & Lightning (甘々と稲妻)."

Sigh.

Let's see, other news... well, speaking of anime, my Japanese pen pal sent a letter recently that included a anime-themed stamp:


Image: Demon Slayer (鬼滅の刃) stamp

As for the rest, you'll have to forgive me. I'm not feeling terribly brilliant today.

The last thing I'll say is that it looks like we're getting an influx of folks who are finally abandoning LJ thanks to the invasion of Ukraine. *waves hello to any newcomers!* 

Image: A very sacked out big orange boy on the couch.

I have not been doing a ton of reading of anything 'normal,' like a novel. But, I have read a bunch of manga. For some reason, I've been on a yuri kick and so I have read (or am in the middle of reading):

• Even If It Was Just Once, I Regret It  / Ichido Dake Demo, Koukai Shitemasu by Miyahara Miyakon (yuri)
• Today, We Continue Our Lives Together Under One Roof by Inui Ayu (yuri) 
• That Girl Through the Viewfinder / Fainda-goshi no ano ko by Kabocha (yuri)
• Super Cub by Kanitan (shounen, slice-of-life)

I have not finished the first one and some of the rest are still in the process of being scanlated by the various pirate sites that do such things, alas. I have written reviews of all of these over on my manga reviewing site, if anyone is actually curious what I thought of them. (You can find that site here: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/)

On a side note, I started Mangakast when I thought Mason and I might record silly little podcasts together several years ago. (His voice hadn't dropped, so listening to it now is kind of a trip.) We never had any intention of having any kind of real production value, but we had a brief moment of fame when we came in second on a Bleach trivia contest run by a fairly popular (at the time) manga review vlogger, Tekking. We had one day of over two thousand hits. Beyond that one blip, however, I've never had much traffic. We gave up on the weekly podcast idea, but I continued to use the site to review anything manga related that I read.  Like, anything. If I read it, I wrote something about it. I've just kept that up over the last several years mostly imagining myself talking to myself, you know? Kind of like here, a reading journal of sorts.

Lo, I just crested 200 subscribers.

Which maybe still doesn't seem like a lot? But I really very much do this thing as an afterthought. I pander to no trend. I don't know why, but I find it kind of charming that this stupid little site has slowly gained even this much popularity. 

Anyway, the things I'm watching are probably more interesting.

• "Super Cub" (simulcast on Funimation). The ridiculously slice-of-life story of a "nothing" girl who discovers freedom and friendship after she spontaneously buys a scooter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Cub_(novel_series)  Possibly my current favorite thing.
• "Those Snow White Notes" (simulcast on Crunchyroll)  An anime I swear was invented to drum up interest in the traditional Japanese, three-stringed instrument called a 'shamisen,' only they accidentally made an AWESOME  story.  The music, in a surprise to no one, is pretty damn amazing. The opening song kills. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Snow_White_Notes
• "Odd Taxi," (simulcast on Crunchyroll). I don't even know how to tell you what this is, but remember, like, a hundred years ago, when there was a brief trend to take weird things people said and film animals who seemed to be saying them? "Odd Taxi" is kind of like that, only animated. It follows the life of a taxi driver who is a walrus for no apparent reason, and who picks up random passengers, and it shouldn't work but I am tuning in weekly, help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Taxi
• ."Tokyo Revengers," (simulcast on Crunchyroll). A fairly straight-forward time-travel crime solving anime with yakuza. For reasons I do not fully comprehend, insanely popular in Japan right now. It has a live-action TV show and anime running concurrently.  Why? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Revengers
• "Joran the Princess of Snow and Blood," (simulcast on Crunchyroll). A weird post-apocalyptic shifter assassin story? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joran:_The_Princess_of_Snow_and_Blood
• "Tsurune," an anime that is 'Free," except with Japanese archery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsurune

I am behind on a number of these because I did not intend to be watching so many things that were releasing weekly. 

Anything of interest that you're watching or reading or otherwise consuming lately?

 As I believe I've mentioned previously, most of what I've been reading this month has been manuscripts.

The Loft offers a service to novice writers where they can get their manuscript critiqued by a professional. The service is really expensive, honestly. I suspect that's one of the reasons I normally only get two or three of these in any given year--that, plus the fact that a LOT of science fiction and fantasy writers know that they can get this service for free, by looking for beta readers. Obviously, I offer something of a much higher quality and in greater depth than presumably your friends would give you, but... combine that with the cost and you can sort of see why I'm not regularly completely inundated with these requests.

Except, currently, I am.

I have four clients at the moment. That's four, full manuscripts that I'm critiquing both for overarching issues like character, plot, theme, etc,, but also at a very line-by-line level. I don't do copy-editing (you read my blog, you KNOW I would be terrible at that,) but I do react to various happenings on the page, both as I'm going along and, then again, in a second read through.

So, that's what I've been reading lately. I'd like to say I'm enjoying it? But, you know, it's work.

However, I've still found time to consume a couple of anime.  I ended up watching a heart-warming slice-of-life called A Place Further than the Universe / Uchuu yori mo Tōi Basho.  The story follows a girl who, in her second year of high school, comes across her half-started middle school diary in which she made a list of things she wanted to do to "make the most of her youth." Feeling like she might never get a chance once high school is over, she is determined to try to check a few things off on her bucket list. One of them is: go on a spontaneous trip to somewhere you've never been before.

In the way of anime, it turns out that that place is Antarctica. 

It's actually a really lovely story. I was surprised to see that the Wikipedia article talking so much about the humor of this anime. I didn't find it particularly funny, beyond the inherent absurdity that a group of high school girls would be able to actually find their way onto a civilian research vessel headed to Antarctica. But, honestly, the story works hard to make that seem at least plausible?

I found this story to be the 'good tears' kind of heartwarming. But, no lie, GROSS SOBBING.  The ending is does NOT pull any punches and I sobbed into my kitchen sink (I watch most of my anime while doing the dishes) for a solid half hour.

The other show I just finished was actually similarly slice-of-life as A Place Further From the Universe, but lightly science fiction/fantasy. It was called: Erased: A Town Without Me / Boku dake ga Inai Machi.  This one follows a glum mangaka who has hit a wall in his career and has taken a part-time job as a pizza deliverer. Everything about this guy is super gloomy, he's 29 and has no friends and I started this thinking, "Oh, boy, well, we'll see how long I last," and then he's zipping about on his moped with his deliveries and there's this like pulse or shock that goes through the universe and suddenly the scene is starting over. The sad sack guy is all, "Where is it? What's different this time?" and we find out that ALL ALONG  he's had a super power he calls "Revival," where he is pushed back in time (often only a few minutes or so) in order to avert some misfortune. Like this time (and I feel okay telling you this, because it's in the first ten minutes,) he is able to stop a runaway truck from killing a kid who is a school crossing guard. 

Then, before the first episode even ends they introduce a murder mystery, and , as I told a friend, at that point I was ALL IN.

Having literally just finished the last episode this morning, I can highly recommend this one, as well. I figured out the murder mystery before the hero did by quite a few episodes. However, that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the story at all. I was on the edge of my seat through the whole thing. I may have lost some sleep last night staying up late to watch it, in fact. 

So that's me. What are you all reading or consuming on this fine Wednesday?

Most of what I've been reading lately are the works of the students in my Loft class, but, on a lark, I decided to try out a free month of the Funimation streaming service, so I've been watching some anime.

The only thing I finished watching is Cowboy Bebop. Believe it or not, I have technically been an anime fan since the American broadcast of Star Blazers / Space Battleship Yamato in 1979, but I had not seen the Cowboy Bebop anime until this week.  Yeah, I have some feelings about it. In case you are somehow like me and have not yet seen this, I will put my thoughts under the cut.  

( Spoilers for a show older than many of you.... )

So, that's that one.

The other anime I started watching is called Millionaire Detective: Unlimited Balance. 
It's pretty fluffy, but I'm enjoying it.

I'm also following a show that's being simulcast from Japan. It drops every Thursday and is called Akudama Drive.  This show is initially why I decided to give Funimation's streaming service a try.  I was on the Twin Cities Anime Fan discord and someone mentioned it in the list of shows new this fall. I went to the description and saw the words "a cyberpunk dystopia" and figured that was enough for me, right there. However, the story is kind of intriguing--it started out hyper-violent in a way that makes it hard to recommend to a huge number of my friends, but it has since settled into a heist... which is one of those plot tropes I will always, always watch.  Add to that the main character is a kind of modern day Bilbo Baggins. She gets caught up with someone mysterious (over food, takoyaki to be exact,) and then ends up saying that she's a master swindler/criminal when she is not....and yet every time she needs to use her skills, something random happens that makes her seem like she's absolutely what they think she is. I'm amused by that. Next week is the critical 4th episode were everything could turn on a dime, but right now I'm still enjoying it.

How about you? Read/Consume any interesting media?