hot take from my rewatch: s2 is good, actually 💅

was talking w a friend about this last night and i think another reason i feel that s3 should combine tvl and qotd is bc i want an actual dynamic between louis and gabrielle. like i've only read the first 3 books in their entirety but the fact that louis and gabrielle spent most of qotd and we don't really get any idea what they think about each other or anything is a crime. and like having gabrielle reveal parts of lestat's past to louis i think continues those threads of a story belonging to whoever tells it and the way gabrielle sees lestat is different from the way louis sees him and how lestat sees himself and the "true" version (if such a thing can exist) lies in the gestalt of all of those things. like a parent sees their child differently than they see themself and a spouse would also have their own perspective. but then bc of how fucked lestat and gabrielle's whole thing is, the lines between parent/child and lover begin to bleed into each other in a similar way that louis and lestat's relationship also has that overlap between spouses and sire/progeny that i think the show has already shown interest in examining in a very compelling way. i think it makes more sense too bc s1 and apparently s2 are incorporating the relevant parts of tvl already so it makes sense to not wholly dedicate a season to a single book going forward (esp bc a lot of these books don't have full plots that are worth adapting lmao)

Mashle; Initial thoughts

I actually read the first volume of the manga for this one, and enjoyed it quite a bit. So I was pretty excited! I, however, am a bit disappointed with the adaptation... Let me explain;

The show, imo, has a bit of a tonal problem. This is a problem I have with kny as well (crowd starts to boo me) but I feel as though it's less severe here in Mashle Whenever there's a joke in kny, everything comes to a screeching halt, most of these jokes are what I like to call "reactionary" The gist of this type of joke is; person A does something outrageous, person B has an over the top reaction to this. Screaming ensues. End scene. For now, I've identified 2 types of reactionary jokes, the one above is type S (for Screaming) but you also have type T (for Thoughts) this reaction is either very quiet or takes place in person B's thoughts (oso-san s3 uses this a lot. to it's detriment, unfortunately) Mashle utilises both these types of reactionary humour a lot. And this, imo, is what causes the tonal problems of the show.

When reading the manga, the impression I got was much more lighthearted than how they ended up showing it in-series (even though, now that I think about it, most of the situations Mash finds himself in aren't all that lighthearted) So, I was pretty surprised at how heavy they treated the subject matter. It makes both the deadpan and over the top jokes stand out a little too much (see the previous section). Also, I feel as though the timing on some of the jokes was a bit off too. But I can't blame them too much for that I suppose, my interpretation of the panels might be very different from what they gathered from it

Also another surprise was the soundtrack, rap, hip-hop, and some techno I think? I like it, makes it stand out a bit more from the other shonen out there. The op and ed are also pretty fun, and the animation in them is quite nice (esp for the action parts in the op and the dancing in the ed) Speaking of animation, most of it is fine, standard quality, but some of the action scenes look pretty good! I hope they keep that up for the rest of the show too.

There's been 2 episodes so far, and they've adapted 3 chapters (and a bit of chapter 4) and all in all it seems like a fine adaptation, but nothing groundbreaking. I'm watching it together with my brother, so we'll keep at it, but I still think I'll prefer reading it instead (I've only read vol 1, but already own vol 2 & 3)

Mal score; 7.70 Our score; 7